Our actress Anna Ráckevei, who also has a characteristically beautiful voice and speech, has exotic features. Not by chance – as she says in a television interview – since her ancestry is of Serbo-Croatian, or perhaps even somewhat Turkish, origin. It was certainly due to her features that the role of Erzsébet, the Kun princess, accompanied and haunted her throughout her career. She successfully played the part three times between 1983 and 2007. But this was not only because of her external characteristics: her strong, characterful, extremely feminine presence somehow found a parallel in this character. In addition to the stage, she is also a good friend of poetry: she was a regular contributor to the Lyukasóra programme, and she has recited poems and read novels in numerous audio books and radio programmes. Her film career is also notable, having appeared in more than thirty films. As a voice actor, she has lent her voice to 90 films.
Even from a very young age, Anna Ráckevei had always wanted to be an actress, and she says she has never thought of doing anything else. As she was not immediately accepted to the Színház- és Filmművészeti Főiskola (College of Theatre and Film Arts), she studied acting at the Nemzeti Színház Stúdió (National Theatre Studio) from 1978-1981. She started studying at the College of Theatre and Film Arts in 1981 and graduated in 1985. She found his time at the National Studio very useful as it gave her the opportunity to learn acting in practice.
Even as a college student, she was already given major roles, and was quickly cast at Madách Theatre for the role of Erzsébet, Princess of Hungary from the drama Béla király (King Béla) by Magda Szabó. It was no small task for a trainee actor to hold her own in the monumental production directed by György Lengyel. She also had the chance to play the role of Abigail in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. It is not surprising, therefore, that after completing her studies, Anna Ráckevei signed her first contract with the Madách Theatre. It was here that she spent the first decisive period of her theatre career, between 1985 and 1989. It was also here that she played roles such as Suzy Henderson in Wait Until Dark, Anna Damby in Kean, and Sen Te in Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan. Her talent was recognised even at this early stage, especially her ability to show passion in her acting. Tamás Tarján, for example, writes of The Good Person of Szechwan: “The good soul of Szechuan needs, above all, a good soul: a good actress to play the title role. Anna Ráckevei can be believed that when she – as Sen Te, the streetwalker-turned-tobacconist – is in love, she buys water for a jobless pilot in the rain... The great merit of Anna Ráckevei’s performance is that she does not concentrate – certainly not without instructions – on Sen Te’s transformation from prostitute to capitalist Sui Ta, on the male-female, good-bad switch, on the appearance of a double figure... Anna Ráckevei is a great asset: is an eye-actress. A thousand other tools of her acting culture run together in her eyes, in her gaze. So it is not her eyes that play instead of her hands, her movements, her diction: it is simply her eyes that are the firing-light that ignites a character, a role.” (Tamás Tarján: Water in the rain. In: Theatre 89/5.)
Anna Ráckevei’s first film role also dates back to the 1980s: in the 1985 TV film Bevégezetlen ragozás (Unfinished Contraction). After her college years, she was employed in several major films, such as Elysium, Malom a pokolban (The Mill in Hell), Tüske a köröm alatt (A Thorn Spike under the Fingernail), and Anna filmje (Anna’s film). In the 80s and 90s, the young actress still had a relatively large number of film roles, but from the 2000s onwards, she seemed to be somewhat forgotten by film directors.
In 1989 she signed a contract with the National Theatre. Here she played Antigone, Miranda in The Tempest, Tünde in Csongor és Tünde (Csongor and Tünde), Solveig in Peer Gynt, and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Between 1991 and 1993 she worked as a freelance actor, appearing at the Arizona Theatre and the János Arany Theatre. Between 1993-1997 she performed at the Művész Színház (ARtist Theatre) and the Thália Theatre, where she also had the opportunity to play several important roles, Armanda in The Learned Women and Kató Reich in Rozsdatemető (Generation of Rust).
