Zoltán Balázs’ suggestive monodrama, which he has made of the novel, can concentrate on the most exciting motifs of the book with good sense, in the Maladype Theatre.

“Anyway, we are that generations, who are made to be victims and to suffer by the history.” This sentence above can be read in a memoir of 28 chapters, which can captivate our attention through not less than 800 pages. In spite of its gigantic size, this passion is incredibly exciting and it is full of twists. The book, I Chose Freedom is the personal testimony of a high ranked party official and of an engineer of heavy-industry, which was published in English with the subtitle of A Soviet official worker’s political and private life, in the United States, first in 1947, so during Stalin’s life. It was not a safe thing at that time. The deserter, Victor Kravchenko was the first, who has reported about the Soviet Union without any covering. The writer was everywhere in reality and he could see many things – in any other era it must be a statement without any meaning.

However, this time, this well-known cliché is not true, very much. Since, officer Kravchenko, the main engineer at the beginning of the 1930s, when a 20 minutes late arriving from their workplace, could cause more years in prison for the offender, and when the working families in Siberia have to live in so called zemljanky, so in holes, which were dug into the ground. Kravchenko worked as the representative of the party during the harvest time in Ukraine, when the children, who has bloated stomachs and deformed bodies because of starvation and their parents ate the horse manure and the freshly shelled barks in the hope of survival. During specialized meetings the old members of the communist party, by mentioning each other’s suspicious past and by smearing the others, try to avoid the highest levelled social protecting action, so the headshot, in a luckier case, the deportation into a village far away from everything, from where the returning has unknown possibility.

The phones were ringing during the night to check each other, then the callers did not answer into them, as if they were answered, they could decide for sure if the one had been taken away by the frightening black cars (crows) by the people of NKVD or not, and who were those, who could (still) be afraid and sweat at large for a while. In Kravchenko’s book only the family members, the father, the mother and his two brothers are the fixed characters. His colleagues, acquaintances, lovers would disappear sooner or later mostly without any marks in the depth of wet prisons and in the hell of labour camps. Kravchenko is first of all a man, and only after it he is a devout communist, this “tiny” thing can differentiate him from the others, who live in his surrounding, and it is enough to make him gradually alienated and disillusioned from the ideology of the system.

Zoltán Balázs’ suggestive mono drama, which has been of the novel, in the Maladype Theatre, can concentrate with good sense, on the most exciting motifs of the book, that way the chapter, which title is The Secret of the Present, can be painfully beautiful and the strongest part of the performance at the same time. Our hero is waiting for his lover with his beating heart in his throat, in the station, and he does not get off the next bus instead, because that way he can see the attractive and intelligent girl, about whom we later learn that she is the agent of the NKVD, who is specialized on the foreigners and tourists. In another memorable situation, Kravchenko, who lives between good financial circumstances from the point of view of general soviet situation, is made ruthlessly to face up with the barbarity of the Soviet system, which is above all ideas, by his once revolutionist father.

Zoltán Balázs is a sensitive actor, because he can self-confidently and easily keep the contact with the viewers, who are sitting around him. Once he asks if the viewers want to listen to the next part, because if the situation is that way, he can even jump in the text. We have decided, that we would like to listen to everything from the dynamic performer. Other times, he honestly admits, that he cannot get out of the already started but too long sentence, but with a short cut he can get out of this embarrassing situation. His performance, which is without any kind of extra things, can be effective, because he can make the scenes sharp with some stresses and movements of his hands. It is probably rare, that a mono drama is performed for the viewers in two parts. The exciting performance has lost some of its drive during the second part, as the first one is too detailed, probably it would not be necessary to give so much stress so long to Krachenko’s ages as a child and as a young man.

It is a long-needed try, which is taken care by the Non-Profit Organisation of Maladype Theatre. The book of I Chose Freedom has been published by Péter Konok’s translation.. We cannot talk enough about those brave people besides the historical cataclysms of the 20th century, who always stood out in for their truth between any kinds of circumstances, who during the time of the greatest terror could see in the mirror with straight back and without bigger damage of their faces.

Szabolcs Szekeres, Art 7, 2015

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)