Abstracts

Almási Zsolt (PPKE): Shakespeare and Public Humanities: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Visky's Júlia and Power

The mission of the journal Public Humanities is rather simple to phrase but difficult to put in practice "asks big questions and pursues bold answers," and "sharing knowledge about the intersections of humanities scholarship and public life." Following this train of thought, I deem one of the most pressing issues in the public life of the Central-Eastern region is the exploration and exposition of power. Thus, in this presentation I shall connect three topics: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, András Visky's Júlia—A Dialogue about Love and the problematics of power as it surfaces in these plays. I shall concentrate on the reimagining of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in András Visky's play Júlia [Juliet]. Júlia [Juliet], how the later portrays the harrowing experiences of a Romanian prison camp during the Ceausescu era, employing a monodramatic structure. The title of Visky's play reminds one of Shakespeare's tragedy, which is confirmed in scene 17, where Visky references Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In this presentation I shall argue that Visky's work not only recontextualizes Romeo and Juliet within a Romanian-Hungarian framework but also recrafts it in genuine ways exposing the nature of power and the individual's relation to it. Through the refined and creative interplay between Shakespearean motifs and text and Visky's innovative dramaturgy, the play manages to present the traumatic experience of a mother of seven children being bereft of a husband, of being exposed to an inhuman world under senseless oppression, while remaining the testimony and hymn of undying and everlasting love just as Shakespeare's tragedy.

Erdély Perovics Andrea (SZTE) "Ha színház az egész világ"

A dolgozat a "Ha színház az egész világ" című kutatásom két idézetből indul ki. Az egyik egy shakespeare-i megállapítás, mely szerint "színház az egész világ, és színész benne minden férfi és nő." A másik pedig egy Grotowskitól származó kijelentés, miszerint a "színház az, ami a színész és a néző között zajlik." Ha mindkét állítást igaznak fogadjuk el, akkor magától adódik a kérdés, mi történik az adott színésszel, ha egyedül, néző nélkül találja magát? Egy felszínes válasz azt sugallhatná, hogy ez esetben a színház megszűnik, hiszen az alakításnak nincs tanúja, azaz az egyedüllét értelmetlennek, sőt, meg nem történtnek bizonyul. De ha a kérdésre egy igazán átgondolt választ szeretnénk adni, akkor először az alapfogalmakat kellene tisztázni, és azokból levonni a következtetéseket. Mit értünk színház, színész és néző alatt? Ezekre a kérdésekre elsősorban Shakespeare, Grotowski, Artaud és Kierkegaard gondolatain keresztül keresem a válaszokat.

Fábián Annamária (ELTE): "What the -quel?" – or Bear with the Prefix: Prequels and Sequels and their Morphing (in) Language: the Birth of the 'Shaquel'

Prequels and sequels were treated like "stepchildren" of adaptation studies in the past for quite a long time, perhaps since the first seminal works dealing with adaptation theory (and Shakespeare), for example Ruby Cohn's Modern Shakespeare Offshoots (1976) or Linda Hutcheon A Theory of Adaptation (2006), some claiming they are not to be considered as adaptations or as 'proper' adaptations at all. However, ever since I have been dealing with this field of Shakespeare studies – these twin types of adaptations have always seemed to be the easiest to identify, to define and in general: to handle (not to mention – or only to barely mention – their massive potential in teaching Shakespeare to gen-Z students). Perhaps their "tame" nature among all other less easily definable adaptations has led to not only their inclusion to the various theories, but also to the birth of various neologisms in adaptation theory, using the (non-existent) "root" (-quel) with various prefixes (mid-, co-, parallel-, e-….) – to shed light on the general nature of other types of adaptations. Somewhat triggered (and somewhat irritated by) these I propose the introduction of yet another -quel: Shaquel (ʃeikwəl), not only for ironic scholarly self-reflection purposes, but also because I actually think this term might be useful for my future research and teaching Shakespeare adaptations. In this presentation, I would like to ponder about the way adaptation theory works and reworks its own definitions and thus the very language it uses – and would like to adapt this to my research of Shakespearean prequels and sequels.

