We begin the season with rehearsals for a Shakespearean Tempest in the vision of Viktor Bodó

The new theatre season has begun at the Tamási Áron Theatre. At the season opening meeting on Tuesday, 20th August, Gyöngyi Pál-Ferenczi gave a brief summary of the plans for the 2024/2025 season, and the next day rehearsals for Shakespeare’s The Tempest began under the direction of Viktor Bodó.

“We want to continue to dream big and to work with creators who challenge us, who can develop the company and therefore our audiences”, the director opened the meeting.

New and old performances

Five new productions are planned for the 2024/2025 season, two of which will be staged by renowned directors from Hungary. Viktor Bodó is directing Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and young Attila Vidnyánszky is directing the final production of the season, the title of which is yet unknown. Olga Barabás, a director from Târgu Mures, is also working with the company again, having written the script for When will summer be? based on Chekhov’s plays. László Bocsárdi will stage Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s drama An Angel Comes to Babylon, and will also stage a special co-production with former Figura actors from Sfântu Gheorghe to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Figura Studio Theatre in Gheorgheni.

Viktor Bodó’s first rehearsal

On Wednesday, 21th August, rehearsals for Shakespeare’s The Tempest began in a good mood. In 2008, during the TAMper2 festival, the audience of Sfântu Gheorghe could see two performances by Viktor Bodó, Ledarálnakeltűntem and Dead Souls. As he explained, in recent years he has worked mostly in Germany, producing performances in which the visual and technical aspects are very much in evidence, but they have somewhat overshadowed the actor. At the same time, he always had to hand in his designs in good time, an exercise that has many advantages, but it does curb his creative freedom and he now wants to get back to making a show where acting, presence and creativity are the key.” As the routine started to kill my creative flair and the lack of discipline started to disappear, it became a bit boring and I found less and less joy in my work,” he said. But recently he had the opportunity to work with prisoners in a prison, and there he realised once again that theatre can change people for the better, and that very simple tools can be enough to make miracles happen on stage.