Exceptional atmosphere-building, perfectionism, richness of detail, conceptual rigour, and philosophical depth – these are the qualities that have characterised the work of stage designer Balázs Horesnyi from the very beginning of his career. Over the past decades, he has worked in a wide range of styles and methods, yet the thoroughness with which he conceives each stage image is almost palpable.
Beginnings and Motivation
Balázs Horesnyi was born in Budapest in 1967. Between 1985 and 1990, he pursued his studies in stage and costume design at the Budapesti Képzőművészeti Főiskola (Hungarian College of Fine Arts) [now: Hungarian University of Fine Arts], where his teachers were Péter Makai and Gábor Szinte. Even before completing his studies, he signed a contract with the Madách Színház (Madách Theatre), of which he was a member until 2004; since then, he has worked as a freelance designer. Approximately 350 productions are associated with his name as a stage designer.
The fact that, as a stage designer, Balázs Horesnyi has reached a point at which he is able to grasp the process of theatrical creation in its full complexity is clearly the result of multiple factors. The foundations undoubtedly stem from his family background: his father was an actor (László Horesnyi), and his mother a graphic artist (Gabriella Molnár). One might even say that he symbolically mixed his parents’ professions, which led him to become a stage designer. Of course, it is not quite so simple, although the idea is an obvious one. Nevertheless, his family background unquestionably shaped his way of seeing – his profound familiarity with the world of theatre and his graphic artist’s meticulousness as a designer. Naturally, a certain psychological disposition is also required, one that is fundamentally oriented towards depth and contemplation. He has noted in several interviews that as a child he tended to be more introverted, primarily occupied with drawing in silence, which may well have oriented him towards this profession. From the moment he graduated from the College of Fine Arts, there was hardly any pause – fertile decades followed, with five to seven, or even more, premieres each year. His work encompassed a wide range of productions: spoken drama, opera, operetta, musical theatre, ballet, ‘experimental’ studio performances, as well as spectacular open-air musical productions, for both classical and contemporary authors alike. One genre, however, is missing from this otherwise rich career: puppet theatre. He never designed a puppet production, which he himself regrets to some extent – and one might argue that audiences have lost out as well. This is also connected to the fact that for a long time the Hungarian puppet theatre sphere was treated as a poor relation within the domestic theatre profession and – especially in the 1970s and 1980s – was regarded ‘merely’ as a children’s genre. This form of categorisation also meant that young creators at the time perceived limited possibilities for artistic fulfilment within the genre. as Balázs Horesnyi has noted, it would ultimately have required a choice: pursuing puppet design would in practice have entailed abandoning a theatrical career.
In relation to this issue, the artist recounts a special experience he had while visiting Sicily, where he encountered the power of the genre in a different cultural environment: “When I was in Palermo for the first time – it was not even late autumn, perhaps November – I began exploring the city, and it was already evening when, at the end of a narrow alley, I noticed some unusual lights made of small bulbs, and there I found a puppet theatre that was open at nine in the evening. That is to say, the performance was already underway, and we stumbled right into the middle of it. I can say that no performance had ever affected me like that before. It wasn’t children sitting inside, but adult Sicilian men, watching a story they had probably seen for the hundred-and-fifty-fourth time in their lives, and bursts of loud, hoarse laughter. Everyone loved it immensely – so did I – the whole atmosphere stuck with me. At first, I didn’t even fully understand what it was about: this Sicilian puppet theatre, the Orlando story, the mad Roland, Orlando Furioso going up to the Moon to retrieve his lost sanity, and things like that. Fantastic. To the sound of a player piano, the painted sets were constantly being changed, the clattering of armoured knights could be heard. Afterwards I stayed on; they even let me into the workshop, and the owner proudly showed me everything. It was special – utterly special. That was where one should have switched paths, but of course this is a world characteristic only of Sicily, or at most Naples, but above all Sicily – it had a powerful effect there, and nowhere else. Yet even the most beautiful opera performances never had such an impact on me as that November evening that came out of nowhere, when I suddenly found myself in a completely different world, like in a dream. I will never forget that feeling,”
the stage designer recalled.
