All the world’s a villa

The Gizi Bajor Theatre Museum of the National Museum and Institute of Theatre History

MúzeumCafé 19.

The Gizi Bajor Theatre Museum is located in Budapest’s 12th district in the former villa of actress Gizi Bajor. Today the building, which was renovated in between 2000 and 2002, also has a display about important events. One of the most popular actors of his time Ede Újházy happened to rent a room in a farmer’s house when preparing for a premiere in the country. “We’re rehearsing, practising the play,” with a hangover he would tell the farmer in the mornings. On the umpteenth occasion the farmer asked, “If you’re practising so much and you still don’t succeed why don’t you stop?” The story is often recalled in the Bajor villa. There is an evocative painting in the exhibition and a statue of the great actor in the garden. One of the exhibition rooms displays documents allowing visitors to see how a written work becomes a theatrical performance. The different types of rehearsals, from run-through to dress rehearsal, are also presented Yet the pictures and documents constitute only a part of museum education. At the end of the same room there is a stage, so participants at a session can themselves try something in practice. A special series of archive photographs owned by National Museum and Institute of Theatre History has recently been screened to children. The pictures were shot at the beginning of the 20th century when variety shows first appeared in Hungary. The genre at the time was of a literary standard and often featured in the columns of political newspapers. All this in itself represents dry facts. However, the participating children first imitated the movements they saw in the photographs and then fantasy and the museum educators helped them ‘discover’ what the people in the pictures could have been talking about.