The forgotten Hungarian expertise, Mária Ronyecz, lived forty-five years and suffered for a minimum of 100 years

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Subjective preface

I already wrote earlier than that my life in Budapest started on the József Katona Theater, the place I labored as a cleaner. In each means, this setting was an incredible faculty for an eighteen-year-old woman from the countryside. I skilled to be an actor, and I could not say that I used to be happy with what I skilled behind the scenes in what was undeniably the very best theater within the nation on the time.

After all, I additionally noticed Mária Ronyecz many occasions, even up shut. Outdoors the stage, he consistently smoked, lit from one cigarette to a different, and continuously raised his glass. Possibly he was by no means drunk, however he was consistently “floating”.

She was an amazingly nice actress, a real tragedy, the type of which few are born. He was given solely forty-five years, however he skilled as a lot struggling throughout that point as he did in every other hundred years.

He grew up along with his grandparents

He was born in Kunágota on June 25, 1944, and went to elementary faculty there, whereas his dad and mom had been making an attempt to get by in Budapest within the Fifties. We do not know a lot about his childhood, however it’s fairly sure that the fixed absence of his dad and mom could have been a critical trauma for him in his early years.

It isn’t doable to clarify to a baby with logic why his dad and mom don’t stay with him, why he spends his on a regular basis life along with his grandparents within the southern tip of the nation. He was lastly in a position to go to secondary faculty in Budapest, graduating from Lajos Kossuth Industrial Technical School. It quickly grew to become clear how proficient he was, he recited many occasions at varied occasions. After commencement, he was admitted to the Theater and Movie Academy, however Zoltán Várkonyi didn’t belief him, so he labored as an English-speaking export-import invoicer at Transelektro Electrical energy Commerce Firm for nearly a 12 months, and within the meantime he was a member of the beginner theater firm of the FMH (Fővárosi Műlvödési Ház).

Supply: Fortepan / János Kende

Lastly, he joined Ottó Ádám’s class the next 12 months: László Dózsa, Zsuzsa Liska, Annamária Szilvássy, István Uri, András Márton, Tünde Szabó, László Vajda and László Joós had been his classmates, and he obtained his appearing diploma in 1967.

“I felt like a fly caught in a vinegar horseradish…”

He believed himself to be a “grey mouse” in faculty, and later mentioned: “I felt like a fly caught in a vinegar horseradish…”

He did not consider that he was fascinating sufficient, proficient sufficient, stunning sufficient, regardless that he was given alternatives, however he may by no means regain the self-confidence he had misplaced in childhood, it doesn’t matter what he performed and regardless of how a lot recognition he obtained. At the same time as a university pupil, he was inspired by Mária Sulyok, who was an actual previous girl within the theater world and really not often met her to encourage newbies. She felt the tragedy in him, as a result of he was too.

Ronyecz’s fights are additionally characterised by the equally legendary case when, as a freshman, he appeared in The Trojan Ladies on the Szeged Outside Video games. After one of many performances, he approached Zoltán Latinovits and requested him: “Zoli, will I change into an actor…?” And Latinovits replied: “It will not be… it already is…”

Throughout his appearing internship in Madách, as a consequence of his one-sentence function, he was in a position to tour the world performing the “Beggar’s Opera”, one thing that fairly just a few folks had the chance to do on the finish of the sixties.

The troupe traveled from Moscow to Turin, and he at all times mentioned solely this on stage: “However you are laughing unusually, Jenny…”

Destiny compensated him later, as a result of within the Nationwide, in 1981, he may already be the title character: Kocsma Jenny. It was performed in a special translation below the title Opera in three acts, however it was the identical play: sure, he laughed unusually and sang heartbreakingly, directed by Yuri Lyubimov in a cult efficiency.

After three years in Pécs, Budapest

After faculty, he bought a contract in Pécs and in addition plenty of alternatives. As an actor from Pécs, on the age of solely 24, he performed the function of Gertrudis within the tv adaptation of Bánk bán, directed by Miklós Szinetár. This isn’t an on a regular basis likelihood for a profession newbie taking part in within the countryside, since at the moment nearly the entire nation adopted the TV video games, so the face, identify and voice of Mária Ronyecz shortly grew to become identified.

Recording of the TV model of József Katona’s drama Bánk bán within the MTV studio. Zoltán Latinovits as Bánk and Mária Ronyecz as Gertrudis – Supply: Fortepan / Zoltán Szalay

(Theater-going members of my technology had been nonetheless conscious of precisely how nice an actress she was, however nobody at WMN, for instance, knew who she was at first once I indicated that I wish to write an article for the eightieth anniversary of her start.)

He was in a position to play about twenty roles on this brief time in Pécs, adopted by twelve years within the Nationwide, the place he additionally bought vital roles, regardless that it was throughout that interval that the previous director, Tamás Main, and his successor, Endre Marton, fought with one another. I wrote about this just a few years in the past.

