István Hirtling obtained his acting diploma in 1984 at the College of Theatre and Film Arts. At the outset of his career, a brief article about him appeared in Pesti Műsor. The weekly’s journalist summarised his life story as follows: “For a short time he worked as a mechanical technician, then as a storekeeper at a paper factory. His curiosity and desire to perform, however, would not let him rest, so he eagerly responded to a newspaper advertisement recruiting students for the studio of the Budapesti Gyermekszínház (Budapest Children’s Theatre). After a year of study, he was offered a contract. Everything connected with the theatre interested him. […] He owes the launch of his career to Judit Nyilassy: without her advice and assistance, he might never even have attempted the entrance examination, which he passed only on his second try.”
When outlining István Hirtling’s forty-year acting career, one is confronted with the extent to which the artist’s individual trajectory was interwoven with the decisive dynamics shaping Hungarian theatre at the time. This is already evident at the very beginning of his professional life in 1984. Hirtling was still a student at the academy when György Aczél, cultural secretary of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, succeeded in imposing his will against Imre Pozsgay, Minister of Culture, and in 1982 appointed László Vámos and Dezső Malonyay – then directors of the Népszínház (People’s Theatre) – as joint directors of the National Theatre. Pozsgay, however, managed to ensure that in the newly renovated premises of the National Theatre’s studio theatre in Petőfi Sándor Street, the Katona József Theatre was established under the leadership of Gábor Székely and Gábor Zsámbéki. This reorganisation led to the splitting of the National Theatre’s ensemble. Vámos and his associates replaced those who left the National Theatre with actors from the Népszínház company. Várszínház (Castle Theatre), which had also been renovated in the recent past, became the National Theatre’s studio theatre, and in order to avoid disruptions in the National Theatre’s performance schedule, several productions from the Népszínház repertoire were taken over. It was together with Vámos that director Imre Kerényi arrived at the National Theatre. At the College of Theatre and Film Arts, Kerényi – alongside Péter Huszti – served as Hirtling’s leading professor.
In this altered situation, it became necessary simultaneously to build an ensemble at the National Theatre and to renew its repertoire. It was within this process that István Hirtling, together with two of his classmates, Frigyes Funtek and Pál Mácsai, was engaged by the theatre in 1984, as well as that their legendary exam performance of King John by Friedrich Dürrenmatt – first presented at the Ódry Stage in 1983 – was incorporated into the regular repertoire.
Vámos László a Nemzeti Színház 150 éve című kötetben megjelent írásában azt tartotta igazgatása legnagyobb eredményének, hogy „egy nagyon ütőképes, tehetséges” fiatal színészgárda kezdte meg pályafutását: „Nem túlzok, ha azt mondom, hogy harminc éve nem volt a Nemzeti Színháznak ilyen erős utánpótlása, akik az elmúlt években mind jobban bírták a – vezetés által tudatosan, pályavonalat tervezve – reájuk rakott terheket.”
In an essay published in the volume A Nemzeti Színház 150 éve (150 Years in the National Theatre), László Vámos regarded the greatest achievement of his directorship as the emergence of “a very formidable and talented” cohort of young actors embarking on their careers: “I do not exaggerate when I say that for thirty years the National Theatre had not had such a strong new generation – one that, in recent years, has borne ever more successfully the burdens placed upon them by the management, deliberately and with a planned career trajectory in mind.”
