“Hello there, Little Pals!” – for eighty-one years, this indispensable greeting was the very first chord of every puppet show in Henrik Kemény’s theatre. Even at the age of eighty-seven, until his death in 2011, he welcomed his esteemed audience in this way in the persona of Vitéz László.
Puppet actor, showman, puppet technician and maker, fairground puppeteer – all these titles rightly describe Henrik Kemény, one of the most brilliant artists in Hungarian theatre. His entire life and work were marked not only by numerous hardships but also by remarkable originality, perseverance, and a consciously cultivated noble simplicity, so that it is no exaggeration to regard him as the Hungarian phenomenon of twentieth-century international fairground puppetry. His devotion to this tradition – a family heritage that he carried to the highest standard – made him the last true fairground showman, the final performer of Vitéz László in the original lineage, and an internationally recognised Grand Master of the genre.
He performed with puppets for eighty-one years, beginning in 1931 at the age of six. On countless weekdays and every holiday, he stepped onto the stage carrying and sustaining the joy of play. With his sleeves rolled up, he offered his audience everything he had: the enthusiastic, boundless joy of performing that radiated from him, his ability to energise and inspire others, his magnetic presence, and his love of life that sparked laughter. He was both a realist and an idealist – an artist of clear spirit and natural simplicity, who preserved a childlike sense of wonder, lived a deliberately modest life, and held family traditions above all else.
The Korngut–Kemény family panorama and the fairground puppet tradition
The theatre-making activities of this three-generation family began on 26 January 1897, when Salamon Korngut (1857–1931) received his first licence from the Ministry of Interior to work as a circus showman. That was the moment the idea of puppetry and the creation of a puppet theatre was born. From then on, Korngut and the younger of his two sons, Henrik strove to make a living from family puppetry. The 120 years that followed – until 3 October 2011, when the Kemény Puppet Theatre was destroyed by fire – represent the refinement and preservation of Hungary’s fairground puppet tradition and its introduction to the international theatre world.
Henrik Korngut was born in 1888 in Várpalota and died on 27 December 1944 in the prisoner-of-war camp at Nagycenk. His grave is unknown. He had three children: Henrik (1925–2011), Mátyás (1926–2001) and Katalin (1936–1985). Recognising early the threats represented by his Jewish origins, he changed his name to Kemény in 1912. The children’s mother, Mária Kriflik (1898–1984), likewise adopted the name Keményi in 1941.
As the last puppeteer in the Korngut–Kemény line, Henrik Kemény became the guardian of the family legacy. Through him, all achievements and intentions inherited from his predecessors were preserved, expanded, and deliberately carried forward. He saw it as his duty to safeguard the objects, documents, photographs and audio recordings of the Kemény Puppet Theatre: to protect them during the war, to keep them safe under the Rákosi regime, to shield them from nationalisation, and – with unyielding determination – to hold on to them through the years of dictatorship. From the 1990s onward, he guarded them and retreated into quiet solitude, carefully storing everything in boxes. And while he stood guard, he never stopped performing. This was the other legacy – the one that completed his heritage.
The Korngut–Kemény family ran their puppet theatre in Népliget (“People's Park”, the biggest public park in Budapest). Their most prominent productions were the glove-puppet performances of Vitéz László, yet their repertoire also included circus-themed acts presented with oversized marionettes (68–75 cm tall). These shows featured transforming and collapsing figures – mostly clowns – that fell apart into pieces and then magically reassembled themselves. Clowns, Chinese dancers, jugglers, strongmen, the Crumbling Death, Bunkó Bandi (“lutish” Bandi) and his car, and the Ball-Dancer Lady all carried 19th-century puppet-show traditions into the 20th century through carefully choreographed solo-marionette etudes.
During their travels and countryside shows the Kemény family performed with smaller puppet sets, while their permanent puppet theatre in the Népliget was designed to host both marionette and glove-puppet productions. After the marionette acts, the stage floor could be raised, creating an ideal space for glove puppetry. It was here that the twenty or so stories of Vitéz László – hero of Hungarian fairground puppet theatre – came to life. His lineage can be traced back to the birth of the Italian commedia dell’arte in the 16th century. Though he often appears as a country bumpkin carrying his wits in his pancake pan, Vitéz László and his many “brothers” invariably survive the havoc they unleash, triumph over evil and even over Death itself. For all his comic foolery, he is one of theatre’s boldest and most extreme characters.
