Ioan (János, Yohan) Taub

May 14, 1927, Halmeu, Satu-Mare County - February 4, 2010, Budapest

Director, theater director, drama teacher

;

Home > Personalities 

In 2002. (Photo by Adrienne Darvay Nagy)

Taub marked an important stage in the history of contemporary theater in Romania and abroad.

He was born into a Jewish family, father Lázár Taub, mother Ana, b. Schwartz. He graduated from the Israelite High School in Timisoara in 1945. He was a passionate football player and a talented dancer who participated in the performances of the "Flacăra" workers ensemble.

In 1954 he graduated from the Faculty of Theater Art in Cluj. He joined the band from the Hungarian section, recently established, of the theater in Timişoara. His artistic direction, which began in 1956, will lead to the establishment of the Hungarian State Theater in Timisoara, on October 1, 1957. The first director of the theater thus became the first director of the new theatrical institution. When he left in 1961 to reform the Hungarian state theater in Cluj, Taub János left behind one of the most beautiful and prolific periods of the Hungarian theater in Banat.

Between 1965–1971 he was the principal director of Állami Magyar Színház in Cluj, and from 1971 to 1974 he was part of the staff of the National Theater in Timişoara. From 1972-1973 he started collaborating at the Bulandra Theater in Bucharest. The resounding success of the staging of the play "Cat Game" by Örkény István brought him permanently to Bucharest, where he became the director of the Bulandra Theater. In parallel with his work as a director, he taught at the University of Theater and Cinematography in Bucharest.

In 1981 he emigrated to Israel. He taught at Tel Aviv University and directed plays at the Habima and Kameri theaters.

In 1986 he settled in Hungary. From 1986, he would impose his great performances on the stages of Hungary and later, in 1993, he became a founding member of the Art Theater in Budapest. From 1989 until his death (2010), Taub János lived in Budapest, being present on posters both in Germany and in Austria and Italy.

The Braggart Soldier by Plaut, with the young Mircea Diaconu as Palaestrio, The Little Bourgeois by Gorky (1978), The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (1978), The Flowers of a Lover by Sütő András (1980). After its 1976 premiere at the Bulandra Theater, The Braggart Soldier also had a German premiere in 1991 in Ingolstadt and a Hungarian premiere in 1988 in Budapest. Also Shakespeare's Storm, in Taub's reading, had three premieres in three languages: after the premiere of the "Matei Millo" Theater in Timisoara, which became that year, 1970, the National Theater in Timisoara, followed the premiere in a new translation in Hebrew in 1984 at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv and later at the National Theater in Budapest in 1990. The Diary of a Madman by Gogol, his last premiere at the Jewish Theater in Bucharest in 1980, was later edited in Hungarian in Budapest in 1987, in Hebrew in 1988 in Habima and in German in 1992 at the Erlagen Theater. Caligula's Procurator by János Székely was also approached several times: three stagings in Hungarian, in 1997, 1998, 2002 and one in Hebrew (in 1987). (Information from Adrienne Darvay Nagy)

The "rediscovery" of the director Ioan Taub on the Romanian stage took place in 1992, at the new edition of the Theater Festival in Piatra Neamţ, the success of the show Hymn by Schwajda György, directed by Taub János, followed by other titles presented in the city where he started his career, Timișoara.

He was married to Eva Winkler, a ballerina, first ballerina in Timisoara.

On February 10, 2010, he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Óbuda.

Taub Ioan/János in 2002. Foto: Budapest National Theater

The picture of graduates of the Israelite High School from Timişoara 1944/1945

The picture of graduates of the Israelite High School from Timişoara 1944/1945

Awards

  • 1991 Magyar Művészetért Alapítvány Prize (Hungarian Art Foundation)
  • 1991 Színikritikusok dij (Theater Critics Award)
  • 2002 Kossuth-díj

Sources