Nóra Berze: “For My Life Has a Million Roots” – The Art of Acting of Ilona Béres

Ilona Béres’s career followed a classical path from the very beginning: even as a child, she knew she was destined to become an actress. Her perfectionism revealed itself early on. During a kindergarten performance, she was required to hold a hen throughout the scene. Although it was heavy for her, she refused to put it down before the end. “Everyone was afraid I would collapse under its weight. But I managed, because my task was to carry the hen. In a figurative sense, I’ve been carrying that basket ever since.”[1] This determined attitude would define Ilona Béres’s entire professional life.

Through her experience at poetry recitation competitions and amateur drama circles, she was well prepared to apply to the Hungarian Academy of Drama and Film (today: University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest) immediately after finishing secondary school. She auditioned for Lajos Básti (1911–1977, celebrated Hungarian stage and film actor), reciting Szent Margit legendája (lit. The Legend of Saint Margaret), a Székely folk ballad, and the poem Canción de cuna para despertar a un negrito (lit. Lullaby to Wake a Little Black Boy by Nicolás Guillén) with great success. She was accepted at her first attempt.

In 1963, she made her stage debut at the Madách Chamber Theatre in the production of Boldogtalanok (The Unhappy), a play by Milán Füst. Géza Pártos (1910–1976, theatre director and her former professor) cast her as Vilma. Even as a beginner, Béres handled the role with the assurance of a professional, and critics quickly recognised her talent. “[…] there is no trace of a beginner’s uncertainty in her acting, nor of that sugary ingénue tone with which the youngest actresses tend to make themselves appealing yet overly sentimental. Her Vilma is determinedly corrupt, and despite her resolve, she remains irredeemably pure.”[2]

The success of The Unhappy was followed by a world premiere: Gábor Thurzó’s play Hátsó ajtó (Back Door) was staged at the Vígszínház (Comedy Theatre of Budapest), directed by István Horvai. Béres played the female lead, the young Anni. Although the play itself was not warmly received, her performance earned wide acclaim. She was described as “the event of the evening.”[3] The young actress convincingly captured the complexity of her character: “Her portrayal perfectly matches all the adjectives used to describe the heroine’s low moral standards, while at the same time conveying the temperament of a young woman who, at heart, desires and deserves more. Transparently empty and vibrantly multifaceted.”[4]

As a conclusion to her college years, her class presented Shakespeare’s As You Like It on the Ódry Stage (the training theatre of the Academy), directed by László Vámos. “In the role of Rosalind, Ilona Béres delighted the audience with her irony and her inventive acting.”[5] The actress brought Shakespeare’s heroine vividly to life on stage, switching tone and register with great agility. One of the highlights of her performance was the scene in which she, disguised as a man, struggles to conceal her identity and her feelings from her beloved Orlando.[6]

The “male” role would return several times throughout her career – the first occasion coming immediately after her graduation, when she joined the Csokonai Theatre in Debrecen. She made her debut there in a complex role: the protagonist of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan, a character who lives a double life, appearing alternately as a man and a woman. “In the dual figure of Shen Te–Shui Ta, Ilona Béres revealed the virtues of a remarkably versatile, almost mature actress. A faint downward motion of the hand, a gaze clinging to the downtrodden, countless gestures betraying her inability to deny compassion, the poetry and charm of her encounter with the pilot – all conjured, almost imperceptibly, the innate goodness of this girl. As Shui Ta, she likewise portrayed with great subtlety the process of becoming a mother, of anxious protectiveness, spiritual withdrawal, and hardening of character; through her movements she faithfully evoked the angularity and roughness of the man.”[7]

After this interlude in the country, she soon returned to the capital. Her first engagement was at the Madách Theatre, where she again worked with directors familiar from her academy years, Géza Pártos and László Vámos. Yet after a year she joined the National Theatre, though she felt she was not receiving sufficiently challenging roles there either. Eventually, she found a true artistic home at the Vígszínház (Comedy Theatre of Budapest). The theatre’s director at the time, Zoltán Várkonyi (1912–1979, eminent Hungarian actor-director), had a lasting influence on Béres’s entire career. He entrusted her with a major role from the outset: Hilda in Ibsen’s The Master Builder.