Henrik Kemény’s artistry and his commitment to tradition
Henrik Kemény shaped his identity and sustained his creativity through his engagement with the past. It was his point of reference in his work, in his decisions, and even in his self-reflection. He cultivated within himself a striking, often contradictory dual capacity: the ability to remember worthily and to forget deliberately. He identified deeply with the memories of his family, his community, and the history he personally lived through, while resisting the “official” version of history – war, poverty, dispossession, antisemitic laws, evictions, nationalization, state socialism, demotions, bargaining, and the endless struggle to preserve tradition. His artistic path was defined by a conscious, unwavering commitment: devotion to the fairground puppet tradition and a lifelong mastery of glove-puppet virtuosity.
Henrik Kemény knew that in fairground puppetry one or two puppeteers convey all characters, emotions, and actions. The words spoken during the play mean exactly what they say and are complemented instantly by the visual image. Everything unfolds in a dense, highly contextual space – where the events of the puppet world, the puppeteer’s interplay with the audience, and the puppets’ own reflections on their characters and tasks all happen simultaneously. A defining feature of the fairground genre is its rootedness in tradition – a heritage preserved as a distinctive artistic value.
In the world of tradition, it is essential that puppet and puppeteer appear as equal partners – authentic and inseparable – in the artistic identity of Henrik Kemény and in the character of Vitéz László. In his performances, subject and object create a shared system of signs, forming a unique symbiosis in which the puppeteer identifies with the protagonist. This dual, yet unified presence becomes the very foundation of their art: the mover and the puppet exist as one. In the relationship between Henrik Kemény and Vitéz László, the puppet does not mirror a human turned into a puppet, nor does it evoke a puppet-like existence. Rather, the puppet’s most ancient function comes to the fore: the puppet as a model that stands in for the human being, bringing the person fully into presence through its own form. Henrik Kemény quite literally held himself in his hands – giving shape to his worldview, his convictions, and his declared positions on stage. Across eight decades of performances, he shifted the focus away from imitation or resemblance, away from the dichotomy of the living and the lifeless. Instead, the human being identifies with the puppet: the figure becomes the representative of the puppeteer. Vitéz László is not the opposite of Henrik Kemény, but his spokesperson – an iconic sign of the puppeteer’s will, desires, and sometimes unfulfillable imaginings. Their connection embodies coexistence and unconditional symbiosis.
Within the Korngut–Kemény family’s philosophy of life, the interpretation of tradition and the methods of passing it on hold central importance. By examining how the family created and preserved tradition, the identity of this puppet-theatre dynasty – and every traditional element of their art – becomes clear.
Henrik Kemény performed in every possible setting: in public squares, bustling marketplaces, and busy fairs, as well as in enormous theatres and sports halls. He was ready to install his little stage practically anywhere; under any circumstances he could bring to life the mystery of the performance – the art of crossing over and of passing away. This required practical life skills and a deep understanding of people, and he possessed such abilities as powers of connection and organisation, problem-solving and empathy, conflict management and adaptability, as well as capacities for independent learning and improvisation, so that he was able to raise his art to the highest standard. He understood group dynamics, handled different age groups with ease, and possessed highly developed communicative skills. Though the trees of the Népliget defined the physical and metaphorical boundaries of his world, the family’s traditional way of life shaped his approach to learning and experience. Tradition, at its core, exists to preserve continuity – and it is through conscious remembrance that it remains alive. In the Kemény family, it was the oral transmission that held particular importance, both directly and indirectly. Learning the features of the genre, passing on styles of performance, preserving spoken texts, and carrying forward practiced techniques were all based on orality and imitation. Oral tradition recorded clearly and faithfully the family’s and the Népliget fairground community’s views on life-changing events, on the people who shaped them, and on the depth of human relationships.