To gain some sense of these burdens, let us consider Hirtling’s debut at the National Theatre. In his first two seasons he was entrusted with seven roles, four of them unequivocal leading parts. Unsurprisingly, the most powerful of these was his debut performance in the already mentioned King John. The production was first staged at the Ódry Stage on 1 October 1983, and six days later Gábor Bányai reviewed it in Népszava. The journalist initially praised Imre Kerényi’s then still unusual directorial concept: at the beginning and end of the performance, a mime sequence alludes to the perennial nature of power; he then quickly turned to an assessment of the two protagonists, Frigyes Funtek as the Bastard and István Hirtling in the title role. It was the latter who particularly captured his enthusiasm: “Hirtling presents a magnanimous, intelligent, witty realist politician, without concealing the character’s petty lust for power. When the English and French kings first sit down to negotiate, drinks are served. Hirtling throws himself at them with the greed of an alcoholic. Now sandwiches on cocktail sticks arrive. At the second performance, one of them fell. John’s. In the scene, political bargaining is under way. With brilliant sensitivity and talent, Hirtling incorporates the mishap into the scene, into the character, into the negotiation. The way he gazes with sensual craving at the fallen morsel – that is how he looks at the territories he is forced to give up as well. Splendid moments. They reveal a very intelligent actor. As does the moment when he explains to the eight-year-old, dispossessed heir that he is not such a bad uncle after all. Diabolically amusing. And Hirtling enjoys the success, reads the audience perfectly. A clever young man – and this may yet cause him no small amount of trouble in his career.”
Tamás Mészáros was far more restrained, yet his assessment was all the more solidly grounded: “Such brilliant technical skill, especially at this stage of an actor’s life, is exceedingly rare. Yet it would amount to little if it were not underpinned by personality. For without that, Hirtling would be unable to carry his character beyond mere virtuosity, and in the poseur he would not truly be able to embody the frightening essence of a political style.”
Naturally, after the production’s première at the Várszínház, no such rapturous statements were made; reviewers were more inclined to emphasise how impressively the members of the National Theatre acquitted themselves, integrating seamlessly into the performance: “The production is a genuine piece of ensemble work, and perhaps its greatest virtue is that there is no difference in acting style or artistic value between the former college students and the members of the National Theatre company. Together they create this successful production with its distinctive tone, grotesquely constructed through spectacle, light, and gesture,” wrote Miklós Almási in Népszabadság.
Perhaps expectations were too high ahead of the next première: according to the reviews, István Hirtling’s performance was not an unequivocal success in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman (première: 11 January 1985), directed by Miklós Gábor. To convey something of the critical climate of the time, it is worth quoting the opinion of Endre Varjas, which explains a great deal: “John Tanner is played by István Hirtling, the National Theatre’s deservedly much-vaunted new star. It is not a role ideally suited to him, yet into the raw, wild, almost ‘environmentally alien’ figure he introduces a kind of Hamlet-like, adolescent hesitancy, a wavering uncertainty – through the performance his talent remains clearly visible.”
Although the critic does not state this quite so bluntly, his view is that what happened was something all too familiar: the theatre’s management placed an almost superstitious faith in the young artist at the outset of his career and inundated him with assignments. He was given the role even in cases where it might, in fact, have been better suited to someone else.
István Hirtling, however, strove to live up to the trust placed in him. He did not feel exploited; he trusted the directors and had confidence in his fellow actors. The greatest task and most formidable challenge of this period was his role as István in the musical play István, a király (Stephen, the King) by Levente Szörényi, János Bródy, and Miklós Boldizsár. This production came to define Hirtling’s years at the National Theatre. Its première took place on 21 and 22 September 1985. The rock opera remained in the repertoire of the National Theatre for five seasons and was performed nearly two hundred and fifty times. Hirtling alternated in the title role with István Bubik; accordingly, he appeared on stage as István on more than one hundred occasions.
“This production completely turned all our lives upside down,” István Hirtling later recalled. “We had to adopt an entirely new way of living. In the week when the István, a király run began, it was simply not possible to stay up late, not possible to smoke – in short, many things were forbidden – in order to ensure that over the course of the six performances both casts were fully prepared and in full fighting form.”
