Two and a half-concentrated hour with Victor A. Kravchenko on the base of Maladype. In theory Zoltán Balázs is also there, who is the engine of the Kravchenko project, or its rolling mill instead, its Stakhanovite – but on the tall chair, which is a pulpit and the dock at the same time, Kravchenko himself is the one, who remembers, argues, ironizes, shows emotions, flirts with the viewers – the minimalist properties of the performance (a chair, with a little bit longer legs, as in the seemingly equal greyness of the Soviet Era, there were always some, who were more equal, and a reading lamp, its eyes hurting light gives the possibility to nightmarish associations) can fascinate us. It is authentic and unreliable at the same time, the Soviet functionary one, who protects and charges himself at the same time, he is the great survival and the one who experiences all these, who at the turning point of his story, in the WC of the ugly workers’ hostel, flushes the torn photo of Stalin, he is the sale-made-brand, who shows himself to the American viewers, he is the tovaris Quijote, who has a tragic fate, who in spite of all these, can keep his socialist, rebellious belief till the end. And here is the crosstalk of course – the banal everyday life of a dictatorship. It is not about the “big deals”, the “big fear” – the tiny terrors and compromises, the hopelessness and teeth grinding resignation that fill everything. That how petty the great robbers are. That how musty, suffocating the cloisters and tiny towers of a castle of a robber (of a Castle) can be.

At the end Kravchenko (Zoltán Balázs?) scandals together with the viewers: without a democratic Russia it is not possible to have peace on earth. About thirty-forty people are sitting on the uncomfortable folding chairs in a pure “civilian” living room in the centre of the town (in the hall of a Soviet court? in the lecture hall of a little American town? in some kind of Purgatory outside the place and time? on here and now, in the theatre of a little Eastern-European country, which is falling into dictatorship?), and they demand democracy, freedom for Russia? For us? Is it a gesture? Is it a message?

I do not scandal. I think, I have never wanted to scandal any more. I hope, I will not scandal any more. But Kravchenko (Zoltán Balázs?) fascinates me again.

There is fog outside. In the East Station soldiers are walking up and down. Our train leaves on time. This latest one, I almost feel dissonant, a kind of V-effect by Brecht. It is not the reality.

Péter Konok, 2015

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)