Actor, theatre intendant, director, publicist.
He moves to Pest from Margitta (Marghita), where his father is a known craftsman; until the age of 18, he learns at the Piarist Order. In 1863, he joins the Buda ensemble of Molnár György as choir singer, and in the country, ha appears as actor in love. Getting sick of misery, he quits the actor’s career and gets employed at the Athenaeum as corrector and auditor and writes in various papers. He gathers 1600 Forint by working without pause for 6 years, and in 1873 he organises in Kecskemét a theatre ensemble and becomes its intendant. His ensemble plays in 1874 in Szatmár (Satu-Mare). In 1875, he marries the actress Kiss Veron, a member of his ensemble. He is theatre intendant in 1876 in Miskolc, 1877-78 in Szabadka (Subotica), in 1879-1880 in Kassa (Kosice), and in Debrecen. In 1883, he takes over the Buda theatre circle and plays with his ensemble for the summer season in the Krisztinavárosi Színkör.
Krecsányi, mentioned as the best country theatre intendants of all times, comes with his ensemble to Temesvár (Timisoara) in 1888. The gorgeous building of the Ferenc József Theatre is completed by then, and the Hungarian and German ensemble is competing with equal chances for the audience, and they share the season, too: from September to February, the stage belongs to the Hungarian, and from February on, to the German ensemble from Pozsony (Bratislava). The situation of the Hungarian Thália was not quite good. His friends attention Krecsányi not to plan a show for Sunday after noon, because he will not even get half of his day expenses, and not to open the gallery during the week, because it is plain loss. The Intendant, being a stubborn person – today we would say a good manager – does not accept to loose his calculated incomes and getting forced to leave bankrupt Temesvár as his predecessors: Mosonyi Jakab and Gerőfi Andor. He searched the director of the horse rail, Baader Henrik, and presented him his plan: who buys a gallery ticket for twenty Penny in one of the suburbs, becomes a free horse-rail ticket to it, to get home after the show. The half of the transportation price, ten Penny, is paid by the theatre, the other half by the horse-rail company. The first doubting director admits that the plan was not that bad after all. The time of the first show has come, and the audience is empty. Krecsényi does not give up, and the suburban audience gradually gets used to visit the theatre. Quoting Krecsányi himself: “The shows of Az ember tragédiája (Tragedy of Humankind) do show, how the gallery audience did change during the first winter. This play had the strongest effect during the season: the remake of Madách has been played six times after in row. Even for the fifth show, so many wanted to enter the gallery, that the police were forced to push back the bulk.”
He plays with his ensemble in a row of bilingual cities from Pozsony (Bratislava) to Fiume, from Kassa (Kosice) to Temesvár (Timisoara). His organisation and management talent are excellent. He is an intendant with a sharp eye, contracting many young talents and starting their artistic career. He is a cultivated, zealous and circumspect person with an exemplar theatre enthusiasm. Somló Sándor, Beregi Oszkár, Janovics Jenő, Medgyaszay Vilma, Környei Béla, Gyenge Anna and others started their career with him.
On his repertoire, there were from Shakespeare to Ibsen equally classical and modern authors. His program did not lack operas either. He is the first to show the operas of Wagner in the countryside. He brings on stage with good actors Bánk bán, Az ember tragédiája, Ibsen´s Nora. He is the first to bring on the stage in Hungarian the plays of Strindberg, Shaw, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Gorky. He was an exigent and consequent director, who accomplished great successes.
Newspaper writing did accompany him continuously as theatre intendant, he published during the theatre seasons several articles on theatre and actors. In the most cities he plays, he writes in the local press -in the Délmagyarországi Közlöny from Temesvár also. He is collaborator of the Színpad (from 1869), the Színészeti Közlöny (1879-1880), the Színészek Lapja, he edits for a period the Színházi Naptár. His volume, the Régi dolgok – régi színészetről (Old things – about old theatre) is published 1914 in Temesvár (Timisoara).
He spends in the Banat capital more than half of his career as theatre intendant. He finishes his artistic career in 1914, saying fare-well to the audience in Temesvár. His inheritance: his works, his extraordinary rich playbill collection, his good-bye album, and his library are kept in Budapest.
The alternative theatre workshop within the Csiky Gergely Theatre Timisoara wears the name of Krecsányi Ignác.