The reviews of the production generally maintained that it had no weak points, however, Bubik and Hirtling each accentuated different traits of the historical figure and of the rock-opera character. An article published in Pesti Műsor attempted to characterise the two performances. According to this account, István Hirtling’s king is a “pale ruler”, “the obedient son of his hard-handed, ambitious mother”. He regards it as his Christian duty “to eradicate paganism from people’s hearts”. He would gladly renounce the leadership of the country, but “he knows that by doing so he would cast the Church into ruin and plunge the people into the ugly sin of idolatry”. “He is the defender of the Roman Church, the pillar of Christianity, Saint Stephen.” (Whereas Bubik is described as “the defender of the country, the pillar of the state, Stephen, the King.”)
In this production, István Hirtling received his second kingly role at the National Theatre, and others soon followed: Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV, in Shakespeare’s Richard II; (Várszínház, 2 March 1986), and then the title role in Shakespeare’s royal drama Henry IV (Várszínház, 9 May 1986).
Most critics reproached Hirtling in these roles, speaking of exhaustion and a greying of his stage presence; yet two authoritative reviewers did not content themselves with such clichés. In his review of Richard II, Tamás Koltai drew attention to the fact that, opposite István Bubik’s title character – a “feminine clown with painted face, lacquered fingernails, and a bob wig” – “István Hirtling, a lyrically built youth by physique, on the other side of this ‘reversed casting’, convincingly hardens into a grim, tough soldier.” According to Koltai, the director, Imre Kerényi, afforded Bolingbroke little real scope; “indeed, he commits the conceptual error of consigning him, together with all the surviving characters, to a common grave for the sake of an effective final tableau. In doing so, he not only abstracts the workings of the power mechanism tied to the royal position but also proves uncollegial by doing away with the title character of the next play in the theatre’s planned Shakespeare cycle.”
Director László Vámos confronted István Hirtling with a far more demanding task by casting him as Henry IV. Let us not forget that the twenty-eight-year-old young actor was required to bring to life a king who is thirty-five at the beginning of the play and forty-five by its end. The words of Miklós Almási vividly convey that the actor was able to rise to this challenge with remarkable virtuosity.
“István Hirtling is capable of the impossible: he is able simultaneously to convey the old king’s disappointment and the love that glimmers through that disappointment when he catches his favourite son in the act of stealing the crown. And in this very same scene there is also his old age, his terrified lust for power, his concealed remorse – for he too stole the crown – and his fear of death. Hirtling is not merely capable of transforming himself into an old man outwardly, which would be nothing more than a ‘trick’; he becomes old inwardly as well, conveying an inner uncertainty. Hirtling is at his best when either the role or the director does not allow him to fidget, when something disciplines and slows him from within – here both are present at once, and that is why he commands the stage in those few scenes that are visible from his role.”
And what did the young artist at the outset of his career say about all this? It is worth quoting at some length the confession he formulated at the time: “It causes me an enormous amount of difficulty to search within myself for those gestures and phrases I saw in my father, for moments I have picked up from older people – the things that come together to form a person. And if I can somehow polish these into a whole, then it may be that the spectator is disturbed by the fact that he knows I am twenty-eight years old, but then again, theatre, it isn’t real. […] This playfulness, this hide-and-seek aspect of acting, does not disturb me. On the contrary, I love it.”
A similarly mixed reception greeted the staging of Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Torquato Tasso (Várszínház, 4 November 1987). Once again, newspaper reviews invoked Hirtling’s very first success, the title role in King John, as if that earlier performance were resurfacing in Miklós Gábor’s direction. Writing in Élet és Irodalom, Júlia Szekrényessy felt that Hirtling appeared “more a whimsical poet than a humiliated, dispossessed titan” – an observation echoed, with variations, by other critics. At the same time, Miklós Almási, in Népszabadság, probed far more deeply. Keeping the production’s fundamental problematic in view, and analysing the peculiar relationship between the ruler in power and the artist as subject, he wrote of the title performance: “What is strange about this relationship is that the lord does not torment the poet, does not seek to force him into unworthy tasks, nor does he restrict his freedom (except perhaps when he behaves improperly). Yet even this cool indifference can be a source of suffering. True enough, Tasso himself does not know the reason. Perhaps it is his dreams, or his desire for recognition, which he receives only in fragments from this court; perhaps the torment of creation itself – or perhaps he even needs these ecstatic states. As Tasso, István Hirtling has devised a distinctive mode of movement, hovering between trance, waking dream, and poetic self-indulgence. At times it teeters on the edge of comedy, but before one can smile, he shifts again, turning to a form of endearing, playful irony.”