Földváry Kinga (PPKE): Interface Hamlet, or the kaleidoscope of adaptations

In my research funded by OTKA/NKIF, I have undertaken to make a complete survey of Hungarian film adaptations of Shakespeare's dramas, and even though I have managed to locate a few films that I had not been aware of, most of my discoveries are small fragments hidden in narratives that otherwise bear little resemblance to anything Shakespearean. Although I do not claim that a single phrase quoted from a play is sufficient for us to call a whole film an adaptation of the drama, it is noteworthy that such fragments and subtle references circulate in a surprisingly large number in films, particularly in the oeuvre of Miklós Jancsó, whose pseudo-historical films, including Electra, My Love (Szerelmem, Elektra, 1974), based on a theatre play by László Gyurkó, or The Tyrant's Heart, or Boccaccio in Hungary (A zsarnok szíve, avagy Boccaccio Magyarországon, 1981), or even a late work, So Much for Justice! (Oda az igazság! 2010) display the director's awareness of and reliance on Shakespeare's play as a reference point accessible and understandable for a broad range of audiences. His oeuvre is therefore a perfect example to illustrate a method of adaptation that I like to call kaleidoscopic: a process characteristic of much of contemporary, particular popular, culture. I believe the kaleidoscope is an apt metaphor to express the way seemingly random and distinct fragments can be artificially, rather than organically, combined to create a new whole, where the individual histories or provenance of each single fragment is often either irrelevant or simply ignored by creators and consumers alike. This kaleidoscopic view of adaptations is particularly helpful when the new product relies on several disparate intertextual references, and it has the advantage of emphasising the way disparate fragments end up making a new whole as a result of the adaptation process. At the same time, it is undeniable that the true interface in this scenario is Shakespeare's work, which allows seemingly distant authors and works to provide access to deeper meaning through intricate networks of connections.

Mike Laura (SZTE): Satire and collective religious trauma in John Marston's Antonio's Revenge

The tradition of revenge tragedy on the early modern English stage spans through a period of approximately 60 years, from Thomas Kyd's earliest piece of 1587 to James Shirley's The Cardinal in 1642. During this period, the thematic structures and representational techniques of revenge tragedy saw fundamental changes, resulting in different types, as Fredson Bowers pointed out as early as in 1940. As opposed to the earliest plays, the later revenge tragedies frequently offered a parody of the basic elements of the genre. This satirical element will be scrutinized against the backdrop of another perspective: that of collective trauma, the result of contemporary radical religious and political changes. Thus, my presentation will focus on the ludic elements in John Marston's Antonio's Revenge, and the complicacies of satire employed in the service of trauma work-through.

Nádasdy Ádám (ELTE): Shakespeare-sorok metrikai elemzése
Számos Sh-sort mutatok be, különböző versformákban, és elmagyarázom, hogy a látszólagos szabálytalanságok hogyan illeszkednek a szigorú metrumba. Rövid bevezető után erősen műhely-szerű lesz, a hallgatóságnak kell skandálnia a sorokat.

Nyusztai Iván (ELTE): Cynical Shakespeare

That cynical thought was widely known in the Renaissance is partly due to Lucian's influence, who, as Joel C. Relihan observes, had a strong affection for Diogenes and Menippus. Lucian's Menippean satires inspired Renaissance authors as diverse as Erasmus, Alberti, Rabelais, and others. However, as expected, a different culture uses its sources for different purposes. Cynical thought appears in the era in various forms, including humanist, Christian and political versions. In this paper I look at the function of cynicism in Shakespearean drama.

Oroszlán Anikó (PTE): "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." A Hamlet-dilemmák felhasználása biblioterápiás csoportfolyamatban

Az olvasás és az írás terápiás hatása régóta közismert; mindkét tevékenység alkalmas arra, hogy kiegyensúlyozottabbá tegye a személyiséget, támpontokat adjon az érzelmeink azonosításához vagy a világ megértéséhez. Erre a felismerése épít az irodalomterápia (poetry therapy, bibliotherapy), ami a szövegek és az írás mentálhigiénés és személyiségfejlesztő célú egyéni vagy csoportos segítő kapcsolatban való interaktív felhasználását jelenti. Az irodalomterápiás szakirodalom a 2000-es évek elejétől leginkább Nicholas Mazza háromkomponensű modelljére hivatkozik (Mazza, 1999), ami a receptív (befogadó), az expresszív/kreatív (alkotó) és a szimbolikus tevékenységek alkalmazását különbözteti meg. 2013 óta ezt a gyakorlatot követi a PTE-BTK szakirányú képzése is (ld. Béres Judit, 2017, 2022, 2023), amelynek 2023 óta hallgatója vagyok. Habár a biblioterápia elsősorban nem tudomány, hanem segítő terápiás gyakorlat, úgy vélem, sok ponton érintkezhet a humán tudományok/a "közbölcsészet" közösségre és egyénre tett hatásával: gondolkodni és kapcsolódni tanít, projekciós felületet biztosít, mozgósítja a kreatív ént és demokratikus közeget teremt (Béres 2022). Előadásomban, miután vázlatosan áttekintem a Shakespeare-szövegek (biblio)terápiás és pedagógiában való felhasználásának néhány nemzetközi példáját (pl. ReLit Foundation, The Folger Method), a Hamlet középiskolás csoportfolyamatban való felhasználásának lehetőségeit mutatom be. A Hamlet azért alkalmas erre, mert a Nemzeti Alaptanterv szerint kötelező olvasmány, ezen kívül pedig számos olyan problémát tematizál (pl. szülő elvesztése, szülő-gyerek viszony, útkeresés, idegenség, párkapcsolati és identitáskérdések, stb.), amelyeket egy tinédzser a normatív és nem normatív krízisei során megélhet. A célom tehát, hogy receptív és expresszív/kreatív gyakorlatokon keresztül példázzam, hogy a dráma feldolgozása hogyan segítheti az önmegértést a mentális jóllétet.

