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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 approach, this surroundings was an excellent college for an eighteen-year-old lady from the countryside. I skilled to be an actor, and I am unable to say that I used to be happy with what I skilled behind the scenes in what was undeniably one of the best theater within the nation on the time.
After all, I additionally noticed Mária Ronyecz many occasions, even up shut. Exterior the stage, he continually smoked, lit from one cigarette to a different, and sometimes raised his glass. Possibly he was by no means drunk, however he was continually “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 together with his grandparents
He was born in Kunágota on June 25, 1944, and went to elementary college 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 might have been a severe trauma for him in his early years.
It’s not attainable to elucidate to a toddler with logic why his dad and mom don’t dwell with him, why he spends his on a regular basis life together with his grandparents within the southern tip of the nation. He was lastly in a position to go to secondary college in Budapest, graduating from Lajos Kossuth Business Technical School. It quickly turned clear how proficient he was, he recited many occasions at numerous 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 yr, 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 entered Ottó Ádám’s class the next yr: László Dózsa, Zsuzsa Liska, Annamária Szilvássy, István Uri, András Márton, Tünde Szabó, László Vajda and László Joós had been his classmates. He acquired his performing 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 attention-grabbing sufficient, proficient sufficient, lovely sufficient, regardless that he was given alternatives, however he might 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 acquired. At the same time as a school pupil, he was inspired by Mária Sulyok, who was an actual outdated girl within the theater world, and really not often met her to encourage newcomers. 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 Out of doors Video games. After one of many performances, he approached Zoltán Latinovits and requested him: “Zoli, will I turn out to be an actor…?” And Latinovits replied: “It will not be… it already is…”
Throughout his performing internship in Madách, he was in a position to tour the world performing the “Beggar’s Opera” as a result of his one-sentence position, one thing that fairly a number of folks had the chance to do on the finish of the sixties.
The troupe traveled from Moscow to Turin, and he all the time 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 might already be the title character: Kocsma Jenny. It was performed underneath the title Opera in three acts in one other translation, 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 obtained a contract in Pécs and likewise lots of alternatives. As an actor from Pécs, on the age of solely 24, he was in a position to play the position of Gertrudis within the tv adaptation of Bánk bán, directed by Miklós Szinetár. This isn’t an on a regular basis probability for a profession newbie enjoying 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 turned recognized.
Recording of the TV model of Katona József Bánk bánk drama within the MTV studio. Zoltán Latinovits as Bánk and Mária Ronyecz as Gertrudis – Supply: Fortepan / Zoltán Szalay
(Theater-going members of my era had been nonetheless conscious of precisely how nice an actress she was, however nobody at WMN, for instance, knew who she was at first after I indicated that I want to write an article for the eightieth anniversary of her delivery.)
He was in a position to play about twenty roles on this quick time in Pécs, adopted by twelve years within the Nationwide, the place he was additionally given 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 a number of 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 Fort.
Ronyecz, who not often speaks, talked at size about this position with Anna Földes, it’s value it to learn your mature ideashis accountable and acutely aware angle, his doubts and the slight pleasure that the unanimous skilled and viewers 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 performing goals, that he does not have one: “I even play the chair leg, that is why I turned an actor”.
Motion pictures in all portions
We noticed Mária Ronyecz in many various movies, she performed in Sevasz, Vera! within the well-known movie show and likewise in Füyok a téren. Love Emília Ódor! I additionally beloved her position as a nun within the Sándor Pál film. In Gothár–Bereményi’s movie Megáll az vítá, it was surprising how she introduced the ill-fated instructor “Pickleface” to life.
Within the film Bespectacled, he truly obtained to put on his iconic glasses, one thing he not often obtained to do on stage. Ultimately, she even appeared within the tv sequence Linda within the position of a detective who’s interested in the humanities and isn’t appropriate for investigations, this was her final movie look.
Within the TV sequence 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 surroundings that he had all the time missed.
I’ve solely seen him dwell right here, Schwajda (Saint household) and Spiro (Rooster head) he additionally excelled in his performs. I additionally watched Coriolanus many occasions. In her final position, she appeared as a dying spouse in Elias Canetti’s Marriage ceremony. The efficiency was eerie and harrowing as a result of whereas enjoying the dying spouse, she was actually dying and actually turning 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 overtly homosexual, feared theater critic, remarried Mária Ronyecz and persistently cared for her till her dying.
They’d been married and divorced as soon as, however the unusual emotional bond between them was by no means damaged. It was rumored that Ronyecz was truly interested in girls, however he by no means admitted it. Then again, 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 interested in his personal intercourse.
MGP was a particularly divisive determine in Hungarian cultural public life, both beloved or hated. His vitriolic model and sharp language had been all the time able to reply when somebody objected to considered one of his criticisms. THE Popping out in his e-book, printed after his dying, the next testimony will be examine their relationship:
“I am out of fresh shirts. Ronyecz provided 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, anyplace, often for weeks in a foggy state, after that my soul wandered round you, you went backwards and forwards in my head. […] You could possibly be in massive hassle if Péter Molnár Gál turned 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 keep 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 dwell on right here regardless that she has already moved to the afterlife 35 years in the past.
I am unable to do away with the thought that every one this struggling might have been prevented if his dad and mom had determined to not let him develop up together with his grandparents, however to take him in and cherish him each blessed day.
He was searching for this cherishing all his life, and due to this fact he was not in a position to reconcile with himself. Sadly, the self-destructive life-style quickly took its toll. However what number of extra great roles might he have shined in!
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 fantastically You’ll get outdated his poem, he might by no means develop outdated, and he might by no means be uncloudedly younger…
Sources: ITT, ITT, ITT, ITT, ITT and ITT
Featured picture: Fortepan / Zoltán Szalay
Each Gabi