István Hirtling’s early years at the National Theatre placed him at the very centre of attention. The continuation of this trajectory, however, was disrupted by an unexpected turn of events. With effect from 1 July 1989, Imre Csiszár was appointed director of the National Theatre, while the former leadership was retired. Considerable agitation was caused by the fact that Csiszár undertook a thorough reorganisation of the ensemble, dismissing some artists and engaging others. In this highly charged atmosphere, István Hirtling made the following statement in the weekly newspaper Új Tükör: “Even today, all I really know is that a new director is coming, who will presumably also direct. It may happen that we will not agree on everything. I have acted up to now, and I hope that I shall continue to do so in the future as well.”
At this point Hirtling was still hopeful. And indeed, he was entrusted with an important role in István Szőke’s production of Aleksandr Ostrovsky’s The Forest (1 December 1989). The success, however, failed to materialise, and István Hirtling’s performance was scarcely praised. Indeed, some critics even spoke of a casting error. Yet it was not the reception of the production that led Hirtling to decide to terminate his contract with the National Theatre; rather, he cited the change in atmosphere he experienced during rehearsals as the reason for his departure. “The criminal point of this period […] was the première of The Forest, and the atmosphere that surrounded the rehearsals.”
István Hirtling did not sign a contract with the Madách Theatre until September 1990; by that time, however, he had already appeared as a guest in one of the most successful running productions, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats. He alternated in the role he had taken over from Péter Haumann with Tamás Dunai from 26 January 1990 onwards. And perhaps this, too, is significant: he became a member of the executive board of the Magyar Színészkamara (Hungarian Actors’ Chamber), founded on 12 March 1990.
The years following the political transition made their impact felt in theatrical life as well. The transformation of the theatre system established in 1949 on the Soviet model became unavoidable. It was at this time that permanent ensembles began to dissolve, and many artists chose not to bind themselves to a single theatre, instead contracting for roles with the assistance of an agent. István Hirtling opted for this path in the autumn of 1991. He was a founding member – and one who remained committed to the very end – of the Seven Art’s Agency. When Mari Törőcsik invited him to join the ensemble as a company member and help strengthen the newly founded Művész Színház (Artists’ Theatre), he accepted without hesitation. A productive yet exceptionally demanding period of his career began in the autumn of 1993, when the newly organised company commenced its work. At the inaugural performance, on 15 October 1993, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera was staged in a production directed by János Taub. István Hirtling was cast as the Street Singer; he sang perhaps the best-known song of the work, a The Ballad of Mack the Knife. Reviews of the première unanimously singled him out as the finest performer in the production. Judit Csáki wrote about him at greatest length: “We can already see strong performances – in this production of The Threepenny Opera, in my view, the finest comes from István Hirtling in the role of the Street Singer. Hirtling not only sings, for example, The Ballad of Mack the Knife with precision, playfulness, vitality, and illustrative clarity, but also with a relaxed, self-evident cheekiness – and it is precisely this ease, this lack of inhibition, this sense of being fully absorbed in the play, that is missing from many of the other performances.”
Despite this, in the period that followed Hirtling appeared in only a handful of premières at the Művész Színház; in parallel, audiences could continue to see him regularly at the Madách Theatre. Among other productions, he performed in A funeral in Theresienburg, Witness for the Prosecution, Lili Hofberg, and Becket or the Honour of God.
