Performances / Szigligeti Company / 2024-2025

István Bella – Gábor Mészöly – László Rossa

Ani Mani

War for a Star

Or the Revenge of Vazamotor

musical tale

The playbook was written by Gábor Mészöly using István Bella’s poems; the music was composed by László Rossa. The majority of the characters appearing in the play (Ani Mani, Vazamotor Flu, Green Pajamafrog, Bog Sneaker) are the ones appearing in Bella’s artwork.

István Bella was an award-winning poet, author and literary translator. He graduated from ELTE with a major in Hungarian and Librarian. In the mid-60s, he participated in the creation of the anthology With a Clean Heart. He was the author of the periodicals Új írás and Napjaink. He is a member of The Seven, along with István Ágh, Ferenc Buda, László Kalász, Sarolta Raffai, József Ratkó and Simon Serfőző. Between 1971 and 1977 he worked as a journalist for Magyar Papír and public educator of Papíripari Company. He has spent a long time as editor of the magazines Élet és Irodalom and Árgus, and was a contributor of Hungarian Journal. After the change of regime, he also dealt with book publishing.

His first collection of poems, Szaggatott világ (A World Torn Apart), was released in 1966 at Magvető Publishing House. The last time he published a poem collection entitled Tudsz-e még világul? (Can You Still Speak World?) and Áni Máni, a zoknihalász (Ani Mani, the Sockfisher) collection for children. Some of his volumes: Az ég falára (On the Wall of the Sky), Testamentom. As a literary translator, he worked with Finn-Ugrian folklore and Polish literature. He passed away in April of 2006.