The Kemény Puppet Theatre
The idea of establishing a puppet theatre at Népliget, on the plot registered as No. 29, originated with the grandfather, Salamon Korngut, in the early 1900s. He wished to reduce the constant travelling from fair to fair by creating a permanent performance space. Together with his middle son, Korngut–Kemény Henrik, he spent nearly a decade imagining the theatre’s structure, sketching architectural plans, and looking for a site that could also support a new way of life. As early as 1904, Salamon Korngut applied to the Municipal Council of Budapest for permission to lease a plot in Népliget for fairground shows and the establishment of a circus.
The Kemény Puppet Theatre stood in Népliget from 1927 until 2011, marking – among the trees of the park – the symbolic “navel” of the family’s puppeteering identity. The first phase, from idea to planning (1911–1926), was the achievement of Salamon Korngut and his son Korngut–Kemény Henrik. The opening in 1927 marked the second stage. The third, and most flourishing period – when the family’s artistic world took full shape – were the years when Korngut–Kemény Henrik directed the theatre (1927–1944), during which the Kemény children were born. The fourth phase was the post-war recovery (1944–1953), when the theatre was rebuilt, relaunched, and revitalised under Henrik and Mátyás Kemény. Henrik served as the coordinator and, above all, as the principal performer. The tragic “endgame” began with the nationalisation of 1953, which defines the fifth period. The sixth reflects Henrik Kemény’s heroic struggle that leads to the renewal of the Bódé (“kiosk”): despite prohibitions, he continued to visit the building, worked in the puppet workshop, and expanded its equipment with new machines. During these years the puppets were hidden in painter Endre Bálint’s apartment on Rottenbiller Street until, in 1988, Kemény finally received permission to renovate the theatre. It reopened on 20 August 1989, beginning the seventh period of renewed hope (1989–2011), but poor public safety made it impossible to protect the treasures accumulated there. The final, eighth phase came with the devastating event of 3 October 2011, when a fire broke out in the night. By morning, nothing remained of the Kemény Puppet Theatre.
Népliget was the spiritual space in which the family’s art unfolded – where they found friends, professional contacts, and a community of reference. The life of the park, together with the family, local community and artistic experiences lived there profoundly shaped Henrik Kemény’s path. It became the central measure of his worldview, his artistic philosophy, and his life as a whole: a space that formed the essential core of his existence. Between Népliget and Városliget, Henrik Kemény consistently highlighted a cultural polarity: he embraced opposing viewpoints and formulations charged with tension whenever he spoke about the functions of these spaces, the number of their visitors, and their social stratification. He spoke of them as environments and models of “being looked down upon” (Népliget) and of “elitism” (Városliget). A web of mutual sympathies and antipathies ran through this division, through the paired notions of “Városliget” and “Népliget”. Over decades of experience, Henrik Kemény gathered a multitude of prejudices concerning the functioning and artistic life of these parks. The strangeness of “the other side” made him sensitive – and at times resentful.
The emergence of these differences is sharply outlined in the family’s biography: in 1927 they moved out of their inherited apartment on Rottenbiller Street and into the Kemény Puppet Theatre, the Bódé. The bourgeois milieu was replaced by the provincialism of the Népliget showmen’s lifestyle – a way of life that did not immediately become liveable for them but gradually turned familiar through long experience and hardships. The initially unstructured space of the Népliget slowly filled with residents. Poverty became more bearable only little by little. With persistence, the showman’s way of life and its natural acceptance took shape. As late as 2011, the Bódé still had no running water, and from the beginning it was heated with wood. To this were added the differences that appeared in lifestyle, values, behaviour, and artistic–aesthetic judgement when the two parks were compared. Aspects full of contrasts: urbanized vs. rustic, wealthier vs. poorer social strata, artist vs. showman/comedian, elite vs. marginalised, educated vs. uneducated, snobs vs. social climbers.
