The forgotten Hungarian expertise, Mária Ronyecz, lived forty-five years and suffered for not 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 means, this setting was an excellent faculty 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 the very best theater within the nation on the time.

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

She was an amazingly nice actress, a real tragedy, the form 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 some 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 mother and father 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 mother and father could have been a critical trauma for him in his early years.

It isn’t attainable to elucidate to a baby with logic why his mother and father don’t reside 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 Industrial Technical School. It quickly grew to become clear how gifted he was, he recited many instances 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 joined 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, and he acquired 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 didn’t imagine that he was fascinating sufficient, gifted sufficient, lovely sufficient, though 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 irrespective of how a lot recognition he acquired. At the same time as a school scholar, he was inspired by Mária Sulyok, who was an actual outdated 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 Out of doors 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 appearing internship in Madách, attributable to his one-sentence function, he was in a position to tour the world performing the “Beggar’s Opera”, 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 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 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 bought a contract in Pécs and in addition quite a lot 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 probability for a profession newbie taking part in within the countryside, since at the moment virtually 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 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 wish to write an article for the eightieth anniversary of her beginning.)

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 important roles, though 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 received 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 aware perspective, his doubts and the slight pleasure that the unanimous skilled and public success gave him.

To place it mildly, it was not tough for him to establish with orphanhood.

By the way in which, he as soon as mentioned, when requested about his appearing desires, 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 liked her function 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 trainer “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 really surrounded by an mental setting that he had at all times missed.

I’ve solely seen him reside right here, Schwajda (Saint household) and Spiro (Hen head) he additionally excelled in his performs. I additionally watched Coriolanus many instances. 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 turning into a spouse once more.

An odd love

When it turned out that she was incurable, and the most cancers virtually devoured her complete 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 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. Then again, an alibi relationship got here in useful for MGP, as a result of he was changed into an informant, persecuted and blackmailed by the system for being drawn to his personal intercourse.

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

“I am out of fresh shirts. Ronyecz supplied to clean. We went to the lavatory. 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, wherever, often for weeks in a foggy state, after that my soul wandered round you, you went backwards and forwards in my head. […] You possibly can be in huge hassle 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 reside on right here though she has already moved to the afterlife 35 years in the past.

I am unable to do away with the thought that each one this struggling may have been prevented if his mother and father 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 on the lookout for this cherishing all his life, and subsequently he was unable to come back 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 energy, 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 may by no means develop outdated, 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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