Hungarian Theatre at the Millennium 2000. november [antikvár]

PHoenix or Oay-Fly In the 1980s our institution, then called the Hungarian Theatre Institute, published a series which First was bilingual, and later appeared only in English. The series was entitled Hungarian Theatre Hungarian Drama/Ungaridched Drama Ungaridched Theater. The magazin published once a year served to inform foreign professionals interested in current trends and events in Hungarian theatre. This was a task and mission which has been performed by several other countries, especially smaller ones with peculiar languages. Then in 1988 on the last page of Hungarian Theatre Hungarian Drama the editor wrote, „The 8th issue of Hungarian Theatre — Hungarian Drama is the last. For the time being our financial possibilities do not enable us to inform interested readers of the events and aspirations of our theatre and drama with the help of such costly publication." Since then, for more than a decade, there has been no such issue on Hungarian theatre for for- eign readers, mostly for the reason mentioned above. During these twelve years Hungarian society has undergone unbelievable changes. Theatre, on the other hand, has undergone less remarkable changes. While other cultural institutions, like book publishing, film production, and music recording have undergone significant structural, functional and financial metamor- phoses, quite astonishingly, theatre system has been able to ward off this challenge. The constancy of the theatre system provided a certain safety for artistic work in the 1990s, but productions have been less exciting than in the previous regime. In that time political pressure forced Hungarian theatre to develop and use double-talk, but as democracy erased censorship, theatre, like other artistic forms, had to redefine its social function. Although the safety of permanent companies, own buildings, and the respiratory system have provided the basic conditions for artistic work, since the advent of the new economical and political system commercial productions have occupied a major portion of theatre, and high art has been forced into smaller studios. But there have been many remarkable productions and memorable artistic events during this past decade, and it is a pity that there has been no for- eign-language publication covering them.