One of the motivational foundations of Henrik Kemény’s drive to prove himself was this: originality, excellence, innovation, and recognition are not the exclusive privilege of the elite. Indeed, over his eight decades of artistic work, this was also the key to his striving for independence: the freedom he could experience in the park. He shaped his own nonconformist, sovereign life model to fit himself alone. In his ambitions he longed for clarity and intelligibility. He would not tolerate being defined or confined – perhaps another trait rooted in the Népliget context, in the ongoing inner struggle between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and in the ambivalences produced by shifting circumstances of education, occupation, place of residence, religious tradition, value systems, and historical conditions. His reflections on life, art, culture, and behaviour could therefore always be distinctive, sharp, concrete, and true to lived reality – quite literally, down-to-earth.
The components of the puppeteer’s legacy
From the puppets and puppetry relics left to us by Korngut–Kemény Henrik (“Papa”) radiate identification with society and with the local culture of the Népliget community, reflection on the pressing problems of their lives, and the desire to rise above the hardships they endured in everyday life. This need, unfolding from the „here and now” of the 1920s until his death in 1944, brought him creative fruition. The period of intense productivity is also evident from the fact that of the preserved puppets (137 in total), roughly two-thirds were made by his hands during those two decades. Papa was strict and consistent: he exposed his children to the stage at a relatively early age, and placed them as apprentices with numerous master craftsmen. His son was already playing the leading role at the age of nine in the glove-puppet play A koldusfiú álma (The Beggar Boy’s Dream).
The family’s traditions, as revealed through their narratives and the preserved material attributes, sketch out a value system of their own making. One of its key components is the creatively cultivated mastery of survival techniques and the bold, spontaneous combinations through which these techniques were applied. Personal responsibility, the nurturing of the family’s cohesive and protective framework, and the preservation of the strength of unity all form integral segments of the Kemény family’s heritage. Their local culture is built upon the spiritual and emotional life of the Mutatványos Square community and the life philosophy of the showmen’s social stratum. Henrik Kemény learned and perfected the familial nature of transmitting their art, ensuring that innovations arising within traditional (familial) structures would never transgress the boundaries of the genre. This became one of the pillars of their identity and artistic philosophy.
Social changes and the complexities of personal mental states fractured the art of the two generations into widely branching layers. Regarding the performing culture of the era led by Papa, it can be said that at one level of the repertoire their productions rejected referentiality: these were the wordless marionette circus scenes, the études of puppets dancing to light music, the farces, and the humorous, entertaining pieces performed by puppets whose gestures were sometimes grotesque or exaggerated. Another layer of the repertoire consisted of puppet-theatre utterances that reflected on the present moment with storm-like energy, momentum, and sparkling wit. One component of this was the cabaret couplets performed with marionettes – of which only fragments survive – while the other, and far more prominent, was the glove-puppet fairground play. Its central figure, Vitéz László, continually drives the action forward, holding his companions and adversaries within the sphere of his character’s territory. Life unfolds and swirls around him. On stage, the successive interplay of social reflections and light-hearted couplets suggests ambivalence, yet it is precisely this interplay that creates balance within their artistic creed. Through laughter, grounded in a sense of collective release, they sought both to distance themselves and to help the audience distance themselves from the burdens of everyday life; through laughter, they offered relaxation and a felt experience of the community’s sustaining power, while simultaneously revealing the artistic ambition to preserve individual and family life in the face of the mass destructive forces they had witnessed.
The Puppet Booths, Attachments, and Props
A close study of the puppetry legacy – particularly its visual dimension – offers a wide perspective on these ideas. An essential requirement of equipment used in fairground performances is that the structures must be lightweight, modest in size, quick to assemble, and manageable by one or two people. The pieces created by Korngut–Kemény Henrik meet these criteria with remarkable consistency. His booths, attachable set elements, and props embody a kind of practicality that includes everything necessary for performance. Designed to adapt naturally to diverse venues – market squares, community spaces, schoolrooms – Papa’s constructions are characterized by mobility, flexibility, and ease of transport. Each element bears clear visual markers, numbers, or inscriptions (for example, he painted the serial numbers of the booth components directly onto the wood). These structures reflect a high level of creative craftsmanship: every detail was meticulously considered by their designer and maker, each surface granted a thoughtful role within the whole. Their practicality clearly reveals their creator’s artistic philosophy: to assess the available space with an eye tuned to possibility, to assemble the most optimal playing area in the shortest time, and then devote full attention to captivating the audience with the tools designed for that purpose – puppets, music, gramophone melodies, or the percussion of the “Black cymbal players”.