In the following years, she achieved remarkable success in a wide range of roles: Vanda in the world premiere of Adáshiba (Blank Screen by Károly Szakonyi), Zsuzsa Poós in Házmestersirató (lit. Janitor’s Lament by István Csurka), Anna Winemüller in Summer and Smoke, and Sofia in Platonov. Among these, her performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest stood out – her portrayal of the cruel Nurse Ratched fascinated audiences. Most critics found her performance flawless: “This is what is usually called an ‘unadorned performance’ – which, of course, means that she has refined the tools of expression to the point of invisibility.”[8] Nothing testified more clearly to her success than the audience’s reaction during the curtain call: as she bowed, the applause grew quieter. This lull was not directed at Ilona Béres the actress, but at her character – Nurse Ratched, the hated Head Nurse. “They could at least applaud her as they do Bujtor [István Bujtor, as Bromden], for she embodies this almost disembodied sadism with superb restraint.”[9]

After fifteen years at the Comedy Theatre, Ilona Béres accepted an invitation from László Vámos to join the National Theatre, Budapest. There, however, she had to endure a series of changes in management, along with the accompanying scandals and professional boycotts. Although audiences continued to attend performances, journalists either refrained from writing about them or did so with an oppositional attitude, so that many productions were left without any objective critical response.

One of the highlights of her years at the National Theatre was her portrayal of the title role in Mrs Warren’s Profession. George Bernard Shaw’s play was staged in 1993 at the Várszínház (Castle Theatre, Budapest). Béres had already appeared in a previous production of Mrs Warren’s Profession in 1967 at the Katona József Theatre, Kecskemét, where she played Vivie. At that time, she shared the stage with Mária Mezey (1909–1978, acclaimed Hungarian actress), a challenge she met with success: “With exceptional artistic self-discipline, she concentrates on the purity and inner austerity of the character – the emergence of a new kind of woman – revealing only beneath this surface the glimmers of love and compassion, of passion and indignation. Her portrayal is not merely appealing: it remains memorable.”[10]

In the 1993 production, she took on the lead role with similar success. “Her cooing tones and deliberately false accents might at times seem excessive – until the moment of her first great confrontation with her daughter, when she finally speaks in her true voice, integrating even the signs of ‘linguistic decay’, the careless colloquial articulation, precisely into her speech. As a ‘lady’, after an almost painful, self-conscious unease – for she knows best how ill-suited the role is to her – she can at last be herself. Instead of charm and tenderness, she reveals a hard, cunning determination, whose only vulnerable point, and then only briefly, is her love for her daughter. For the actress, the real inspiration must have come from blending these two modes of being – the assumed and the genuine – and from showing a temperament that fuses sentimentality with cold calculation without hesitation.”[11]

A turning point in Ilona Béres’s later career came with the 1991 production of The Cherry Orchard, directed by Victor-Ioan Frunză (Romanian stage director). Although the production was not a great success, Béres’s performance deeply impressed the then up-and-coming director Sándor Zsótér (b. 1961, influential Hungarian theatre director and university professor). In 1994 he invited her to appear as a guest performer in his production of Steven Berkoff’s Greek at the Radnóti Theatre, Budapest. This adaptation, a provocative reworking of the Oedipus myth notable for its daring use of language, divided both audiences and critics – but it marked Béres’s rediscovery by the profession. “Ilona Béres is the surprise of the production (though, in truth, it is hardly surprising when someone, liberated from the present wretched world of the National Theatre, proves that she is an actor). This time, weariness and indifference were the measures imposed upon her, and in every variation she was impeccable. In all her roles she is the middle-aged woman who has seen everything. It makes no difference whether, as the family drudge, she sticks her head into the gas oven, or as Waitress II, she recalls a huge male organ. The role of the Sphinx sums it all up: it no longer matters whether she eats, or is eaten.”[12]

In this production, Béres was able to reveal a side of herself that had previously remained unseen. “Ilona Béres was either profoundly influenced by Zsótér, or by the play, or by neither – she simply knows her craft extraordinarily well. For she moves with such naturalness in a milieu that must be foreign to her, as if she had spent her entire life in experimental theatre.”[13]

