The performance was inspired by the short story of the same title, first published in 1836. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol’s fantastical tale about the St. Petersburg official Major Kovalyov, whose nose leaves his face and develops a life of its own, was adapted into a black theatre production featuring masks1 and bunraku puppets, based on a concept by director Géza Balogh2 at the Experimental Studio of the State Puppet Theatre. After extensive preparations, the production came to life, somewhat diverging from the original concept.3

The State Puppet Theatre and Its Experimental Studio:

The Theatrical and Cultural Context of the Performance

The history of artistic puppetry in Hungary officially began with the formation of the Mesebarlang troupe, though its members were not initially professional puppeteers. Many of them were later recruited by the newly founded state-run theatre, which had a singular mission: to provide entertainment for children, particularly those of preschool age.The State Puppet Theatre was established in Budapest in September 1949, following the nationalisation of theatres, and became the only theatre institution in Hungary to operate continuously until 1989. It set a record not only for its longevity in Hungarian theatre history but also for the number of productions it staged. In the early years, the theatre quickly grew into a large institution, offering continuous performances for audiences of all ages across the country.4

From its founding until 1958, the State Puppet Theatre was directed by the visual artist László Bod, who invited several of his colleagues—many of whom had been marginalized by the art world—to join the company. Among them were Lili Ország, the designer of The Nose adaptation, Anna Márkus; József Jakovits; and other members of the group once known as the European School. In this way, the State Puppet Theatre became a refuge for artists struggling to navigate the post-World War II era.5 From the outset, it developed a strong artistic identity and a reputation for high artistic standards.

Following the visit of the world-renowned Russian director Sergey Obraztsov and his Moscow Puppet Theatre in Budapest in 1950, the institution came under significant influence from their artistic approach. This encounter led to the introduction of an adult program that included cabarets and operettas while emphasising the grotesque nature of the puppet.6 The bold initiative undertaken by the State Puppet Theatre resonated with the Hungarian public’s demand for humour, serving as a form of entertainment theatre.7 While Obraztsov’s work was largely embraced by the cultural authorities, the satirical nature of this new style proved challenging to reconcile with the socialist ideals prevailing in the 1950s.8

Since the early 1960s, the State Puppet Theatre has evolved into a national institution, offering a diverse program both in Budapest and abroad. During Dezső Szilágyi’s three-decade tenure, often regarded as the golden age of the institute, significant improvements took place. Following a reorganisation—partly facilitated by the return of members who had previously left for Győr—the company began to expand. In 1960, a two-year Puppeteers’ Training Course was established to train the next generation, and by 1965, the company’s membership had grown to 50.9 Achieving professionalism was also a key priority in developing a unique style for the theatre, one that was deeply influenced by the ideas of its director, Kató Szőnyi.10 The repertoire was primarily rooted in Hungarian folk culture and tales, alongside adaptations of major stories and legends from world literature.

1964 was a landmark year for the adult program, as the adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream introduced a new style of production. Its success paved the way for subsequent adaptations of musical works, including Béla Bartók’s The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin, Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Soldier’s Tale, and Zoltán Kodály’s János Háry. In addition to musical performances, experimental adult productions were featured in the theatre’s program.11

The establishment of the Experimental Studio in the mid-1960s marked a pivotal moment in the history of the State Puppet Theatre. This development was driven by the integration of various techniques, such as masked acting and the open (puppet) acting style—approaches already in use across Europe—often within a single performance, replacing the previously uniform stylistic approach.12 Géza Balogh was one of the key directors who advanced these techniques, experimenting with their potential combinations. Through these efforts, the State Puppet Theatre made its debut on the international theatre scene in the early 1970s.

Puppets and Clowns – The Conclusion of a Celebrated Series

In the Experimental Studio Workshop,13 etudes were primarily created from the ideas of company members or adapted from classical and contemporary works.14 This trend was later reinforced by productions of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (1978), Stravinsky’s The Firebird (1982), Jarry’s Ubu King (1985), and also Gogol’s The Nose in 1979.