Their glove-puppet and marionette stages were shaped according to a distinctly artistic visual sensibility. The fabric-covered booths created a defined “world-centre”, yet one that did not feel enclosed or restrictive. Each structural surface was hidden behind its own curtain. The lightweight draperies, made of smooth, natural materials and secured at several points with ties, travelled easily and served as a visual counterpoint to the richly textured, meaning-laden puppet costumes. With their soft touch, muted tones, and subdued sheen, they drew the viewer’s attention toward the action of the puppets themselves. Within this theatrical context, the presence and expressiveness of the puppet bodies were paramount. At the heart of the Kemény Puppet Theatre stood the clearly articulated puppet play – even in a stripped-down stage space free of decorative elements.
The Two Main Groups of Puppets: Glove Puppets and Marionettes
1) The glove-puppet figures appear as characters in several stories. The members of the first and most wide-ranging puppet family belong to the Vitéz László plays. Together they represent and encompass the layers and characters of the social hierarchy – from Death and the Devil, through representatives of law enforcement and various craftsmen, to certain helper figures and even angels. In all the stories they animate, the central figure is invariably Vitéz László. The story of Hansel and Gretel, performed with three puppets, was not an independent production; it, too, unfolded as an organic part of the Vitéz László plays. A hallmark of the Kemény Puppet Theatre was the incorporation of individual puppets and characters into multiple productions. The witch from Hansel and Gretel, for example, reappears as the old woman in Síró baba (The Crying Doll). Gretel appears as a young girl in the glove-puppet play Vizes kislány (The Wet Little Girl). The barber in Borbélyinas (The Barber’s Apprentice) takes on the role of a butcher in another show. Vencel becomes an outlaw in one performance simply by switching to a black felt hat, while in another – wearing a straw hat – he is the visitor to the barbershop whom Vitéz László shaves. The glove-puppet characters of the Vitéz László plays function like “actors” who are continually assigned new roles, depending on the task at hand and the character they must embody.
The other major group of glove puppets consists of the figures from the play The Beggar Boy’s Dream. Their visual design, costume characteristics, and construction differ from those of the Vitéz László puppets. While the puppets of the Vitéz László repertoire possess unrestricted individuality – as widely recognizable characters encoded with simple visual signs, whose identities the audience can decode from their facial features and expressive cues alone – the puppets of The Beggar Boy’s Dream have more schematic facial designs, and without their costumes it would be difficult to identify the characters they represent.
2) The group of marionette puppets can likewise be classified according to the various productions in which they appeared. Most of them are characters from circus acts, études, and couplets: clowns, aerialists, jugglers, masters of ceremonies, strongmen, dancers. These puppets – who dance to music, perform short études, execute astonishing tricks, and at times are capable of transformation – are boldly eclectic, representing a wide variety of styles.
Both realistic representation and the stylized, schematic density of abstraction characterize certain thematically connected puppet groups. Some puppets bear the imprint of their maker’s impressions, visible in the coloration and surface treatment of the characters. Between 1920 and 1944, Korngut–Kemény Henrik created most of the marionettes, favouring freely flowing forms in the plastic shaping of the puppet bodies. Their structures allow for unrestricted movement, and small mechanical solutions ensure the subtlety of their gestures. Each technically conceived object is a construction ‘tailored’ to the individual puppet. What gives each puppet its distinctive uniqueness is that its limbs and joints are adapted precisely to the sequence of actions the role requires. The roughly 110 puppets designed and executed by him (together with the glove puppets) were all created with pronounced character, brilliant, individualized technique, and carefully crafted mechanics. Creativity, the striving for artistic refinement, an exploratory, searching, analytical artistic disposition – all of these were paired in his work with a high level of craftsmanship, material knowledge, and sensitive aesthetic articulation. His son inherited this aptitude as part of his legacy and cultivated it further. Through their entire way of life, they conveyed that their puppet theatre was grounded in the joy of artisanal work which allows the full expression of individuality, and that the fulfilment gained through creative work can remedy many of the troubles lying beyond the walls of the puppet theatre.