She went on to collaborate with Sándor Zsótér on three further productions: The World’s Wife, and The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck. Of these, The World’s Wife, staged in 2003 at Trafó – Kortárs Művészetek Háza (Trafó House of Contemporary Arts, Budapest), deserves particular mention. Throughout her career, Béres had toured the country with a number of literary evenings – such as Én hadd legyek boldog (lit. Let Me Be Happy) and Mert életem millió gyökerű (lit. For My Life Has a Million Roots) – promoting Hungarian literature. With this background, her participation in The World’s Wife proved a natural fit, since the text of the performance was based on poems by the British poet Carol Ann Duffy.

The poems, centred on women’s perspectives on love and relationships, were performed by several actresses – alongside Béres, Enikő Börcsök, Vera Venczel, Eszter Vörös and Kata Wéber. “The voice of Mrs Midas, Frau Freud, and Circe, she who recalls her pigs, speaks through Ilona Béres, seated at the upper centre of the stage in a grey fur coat. Men move above and below; women speak to the right and left. Béres sits like a silver lotus, motionless. Yet her mere presence suffices to convey to the observer what it might feel like, and how it might work in energy practice, when the solar plexus chakra is opened. Radiant vitality pulses from the spot where Circe reigns in splendour.”[14]

Following her collaborations with Sándor Zsótér, other directors, too, began to take renewed notice of Ilona Béres. Balázs Kovalik, primarily known as an opera director, staged Alexander Pushkin’s Boris Godunov at the Madách Chamber Theatre, Budapest, with László Gálffi in the title role. In this production, Béres portrayed Shuisky, leader of the boyars – a male character. The director had been searching for an equal partner for Gálffi, which proved difficult, as there were few striking male actors of the right generation available at the time. Finally, in what he later described as an almost fairy-tale moment, he awoke one morning with the sudden conviction that he should offer the role to Ilona Béres.[15]

The actress rose to the challenge with great success, as confirmed by the fact that her performance won awards both from the Színházi Kritikusok Céhe (Theatre Critics’ Association) and the Fővárosi Közgyűlés (General Assembly of Budapest). “Even at her most humorous, Ilona Béres is formidable: wearing a towering white fur hat like a crown, dressed in a masculine, almost uniform-like blue trouser suit, she plays Shuisky (who will later become tsar). This striking androgyne – neither man nor woman, a politician weighing short-term chances against long-term goals – defends appearances with raging cynicism (and undeniable intelligence), but cares little whether anyone believes in his largely verbal deceptions. Béres flashes a subtly ironic gait and double-edged inflections: she allows herself to be carried by the director’s innovation, yet at the same time it is she who energises the entire performance.”[16]

The critics made it clear that the success of her Shuisky was due not merely to the unexpected gender reversal. “Béres’s unscrupulous politician was elevated with priestly solemnity. Even in parody, with her mock-rabbit grimaces, she remained majestic. In her acting, pathos is inseparable from derision, irony from exaltation. If, amid today’s flood of awards, there existed a prize for the most topical performance, it would rightfully go to Béres.”[17]

In 2003, the Bárka Theatre, Budapest staged Sándor Weöres’s Theomachia, an oratorio-drama directed by Zoltán Balázs (b. 1977, director and founder of Maladype Theatre). The ritual-like production, dealing with the reign and downfall of Kronos, cast Ilona Béres as the Titan himself.

“In the centre of a space lined with black stands an immobile black colossus, the symbol of infinite time and power: Ilona Béres as Kronos. Massive yet bodiless, neither man nor woman, an allegorical being; she recites her text in a deep, resonant throat voice. A phenomenal acting achievement, if only for the physical and spiritual concentration it demands.”[18]

Zoltán Balázs built the entire performance around Béres – not only figuratively, but quite literally. Throughout the play, she stood motionless at the centre of the stage until the moment when Kronos loses his dominion over the universe. At that point, “the symbol of an order once thought eternal is annihilated before our eyes: Béres steps out of her night-dark cloak, tears out her dishevelled hair in handfuls, and, in a white nightgown, barefoot and bald, the formless deity merged with the cosmos becomes a deformed mortal.”[19]

