HEGEDŰS D. GÉZA (BUDAPEST)
Kossuth and Jászai Mari Award-winning actor, director, university lecturer; Actor of the Nation
For decades, he has consistently spoken out against exclusion, hatred and anti-Semitism. His public and artistic engagement is not characterized by occasional statements, but by regular presence: he selflessly performs at commemorative and protest events, often without remuneration.
He has been a member of the Vígszínház since 1975; he has more than one hundred and fifty theatrical roles, forty directorial assignments, and numerous film and television appearances to his name. He has been teaching acting students since 1987. As an instructor, he not only imparts professional knowledge, but also the moral responsibility that prompts the artist to speak out against social injustices and violations of human dignity.
As a poet and lecturer, he regularly interprets the works of writers and poets who were victims of the Holocaust. From the beginning, he was a performer and contributing editor to the protest-reading program titled Triumph of Barbarism, and he also participates in walks commemorating Jewish victims. His anti-racist stance was recognized with the Radnóti Miklós Anti-Racist Award in 2005.
As an actor, director and teacher, he represents the humanist artistic tradition. He uses his authority to create space for the memory of the persecuted and humiliated, and to educate his students to speak out responsibly. His work exemplifies that artistic excellence and social solidarity are inseparable.
For me, the most important thing in my job is – the candidate wrote
I have been a member of the Comedy Theatre for fifty years. I taught at the University of Theatre and Film Arts for 38 years. As an actor, director, and teacher, it is always a great experience for me that the light on stage becomes what it is projected on. It is an uplifting feeling to experience in the evenings that the thoughts of stage poets have the same illuminating power for the audience and become a reality that can be experienced. My home, the 135-year-old Comedy Theatre, is an artistic workshop with a broad intellectual horizon. An island of Europe. Our performances give faith to those who have drifted to the edge of the world, to those who have been outcasts and stamped out, providing them with moral truth, because our conviction, to use Ady's words, is that "every person is a majesty." Or, as György Tábori put it, "everyone is someone." It is no coincidence that Éva Fahidi also created her unrepeatable, bold, cosmic-scale work at the Comedy Theatre. The same humanist spirit was and is shared by contemporary authors with whom I have had the pleasure of collaborating as an actor and director, such as Déry, Örkény, Fejes, Esterházy, Kornis, Nádas and Spiró, who in their works confront us with our often silenced, denied and falsified past with elemental force.
As a teacher, I educated my students in the same spirit. Among my students, Róbert Alföldi, Viktor Bodó, Tamás Keresztes and Attila Vidnyánszky Jr. became directorial innovators of theatrical language and ambassadors of humanism with domestic and international fame.
If I can, I support the activities of MAZSIHISZ, MAZSIKE, ÉLET MENETE, and MEASZ with my artistic work.
References
https://mazsihisz.hu/mai-szuletesnapos-hegedus-d-geza-szinesz-a-magyar-zsidosag-szoszoloja/
https://papageno.hu/promocio/2024/09/magyar-zsido-mesek-hegedus-d-geza/
Jewish Tales - Géza D. Hegedűs
Two centuries of Hungarian-Jewish poetry presented by Géza D. Hegedűs
Past and Future, Two Centuries of Hungarian-Jewish Poetry