Spinoza Theatre
Jewish Quarter – Party District – Pest Greenwich Village
The Spinoza Theatre and the Spinoza Café are located on the “main street” of the Jewish Quarter, Dob Street, at the intersection of the three synagogues (Dohány, Rumbach and Kazinczy). It is no coincidence that the theatre is located in the Jewish Quarter of Pest. This is the Jewish Quarter (15 streets in total) that was not even called the Jewish Quarter before the war, despite the fact that by the beginning of the 20th century the largest Jewish community in Central Europe had been established here. Today, the Jewish Quarter could be called the Greenwich Village of Pest and it has become the party district of Budapest.
The Spinoza Theatre - a small private theatre - was established more than 20 years ago on private funds and is still operating on private funds. The Theatre is very much on the cultural map of Budapest and does a lot for Jewish culture. The choice of the theatre's name itself is not accidental: Baruch Spinoza was an open-minded Jewish philosopher in the 17th century Netherlands). The Spinoza Theatre regularly presents numerous Jewish-themed dramas, musicals and cabarets. The Spinoza Jewish Festival, held every autumn, is very famous, where almost all aspects of Jewish culture are present (theatre, film, performances, concerts, exhibitions). One of the most popular Jewish cultural programmes in Budapest is the street Jewish music concert series organised by the Spinoza Theatre. The Friday evening klezmer concerts of Spinoza are very popular, which can be combined with a good dinner selected from the Jewish cuisine of Pest. A bar pianist plays Jewish couplets and chansons for dinner.
Spinoza Theatre's activities and philosophy
Teaching with fun, educational dramas
At Spinoza Theatre, our primary philosophy is teaching with fun. A good example of this is our 10-year-long drama series, the so-called tandramas: presenting the dramatic lives and work of great people whose activities are not really known through theatrical means.
Political cabarets
From the beginning, our goal was to bring back cabaret, and within that political cabaret. In the old Jewish quarter, where Spinoza Theatre operates, 47 cabarets and musical theatres operated 80 years ago, and we tried to bring back something from this atmosphere.
Premieres, operas
Almost all of our plays are contemporary Hungarian plays, written and commissioned by us, all premieres. We pay particular attention to young, budding writers, actors and playwrights. It is a bold thing for a small private theater to create operas, but we ventured into this genre as well. Our most successful operas were Poppera, Spinoza and Rembrandt, Mata Hari and Frida.
Free street concerts and exhibitions
For our 20th anniversary in 2022, we gave 20 free street concerts, and since then we have been repeating this free concert series on Dob Street, where the best representatives of Jewish music perform. We organize an exhibition of photos taken at the concerts every year at the Spinoza Café.
Exciting women's drama series
We also have a special women's drama series. We have brought the lives of women to the stage from whom we can learn a lot: Mata Hari, Frida, Sisi, Albina, ZsaZsa Gábor.
Spinoza Jewish Festival
Since the Spinoza Theater is in the old Jewish quarter, we organize the Spinoza Jewish Festival every year, the 22nd in 2024. These two-week festivals feature almost every aspect of Jewish culture: dramas, musicals, cabarets, films, performances, concerts, and exhibitions.
Spinoza – Tanoda
We have taught and still teach, sometimes in a theatrical form. One of the most successful is our series, which has existed for more than 10 years and is still popular today, ‘Talmud, Torah and the Others’, in which we search with philosopher György Gábor what the biblical man knew about himself and the world around him. All this with the help of biblical history, literature, fine arts, and music. Knowledge and learning were also served by more than 100 lectures each by Péter Popper and Ágnes Heller, as well as more than 50 literary history discussions by Tamás Ungvári. Unfortunately, none of the three are alive anymore.
Book publishing
We have also published some of our best plays in book form. We also wrote and published the history of the first 10 years of the Spinoza Theater and then the second 10 years.
The Spinoza Theatre has had 3,600 performances over the past 22 years (often two performances per evening) with over a quarter of a million spectators.