Career Path – through collaborations with directors
Even during his years at the Madách Theatre (between 1989 and 2004), Balázs Horesnyi worked at other theatres as well, and as a freelancer he collaborated with numerous venues. He often worked repeatedly with the same directors – not by chance, as he maintains that it is beneficial for a designer to be surrounded by familiar creative partners and production workshops. One such recurring collaborator was Tamás Balikó, thanks to whom Horesnyi made his debut with his first independent stage design in Teljes napfogyatkozás (lit. Total Eclipse), which premiered in 1989 at the Ódry Színpad (Ódry Stage) with Géza Balkay and the then still student Gergő Kaszás in the leading roles. From that point on, he worked with Balikó on numerous productions, particularly during the period when the director was the head of the theatre in Pécs. Through this collaboration, he later encountered Puccini as well: the staging of Tosca at the Pécsi Nemzeti Színház (National Theatre of Pécs) proved to be a defining work for the designer. In connection with this production, he immersed himself deeply in Baroque motifs, which have continued to preoccupy him ever since: “The Baroque – the way we began delving into it when we were young – was extremely attractive to me. I stayed with it for a long time, or rather, to be precise, I constantly return to it even today, as a tool, as the deepest layer of the matter. Contemporary directors, younger directors, do not know the word ‘Baroque’; middle-aged directors, unfortunately, are starting to use it as a kind of swear word, which is extraordinarily strange and suggests a great, muddled ignorance. There is a sense of elevation in it, but at the same time a closeness to death. One must think through what French Baroque is, what Roman Baroque is, what Mexican Baroque is. There are so many questions to be deciphered here, and it is so relevant even now, to our present way of thinking, that one must carefully extract its core, its essence. From this, one can set out in relation to a Tosca, for instance, but I could name countless plays where this works clearly and beautifully,” the designer explains. Another defining figure at the start of his career was Imre Kerényi, who, together with others, engaged him at a young age at the Madách Theatre and entrusted him with significant tasks. Here, he was able to test his imagination on a large main-stage scale, designing sets for productions such as Amadeus and Stuart Mária (lit. Mary Stuart). Among directors, his working relationship with Tamás Jordán also proved decisive; they collaborated, among other things, on plays by Caragiale, while János Szikora frequently directed his productions as well. In more recent years, several of his works have been associated with productions by Attila Béres and József Kiss. After leaving the Madách Theatre (where he remained until 2004), he worked as a freelancer across almost the entire theatrical landscape of Hungary, from Nyíregyháza to Zalaegerszeg, and on several occasions ventured beyond the borders as well, working in Oradea, Cluj-Napoca, and Zagreb – for example on Botho Strauss’s A park (The Park) at the Zágrábi Nemzeti Színház (National Theatre in Zagreb), directed by János Szikora.
Storytelling through drawing
There are several fundamental pillars to Balázs Horesnyi’s working method. He always begins stage design from drawing; his ars poetica holds that drawing cannot be bypassed. This is hardly accidental: on his mother’s side, everyone was involved in the visual arts, so he naturally grew up in this environment. His childhood surroundings included the works of great visual storytellers such as Líviusz Gyulai; both his grandparents graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, and his mother was a graphic artist. “They narrated their entire lives through figurative, beautiful storytelling,” he says – and it is on this legacy that he builds his own work. “The fundamental stance with which one approaches a blank sheet of paper – I do the same with stage sets and spaces as they did. The ‘drawn’ nature of thought, the methods, the workflows, the detailing, the introduction of details that at first seem superfluous. All of this is part of storytelling. I cannot give this up, nor do I want to,” he states, while also treating 3D technology with a certain scepticism when its role becomes disproportionate. In his view, drawing must always remain the foundation, and he finds it regrettable that today drawing skills are no longer assessed at the University of Fine Arts as they once were. It is like handwriting, which is also disappearing from today’s world – he says – yet its absence irreversibly changes something in the human brain. If the fine movement of the hand is missing, it cannot be replaced by anything else, the designer believes. Those who never learn to draw also perceive stage design differently. This ‘old school’ approach, in the best sense of the term, could well serve as a model for younger generations of designers. Another defining pillar of his work is the essentially friendly nature of his relationships with collaborators. In his view, directors can only create something truly significant if the shared process of ideation functions well, and this must be underpinned by a basis of mutual goodwill. If someone merely ‘uses’ the stage designer as a tool to impose their own will or ideas, it simply does not work. Nor does it work to force a concept designed earlier for a different space onto another venue. One must always start from the given space – this, too, cannot be bypassed. He seeks to collaborate with directors who function as creative partners, which may also explain why he recalls very few negative working processes in his career: “Every memory was a good one. There is no bad memory. And I really mean that. I’m not saying this out of politeness, to avoid offending anyone. One could not give anything up. It was never the case that we started out enthusiastically and then realised it wouldn’t work and dropped the project. We never abandon our own work. That’s why I have no such memories – even if one works with the most unhinged, worst director imaginable, one somehow cannot set aside the attraction to the work itself, the anticipation of sitting down at the desk in the morning, or going to install the set on stage for the first time. Its pull is so strong that nothing becomes a bad memory. Even the worst productions, with the biggest conflicts, ultimately lead to the conclusion that the work itself was good,” the designer reflects.
