The forgotten Hungarian expertise, Mária Ronyecz, lived forty-five years and suffered for no less than 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 approach, this setting was an excellent faculty for an eighteen-year-old woman from the countryside. I educated to be an actor, and I can not say that I used to be happy with what I skilled behind the scenes in what was undeniably the perfect theater within the nation on the time.

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

She was an amazingly nice actress, a real tragedy, the sort 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 faculty there, whereas his dad and mom have been making an attempt to get by in Budapest within the Nineteen 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 isn’t doable to elucidate to a baby with logic why his dad and mom don’t stay 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 faculty in Budapest, graduating from Lajos Kossuth Business Technical Faculty. 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 accountant at Transelektro Electrical energy Commerce Firm for nearly a yr, and within the meantime he was a member of the novice 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 have been his classmates. He obtained his performing diploma in 1967.

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

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

He did not imagine that he was fascinating 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 irrespective of how a lot recognition he obtained. Whilst a university scholar, he was inspired by Mária Sulyok, who was an actual outdated lady 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 Outside Video games. After one of many performances, he approached Zoltán Latinovits and requested him: “Zoli, will I turn into 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” resulting from his one-sentence position, one thing that fairly a couple of folks had the chance to do on the finish of the sixties.

The troupe traveled from Moscow to Turin, and he at all times stated solely this on stage: “However you are laughing surprisingly, 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, but it surely was the identical play: sure, he laughed surprisingly and sang heartbreakingly, directed by Yuri Lyubimov in a cult efficiency.

After three years in Pécs, Budapest

After school, he obtained a contract in Pécs and likewise a number 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 taking part in within the countryside, since at the moment nearly the entire nation adopted the TV video games, so the face, title and voice of Mária Ronyecz shortly grew to become identified.

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 technology nonetheless knew 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 start.)

He was in a position to play about twenty roles on this brief time in Pécs, adopted by twelve years within the Nationwide crew, 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 couple of years in the past.

Orphan Kata Bethlen

Within the mid-seventies, a number of monodramas earned 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 unheard-of 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 price it to learn your mature ideashis accountable and acutely aware perspective, 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 best way, he as soon as stated, when requested about his performing desires, that he does not have one: “I even play the chair leg, that is why I grew to become an actor”.

Motion pictures in all portions

We noticed Mária Ronyecz in many alternative 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 stunning how she introduced the ill-fated trainer “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 really 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 (Hen 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 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 overtly 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 interested in girls, however he by no means admitted it. Alternatively, an alibi relationship got here in useful for MGP, as a result of he was was 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 type and sharp language have been at all times able to reply when somebody objected to certainly one of his criticisms. THE Popping out in his guide, revealed after his dying, the next testimony might be examine their relationship:

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

This ardour belonged to just one lady 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, normally for weeks in a foggy state, after that my soul wandered round you, you went forwards and backwards in my head. […] You possibly 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 imagine me, as quickly as you bear in mind that you’re a hopeless case…”

The top 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 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 subsequently he was unable to come back to phrases with himself. Sadly, the self-destructive life-style quickly took its toll. But he might 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 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

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