Pikli Natália (ELTE): "How to use Shakespeare Scholars, or, Dancing the Tango of Mutual Respect"

In my talk I would like to raise some general questions and dilemmas that characterize the interaction between Shakespeare scholarship and other educational or creative agents and forms, especially in the post-COVID era. As a Shakespeare scholar and a teacher with a keen interest in creative projects, it was unavoidable that I came into contact with translators and authors of Shakespeare adaptations, with varying success and results. In addition, as a one-time grammar school teacher, my enthusiasm for teenagers and school drama projects produced several Shakespeare performances that I directed in the last 15 years, which proved an especially meaningful experience in our last, post-COVID production of Romeo and Juliet, telling a lot about mental health issues and the psychological benefit of school drama projects. Professional book publishing, theatre and filmmaking also offer interesting lessons on how Shakespeare scholars can successfully collaborate with creative artists – or why is this made impossible on certain occasions. My talk is intended to be a discussion-starter and is definitely not a finished project.

Reuss Gabriella (PPKE): "Scenes are interwoven": Shakespeare, Hevesi and the challenges of performativity

This research paper travels back in time to the first decades of the 20th century to explore Sándor Hevesi's theoretical writings and stagings of Shakespeare in order to shed light on a particular segment of the director's extensive (life-long?) quest for what he called the "real Shakeapeare". What Hevesi noticed was that Shakespeare's plays were unsuitable for the proscenium stage characteristic of 19th century European theatres without monster editorial or dramaturgical intervention - in short, without massive cuts. Neither the slow and pathetic acting style, nor the realistic set, nor the three-walled performing space catered for the two requirements which Hevesi believed to have been the cornerstones of Shakespearean production: the original text and the roughly two or two-and-a-half hours of performing time. Before Hevesi, there have been a few experimenting 19th century directors, such as Ludwig Tieck, and William Poel, who also longed to understand how a Shakespearean text worked effectively on the stage. However, before the archaeological finds during the extensive regeneration of Southwark in the 1980s and 1990s and the de facto re-construction of the Globe, theatre practitioners only groped in the dark. Hevesi suspected a tight relation between the space and the text. My research focuses on Hevesi's experiments from his 1910 Tempest to his 1923 Shrew, looks at his play scripts and their matching sets (design by Ignác Újváry and Gusztáv Oláh) which all supported his theory. The paper will conclude with presenting the contemporary response, both lay and critical, dusting off Hevesi's practical and theoretical work on Shakespeare.

Ruttkay Veronika (KGU): A látható szellem: Vajda Péter és a Hamlet-fordítás kihívásai

A projekt-előadás témája Vajda Péter 1839-ben, a Nemzeti Színházban bemutatott Hamlet-fordítása, középpontban Hamlet és a Szellem dialógusával. A színházi kontextus rövid felvázolása után azt próbálom körüljárni, hogy Vajda milyen nyelvi eszközökkel teremti meg a "látható szellemet", és a megoldásai mögött milyen poétikai / filozófiai / színházi megfontolások sejlenek föl. Minthogy a teljes fordítás a mai napig kiadatlan, a kézirat sajátosságaira és egy lehetséges kiadás kérdéseire is ki fogok térni.

Schandl Veronika (PPKE): "Mirthful Comic Shows" - Shakespeare in Cabarets and in Theatrical Archives

The proposed paper combines all my present research interests - While addressing theoretical questions about the theatre archives, it focuses on how comedic versions of Shakespeare (cabaret sketches and burlesques) feature in them. Parallelly, the paper wishes to situate the Socialist cabaret in the Hungarian history of cabarets, and analyse on specific example of Shakespeare's appearance in state Socialist cabarets: Mikroszkóp Színpad's King Lear (1967).