The founding of the Művész Színház marked the overture to the major post-transition restructurings and transformations of Hungarian theatrical life. Both its establishment and its eventual closure clearly illustrate that, for its funding body – the Budapest municipal authority, struggling with a lack of resources – economic viability was the primary consideration. When it became apparent what level of expenditure the maintenance of a permanent ensemble entailed, the decision was taken to transform the institution, from 1995 once again operating under the name Thália Theatre, into a receiving theatre. In István Hirtling’s view, however, the emphasis on economic considerations served merely as a form of cover. It was used to shield the background manoeuvres that had emerged against the diversity of Budapest’s theatrical structure, aimed at weakening the competitive position of institutions with medium-sized auditoria and resident ensembles. A year later, the Új Színház (New Theatre), led by Gábor Székely, met a similar fate. The words of János Schiffer, Deputy Mayor responsible for cultural affairs, are telling in this respect: “We are pondering how the theatrical structure of the capital might be altered, because there is insufficient money for subsidies. We would not want any theatre to go bankrupt and thereby place actors in an impossible situation...” The decision, however, was soon taken, and Budapest found itself with one fewer theatre maintaining a permanent ensemble. István Hirtling shared the fate of the company: in 1996 he joined the Thália Színházművészeti Betéti Társaság (Thália Theatre Artistic Limited Partnership).
Even in this period fraught with uncertainty, outstanding productions were nonetheless created. The leadership of the Művész Színház invited the Romanian director Vlad Mugur, who staged Carlo Goldoni’s comedy The Liar (3 March 1995). The production remained in the repertoire for several years. In this formally innovative staging, István Hirtling played the role of Pulcinella, wearing a mask and costume evocative of commedia dell’arte performances; the association with medieval theatrical forms was further reinforced by the fact that he had to crouch inside a wooden chest until his entrance. In 1996 the company presented two new premières – Of Mice and Men and Love in the Crimea – and, having lost its building, continued to perform its successful productions on Stefánia Road, at the Magyar Honvédség Művelődési Háza (Cultural Centre of the Hungarian Defence Forces).
Particular emphasis must be placed on János Taub’s direction of Sławomir Mrożek’s Love in the Crimea (6 October 1996). (This was the Thália Társaság’s final première in the building on Nagymező Street before its complete reconstruction.) In this play, too, István Hirtling demonstrated his ability to convey the inner life of the character he portrayed. “István Hirtling’s dashing, noble foreigner of a swindler–army officer, who withdraws aloofly, is a powerful character portrayal among the wistful holidaymakers of the Crimea,” wrote Katalin Metz.
A further turning point in the history of the Művész Színház / Thália Theatre / Thália Társaság came in May 1997. Together with seven colleagues – Ildikó Bánsági, Eszter Nagy-Kálózy, Anna Ráckevei, Auguszta Tóth, István Bubik, Károly Eperjes, and Sándor Gáspár – István Hirtling left the Thália and founded the Kelemen László Theatre Circle. “The founders opted for a new mode of operation: they sought to collaborate with theatre directors and directors who regard them as equal creative partners.” Their first première, under the direction of János Taub, was Carlo Goldoni’s The Chioggia Scuffles, staged in Szolnok in collaboration with the artists of the Szigligeti Theatre on 12 December 1997. This was followed by performances in Dunaújváros on 11 January 1998, when Ildikó Bánsági, Sándor Gáspár, Eszter Nagy-Kálózy, and István Hirtling appeared in Anton Pavlovich Chekhov’s one-act plays The Bear, A Marriage Proposal, and The Festivities, directed by Péter Valló.
A decisive change in the lives of the members of the Kelemen László Színkör was brought about by the outcome of the directorial tender at the Új Színház. The Metropolitan Assembly did not renew the appointment of director Gábor Székely, citing expectations of more “rational” management; consequently, from 1 January 1998 the theatre’s former musical director, the composer István Márta, was appointed director. In order to ensure the theatre’s continued operation, the new director’s first task was to avert both artistic and financial collapse. As seven actors chose not to renew their contracts with the theatre, Márta engaged the artists of the Kelemen László Színkör. This gesture was not viewed favourably by certain figures within the specialist press, which by then had clearly assumed the role of opinion leader and was firmly committed in its stance. The three Chekhov one-act plays were incorporated into the Új Színház repertoire, and on 8 November 1998 The Chioggia Scuffles was revived. In this production, members of the Új Színház ensemble supplemented the original cast.
