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Performing Womanhood and Carefare in Hungary
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2024
Extract
In the present article,1 I will examine how topics of domestic work, care and family values were critically addressed by female performers in 2022 on various Hungarian stages. Two short analyses will show that the notion of womanhood is deconstructed through questioning superficial and populist images of traditional female roles. While Baby Bumm – Propinquity Effect, a community theatre production highlights the actual toll of becoming a mother, a one-woman-show titled God, Home, Kitchen detects the numerous and often contradicting roles assigned to an average Hungarian female citizen by politicians. Both productions build on the physical limits of the performers’ bodies, the actual burden of taking care of children, as well as fulfilling duties in and outside the household, to show the unreal nature of politicized ideas on women. This is a public topic that further emerged in post-pandemic times, especially in the light of the government's determination of acceptable social participation for women.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Federation for Theatre Research
References
NOTES
1 While writing the article, I was supported by the Bolyai Research Fellowship at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the ÚNKP-22/23-5 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Culture and Innovation from the source of the NRDI Fund.
2 Axióma, 13 December 2020, at https://www.facebook.com/axiomamedia/videos/224659149173546/ (retrieved 9 July 2023).
3 Fodor, Éva, ‘More Babies for the State: The “Carefare” Regime of Anti-Liberal Hungary’, New Labor Forum, 31, 1 (2022), pp. 34–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 35.
4 Ibid., p. 35.
5 Triple shift refers to women's paid jobs, unpaid domestic work, and unpaid emotional work. See Duncombe, Jean and Marsden, Dennis, ‘“Workaholics” and “Whingeing Women”: Theorising Intimacy and Emotion Work – The Last Frontier of Gender Inequality?’, The Sociological Review, 43, 1 (1995), pp. 150–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Fodor, ‘More Babies for the State', p. 37.
7 Ibid., p. 37.
8 Ibid., p. 39.
9 Fodor, Éva, Gregor, Anikó, Koltai, Júlia and Kováts, Eszter, ‘The Impact of COVID-19 on the Gender Division of Childcare Work in Hungary’, European Societies, 23, 1 (2021), pp. 95–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 I am expressing my gratitude to dramaturge and researcher Noémi Herczog, who helped via personal interviews in understanding the background of the production.
11 Baby Bumm – Propinquity Effect. Performers: Szilvi Balogh, Anna Csábi, Piroska Móga, Veronika Németh, Hedvig Oláhné Czeizing, Zsófia Pénzváltó, Veronika Szabó and Hanna Sztripszky. Help with childcare on stage: Alexandra Kardos. Applied Theatre Professional: Tímea Török. Dramaturge: Noémi Herczog. Director: Bori Sebők. Premiere: Budapest, MU Theatre, 28 May 2022.
12 Mikolt Tózsa: God, Home, Kitchen – or I have already parked in the middle of Bajcsy Street today. Premiere: Budapest, freeSZFE – Artus, 10 June 2022.
13 Interview with Viktor Orbán on Radio Kossuth, 24 September 2021.
14 Freeszfe Society, at https://www.freeszfe.hu/about_us/ (retrieved 9 July 2023).
15 Echoing the logic of carefare policies, normative images also influence the funding possibilities of theatres, leaving independent groups of theatre and dance with diminishing if not disappearing possibilities of survival in 2023.