Stróbl Erzsébet (KGE): History, Fiction and Political Persuasion: A Heavenly Dialogue Between Princes and Queens

In late Jacobean England, political pamphleteering became a powerful tool for challenging the policies of the Stuart court. Historical precedents, especially Queen Elizabeth's reign, were cited to offer advice on Stuart policies. One of the major issues of the new king's reign was his irenic policy and his reluctance to implement a forceful Protestant campaign on the Continent. While never disputing the Stuart succession, writings echoing late-Elizabethan rhetoric urged the royal court towards action. Vox Coeli, or News from Heaven (1624) by John Reynolds represents a unique example of such a militant political discourse. It uses the literary genre of dialogue and features the characters of four Tudor and two Stuart royals who are engaged in discussion in heaven to criticize James I's foreign policy, the proposed marriage of the heir Prince Charles to the Spanish Infanta, and the unpreparedness and decay of the English navy. My paper will address, in general, the question of how historical fiction is utilized to serve as a persuasive argument about contemporary politics, and, in particular, how the character of Queen Elizabeth is represented within the discussion, which articulates a radically modern understanding of parliament's privilege in expressing views on foreign policy and the royal succession.

Szele Bálint (PE): "The imperial theme": Hungarian Macbeth – from the beginnings to the 21st century

Macbeth has had a long history in Hungary: it is one of the plays to be first mentioned, translated, and then kept in production for more than 200 years. My paper offers an overview of Macbeth's career: from the first translations to the official one of 1864, then the canonical one in 1939, as well as the three most significant productions in 1939, 1950, and 1963, representing three different periods of Hungarian history: the eve of WW2, the heyday of hardline Communism, and the soft dictatorship of Kádárist Hungary. Some other performances of Macbeth before and after the fall of Socialism are mentioned. Theatre reviews and other printed sources are used to get a glimpse of Macbeth performances and the events that served as background to the various interpretations. There will be a special focus on Communist and Socialist Shakespeare, as this period witnessed the most profound political and social changes in Hungary also affecting literature and theatre. If performances of Macbeth can be characterised as various mixtures of three elements—the historical, the psychological, and the spectacular—, there is still something unaccounted for, the invariable of the play: the fact that it "is thick enough to hit the target without any help; whenever it is staged, there will be somebody to think of".

Szélpál Lívia (SZTE): Postmillennial Rewritings of Shakespeare's The Tempest

This presentation aims to focus on two postmillennial rewritings of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The centre of this comparative analysis relies on Julie Taymor's 2010 American fantasy-drama film adaptation of The Tempest. In this adaptation, the gender of the protagonist, Prospero, is altered from male to female Prospera; the role was played by the British actress Helen Mirren. In addition to this alteration, Taymor's adaptation is characterized by her charismatic visual style aura and fantastic sound plus costume design corresponding to the challenges of contemporary society. In this case, Taymor's adaption also provides a social criticism of political agendas reflecting on racial and gender inequality and the role of women as leaders. The other part of the analysis scrutinizes Margaret Atwood's 2016 novel Hag-Seed, which provides a satiric account of contemporary theatre. Setting her version within a production of "The Tempest" offers a revival of the original play staged within the walls of a prison. The Hogarth Shakespeare series project commissioned the novel as a marketing strategy and effort by Hogarth Press to retell Shakespeare's plays for contemporary audiences by highlighting a social criticism of the era, the problematic gender and ethnic roles and power dynamics in the plays that are still relevant today. Atwood's novel presents the theatre director Felix's story, who lost his theatre job and was exiled from society following his betrayal by a trusted colleague. As an escape from his isolation, Felix accepts a position of teaching in a prison literacy program. As a classic theatre fiction, Atwood's interpretation offers the idea that literature can be an educational and healing tool (not only) for prisoners. This presentation provides a comparative analysis of the two The Tempest rewritings by exploring the thematic interfaces of isolation, colonization, abuse of power, altering gender roles, identity politics, commentaries on political agendas, ecocritical perspectives, the search for freedom and reconciliation, which are still persistent in contemporary society.

Zámbóné Kocic Laris (SZTE): Taming Shakespeare's Shrew: Playing with Sex and Gender-Swapping

This paper examines two stage performances of Shekespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (Gaines 2017 and Audibert 2019) from a feminist point of view which emphasizes patriarchy as a system of social structures and practices oppressing and exploiting women (Walby). The two plays under my scrutiny are experimenting with alternative casting practices, such as gender-swapped roles or all female cast performances, in order to explore and tease out subversive interpretative possibilities of Shakespeare's ceaselessly popular misogynistic comedy. I will argue why, in my view, Audibert's gender-swapped classical production fails to achieve such subversive possibilities and why Gaines' all-female production/adaptation succeeds (in contrast to other such attempts, e.g. Lloyd 2016).