The Summing Up Of The History Of Eger
by Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos
A historical tablepuppet play for children over 6 and adults
Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos stands out from the crowd of 16th century minstrels with his education and commitment. He fought as a soldier in several border castles of Hungary and he could easily have died unknown had his left hand not become crippled by an injury. His wound made him into a poet and a minstrel. He visited the sites of significant battles and sieges in order to be able to relate the fight against the Turkish invaders from personal experience. He published his poems – regarded by historians as authentic historical sources – in a volume titled ‘CRONICA’, This included the epic song ‘The Summing Up Of The History Of Eger’, which records the heroism of Captain István Dobó and his soldiers during the 1552 Turkish siege of Eger.
A Turkish army of 90,000 besieged the fortress of the town on 11 September 1552. Captain Dobó’s army of defenders consisted of hardly 2000 soldiers. All the odds were against the Hungarians, who fought under a heavy handicap both in regards of numbers and weaponry. However, firty days of bombardment and renewed attacks failed to wear down the resistance of the defenders. Instead, their courage disheartened the Turks, who on 18 October withdrew from the fortress, leaving its walls all but reduced to ruins.
This victory succeeded in putting a halt to Turkish expansion for a long period of time and has brought the heroes immortality.
This one-man historical play is a unique experiment, a blend of a tablepuppet presentation with scopping. Attila Lázár has performed it more than a hundred times, for audiences in countries from the Ukraine and Romania through Slovakia, the Chech Republic and Poland to Belgium and France.
Friends From The Whole World
Puppet show with children songs of different nations
In this show beside the puppeteer appers 16 different puppets with four different technics : marionette-, glow-, wayang- and “bunraku” puppets. Dressed in stylized national costumes, they are invited on the stage to sing a song and to tell interesting things about their people’s culture.
The songs are spoken in Austrian, Romanian, Croatian, Italian, Greek, Danish, German, French, Spanish, Bemba, Indian, American English, Yiddish, Japanese, Eskimo and Hungarian.
Singing the people’s songs “at the same time we are obtaining a world knowledge, and at the light of other music languages we comprehend better ours.” (Zoltán Kodály)
Hassan&Layla
A curious dream of a pasha – marionettshow