“Only Uncle Reich and his daughter have their own drama – or rather a poetic presence. Traditionally, they are the best episodists Rozsdatemető (Generation of Rust). The two roles are now entrusted to Emil Győry, who floats poetically and speaks his lines with a lyric that is a melting pot, and Anna Ráckevei, who smoulders with a sincere inner fire. The ‘swing scene’ in the square also proved that it is possible to create occasional drama out of what is not drama. It was not Jani’s stubborn, paradoxical opposition to love, nor the death of the Jewish Reich Kato (soon to be ‘a little forgetful’) that created the drama, but the decision – strained and softened by the actress’s movements – that resulted in her giving herself to her partner for the first and only time.” (Tamás Tarján on Rozsdatemető (Generation of Rust). In: Színház (Theatre), 1996/1.)
Anna Ráckevei’s career has not had any spectacular great turns, but she considers her time at the Művész Theatre as one of the highlights of her life. The roles she played during this period were all important to her for some reason. Most of all, it was significant for the company and for the encounter with fellow actors. Her meeting with János Taub, who directed Anna Ráckevei in Brawling in Chioggia, can also be considered a decisive one. In the 1990s, Taub was able to attract excellent actors to Artist Theatre, and many of them followed him to the New Theatre. Such was Anna Ráckevei, who took on one of her most important roles, Gorky’s Vasilisa Karpovna in The Lower Depths.
In 1997 she joined the Kelemen László Theatre Circle, and in 1998 she became a member of the New Theatre. During this period she had a wide variety of tasks, and in addition to the New Theatre she appeared in Győr (Zoltán Thury: Katonák (Soldiers)), Szeged (Sándor Bródy: A kiátkozott (The Exiled)), and Szolnok (Ostrovsky: Ártatlan bűnösök (The Innocent Sinners)). In the latter play, Anna Ráckevei, who played the role of Galchy, had the opportunity to work with one of the most influential figures in Russian theatre, Anatoly Vasiliev, alongside actors such as Mari Törőcsik, Károly Eperjes and Gergő Kaszás.
The theatrical restructuring of the 1990s did not always affect Anna Ráckevei in a positive way, as she said in an interview:
“It’s strange, because it was back in 1996 that a major figure in the industry came up to me at an event and said, ‘Anna, your career has now reached the point where you should be getting big, major female roles. You know, the problem is that you're on the wrong side.’ I looked at him and I really didn’t understand what he was talking about, where I was and where I should be. All I did was say yes to an invitation from Tibor Gyurkovics, a man who was dear to me and highly respected, and I attended an event where the alternative Kossuth Prize happened to be awarded. I soon understood what this comment meant in practice, when, for example, the theatre I was a member of was unable to give me a role for the whole season... Only no one said so, no one said it to my face, because... The situation is still the same in a sense, the profession is divided, split, which can be interesting because it encourages greater performance on both sides.”
In 2002, she returned to the National Theatre for a season, followed by another year of freelance work. During this period, she played such mature roles as the Arkadina in The Seagull (Jókai Theatre, Komárom), Capulet in Romeo and Juliet (Bárka Theatre), Adél in Az üvegcipő (The Glass Slipper) (Hevesi Sándor Theatre, Zalagerszeg) and Lady Milford in Intrigue and Love (Bartók School Theatre Company, Dunaújváros).
Anna Ráckevei reached perhaps the most important stage of her career when she signed a contract with the Csokonai Theatre in Debrecen in 2006, where she became one of the pillars of the newly formed company. She immediately joined Attila Vidnyánszky’s team of actors from various locations and was cast as Queen Elisabeth in Csaba Kiss’s László Kun. In it, she played a strong and impulsive dramatic role, giving perhaps her best performance of the production. “Anna Ráckevei presents Queen Elisabeth with superior skill as a sharp, determined, bloodthirsty woman. The actress’s knowledge is special in this case; it perhaps extends to the character herself, as this is the third stage work in her career in which she has played the mother of László Kun. In one of the beautifully incandescent scenes of the Debrecen premiere, which flared up in places, Ráckevei’s grandmother turns to her gods with a Kun prayer.” (Andrea Stuber, Három királyok (Three Kings))
The period under the direction of Attila Vidnyánszky can be seen as an important stage in Ráckevei’s acting career not only because of her important individual performances (besides Elisabeth, Anna Andreyevna in Gogol’s The Government Inspector, Mari Jászai in Szilárd Borbély’s Jászai), but also because of her marked participation in productions born out of the intense company workshop. Examples include her acting in Szilárd Borbély’s Halotti pompa (Deadly Splendour), Liszt’s Krisztus (Christ), and Zhukovskij’s, Miklós Szénási’s, and Lénard’s Mesés férfiak szárnyakkal (Fabulous Men with Wings). In 2009, the members of the Debrecen company conquered the audience in Paris in Valère Novarina’s Imaginary Operetta. Se recalls: “We should believe that we Hungarians are a talented people, that what we do is good. When, for example, the Csokonai Theatre was in Paris to perform Imaginary Operetta, the French audience cheered the company standing up and applauding, and the French actors queued up at the dressing room for autographs. There was a theatre expert in Paris who said that he really understood the play, which was written and directed by the French author Novarina, thanks to the performance of the Debrecen actors.”