Orphan Kata Bethlen

Within the mid-seventies, a number of monodramas gained the popularity of the viewers: Mari Szemes shone as Médea, and Éva Ruttkai shone as Lotte alone on stage. In 1975, Ronyecz additionally got here up with an unparalleled success monodrama: Kata Árva Bethlen, which he carried out within the Royal Cellar of the Buda Fortress.

Ronyecz, who not often speaks, talked at size about this function with Anna Földes, it’s price it to learn your mature ideashis accountable and acutely aware angle, his doubts and the slight pleasure that the unanimous skilled and public success gave him.

To place it mildly, it was not troublesome for him to determine with orphanhood.

By the way in which, he as soon as mentioned, when requested about his appearing goals, that he would not have one: “I even play the chair leg, that is why I grew to become an actor”.

Films in all portions

We noticed Mária Ronyecz in many alternative movies, she performed in Sevasz, Vera! within the well-known movie show and in addition in Füyok a téren. Love Emília Ódor! I additionally beloved her function as a nun within the Sándor Pál film. In Gothár–Bereményi’s movie Megáll az vítá, it was stunning how she introduced the ill-fated instructor “Pickleface” to life.

Within the film Bespectacled, he truly bought to put on his iconic glasses, one thing he not often bought to do on stage. In the long run, she even appeared within the tv collection Linda within the function of a detective who’s drawn to the humanities and isn’t appropriate for investigations, this was her final movie look.

Within the TV collection Linda – Supply: Hungarian Tv

Massive roles in Katona

Many individuals from the Nemzeti left with him (for instance Hilda Gobbi and Main Tamás) in 1982 from the previous chamber theater of the Nemzeti to the József Katona Theater, based by Gábor Székely and Gábor Zsámbéki.

This was his final firm the place he performed till his dying, and he was actually surrounded by an mental setting that he had at all times missed.

I’ve solely seen him stay right here, Schwajda (Saint household) and Spiro (Rooster head) he additionally excelled in his performs. I additionally watched Coriolanus many occasions. In her final function, she appeared as a dying spouse in Elias Canetti’s Marriage ceremony. The efficiency was eerie and harrowing as a result of whereas taking part in the dying spouse, she was actually dying and actually changing into a spouse once more.

An odd love

When it turned out that she was incurable, and the most cancers nearly devoured her total jaw, Péter Gál Molnár, the brazenly homosexual, feared theater critic, remarried Mária Ronyecz and persistently cared for her till her dying.

That they had been married and divorced as soon as earlier than, however the unusual emotional bond between them was by no means damaged. It was rumored that Ronyecz was truly drawn to ladies, however he by no means admitted it. Alternatively, an alibi relationship got here in useful for MGP, as a result of he was became an informant, persecuted and blackmailed by the system for being drawn to his personal intercourse.

MGP was a particularly divisive determine in Hungarian cultural public life, both beloved or hated. His vitriolic type and sharp language had been at all times able to reply when somebody objected to one in all his criticisms. THE Popping out in his guide, revealed after his dying, the next testimony might be examine their relationship:

“I am out of unpolluted shirts. Ronyecz supplied to clean. We went to the lavatory. The shirts remained unwashed.”

This ardour belonged to just one girl all through MGP’s life, and that was Mária Ronyecz.

That is how Mihály Kornis wrote in Litera in his weblog About Mária Ronyecz and her love affair with MGP – lengthy after their dying, in 2018:

“Mari, what did you drink for? Earlier than you bought sick, let’s name it that, if I noticed you in an actor’s bar or in a TV present, from the nook of the room, wherever, normally for weeks in a foggy state, after that my soul wandered round you, you went forwards and backwards in my head. […] You can be in massive bother if Péter Molnár Gál grew to become the I-don’t-know-what. Your curse on your self.

“I perceive, you perceive, that is the way you perceive that I do not perceive, however you perceive.”

You performed MGP’s spouse, let all of the seventy-seven dwarves, all the administrators I really feel like consider me, as quickly as you bear in mind that you’re a hopeless case…”

The tip is right here, it by no means ends…

The determine and voice of Mária Ronyecz stay on right here regardless that she has already moved to the afterlife 35 years in the past.

I can not eliminate the thought that each one this struggling may have been prevented if his dad and mom had determined to not let him develop up along with his grandparents, however to take him in and cherish him each blessed day.

He was searching for this cherishing all his life, and subsequently he was unable to return to phrases with himself. Sadly, the self-destructive way of life quickly took its toll. But he may have shone in so many different fantastic roles!

He left within the fullness of his power, within the prime of his life, and it’s for nothing that Attila József says so touchingly superbly You’re going to get previous his poem, he may by no means develop previous, and he may by no means be uncloudedly younger…

Sources: ITT, ITT, ITT, ITT, ITT and ITT

Featured picture: Fortepan / Zoltán Szalay

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