This destruction was prefigured by a strange linguistic transformation: as Kronos senses his approaching end, he begins to speak backwards. “As the universe falls apart, so too do the words,”[20] Béres explained, interpreting the meaning of the unintelligible speech. Since she was condemned to immobility, her only instruments of expression were her voice and diction – she had to rely entirely on the rhythm and musicality of the text. “Her deep, warm-toned, powerful voice, at times erupting with a masculinely forced brutality, filled the entire space. And even as she recited the monologue of solitude and downfall in reverse, she somehow retained and restored the musicality and beauty of Weöres’s verse.”[21]

Beyond her static presence and the challenging text, the gender aspect of the role again proved significant, as Kronos is a male Titan, father of Zeus. “Lately, this intensely feminine actress has excelled in male roles. She has shed the coquettishness of centuries of theatrical convention. She relies solely on the sheer force of her personality. Her resonant alto deepens into something even lower, voice-straining and metallic. She creaks the vowels, stresses each syllable distinctly. She directs the bloodshed born of power’s fear of loss. An unmoving, pitilessly cruel deity. Her terrifying lack of emotion is absolute.”[22]

Alongside her male roles, Ilona Béres faced a new kind of challenge in 2012. The idea came from a young director, Dániel Dicső, who conceived of staging Alaine Polcz’s autobiographical novel Asszony a fronton (One Woman in the War: Hungary 1944–1945) as a one-woman performance. “With subtle means and nuanced control, yet with overwhelming power, Ilona Béres lives through and conveys this at times horror-tinged drama of destiny. The chief feat of her character and fate portrayal lies in the calm narrative tone, the seemingly dispassionate storytelling. As she inhabits Alaine Polcz’s world, she must take the hardest path in shaping the dramatic situations. Her voice falters, she pauses briefly, looks inward, then continues the enumeration of horrors. (…) The arc of her characterisation spans from icy, hollow indifference to a lava-like, high-voltage intensity. The pale tones deepen; her words fall with weight: Ilona Béres, drawing on the full maturity of her artistic means, speaks of what, in truth, cannot be spoken – of what is unspeakable and unutterable.”[23]

In this performance – relying on minimal movement and gesture – “her playing, reduced to an almost instrumentless essence, does not merely move but profoundly shakes the audience of the Rózsavölgyi Salon.”[24]

The range of roles presented over her long career testifies to Béres Ilona’s lifelong commitment to the theatrical profession. Yet this commitment has manifested not only in her acting but also in her broader professional activities. In the early 1970s, she popularised literature through the already-mentioned solo literary evenings, and later, together with literary historians, she visited schools to hold “irregular lessons in Hungarian literature”, illustrating literary talks with poems, dramatic scenes, and novel excerpts.[25]

In the early 1990s, she herself began to teach. At that time, when she had no new roles at the National Theatre, she taught acting at the theatre’s Academy. As president of the MASZK Színészegyesület (lit. MASZK Actors’ Association), she also worked to improve the situation of Hungarian actors – particularly those in provincial repertory theatres – and of the acting profession in general. Under her leadership, the association established the Gobbi Hilda-életműdíj (Gobbi Hilda Lifetime Achievement Award) and the Soós Imre Award for emerging artists.

Throughout her career, Ilona Béres has demonstrated her talent across the widest range of roles and functions. She has been a president and a teacher; she has portrayed young women, boys disguised as girls, women disguised as men, a rebellious Russian prince, and even a Titan endowed with divine power. Her repertoire spans classical works and contemporary pieces alike, from avant-garde productions to modern nō-inspired plays and operettas. Reviewing the succession of her roles, one is left with no sense of omission. Her career began explosively, both on stage and on screen, yet the full richness of her artistry only unfolded in later years. She inspired directors with unconventional approaches to theatre, bridging the divide between the classical and the “experimental”. These directors did not so much rediscover her as draw her forth from a milieu unjustly sidelined by the profession. Through performances of enduring depth and originality, Ilona Béres has delighted – and continues to delight – audiences and the theatre world alike, standing out unmistakably among Hungarian actresses.

