Veronika Schandl – “Every tongue brings in a several tale”: Richard III in Hungary, 1947 and 1955

The lecture will focus on two productions of Richard III staged in state Socialist Hungary, both directed by Kálmán Nádasdy, with Tamás Major, then director of the National Theatre, performing the title role. These stagings are frequently cited in scholarly articles and theatre histories as early examples of Shakespeare performances in which audiences engaged in subtextual reading, interpreting the play’s language as a vehicle for political commentary.

My presentation will pose a series of questions: What is available for analysis if we look beyond the familiar narrative of doublespeak? How might we approach a production for which no textual or audiovisual records survive, aside from a handful of photographs? What new routes can we pursue, if we wish to move beyond theatrical anecdotes? And finally, is it possible – or even desirable – to bracket the political context when assessing the theatrical significance of a production created under state Socialism?

In revisiting these elusive productions, my aim is not merely to recover fragments of the past, but to ask what it means to search for theatrical meaning in the silences, absences, and gaps left behind by state Socialism.