Lívia Ölbei: The tower room of freedom
Those, who visited Zwinger, could have an extraordinary experience, to Zoltán Balázs’ performance. He chose freedom.
Between the stone walls of the Zwinger (The Old Tower), in this puritan but anyway generous „historical closeness” this monumental life confession could have an even greater effect, than anywhere else. Zoltán Balázs, actor, director, the founder and leader of the Maladype Theatre in Budapest, accepted the invitation of IASK and took to Kőszeg his performance (with the lack of a better phrase let’s call it that way), which has been made of Victor Kravchenko’s autobiographical book, of the I Chose Freedom. The book, which was published in 1946 in English, was written by a Russian writer, who – after he had been disappointed in the soviet work of communism, as it was formed according to Stalin, and he had faced up with the horrific things, which came up under the forgery of reality – could emigrate.
Kravchenko book published with the edition of Maladype in Hungarian (they asked Péter Konok to make the translation of it), and Zoltán Balázs after many years stepped on stage again as an actor with this play. During the past two years the “matter of Kravchenko” has risen a great echo on international level too, which has not reached its end at all. And however, Zoltán Balázs takes good care to raise the performance from the ordinary theatrical circles – he does not “perform a role”, but he “interprets Kravchenko”, there is not any set, there is not any property -, first of all this dizzy, artistic-human performance that is hardly taken by words can have effect on the viewers, which is condensed in these intensive more than two hours. This unstoppable, one-man flow of words do not come alone, Zoltán Balázs/Victor Kravchenko does not lose even for a moment, the contact with the viewers. He reacts, reflects, shake hands, sits next to you, smiles, looks into your eyes. Meanwhile – by the way, but obviously because of the spiritual-physical liability too – from a teenager, who is full of illusions he is aged to be a man with broken face, as it is evoked for himself too in the text. We can turn it anyway; all autobiography can round off and “justify himself”.
The matter of Kravchenko also goes towards its aim (maybe a little bit so much). But it cannot take any of that limitless experience of freedom, which Zoltán Balázs can create with the help of it. The nagging question is always personal anyway: And what would you have done anyway? What would you do?
Lívia Ölbei, vaol.hu, 2017
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
Between the stone walls of the Zwinger (The Old Tower), in this puritan but anyway generous „historical closeness” this monumental life confession could have an even greater effect, than anywhere else. Zoltán Balázs, actor, director, the founder and leader of the Maladype Theatre in Budapest, accepted the invitation of IASK and took to Kőszeg his performance (with the lack of a better phrase let’s call it that way), which has been made of Victor Kravchenko’s autobiographical book, of the I Chose Freedom. The book, which was published in 1946 in English, was written by a Russian writer, who – after he had been disappointed in the soviet work of communism, as it was formed according to Stalin, and he had faced up with the horrific things, which came up under the forgery of reality – could emigrate.
Kravchenko book published with the edition of Maladype in Hungarian (they asked Péter Konok to make the translation of it), and Zoltán Balázs after many years stepped on stage again as an actor with this play. During the past two years the “matter of Kravchenko” has risen a great echo on international level too, which has not reached its end at all. And however, Zoltán Balázs takes good care to raise the performance from the ordinary theatrical circles – he does not “perform a role”, but he “interprets Kravchenko”, there is not any set, there is not any property -, first of all this dizzy, artistic-human performance that is hardly taken by words can have effect on the viewers, which is condensed in these intensive more than two hours. This unstoppable, one-man flow of words do not come alone, Zoltán Balázs/Victor Kravchenko does not lose even for a moment, the contact with the viewers. He reacts, reflects, shake hands, sits next to you, smiles, looks into your eyes. Meanwhile – by the way, but obviously because of the spiritual-physical liability too – from a teenager, who is full of illusions he is aged to be a man with broken face, as it is evoked for himself too in the text. We can turn it anyway; all autobiography can round off and “justify himself”.
The matter of Kravchenko also goes towards its aim (maybe a little bit so much). But it cannot take any of that limitless experience of freedom, which Zoltán Balázs can create with the help of it. The nagging question is always personal anyway: And what would you have done anyway? What would you do?
Lívia Ölbei, vaol.hu, 2017
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)