From that point on, István Hirtling was a member of the Új Színház until 2012. It is true, however, that throughout this period – as had been the case since the very beginning of his career – he continued to appear frequently as a guest artist at various venues. One of the most notable of these appearances, and at the same time one that provoked the greatest passions and debate, was the opening production of the new National Theatre on 15 March 2002. In János Szikora’s production of Imre Madách’s dramatic poem Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man), he performed several roles: Catullus, Emperor Rudolf, the Marquis, and the Nyegle (lit. Flippant).
A curious period began in the history of the Új Színház and in István Hirtling’s life in the spring of 2004: he first worked with Jiří Menzel and later with Sergei Masloboyshchikov, resulting in two defining productions. With Michael Frayn’s comedy Noises Off (21 March 2004), Menzel caused a surprise by omitting the third act – yet the result was nevertheless an outstanding performance. The theatre first presented William Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Gyulai Várszínház (Gyula Castle Theatre) on 10 August 2004, but István Hirtling did not appear on stage as Oberon until 25 September 2004, in the Paulay Street building. Puck (spelled Pukk on the playbill) was played by Károly Eperjes. As Miklós Almási observed: “Their pairing, too, is a real stroke of luck: Hirtling’s playfulness has come to full maturity. Here he resembles a kind of sci-fi figure, laden with scientific gear – clips and glass phials hang from him (one contains a primeval reptile preserved in spirit); these are where the boss keeps his miracle drugs. Essentially, he is a postmodern scientist, scarcely interested in the human world at all; at most he experiments a little, but even that he leaves to Puck, paying no attention to what actually happens. Only the changeling child truly preoccupies him. Then, gradually, it becomes clear that he, too, has a heart: from Titania […] he wants not only to reclaim this changeling child, but to win back the woman herself. He almost bursts into tears when Titania comes to after the donkey episode and somehow is no longer who she was: how can one fall so deeply in love with a donkey – and even more so, how can it happen that to me, the scientist, the avenging ‘lord’ – this hurts?”
At the Új Színház, István Hirtling was entrusted with a wide variety of tasks – appearing, for example, in Molière’s The Misanthrope and in the stage adaptation of Ernő Szép’s Ádámcsutka (Adam’s Apple) – since the theatre, as István Márta formulated it in 2009, was “an open, repertoire-based artistic theatre”. Each year five or six premières were presented, and the institution, with a seating capacity of around three hundred and fifty, operated with ten to twelve productions kept in repertory. As a rule, István Hirtling received two new roles per season. He played Andrei in Chekhov’s Three Sisters (27 November 2004); Theramenes in Jean Racine’s Phaedra (30 September 2006); he portrayed Duperret in Marat/Sade (16 December 2006); appeared as Filippo in Carlo Goldoni’s Holiday Adventures (18 April 2009); and, in the role of Jaques, delivered William Shakespeare’s famous monologue – “All the world’s a stage” – in the comedy As You Like It (30 April 2010). Alongside this, he had opportunities to work at the Radnóti Theatre, the Vidám Színpad (Theatre Comedy), the Játékszín Theatre, as well as in Székesfehérvár and Veszprém. This was partly because he was not always assigned roles that suited his individuality or were commensurate with his artistic abilities. He first encountered Miklós Szinetár at the Új Színház: in Ignác Nagy’s comedy Tisztújítás (A Local Election), staged in an adaptation by Lajos Parti Nagy, Hirtling appeared as Chief Physician Langyos at the première on 9 November 2007. One reviewer compared his performance to the finest roles of Iván Darvas. Subsequently, Szinetár invited him to Veszprém, where he cast him as Mack the Knife in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera (16 September 2011).
