Viktor Bodó’s Tempest at the Tamási Áron Theatre
According to Giorgio Strehler, one of the most famous directors of the last century, William Shakespeare’s The Tempest is the heart of European theatre, the ineradicable core of “the living confidence that theatre can restore to the human community what it has so often seemed to have lost: the meaning of existence and human coexistence”. The premiere will take place on 2nd and 3rd October at 7 pm.
Prospero, the ruler of Milan, is dethroned and ousted by his power-hungry brother. With his daughter Miranda, he drifts to a remote, deserted island and lives there, dominating the local spirits. Twelve years later, when Miranda has grown up, coincidence finds that all those to whom Prospero owes his downfall and survival are sailing nearby. With his magic, he creates a huge sea storm that washes the boat ashore, leaving many of his enemies and a few friends shipwrecked. In the three hours that follow the storm, which is also the duration of the performance, the lives of the castaways and the islanders are changed forever. András Visky writes: ”A storm rages at sea, human lives are revealed in a strange and extreme situation, history itself is played out before our eyes. Then the waves calm down. The show is over, it was all an illusion. (…) Who can say whether there were any, and who can say that there were not?”
In the play that crowns his entire oeuvre, Shakespeare asks himself, was there any meaning to what he was doing on this strange island, on a stage that represented reality? He walked up and down through time, through ages, through characters, tried on every mask, but however much he knew about power, love, history, humanity, he could change nothing, he was powerless against the forces of nature. How much chance does art have of changing the world? Is it worth sacrificing our lives on the altar of creation? Can one find happiness by running away from reality? Do we know where the boundary is between reality and imagination in our lives? The Tempest is considered to be Shakespeare’s last play, and after writing it he left London and the theatre and moved back to Stratford, where he lived the life of a prosperous country farmer until his death a few years later.
Viktor Bodó (Budapest, 1978), the director of the production, is a multi-faceted theatre artist, Jászai Mari Award-winning actor, internationally renowned director and set designer. He first directed at the Graz Schauspielhaus in 2006, then at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, then at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, where he has staged several productions to date, but has also directed at other German and Austrian theatres. His distinctive directorial style combines elements of the grotesque and the lyrical, with a strong emphasis on humour and playfulness. His work has been honoured with numerous international awards, including the Golden Mask, one of the most prestigious awards on the Russian theatre scene, the Europe Prize Theatrical Realities and the German Centre Award of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). He was the founder and director of the Sputnik Shipping Company, and was a department head at the former Budapest University of Theatre and Film Arts. This year, he started a new actor training programme at the Jurányi House in Budapest, which, with the help of renowned professionals, aims to implement the programme that was not possible due to the change of model at the SZFE in 2021. The audience in Sfântu Gheorghe has so far seen two of his productions, Ledarálnakeltűntem and Dead Souls, which were a great success at the 2008 edition of the TAMper2 festival organised by the Andrei Mureşanu Theatre.
Collaborators of the director for The Tempest were: Diána Laky (assistant director), Anna Veress (dramaturge), Klaus von Heydenaber (composer), Hanna Erős (set designer), Bori Zatykó (costume designer), Sándor Baumgartner (lighting designer), Bors Újvári (video), Ádám Nádasdy (translator).
Tickets are available at the Box Office in Sfântu Gheorghe and on biletmaster.ro
