József Katona – Borbála Szabó: Bánk

Bánk bán is our great national drama, compulsory reading at school, whose language blends archaic forms with innovations of the 19^th century. Consequently, irrelevant, boring and incomprehensible. However, what if our adolescent reading experiences have tricked us? What if the drama by József Katona, born exactly 230 years ago, is not irrelevant at all, not boring or incomprehensible, but the exact opposite? For some reason, theatres stage the play again and again. There is something about this drama that does not let future generations rest – and why these future generations do not let Bánk bán rest, either.

For example, contemporary spectators might find it surprisingly familiar what sort of private and political conflicts, social problems the characters of a 13^th-century story had to face: on one side, the homeland, power struggle, and social injustice, on the other, love, jealousy, and family. These questions, vital to us all without respect to age, are discussed by the Bánk bán performance of Kabóca Puppet Theatre, Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre of Timişoara and Petőfi Theatre of Veszprém, in Borbála Szabó’s exciting modern “translation”.

Photo: Roland Peka

Photo: Peka Roland