(2016)

[1] Zsuzsa Mátraházi: Béres Ilona, akiben munkál a játékkedv [lit. Ilona Béres, in whom the joy of playing is at work]. Fidelio.hu, 16 July 2012. http://fidelio.hu/szinhaz/2012/07/16/beres_ilona_akiben_munkal_a_jatekkedv/

[2] Iván Sándor: Boldogtalanok – Füst Milán drámája a Madách Kamara Színházban [lit. The Unhappy Ones – Milán Füst’s play at the Madách Chamber Theatre]. Film Színház Muzsika, 12 April 1963.

[3] Pál Pándi: Hátsó ajtó – Thurzó Gábor színjátéka a Vígszínházban [lit. Back Door – Gábor Thurzó’s play at the Comedy Theatre]. Népszabadság, 6 October 1963.

[4] László Kürti: Hátsó ajtó – Thurzó Gábor színműve a Vígszínházban [lit. Back Door – Gábor Thurzó’s drama at the Vígszínház]. Film Színház Muzsika, 4 October 1963.

[5] M. G. P.: Ahogy tetszik [lit. As You Like It]. Népszabadság, 17 January 1964.

[6] Erzsébet Tóth: „Ahogy tetszik”– Vizsgaelőadás az Ódry Színpadon [lit. “As You Like It” – Graduation performance on the Ódry Stage]. Magyar Nemzet, 15 January 1964.

[7] Gyula Kurucz: A Csokonai Színház Brecht-előadásáról [lit. On the Csokonai Theatre’s Brecht production]. Alföld, 1965/3.

[8] Péter Nagy: Kakukkfészek [One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]. Kritika, 1977/6.

[9] Miklós Almási: A Kakukk-effektus [lit. The Cuckoo Effect]. Színház, 1977/6.

[10] Péter Nagy: Az író mestersége [lit. The Craft of the Writer]. Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature), 30 September 1967.

[11] B. J.: Knock Out. Criticai Lapok, 1994/1.

[12] László Zappe: Trágár pátosz [lit. Profane Pathos]. Színház, 1994/5.

[13] László Jakab Orsós: A korszerű táplálkozásról [lit. On Modern Nutrition]. Népszabadság, 28 February 1994.

[14] Katalin Gabnai: A második nem énekei [lit. Songs of the Second Sex]. Zsöllye, 2003/5.

[15] Katalin Szemere: „Fél a lelkiismeret-furdalástól” – Kovalik Balázs első hazai prózai rendezése Puskin mű: A Borisz Godunov [lit. “Afraid of a Guilty Conscience” – Balázs Kovalik’s first prose production in Hungary: Pushkin’s Boris Godunov]. Népszabadság, 4 October 2002.

[16] Tamás Tarján: Életre boncolva [lit. Dissected Alive]. Criticai Lapok, 2002/11.

[17] M. G. P.: Rozsdamentes Puskin [lit. Rustproof Pushkin]. Népszabadság, 7 October 2002.

[18] Tamás Koltai: Kegyetlen a sors [lit. Cruel is Fate]. Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature), 16 January 2004.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Katalin Szemere: Férfit játszik és visszafelé beszél [lit. She Plays a Man and Speaks Backwards]. Népszabadság, 12 December 2003.

[21] Ilona Gantner: Weöres isteni hármasa a Bárka Színház deszkáin [lit. Weöres’s Divine Trio on the Stage of the Bárka Theatre]. Vasárnapi Hírek, 21 December 2003.

[22] M. G. P.: Istenek csatája a Bárka Színházban [lit. Battle of the Gods at the Bárka Theatre]. Népszabadság, 15 December 2003.

[23] Dezső Kovács: Háborús házasság [lit. A Marriage in Wartime]. Revizoronline.com, 24 October 2012. https://revizoronline.com/polcz-alaine-asszony-a-fronton-rozsavolgyi-szalon/ (accessed 23^rd October 2025)

[24] Anna Földes: Fejfény – háromszor [lit. Spotlight – Thrice Over]. Criticai Lapok, 2012/13.

[25] Tamás Garai: Erzsi – Béres Ilona [lit. Erzsi – Ilona Béres]. Tükör, 23 May 1972.

Béres Ilona

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