Duration: 1h 38' In Hungarian with Romanian and English subtitles. Available: 24 hours Age recommendation: 12+
Hungarian translation: László Lator
King Peter of the Kingdom of Popo: Lóránd Váta Prince Leonce, his son: Balázs Bodolai Princess Lena of the Kingdom of Pipi: Enikő Györgyjakab Valerio: Gábor Viola Rosetta: EmőkeKató Governess: CsillaVarga Der Hofmeister: József Bíró President of State Council: AttilaOrbán Police Chief: Sándor Keresztes Policeman: Ferenc Sinkó Schoolmaster: Ervin Szűcs Court Chaplain: Lehel Salat/ Loránd Farkas First Councilor: Róbert Laczkó Vass Second Councilor: Balla Szabolcs Third Councilor: Fogarasi Alpár Fourth Councilor: Kántor Melinda
Directed by GÁBOR TOMPA Set and costume design: Carmencita Brojboiu Dramaturg: András Visky Original music by: Vasile Șirli Choreography: Florin Fieroiu Director's assistant István Albu Stage manager: Levente Borsos Prompter: Mixtay Péter
"Both Leonce and Lena flee from home to avoid a wedding planned by others. However, they inevitably fall in love with each other. Leonce and Lena is a comedy written at a time when Germany was made up of eighty little states, and it is the first masterpiece in the history of drama to present the mechanism that depersonalizes and detaches thought and speech. The characters play with their death-machine toys and, like naughty children, break them in order to find their individual freedom."
Gábor Tompa
Gábor Tompa graduated in stage and film directing from the I. L. Caragiale Theatre and Film Academy in Bucharest in 1981, having been the student of some outstanding, founders of the worldfamous Romanian school of stage directing, such as Liviu Ciulei, Mihai Dimiu, and Cătălina Buzoianu. Since 1981, Gábor Tompa has been directing at the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, in 1990 he became the artistic director of the theatre and he undertook the management of the theatre as well.
He founded the Faculty of Dramatic Art in Cluj and has run its directing programme since 1991. He has been a guest lecturer at the Académie Théâtrale de l’Union, Limoges, Schauspielschule Freiburg, Brunel University, London, and Institut del Teatre Barcelona. He has staged more than 80 plays and produced another 80, directing in Romania and in countries worldwide, including France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Canada, Serbia, the Czech Republic, and South Korea. He has won the UNITER’s Best Director of the Year Award six times and received the UNITER’s award for Best Performance of the Year in 1989 for The Bus Station by Gao Xing Gian and in 2009, for Three Sisters. In 2002, he received the UNITER Award for Excellence for the many achievements of his career. His film, Chinese Defense, won the Best First Feature Award at the International Film Festival in Salerno, Italy in 1999 and was officially selected for the 1999 Berlin Festival.
He is the author of several volumes of poetry and essays on theatre, such as: A hűtlen színház. Esszé a rendezésről[The Unfaithful Theatre. An Essay on Stage Direction], Bucharest, 1987; Óra, árnyékok [Clock, Shadows], poems, Bucharest, 1989; A késdöfés gyöngédsége [The Tenderness of Stabbing], studies, Cluj, 1995; Aki nem én [He Who Is Not I] poems, Mentor, Târgu Mureş, 1995; Készenlét [Alertness] poems, Héttorony, Budapest, 1990; Lidércbánya[Mine of Nightmares] poems, Pallas Akadémia, Miercurea-Ciuc, 2004, and Címke-függöny [Label-curtain – Gábor Tompa’s private theatre dictionary], Bookart, Csíkszereda, 2010.
From March 2006 to April 2008 (when the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj joined the UTE), he was an individual member of the European Theatre Union. Between 2007 and 2019, he has been Head of Directing at the Theatre and Dance Department of the University of California, San Diego. In May 2018, he was elected President of the European Theatre Union.
Tours: National Theatre Festival, Pécs, Hungary (2011) National Theatre Festival (FNT), Bucharest (2011) MESS Theatre Festival, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2011) 13th edition of the Iberoamericano Theatre Festival of Bogotá, Columbia (2012) National Theatre of Prague, Czeh Republic (2013) Büchner International Theatre Festival, Giessen, Germany (2013)