Papa felt and knew that the personalities of the puppets were the echo of his own art: that the mobility of the puppet object gives birth to the existence of the body, and that the method of unfolding characters from wood and textile generates the psychological dimension of the figure. Every circus marionette is a topos figure, modeled on the ancient members of the circus world, representing their entity through the triad of concept, symbolism, and individuality. They are marked by strong emotional expressiveness and decorative intensity.
In addition to the circus figures, the collection distinguishes three further major groups. The four puppets portraying János Arany’s narrative poem A fülemüle (The Nightingale) bear the marks of folk romanticism, with costumes striving for lifelike accuracy down to the smallest detail. The most striking and technically complex group consists of the transforming puppets. Among these are two fully plastic and two flat transforming figures. These puppets carry a mystical significance, for they enact metamorphosis concretely and materially before the viewer’s eyes. Here and now, in tangible reality, the miracle of the puppet occurs – the process of transformation and becoming something else (for example: Craftsman–Chimney Sweep, “Ruler”–Soldier, Young Girl–Old Woman, Young Girl–Airship). Each possesses some trick that points to the very nature of puppetry: the capacity of the object to transform, the process by which a visible entity becomes something entirely new through the movement of a single string. Similarly magical, trick-filled, and thus both mystical and humorous are many of the circus figures, such as the elongating-and-collapsing clowns, the Eunuch, the Disintegrating Death, Bunkó Bandi and his runaway car – all capable of provoking astonishment and wonder in the audience. Beyond being fully jointed structures, they delight the viewer by showing what cannot be seen in “human theatre”: the humorous, grotesque reality of disintegration and distortion, followed by the process of reassembly. Papa’s puppets embody his endlessly experimental spirit and reveal his belief in the enduring noble and beautiful art of puppetry, in the ultimate resonance of life’s permeability with death – a realm in which the puppet’s mediality is the source.
Most of the puppets preserved in the estate are of unknown age, but it is certain that from 1911 onward the family members regularly performed puppet shows at fairs. The opening of the Kemény Puppet Theatre in 1927 marked a turning point in the collection of objects, the repertoire, and in the overall quality of puppetry practiced by the family. According to Henrik Kemény’s own recollections, most of the puppets were made between 1926 and 1940, and the puppets created during this period all bear the hallmark of Korngut Kemény Henrik.
Beyond all this, Henrik Kemény’s international success must also be considered. Having outlived his family members, he travelled alone through countless cities, squares, markets, and theatres around the world, yet he always referred to himself as “family.” This spiritual and emotional symbiosis defined his entire life and art. He lived in such a way that no one in Hungary ever questioned his national identity or the national value of his artistic work. His foreign awards and recognitions, meanwhile, revealed the duality of provincialism and internationalism. His father’s theatre- and genre-creating genius, steadfast willpower, artistic qualities, and dedication to aesthetic excellence were distilled into a vital essence in him. With clarity of expression and virtuosic performance, he brought the figure of Vitéz László into the international, global theatrical scene. Through this, the line of national heroes became complete on the international stage.
The dedication, determination, perseverance, and courage that held together the spiritual, intellectual, and artistic edifice of this family puppet theatre are rooted in the relationship between the spirit of the age and the world of fairground puppetry. In the social and historical context of European states’ imperial expansions, repeated collapses of political systems, the history-shaping role of dangerous ideologies, catastrophes, economic crises, and mass impoverishment, the figure of Vitéz László gains powerful contours. It is in this context that the character emerges who can assume a metonymic role, embodying within himself the motifs of spatial and temporal relations, part and whole, cause and effect. He lives and drives the fable of the stage events with a three-fold attention, yet with complete self-consistency: his searching, interpreting, and acting self can reflect continuously on the audience, the stage action, and himself. With tireless vigour he represents the human being who, despite a life full of constant upheaval, does not carry a sense of groundlessness, gloom, or decadence, but rather the puritanical, humour-rich, mythic side of the art of survival that conquers all. The historical context, the spirit of the family legendarium, the family’s identity, and the individual characters of its members are inscribed upon one another. This provides the source and foundation of their heritage-forming model.
[2017]