The initial concept was to present Gogol’s The Nose and Peter Handke’s Kaspar Hauser15 in a single performance—two parallel parables designed to explore how one can adapt to the existing order. Reflecting on his original vision for the main character, the director explained, “The idea behind combining these two works was that both protagonists desire to be someone else. Gogol’s Kovalyov wants to return to his former self before his nose disappeared, while Handke’s Kaspar longs to be like other people—a copy, a duplicate, a man of mass production, lacking individuality, the socialist archetype.”16 However, this concept was abandoned after a private preview,17 during which Kaspar Hauser was deemed unsuitable.18

Gogol’s highly improbable story was eventually presented by the State Puppet Theatre as part of a performance featuring six pantomime plays with music titled Puppets and Clowns. András Kenessei’s report in Magyar Hírlap highlights the contradiction: While the title suggests light-hearted content, as is often the case with the adult productions the Puppet Theatre has regularly featured in its program for over ten years, “these plays are simultaneously intensely serious and absurdly ridiculous. The methods of realisation differ from play to play—each one unique—and all contribute to the performance’s success.”19 The lineup included two of Samuel Beckett’s Act without Words, Frigyes Karinthy’s short story Circus, and morality plays. One of these featured two Pierrot plays, also directed by Géza Balogh, while the other, titled Spheres and Cubes, was based on ideas by Róbert Bánky, who also performed a role in The Nose.20

The opening lines of the Puppets and Clowns show leave no doubt that the State Puppet Theatre is pursuing a clear mission: to hold a mirror up to society. The earlier works, referenced in the review under the title (To the Stage) Translated Meaning as the precursors to the ‘and’ series21 , “were built around a central theme and presented, through various scenes, the relationship between man and the reality surrounding him. They portrayed the different forms of behaviour that arose from his aspirations and conflicts—even revealing his true nature through the puppet bodies and disguises he assumed. […] Man […] dons the clown’s costume and disguise; he enters the external world, using the circus spotlight to cast light on his contemporary image.”22

Puppets and Clowns, which also featured a staging of The Nose, was part of a series within the State Puppet Theatre’s adult program. The Experimental Studio made its debut in 1966 with Puppets and People I,23 a set of three one-act plays. This was followed by Puppets and People II24 in 1972, which included seven puppet etudes, then Objects and People25 in 1975, and Faces and Masks26 in 1976. After these four productions, a sequel had to wait three years, despite rehearsals for The Nose already having begun in 1977.27 Nevertheless, this remarkable series seems to have been a growing success among a generation of young people searching for new directions in contemporary puppet theatre, with the 1979 production—including The Nose—marking the series’ conclusion.

From Synopsis to Final Script: The Extended Journey of a Brief Presentation

In the absence of available recordings, the analysis of the performance can only rely on contemporary press coverage and a handful of photographs. However, a significant part of the conceptual development—indeed, the entire preparatory process, from initial conception to final realization—can be traced through the various versions of the script, as well as the puppet and set designs preserved in the Budapest Puppet Theatre Archive. These documents offer a glimpse into a much richer creative vision than what was ultimately conveyed in the performance itself, which was rooted in the realistic world of Gogol’s protagonist. There is little doubt that the creators were particularly focused on this, as evidenced by Balogh’s own translation, accompanied by the director’s instructions, which was published in 197828 , a year prior to the premiere of Puppets and Clowns.

Reading the first synopsis, dated January 1976, it is evident that certain ideas were successfully realised. However, it also highlights the extent to which changes had to be made during the production’s preparation, even though the core elements of the original director’s concept remained intact.

Initially, the play was conceived as a compact puppet pantomime, incorporating only a brief moment of dialogue and short monologues. The director remained open to the potential of masked performance, not the fusion of these two genres, which ultimately formed the basis of the final production. Furthermore, the noises, sound effects, musical interludes, and human voice all functioned as equal components within a unified auditory composition. Third, the protagonist of The Nose, who in the original short story bears a resemblance to the protagonists of Franz Kafka’s novels (the shared ‘K’ is no mere coincidence), is more explicitly connected to the characters from The Trial and The Castle in this adaptation. Fourth, the weight of Kovalyov’s suffering, which ultimately leads him to despair, is accentuated by the unconventional set elements designed by Lili Ország,29 notably the towering doors and labyrinthine structures.