It would be very difficult to talk about traditional performances, individual performances, in the case of Halotti pompa (Deadly Splendour). The value of the production was that it was the result of a well-established creative community in which the actors, including Ráckevei, were equal partners of the director. In this production, from the composer to all the participants, a constellation of creative forces has come together that is truly exceptional in the history of theatre. The same can be said of the production of Mesés férfiak szárnyakkal (Fabulous Men with Wings), in which the actress had moments of extraordinary intensity. For Anna Ráckevei, this kind of assignment must have meant a lot, because she considers Attila Vidnyánszky – along with János Taub – one of the most important directors in her life.
In 2010, as a “product” of a joint creative process, they created (directed by Attila Mispál) a performance of Erzsébet Tóth’s poems entitled Kőrózsa, betonszív (Stone Rose, Concrete Heart), in which they and two other actresses (Kinga Újhelyi and Zsuzsa Oláh) managed to explore every depth of femininity. And as director, she launched a series of poetry evenings at the Déri Museum, which have been an unbroken success at the museum ever since.
When Attila Vidnyánszky was about to move to the National Theatre, Anna Ráckevei thought it would be a bold move and applied for the post of director in Debrecen. At first she didn’t think of it, as they agreed to follow Attila Vidnyánszky to the National Theatre with Zsolt Trill and Nelli Szűcs. “But as time went by, the company became more and more uncertain, we were in a vacuum, so to speak, because we didn’t know who would apply. When we found out that our colleague, Péter Gemza, had decided not to go ahead with the competition, I thought, why not join forces?” said Anna Ráckevei.
On 28 March 2013, the General Assembly of the City of Debrecen elected her Director of the Csokonai National Theatre. Her work as theatre director has been successful, with a steadily growing audience and various award-winning productions since she took over as director two years ago. As director, she tries to be moderate when it comes to roles and only takes on what cannot be forced on others. To this end, she has invited Anna Kubik to Debrecen to play roles similar to hers in terms of age and character. Apart from that, she had some significant performances “in spite” of her directorship. Her performance is flawless in the sense that I did not discover even a single slightest mistake in her performance at the premiere, but more importantly, she portrays the complexity of the character excellently: a bloody, flirtatious woman, a devoted mother, a loving wife, a humorous, wise person, and from these mundane, everyday qualities she playfully and effortlessly assembles the ideal, abstract female essence, that certain principle, which is boundlessly radiant.” She last appeared as Mirigy in Csongor és Tünde (Csongor and Tünde) at the Csokonai National Theatre in November 2015.
As she says in her introduction to her application for the post of theatre director, theatre plays an important role in the spiritual and intellectual structuring of a person. Anna Ráckevei, as a person and as an artist, believes in the power of community, in turning to each other, in human-spiritual openness, in continuous redefinition. She also believes that in the special, church-like space of the theatre, it is not hopelessness but hope that reigns supreme, “the tiny flowers that emerge from under the rubbish heaps”.
As an actor, she prefers to bring the characters of today to life, because, as she says, today is the most exciting. Nevertheless, she also has a special flair for bringing classic characters to life – although, it is true that she can put them in a contemporary dimension.
Anna Ráckevei has received numerous awards, including the Jászai Mari Prize, the Hungarian Art Award and the Kazinczy Prize.She has been a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts since 2013.
[2016]