'What has Béla Pintér, internationally acclaimed, Hungarian, independent and all-round theatremaker, achieved in over twenty years? As usual, he doesn’t celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his company in a way that we expect or imagine. Hungarian theatre seldom talks about the close correspondence between the creator's own private frustrations and the unsustainable, decaying theatre structure. Similarly, the theme of failures and personal conflicts are not popular with the stage. Pintér talks about these too. He makes ruthless quips about politics, the theatre industry, his former and current actors, critics, which is typical of him, and even about himself. According to the performance, the character named Béla Pintér, played by company director Béla Pintér, is an unscrupulous tyrant, who refuses to tolerate any other authority but his own. In-jokes and references, that only theatre people will understand, make this crazy, carnivalesque show all the more colourful. However, even those without sufficient background knowledge will be able to enjoy this performance, as it offers a reflection of our chaotic world.' Tamás Jászay, curator

CREDITS

Sándor “Qpa” Bencze, Éva Enyedi, Zoltán Friedenthal, Antal Kéménczy, Béla Pintér, Hella Roszik, Angéla Stefanovics, Zoltán Szabó, Sándor Terhes, Szabolcs Thuróczy

Dramaturg: Éva Enyedi
Music: Antal Kéménczy
Set: Gábor Tamás
Costume Designer: Mari Benedek, Dóra Pattantyus
Sound: Zoltán Belényesi
Light: László Varga
Assistants to the director: Rozi Hajdú, Dóra Hornyák, Krisztina Nagy
Writer and director: Béla Pintér

REVIEWS

'Jubilee Talks’ is a performance, that is not a performance. It is both honest and dishonest. They do not say it, yet they end up saying it anyway. The show talks about how empty rituals have become, about the corruption wrapped in/encased in/masked by celebration, and about the opposite, the purifying power of festivity. Béla Pintér and his company surpass themselves, and yet they don’t. They wriggle in the trap they set themselves.’ Andrea Rádai, szinhaz.net

‘Jubilee Talks’ is a cocktail, its single elements being fairly spicy, yet totally unusual in their overall effect. It is a mixture of a fair amount of healthy frustration, concern about the local value of one’s profession, about the uncertain future of the company, and about Hungarian Culture and society riding for a fall. It slides down our throat, even though it doesn’t particularly feel good. Nevertheless, I’ve never been looking forward to a sequel with so much curiosity and expectation.’ Tamás Jászay, revizoronline.hu

‘The worst thing is that Béla, who shamelessly refers to himself as Mr. Pinter, simply cannot lie. For if he had lied, he still would have told the truth. ‘There you go!’ he says, as he pushes in our face the compressed version of the philosophy of human existence. Perhaps it is this eternal human masochism, that goes with the rare moments of facing ourselves, which explains the audience’s almost uncontrollable hysteria surrounding the performance.’ Katalin Kállai, art7.hu

BÉLA PINTÉR AND COMPANY

The company was founded in 1998 under the leadership of Béla Pintér, who stages his own plays and also performs in them as an actor.

The artists’ intention is to create contemporary productions based on critical-ironic observations of society and themselves. The surreal world which generally characterizes their productions is constructed from a combination of reality and dream, of authentic and kitsch, and from sundry elements of Hungarian culture. Thanks to its success, the company is nowadays regarded as the operator of one of the most significant and most inventive creative workshops in Hungary.
In the past 20 years the company has been invited to several international theatre festivals and has performed in the USA, Serbia, Greece, Germany, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belarus, The Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Portugal, France, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Russia, Wales and many more. In January 2020 Béla Pintér will travel to Baltimore as a guest director to stage his former play, The Champion at Peabody Opera.

Béla Pintér is also appreciated as a playwright; his dramas have been published in two volumes so far and several of his dramas have been translated into German, Polish, Czech and Chinese.

The company participated in dunaPart3 (2015) with Our Secrets.

SUPPORTERS

National Cultural Fund 

CONTACT

Anna JÉKELY
anna.jekely@pbest.hu
+36.30.692.4452