The winner of the tender to become Új Színház director György Dörner has published his bid, which includes the sentence “Hungarians will declare war on the liberal entertainment state, which has sunk to the brothel level”.
Dörner will take up the post from next February, with MIÉP leader István Csurka as his “intendant”.
The theatre will be renamed Hátország (Hinterland), Népszabadság writes.
The Hungarian theatre society sent an open letter to mayor István Tarlós after he vetoed “a majority professional opinion” of 6-2 in favour of the present director István Márta, and chose Dörner instead.
The letter added that the decision has increased the theatrical community’s and voters’ beliefs that the only motivations of theatre appointments are political.
However Tarlós dismissed the open letter as “inconsiderate, irritating and contemptible”.
City Hall press chief Mária Somlyó Szűcs said Tarlós considers the dispute closed, adding that City Hall finds it unacceptable that “the smallest change elicits such an aggressive response from theatre directors”.
Csurka said he would like to see the theatre perform new plays with “public themes”, such as former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, and the history of Hungary’s privatisations.
Both the Socialists and Politics Can Be Different (LMP) protested the appointments.
Philosopher Ágnes Heller said “a theatre has been handed to the far right, and racists”.
The website of Der Spiegel carried an article at the weekend entitled Far Rightists Take Over Running of a Theatre, which described Csurka as “a well known anti-Semite”. Belgium’s RTL described Dörner and Csurka as “far-right figures”, adding that their appointment has filled the entire Hungarian theatrical community with anxiety.
Preparations for a protest on October 21 have been initiated on the social networking website Facebook.