Regarding the characters, Pelageya Grigorievna, the daughter of Madame Alexandra Grigoievna Podtochina, was given greater prominence in the play than in the short story. As the only female character, she made a strong impression on stage in the initial script. This thirty-page version, written in 1977, began with a ball scene (instead of the street scene originally envisioned in the synopsis) and featured several dialogues, the length of which was significantly shortened by the time the script reached its final, approved version. The extracted dialogues predominantly occured in the advertising office, the police chief’s office, and the Collegiate Assessor’s home, where he was visited by the doctor (scenes six to eight) – locations that were likely intended to enhance the atmosphere of Kafka’s bleak, bureaucratic world.

The final version also excluded the two dog figures that appeared and sniffed around Kovalyov. These animal characters, crafted to be notably human-like, partook in a noisy and dramatic love affair. Their voices would have been heard constantly—at times singing a duet, at others yelping and whining. Beyond the scripts, the blueprints indicate that they were meant to be a dominant presence on stage, in stark contrast to the more subdued figures of the clerk, policeman, and doctor.

It is also significant that the barber Ivan Yakovlevich, a key character in the short story, was entirely absent from the original conception of the adaptation. Instead, the focus shifted to the comedic love story and the compelling presence of the dominant female figure, emphasising the struggles that the narrow-minded, submissive man was powerless to overcome.

Despite the omissions, press reviews from both daily and weekly outlets unanimously highlight the ‘brilliance’ of adapting Gogol’s short story The Nose into a masked pantomime, deeming it the highlight of the 1979 production.30 In Balogh’s adaptation, Major Kovalyov returns to his bed after the ball scene, and then his nose “undergoes a transformation according to the more fantastical principles of black theatre.”31 While the absence of the nose became a vivid reality in the narrative, on stage it was represented by the nose puppet, which took on an independent life through the bunraku technique.32

However, the framing device remained intact: after the main character’s triumphant dance upon regaining his nose, the replacement nose vanished again, and terrifying gates flooded the stage, finally overcoming the nose-less Kovalyov. During the performance multiple noses appeared: nose-puppets that represented subordinates in the nose-dominated world, converging into a mass before the increasingly powerless protagonist. The show, “with excellent rhythm, full of tension”33 , saw “the surprises […] deliberately build upon each other, culminating in ever more complex forms”34 , leading to a sarcastic conclusion.

Unconventional Staging: Masked Performance and Set Animation

The surviving images of The Nose present a grotesque, nightmarish, dreamlike world, where characters wear oversized masks and navigate through immense objects. The sets appear almost alive, all designed to torment the protagonist as he traverses a labyrinth of doors and gates. However, the most striking element is undoubtedly Platon Kuzmich Kovalyov’s colossal, animated nose, which, in the words of Péter Molnár Gál, “is a masterpiece. It has clinical origins, yet it is far from repulsive. It resembles a prehistoric nose—a prehistoric artifact.”35

The performers’ acting was also widely praised, with unanimous recognition for the silent actors’ skill in synchronising their movements with the sounds, making it appear as though they were speaking the words themselves. Their grotesque, oversized masks “played a peculiar game with proportions: Kovalyov’s increasingly desperate love interest, Pelageya Grigorievna, was portrayed by a man of considerable stature, while the protagonist was played by a delicate woman”.36

Although Péter Molnár Gál, reflecting on the performance decades later, described the pantomime movements, dominant in the acting, as “deaf and dumb,”37 this comment implies that, in the absence of a choreographer, the movements lacked a cohesive system and were likely performed by actors without formal dance training. According to the critic from ÉS, among the “puppeteers performing and manipulating the puppets in an extraordinarily complex manner”,38 Ildikó Kazinczy and János Vanyó stand out. They are described as “large-headed human puppets, creating a chilling illusion of being mere movable structures, manipulated from behind by invisible figures in black velvet, breathing life into the objects.”39

Like most critics, the director highlights the crucial role of the dynamic stage spectacle: “The sets came to life, with the hero—helpless, nose-less, tormented, and broken—trudging through his calvary before our eyes. But the true protagonists were the doors and gates. Amidst a labyrinth of all kinds of doors—collapsed room doors, prison cell doors, and grand palace gates—Platon Kuzmich Kovalyov wandered through his hopeless journey.”40

Lili Ország’s recurring theme of the labyrinth, in her final theatrical work, was not abstract but vivid and unsettling—a representation of bureaucracy and an alienated world. The designer “discovered Kafka within Gogol’s nightmarish tale, infusing the production with her own tortured, painterly vision. It encapsulated […] the overwhelming anxiety of a man at the mercy of his utter helplessness, a fear that refuses to cease.”41 The unsettling horror of the everyday nightmare was softened by the serenity of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major (Op. 48), which served as the central musical motif of the etude. This piece was featured twice in the performance—during both the opening and final ball scenes, where Pelageya and Kovalyov danced. All sources acknowledge the significant contribution of composer János Decsényi who received an award for his work on The Nose adaptation.