At the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, a change of leadership took place at the Új Színház. It was at this point that István Hirtling signed a contract with the ensemble of the Vörösmarty Theatre in Székesfehérvár. Bare facts on their own can be misleading. Fortunately, Hirtling spoke openly about the circumstances of his departure to a journalist from 168 óra: “I had been preparing to leave for four years. One can look at the roles I was playing at the Új Színház at the time, and compare them with those I was playing elsewhere as a guest. During this period of inner struggle, those changes took place around the theatre that stirred up so much passion on both sides. I see the situation as far more tangled than can be commented on with simple political declarations. One thing is certain: even on purely professional grounds, the new management’s application would have been sufficient to justify demonstrations and protest. This opinion did not make me popular. György Dörner, incidentally, offered me a series of leading roles, but I felt that this theatre, quite apart from its political overtones, could no longer inspire me in the way it had when I first joined it. And I want to affect audiences above all through my roles – roles whose creation requires calmer settings.”
István Hirtling’s acting temperament is well characterised by his debut in Székesfehérvár: audiences first saw him in a Ray Cooney farce, It Runs in the Family) (2 June 2012), followed by the main role of Emperor Constantine in Ferenc Herczeg’s Byzantium (17 November 2012). With this première, a new phase began in the actor’s career – for the first time in his life, he became a member of a provincial ensemble. This entailed not only a markedly different type of repertoire, but also a significantly lower number of performances; individual roles could no longer be played over a span of years. In parallel with his Székesfehérvár premières, he appeared in numerous Budapest productions at the Pinceszínház (Cellar Theatre), the Rózsavölgyi Salon, and once again at the Radnóti Theatre. One of his most significant roles, however, is linked precisely to the venue on Nagymező Street: director Péter Valló, who has directed Hirtling on fifteen occasions – more than anyone else – cast him as Judge Brack in Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (22 December 2013). “István Hirtling’s Judge Brack is restrainedly sardonic, yet he superbly embodies the character of the repulsively profiteering lawyer,” wrote the critic of Heti Válasz.
Yet in Székesfehérvár – within the company led by director János Szikora – substantial dramatic and musical challenges also awaited him. One of the best-known works of world literature, Molière’s comedy The Miser, was adapted for the contemporary stage by Iván Hargitai, who, defying established Hungarian theatrical convention, cast István Hirtling in the title role. Admittedly, the result was far from a traditional production. Hirtling summarised the essence of the staging as follows: “There is nothing archaic about the play; it is set in a contemporary environment and uses contemporary means. We speak about debt traps, domestic violence, and even paedophilia when we pose the question of why a man in his prime believes that only a twenty-year-old girl can make him happy. Can one really believe this? Are these emotions truly pure, or is it perhaps the enticing jingle of small change ringing in the young woman’s ear?”
In the same season, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s musical My Fair Lady (15 February 2014) was staged; alongside Csilla Radnay’s Eliza, it was above all István Hirtling’s Higgins who secured the production’s success. He also delivered an excellent performance in the role of Gedeon Torma in Tibor Kocsák and Szilárd Somogyi’s musical Abigél (Abigail), based on the novel by Magda Szabó. Originally produced as a guest performance of the Budapest Operetta & Musical Theatre, the production could be seen by audiences at the Szeged Open-Air Festival on 10 July 2015, and later at the Vörösmarty Theatre on 17 April 2016.