The philosophy of space
In his inaugural academic lecture, Balázs Horesnyi devoted a separate chapter to the question of how a stage designer should think about theatrical space, using Cseresznyéskert (The Cherry Orchard) as an example. In his view, The Cherry Orchard presents one of the most essential and challenging problems of stage space to be solved. He himself encountered the play on two occasions: in Miklós Szinetár’s production (2014 – Szolnok) and in Balázs Czukor’s adaptation (2021 – Nyíregyháza). “These were two completely different productions, both in time and in space. One was a main-stage production, the other a studio performance, made with entirely different means, separated by six or seven years – it doesn’t matter. They had nothing to do with each other. The actors were different, the directors were different. But with Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, the philosophical problem to be solved is that we do not see the orchard. I cannot imagine a Cherry Orchard production where we actually see the orchard – the blossoming trees, the autumn landscape, and so on. I simply cannot imagine it. I think it is inconceivable, just as God could not be depicted for a very long time – the God of the Old Testament is not depicted. I think of this orchard as something we do not see, yet it is there; it must be constantly present, since we look out onto it. Lyubov Andreyevna looks out at the orchard and sees her mother, who has long been dead. It is unavoidable, inescapable. But how does one design the absence of the orchard? Its glory, without seeing it? How does one design it so that it is not reduced to merely a window and a light source, but is instead framed by symbols behind which it nonetheless remains present – known to all and desired by everyone? The Cherry Orchard is an enormous task, I believe, and I have not yet managed to solve it truly well. I wouldn’t even give this task to young stage designers. I believe that under the age of thirty it is pointless to deal with Chekhov, especially The Cherry Orchard, but really any of his plays. It is an extremely difficult question. I have not really seen a truly good solution. It is similar with Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which poses a comparably profound problem. Either I trust Shakespeare’s words blindly, or, if I want to add something, to interpret something from Prospero’s garden – that would be the key to the play. For me, all of stage design is somehow about this: searching for and creating a space on stage behind which the essence is always present. Everyone sees it – even a fool sees that it is about something else. This can be Tosca, which we mentioned earlier, or any other production. One must always find the essence behind it, behind the tangible space. Fellini said that as a child he was interested in what lay behind the doors in the theatre – there were doors that never opened, and what might be behind them. The essence is always there. One might further reflect on this matter, but I feel that for me this emerges most strongly with The Cherry Orchard, and it remains a question I have yet to solve.”