The production’s power stemmed not only from its striking visual elements but also from the innovative director’s concept, which incorporated surrealist features. A central innovation lied in Iván Darvas voicing all the roles himself, achieving “astonishing transitions and brilliant execution.”42 The director’s aim was to convey that “there is no clear distinction between inside and outside; everything unfolds within the consciousness—or rather, the subconscious—of a single subject.”43 As Veronika Darida observes in her study titled Bábmenedék – Ország Lili az Állami Bábszínházban, while this approach allowed for the stage to embody dreams and the subconscious, the dream sequences diverged from surrealist traditions in their lack of instinctive action. “Instead, they expose human vulnerability and the anxiety inherent in every social order—individual fears that uphold an illusory structure, one that can be shattered at any moment.”44

A Cherished Memory from the Early Days of Hungarian Artistic Puppetry

Critics universally regarded the production as on par with the novel itself, deeming it worthy of Gogol. Zoltán Iszlai offered high praise, highlighting the contributions of the creative team: “János Decsényi, the composer, whose precision and boundless imagination were unmatched; Lili Ország, the mask and set designer with an exceptional affinity for her craft; Iván Darvas, who brought the text to life through his distinctive vocalisations—sneezing, cooing, singing, and more—all captured on a tape recorder with a captivating, dissonant rhythm; and Géza Balogh, who directed the entire production with a sleepwalker’s certainty… each of them more than met the task.”45

Despite the positive reception, the show had a short run. Regrettably, due to incomplete administrative records at the State Puppet Theatre, a detailed history of its performances has not been preserved. Nevertheless, the fact that productions from the Experimental Studio were typically not kept on stage for extended periods offers a plausible explanation. The show reappeared in a mid-1980s revival of The Nose, which featured a re-staging of previously performed etudes.

This production, titled The Masquerades46 , reintroduced the Experimental Studio’s most successful works: a musical puppet show by György Ligeti, Adventures, Ferenc Liszt and Gyula Urbán’s La Campanella and Love Dreams, as well as two etudes from the Puppets and Clowns series—two textless scenes by Beckett and the morality plays Spheres and Cubes. Surprisingly, The Nose was not included among the productions that toured abroad. This omission can likely be attributed to the prominence of the textual elements and the logistical difficulty of transporting its substantial set.

Details of the production

Title: The Nose (Puppets and Clowns). Date of Premiere: 23 April, 1979. Venue: State Puppet Theatre, Budapest. Director and Dramaturg: Géza Balogh. Author: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Translator: Imre Makai. Set and costume designer: Lili Ország. Composer: János Decsényi. Sound designer: István Horváth. Voice: Iván Darvas. Company: Ildikó Kazinczy (Kovalyov), János Vanyó (Pelageja Grigorjevna), Gyöngyi Blasek, Ildikó Meixler, Róbert Bánky, Péter Bognár, Miklós Dörögdy, Attila Magyar

Bibliography

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Balogh, Géza. „Ország Lili falai”. Criticai Lapok, 2003. https://www.criticailapok.hu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33918

Darida, Veronika. „Bábmenedék. Ország Lili az Állami Bábszínházban”. Art Limes 17, No. 1. (2020): 5–15.

Gréczi, Emőke. „Jakovits sárkánya, Ország Lili orra. Avagy képzőművészek a bábszínházakban”. Art Magazin 12, No. 9. (2015): 40–47.

Kenessei, András. „Bábuk és bohócok”.Magyar Hírlap, 12 Mai, 1979, 6.

Iszlai, Zoltán. „(Színpadra) átvitt értelem”. Élet és Irodalom, 5. Mai, 1979, 13.

Molnár Gál, Péter. „Bábszínháztörténet”. In Bábszínház 1949–1999, edited by Géza Balogh, 7–71. Budapest: Budapest Bábszínház, 1999.

Nánay, István. „Editorial Introduction”. Art Limes 16, No. 3. (2019): 5–7.