In the 1940s at the Comedy Theatre of Budapest (Vígszínház), an actor performing in Hamlet accidentally mispronounced "to be or not to be" in Hungarian, making it sound like "to bathe or not to bathe." The audience erupted in laughter, and despite his attempts to recover, the giggles wouldn’t stop. By the end of the performance, the actor ad-libbed, "I guess I’ve made my decision—I’ll bathe later."
To be a bit more seriuos, the story of museums and theatres of today's Budapest begins with the merging of Buda, Pest and Obuda into one great city.
New unified Budapest was a gesture, message and a statement. For the hungarians to finally get the partnership instead of subjection from the Austiran Empire also meant the revival of the national self-identification and pride (let alone freedom). And with that came gigantic money and efforts that were put into cultural projects such as museums, theatres and galleries... It doesn't mean that before the unification there were no museum. For example, the National Museum was founded in 1802, but the real thriving period started after 1873.
Now we can visit and enjoy more than 200 museums and 40 theatres in Budapest. Let's be honest here... not all of them are really good.
However, around 40-50 of them are either pure gems or just worth a visit (especially when it's cold)... Plus hungarians are no strangers to self irony and who knows, maybe you'll be lucky enough to witness some.