1000th performance of 'The attic' at Vígszínház

2021. 11. 21.

The performance The attic at Vígszínház experienced already a millennium, 33 years, more than 1 million spectators and made it to countries on the other side of the world on the 999. performance stream-celebration. And now on the 20^th of November the time of the 1000. performance finally came. The play was written by Dusán Sztevanovity and Péter Horváth, the lyrics by Dusán Sztevanovity, the music was composed by Gábor Presser. The 13 characters of the show staged by László Marton were played by almost 100 actors, the generations changed both on stage and in the audience.

One of the most successful Hungarian musical plays was premiered at Vígszínház on 29^th January, 1988. “The attic is my confession. It seeks answers to the eternal questions: why are we here, are we alone in this Universe, what will happen to us, after we die and so on”- tells Dusán Sztevanovity, who wrote the 4-pages-long synopsis in his workroom in the attic at his home - in a place between sky and Earth, on a sleepless night. Not so much later he travelled to the artist house in Zsennye to work on an album with Gábor Presser. On a rainy day, Sztevanovity put the synopsis in front of Presser, who read it, sat to the piano – and if the memories are correct – this is how the song Light-year distance was born, and the line sung by generations since: “There can be many places better and more beautiful than our Earth.”

The reading rehearsal of The Attic was on the 30^th of November 1987, directed by László Marton and Zsuzsa Radnóti as a dramaturg of the artistic team, joined by the author Péter Horváth by then. The goal was staging a play not only interesting for the children, but for the adults too. The story was for everyone from 9 to 99 years.

Lots of obstacles had to be faced during the rehearsals: for a long time, instead of the big stage the rehearsals were in the Studio, due to the lack of money the set - except Robinson- had to be made from props of former performances by Miklós Fehér and his team. Márta Jánoskuti had only pennies for the costumes and the music was recorded by Gábor Presser himself, because they couldn’t even afford musicians. Today it is already legendary, that a song got written about plum dumplings instead of pancakes because that was baked often by the mother of Zsuzsa Radnóti for the team.

The premiere of The attic played by Attila Kaszás, Éva Igó, Nóra Tábori, Géza Hegedűs D., László Méhes, Péter Rudolf, Erika Pápai, Géza Rácz, Péter Balázs, Péter Vallai, Zoltán Seress and András Sipos ended with a long standing ovation and the performance is played with full house ever since. The character of Radioman was especially written for Attila Kaszás. Éva Igó played the young girl Hedgie at the premiere, and today she steps as Granny on the stage, cooking the plum dumplings and dancing tarantella. The actor playing in the show for the most times is Erika Pápai, who made her debut as the 530-year-old ghost Kid, then played Hedgie for a while and then returned to the role Kid again.

The set of the performance remained the same during the 33 years and Robinson, the super intelligent computer had also only smaller corrections. The attic has some iconic props. The Magic Book was made by Ernő Rubik, it has 12 pages and requires a special folding technique which has to be learned and practiced by every actor playing Prince and every prop-man preparing the scene. The biggest magician of the book until today is the first Prince, László Méhes, who surprised the audience and his colleagues with numerous folding tricks. In one performance approximately 20 plum dumplings are used. Creating them was a huge task for the team, since it had to look authentic and in one scene the actors throw them at each other, so it had to have the appropriate weight too, had to be heavy-duty and couldn’t smack on the ground when falling on the ground. The plum dumplings have to be renewed and restocked every year: based on the number of the performances in a season, around 30-50 new dumplings are produced. And there are also some props stepping on stage for the 1000^th time on the 20^th of November: the rocking horse, the Shakespeare picture, the clock and the handcuff.

Although Vígszínház was preparing for the 1000^th performance last year, because of the pandemic then we could only celebrate the 999^th through an online stream. But on the 20^th of November the Magic Book was opened and plum dumplings were flying in front of an audience again, we could cheer for Radioman, Hedgie and the ghosts live. “Because we need a place where all the ghosts can be seen. We need a place where all the voices can be heard.”

The attic –the report film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUXzKn302X0

Presser Gábor—Sztevanovity Dusán—Horváth Péter
The attic
half fairy-tale half musical from 9 to 99 year-olds

Script: Horváth Péter és Sztevanovity Dusán
Composer: Presser Gábor
Director: Marton László

Set design: Fehér Miklós
Costume: Jánoskuti Márta
Dramaturg: Radnóti Zsuzsa
Music collaborator: Komlósi Zsuzsa, Gebora György, Mester Dávid
Choreographer: Devecseri Veronika, Gesler György

Prompter, assistant of director at the time of premiere: Kertes Zsuzsa
Stage manager: Kuti László/Héjj János/Wiesmeyer Erik
Assistant of director: Putnoki Ilona, Patkós Gergő

Magic Book: Rubik Stúdió – Rubik Ernő
Designer of Robinson: Budavári István

Radioman                                 
Kaszás Attila
Oberfrank Pál
Szőcs Artur
Ember Márk
Wunderlich József

Granny        
Tábori Nóra
Tanai Bella
Igó Éva

T-müller                            
Balázs Péter
Sipos András
Lipics Zsolt
Hevér Gábor
Hegedűs D. Géza
Fesztbaum Béla

Hedgie                      
Igó Éva
Hullan Zsuzsa
Jónás Rita
Saárossy Kinga
Kéri Kitty
Pápai Erika
Tornyi Ildikó
Péter Kata
Győrfi Anna
Antóci Dorottya
Márkus Luca

Detective             
Vallai Péter
Gyuriska János
Selmeczi Roland
Lajos András
Kálid Artúr
Fesztbaum Béla
Hajduk Károly
Kőszegi Ákos

Batterie   
Seress Zoltán
Sipos András
Széles Tamás
Kálloy Molnár Péter
Fesztbaum Béla
Gyuriska János
Lajos András
Molnár Áron
Király Dániel
Darvasi Áron
ifj. Vidnyánszky Attila
Gyöngyösi Zoltán

Prince
Méhes László
Lux Ádám
Cserna Antal
Tunyogi Péter
Sarádi Zsolt
Telekes Péter
Szántó Balázs

Lantern man
Rudolf Péter
Király Attila
Csőre Gábor
Tóth András

Pusher            
Rácz Géza
Gesztesi Károly
Méhes László
Cserna Antal
Hujber Ferenc
Kolovratnik Krisztián
Lázár Balázs
Lajos András
Juhász István
Horváth Szabolcs

Kid 
Pápai Erika
Fekete Györgyi
Szinetár Dóra
Mentes Júlia
Széles Flóra
Dobó Enikő

Barrabás-Révész             
Hegedűs D. Géza
Kálid Artúr
Szemenyei János
Mészáros Máté
Csapó Attila

Robinson           
Sipos András
Németh Kristóf
Kálloy Molnár Péter
Znamenák István
Pataki Ferenc
Kálid Artúr
Gál Kristóf
Kolovratnik Krisztián
Lázár Balázs
Dolmány Attila