Spaces of dream and reality
Balázs Horesnyi is among a diminishing group of designers who still hold theatrical space in the highest regard, and in this sense, he belongs to the ‘chosen ones’. For him, theatrical space is not merely a task to be filled, nor is the stage image an alibi for the visible narrative to unfold; it is far more than that. It is a sacral space whose force lines point beyond themselves to an inner reality – one that resonates simultaneously with the unspoken and unspeakable content of the specific story being presented and with the eternal questions of the spectator, or indeed of any mortal human being. Secrets shimmer behind the lines of spatial articulation; mystical details give rise to unsettling or liberating thoughts, yet never in an intrusive manner – always in service of the given theatrical masterpiece and its creative concept. It is no coincidence that in his inaugural lecture he spoke of imaginary space, in which the theatrical moment becomes reality: “…I believe that every truly great and significant theatrical moment most closely resembles a dream image. Or not merely resembles it, but actually is one. It wanders on the boundary between reality and the imaginary world. Every scene, even the most seemingly realistic, is multi-layered. Every stage situation, every action, every single word on stage becomes imaginary. This imaginary becomes the truly real. Yes, this reality is essentially not something entirely different. It observes the same existence from the other side. It is the face and the spiritual gaze of things – the idea for our world. Stage images are thus images that separate the visible world from the invisible, and at the same time connect them.”
He cited several examples to illustrate this, primarily drawing on Calderón, yet the same idea appears in Shakespeare as well, when Puck says: “If we shadows have offended,/ Think but this, and all is mended,/ That you have but slumbered here/ While these visions did appear./ And this weak and idle theme,/ No more yielding but a dream,/ Gentles, do not reprehend;/ If you pardon, we will mend.” This idea – that space creates a new reality, calling forth a reality beyond tangible existence – can be discerned in all of his works, from the earliest to the most recent. At the same time, it revives the most archaic form and primal aspirations of theatre, for the purpose of ritual, of celebration, and of theatre rooted therein has always been to enable humanity to establish contact between worlds, to create a passage between tangible reality and the transcendent dimension. Those who possess this understanding are not only capable of creation but are also able to think essentially about creation itself, never falling into the traps of surface-level effects. Balázs Horesnyi is such a creator. When he states that without the magical there is no creation, only production, or when he says that true dream-thought, true creative imagination belongs to those who can truly see reality, he is speaking precisely of this. When he likens the stage image to an icon whose purpose is to elevate consciousness into the spiritual realm and reveal mysterious, supernatural visions, it becomes clear that the origin of his creative work lies in a shift of dimension. One might say that today only very few are capable of using this kind of ‘liberated’ consciousness in the service of creative work – all the more valuable in an age that seeks to rationalise everything. Shamans knew this; so did the followers of Dionysus. Of course, the relationship between reality and stage reality, or the questions of ‘knowledge’, ‘unconsciousness’ (often referred to as instinct), and ‘cognition’, would merit a separate study in theatre philosophy. For the present, it suffices to note that Balázs Horesnyi, as a creator, is capable of liberating those forces that employ the instinctive knowledge he calls ‘dream’ in the act of creation. He achieves this through stage solutions that remain firmly grounded in material reality, translating the transcendent dimension of each play into the language of stage imagery – a capacity possessed by very few within the contemporary Hungarian theatre scene. Furthermore, the very nature of his profession demands humility, as the designer’s role is to work in service of an established artistic vision of the director.
The perfectionism already mentioned, which characterises his work, has been present from the very beginning of Balázs Horesnyi’s career. In his academic laudatio, Péter Huszti spoke of the set he designed for Arthur Miller’s Édes fiaim (All My Sons), in which sterile garden furniture was replaced with rusted iron better suited to the atmosphere. One might also recall the labyrinthine, distinctive space of Lili Hofberg, premiered at the Madách Theatre in 1990, or the ‘matryoshka’ set design for Szöktetés a szerájból (The Abduction from the Seraglio) in Pécs in the early 2000s, where theatrical space and harpsichord multiply in varying scales. Among more recent works, one could mention the József Attila Színház (József Attila Theatre) production of Szibériai csárdás (Siberian Csárdás, 2021) [‘csárdás’ is a Hungarian folk dance], in which a battered backdrop hinting at better times serves as an essential embodiment of the transience of history. Regardless of context, the working method remains the same, rooted in an ability to perceive essence that is practically inimitable – yet certainly worthy of study for young designers in training. The spaces of Balázs Horesnyi are conceived in dreams, but through the magic of theatre they become a new reality on stage.
[2024]