We are alarmed by the imposition of a far-right director on one of Budapest’s leading theatres, and call upon our foreign secretary and the international community to put pressure on the Hungarian government to reverse the decision before 1st February, the day on which the theatre is scheduled to change hands.
Following the election of the right-wing Fidesz Party, the Mayor of Budapest sacked the director of Új Színház (the New Theatre), and appointed actor György Dörner in his place. Dörner is a supporter of the anti-Roma, anti-gay and anti-semitic party Jobbik. Jobbik has been forced to disband its militia, the Hungarian Guard, but its presidential candidate recently stated that Jews were “lice-infested dirty murderers”. The party has 47 members of the Hungarian parliament.
Currently, the New Theatre presents both Hungarian plays and the international canon, from Schiller to Shakespeare. Dörner plans to reverse what he describes as a “degenerate, sick, liberal hegemony” in Hungary by stopping the production of “foreign garbage” and concentrating on Hungarian plays. These include the work of his friend and advisor István Csurka, an open anti-semite, advocate of the Jewish conspiracy theory, and president of the Hungarian Justice and Life Party. A number of Hungarian writers have withdrawn their plays from the theatre in protest.
The change imposed on the New Theatre may not be the last. Jobbik and other extreme right groups are campaigning and demonstrating against the Hungarian National Theatre, calling its work “obscene, pornographic, gay, anti-national and anti-Hungarian”.
The campaign against a liberal Hungarian theatre, open to the world, is part of a general move in Hungary towards intolerance and against democracy. The historical parallels are obvious and chilling. We support Hungarian theatre makers in opposing this appointment, and call upon our government to demand that the Hungarian government overturn this decision.
Michael Attenborough, Michael Boyd, Dominic Cooke, Daniel Evans, Sir Nicholas Hytner, David Lan, Nicolas Kent, Josie Rourke, Erica Whyman (artistic directors), Rosalind Ayres, Eve Best, Simon Callow, Bertie Carvel, James Frain, Romola Garai, Gawn Grainger, Henry Goodman, Martin Jarvis OBE, Toby Jones, Beverley Klein, Roger Lloyd Pack, James Purefoy, Sir Antony Sher, Imelda Staunton OBE, Dan Stevens, Dame Janet Suzman, Dame Harriet Walter, Zoë Wanamaker CBE, Samuel West, Timothy West CBE (actors), Neil Bartlett, Gregory Doran, Sir Richard Eyre, Kevin Macdonald, Sir Trevor Nunn, Tim Supple (directors), Richard Bean, Howard Brenton, Moira Buffini, Caryl Churchill, April de Angelis, David Edgar, Michael Frayn, Lee Hall, Sir David Hare, Terry Johnson, Mark Ravenhill, Laura Wade, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Sir Arnold Wesker (playwrights) and Bernie Corbett (General Secretary of the Writers’ Guild), Christine Payne (General Secretary of Equity), Malcolm Sinclair (President of Equity), Baroness (Joan) Bakewell, Don Black OBE, Geraldine D’Amico (Jewish Book Week), Jessica Duchen, Denise Epstein, Ruth Fainlight, Baron (Michael) Grade of Yarmouth, Amanda Hopkinson (PEN), Dennis Marks, Kate Pakenham, Lesley Megahey, Sharif István Horthy, András Schiff and George Szirtes
