Be a tourist in your city! (X)

Do you love it or hate it, do you know it like the back of your hand, or do you get lost in it? Then your place is Budapest, you! At the premiere of musical sightseeing in Városmajor. We can’t help but agree with director Réka Pels:czy: Budapest deserves an evening!

– There is a part of the performance where the characters talk about why they love Budapest. What will your sentences be here?

– I especially like in Budapest that in a very small place it can be amazingly colorful and diverse. It’s great to be out of the city center in minutes on Margaret Island or Gellert Hill, in the heart of nature. Love the villas, the areas with a special style, but with different architectural features, from Pasarét to Újlipótváros, from civil servants to Wekerletelep. I really like many, many restaurants, and how many places you can eat well. And of course, how culturally exciting this city is.

– As a girl from BEST, how do you see the changes affecting the city?

– It is true that I now live in Buda, but I grew up in Felszab tér, that is, Ferenciek tér, that is, I am an insect with deep roots. Perhaps not everyone will agree with me, but I especially like large-scale constructions: the space rises above it. In my childhood memories there is an image of a dilapidated, slowly decaying city, and I think it is wonderful that the money was spent on restoring places that would otherwise have been waiting to pile up. For example, I like Metro Four, and consider its stations a particularly interesting architectural value. Or there’s the restored Castle Garden Bazaar: I’ve always longed to see it in all its beauty. If modern mixes old with good taste, if you interact with it, it is always electrifying to me.

– a Budapest, T! Musical genre of sightseeing. what do you mean?

– When I am very busy, playing that I am a foreigner in Budapest, I am invited to a role in Katuna Josef Theatre. I walk out of the building and watch my city as if I were a stranger. This gave the basic idea of ​​the performance: We pass through typical places like tourists, even if we were born here. Meanwhile, we’ll touch restaurants and spas, find out where it’s worth going, and hear what people waiting for the tram or passing on the street have to say. Strong impulses come to us, which means that what affects us uncomfortably in urban life is also discussed. Indeed, everyday experiences are met with poetic songs about the city: these levels collide, complementing each other as we intend.

Peter Wuskner Puskás is the performance’s musical director. From what era did you choose music?

– The great iconic songs of the 60s and 80s will be heard, but the selection covers a very wide period: from songs from the 30s to the 40s to rap, a lot can be suitable. But this is normal somewhere, because we live in a city where a lot of things happen and happen all the time, and well-known music shows diversity. We also drew scenes between songs from many sources with playwright Giirgo Zolde. I really like Andras Török Budapest book, the texts he heard on Erika Street in Pereszlényi or the volumes of András Maros capturing moments in a café and stadium. From these we began to work, and then supplemented the material, also collected from friends and acquaintances. And of course the actors also added their own works to the rehearsals: it was very important to me that they also felt their own ownership of the material.

– I have used the theatrical theme that replaces parts of the text with musical inserts several times with great success. Directly, what is the secret of this type?

– Actually , I love you, The They are nonsense or that I’m a little boy with glasses There was also a performance with a similar structure: lyrics and songs combined in it. The secret reveals so much that I love old songs and know I’m not alone with that. Never tempted to do something memorial on top of the nostalgia train, I was more interested in where and how feelings expressed in music and often harsh reality meet. The music always works, and the song is great even when put in an unexpected context.

– What does the show reveal: How are the people of Budapest, how does it feel to live here?

– I do not set myself outside my city, that is, we also show the yard and obsessions of the people who live here, but in the meantime, of course, we also show what we love about this place. We raise problems and questions, but the goal is to have an easy evening together. It can be a good city, all we need to do is pay more attention to the other person, settle in their point of view, and not always just yell at the crazy ones.

– So you are waiting for Budapest experts in the hall?

“If they come, they will certainly be very awkward and will miss the sights or scenes, but I look forward to seeing them. Since we will be playing a lot in the countryside too, we put them together so that someone who doesn’t live in Budapest can get information, but at the same time the capital can acquaintance with this world and the gesture Yes, this (also) the city. For there was no such production yet: at that time the cult performance of Miklós Benedek, and Budapest Orpheum He targeted something similar when he pieced newspaper articles, poems, cabaret jokes, and songs together in a mosaic-like fashion. If you like it, we’ve made a 21st-century version now: This is Budapest today, and that’s why we love it!

Tamás Jászay