Community and Invisible Work at the Szkéné Collective: Methodological Questions on Researching Amateur Theatres during the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

The essay aims at highlighting the methodological challenges of researching amateur theatres under Hungarian state socialism, including the accessibility of documents in official archives, leading and sometimes misleading narratives of historiography, and the emerging role of oral history interviews and personal collections. Focusing on the history of the university theatre at Budapest University of Technology, namely, the Szkéné Collective, the case study investigates the dynamics of invisible work, collective creation, and the role of female participants between 1962 and 1973. In order to acknowledge the role of community in amateur theatre practices, it is essential to readdress the hierarchical understanding of a collective, and search for the usually hidden stories of shared creativity and labour.