The Attic’s 30th Anniversary

2017. 10. 12.

In January 2018 we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the premiere of legendary musical, The Attic. Over the last three decades generations have grown up watching this moving tale. The jubilee performance will see some of the old cast back on stage, and will have some surprises in store for those who wish to celebrate with us.

The Magical Attic
We have often been asked: “Did you ever think it will be such a huge success?” And I’m not much mistaken when I say: “No, we didn’t”. To put in another way, when we were working on the text and the libretto, there was a lot more tension in us than faith in our success, more anxieties than joy. We had this huge task ahead of us of creating a full-length performance text out of Dusán’s charming story. We weren’t satisfied at our first attempt. The play reached its final form after heaps of collective work, correction, speculation, and refinement, at the time when Péter Horváth joined the project with his delicate and playful theatrical sensibility. But it was a truly collective work regarding the strict judgment and finalisation of the text, done by Gábor Presser and his dreamlike, floating melodies, Dusán with his meaningful and poetic lyrics, László Marton, the master of musical dramaturgy and director of the performance and myself. However, it is likely that already during the rehearsals there appeared a glimmer of hope that this show may become something truly beautiful and exciting, especially once the songs were ready and in place, and gradually the image of a future performance was coming together. The set was completed, the costumes were done, the lighting began to come alive, and every segment that could help a theatre performance succeed, came together in total harmony. And then the impossible happened! Today we are past the 920th show and are looking forward to the 30th anniversary in January!
I’m sure it is all due to the magic of the place, a place where we can all get together, and together we can feel the presence of those great artists, actors, actresses, designers and choreographers, who are no longer with us in their physical form. To quote Dusán:
“Because we need a place, where all spirits can be seen, where all voices can be heard.”
Zsuzsa Radnóti | dramaturge