By the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, alongside monumental, popular productions addressing broad audiences, increasing importance was attached to performances staged in intimate spaces, built on the physical and intellectual proximity of actors and spectators. Such productions were not confined to well-known chamber venues in the capital – such as the former Várszínház Refectory, the Bubik István Studio Stage of the Új Színház, or the Rózsavölgyi Salon – for director János Szikora also sought to ensure that audiences in Székesfehérvár could partake of this experience. In the spirit of this endeavour, in 2015 István Hirtling played Abel Znorko, a Nobel Prize–winning writer, in Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Enigma Variations, followed in 2016 by the role of Captain Edgar in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s Play Strindberg. Moreover, the directorial team at the Székesfehérvár theatre was strengthened by one of the most versatile figures of contemporary Hungarian dance and movement art, Csaba Horváth. The choreographer–director staged the events of the Theban myth cycle in the language of physical theatre (Jon Fosse–Sophocles: Death in Thebes, Kozák András Studio, 15 December 2017). István Hirtling was cast as Creon and successfully rose to this radically new challenge. He did not cling to his established acting prestige, left behind his habitual gestures, and accepted the director’s system, through which he succeeded in creating a compelling figure of the Theban king.
A further major challenge was presented by the invitation from Tamás Bank and Ádám Horgas to play the role of a millionaire confined to a wheelchair – a production that went on to surpass its two-hundredth performance and became one of the record-holders among Hirtling’s earlier long-running series. (Olivier Nakache–Éric Toledano: The Intouchables. Directed by Ádám Horgas. Játékszín, 4 February 2017.)
After a season as a guest artist – during which he appeared with great zest in the highly successful production of Andrea Pass’s A vándorkutya (The Wandering Dog), playing the role of Vilmos – István Hirtling signed a contract with the Vígszínház (Comedy Theatre) in 2019 at the invitation of Enikő Eszenyi. In his new ensemble, he was able not only to work again with Péter Valló (Hanoch Levin: Krum, Pesti Theatre, 7 October 2023), but also to appear in two productions directed by Attila Vidnyánszky Jr. (Vecsei H. Miklós–Jacques Prévert: Children of Paradise, 4 September 2021; Hubay Miklós–Ránki György–Vas István: Egy szerelem három éjszakája [Three Nights of a Love], Pesti Theatre, 17 December 2022. Working with graduating university students, he plays the role of Inspector Fix in Divinyi Réka–Csorba Lóránt–Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Directed by László Magács, the production premiered at the Pesti Theatre on 11 February 2023.)
Among István Hirtling’s work of recent years, an episodic role in Friedrich Schiller’s Love and Intrigue proved to be the most compelling. In keeping with the directorial concept of the Georgian director David Doiasvili, he was required to rethink and extend the trajectory of the role assigned to him, that of the prince’s valet. This endeavour succeeded in full, as is evident from an account of the production premièred on 9 March 2024: “Anti-war sentiment takes shape in the figure of the valet played by István Hirtling: he becomes the spokesman of the citizenry, confronting Lady Milford with events unfolding in the wider world. Young men have been rounded up from the streets to be conscripted and sent to war. Martial law has been introduced in the country, and those who resist are executed immediately and publicly – a fate through which he himself has lost two sons. Hirtling takes a spray can from his pocket and begins to write the words Kein Krieg on a sheet of paper in front of Lady Milford, which he then waves before him like a flag.”
István Hirtling’s professional profile is inseparably linked to the Sándor Márai performance series, edited by Tibor Mészáros, which has been presented since 10 April 2014 and has by now reached well over one hundred performances across Hungary and abroad. The thematic compilations prepared by the literary historian who researches Márai’s oeuvre and curates his literary estate are rendered vivid and engaging for audiences through Hirtling’s readings. Yet the actor’s interpretation goes far beyond the mere quotation or illustration of literary passages. Owing to his family background, upbringing, value system, and philosophy of life, Hirtling approaches Márai’s writings with particular sensitivity, seeking moral points of orientation. He is able to bring closer to twenty-first-century audiences works that, although originally addressed to the Hungarian citizenry between the two world wars and banned for decades – even discussion of them being prohibited in Hungary – can, in the artist’s view, after the years following 1989, finally and justly be regarded as part of the canon of Hungarian literature, as the legacy of a twentieth-century humanist.
[2024]