There are eight Thonet chairs between thirty pink flamingos. There are girls, who are changing their dresses and boys, who are putting down their dresses between the thonet flamingos, the flamingo chairs. They are trying out themselves, each other, and the others. There is girlish and boyish curiosity before the international history and joyful smile on the eight faces, and there is continuous restlessness which is composed into movements in the area, mostly followed by Ravel and obviously with the Bolero at the end.

As four Adams and four Evas are still flying in the paradise together with the birds. they are crying together with the monkeys, they are sliding together with lizards, and they are falling together with the drops of rain. The human and animal kindergarten of the paradise becomes a garden of children by the Egg(s)Hell, by Sándor Weöres one-word long well-known poem. The Maladype and Thália Theatre promise a breath-taking common performance without words, but some names, inviting words, informative crying, onomatopoeia leaves the mouths (probably all of them are useless). It is a wonderful teamwork by Éva Bakos, Hermina Fátyol, Kamilla Fátyol, Katalin Simkó, Zoltán Lendváczky, Ákos Orosz, Zsolt Páll and Ádám Tompa: it is a one-line long theatre, sometimes with flourishing repeated patterns of lines. Without any concrete stories it is substantially epic, it is a scale of scenes, which talk about ancient patterns of behaviour and relationships, its choreography is sensitive, it was born in the director’s, Zoltán Balázs’ head, will, nerves, who is drunken by dreamy fields, but he is perfect, in order to make the members of Maladype live it, circle it around, fall, slide into mud, into gold, into muddy gold.

The awkward nature of description can just sign, how the searching for places, the changing of it, the getting of them and their hurry can pervade in more “scenes” the tireless enthusiasm of the troupe, who are sitting from chairs to chairs, hurrying, and arriving, and how the many types of game, which they do with the chairs, can bring together, chase away, turn against one another, organise into union, strike and the rhythm of the body, in connection with the eight actors on the rhythm of the music. The graceful, exotic flamingos, the birds of the set by György Katus – they lean their graceful necks towards each other in a quarter of a circle, in wedges, in easy waving lines – they form playing partners, and arsenal of toys behind, next to, under them to save those, who are hiding under them. (They are pushing many times the creatures, standing on round black bases, as children are doing it with lead soldiers, who are playing war.)

The egg, which is the symbol of origin and expresses it too, it is equal with them and the chairs, but it has a very important and different role as property. The cigarette is similar to egg, which expresses the narcotic excitement of modern life-style. They put into their mouth not only the cigarette but the chicken egg too, the performers kiss them into one another’s mouth: they caress the form, they transmit the food and poison too. The silent song of kiss flies from mouth to mouth, the baton of eroticism is running, however neither the half nakedness of the changing of clothes, nor some (the more direct reference to the nighty euphoria, pleasure, fertility) some settings cannot step out of the frames of aesthetic nature of stage, which is sophisticated and vivid, it cannot get out of the hall, which is drawn by the lights of the column- and dome of the background wall.

Here are some pictures just to show: a boy and a girl are blowing an egg, while the irregularly rolling forms have not come together between the legs of the tall flamingos on the stage. Both of them have different reaction to it (the wild experiment of the blowing of ostrich eggs has been started too); those who are blowing the eggs, look at each other deeply while they are laying on the ground. Opposite to the games, which are about the saving of the eggs, there is a game about the breaking of them – it has rougher and more materialistic effect too – it is the two boys’ arm wrestling: they measure the strength of their arm while they are laying on the ground (maybe for a woman), between the two palms there is the obviously splashing egg. Zoltán Balázs uses just the incredibly moveable notes of eight corpuses for the composition of the Bolero, and sometimes the knocking on the incredibly hard hell of the egg, just then, during the buzzing music of love, he limits the most strictly the touches, the contacts – so that way in the end he can put the grotesque nature of the whole composition into slowly darkened puppet-like movements.

János Breckl easy coloured costumes – with white, black, burning red, cobalt blue, oceanic green, darkened ochre and with the colour of the flamingos – which can melt into the whole gallery as properties; but a piece of hell of an egg can (by accident) become “costume” as a tonsure. The small silent periods between musical parts has separate function (musical colleague: Bánk Sáry). In reality the vison has not got any more serious downturns, the precisely coordinated process can absorb the necessary corrections. Probably they should not forget anyway, that the great masters of dance-and movements theatre know well, why they form much shorter opuses: the hard using of the physique for such a long time (they climb the walls, with imitated falling, with running and moving performance, which is imposing), and the consequences of eighty minutes long continuous soul changing is almost an assassination against the troupe: sometimes it can be seen on the members. The members of the troupe do not protest for sure: they are lost in their own trial of power as much as the viewers are in the sight.

Tamás Tarján, kultúra.hu, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The scales of movements, which are composed from points to points just slowly reveal their improvising nature, we can notice some simple rules, which are organising the sometimes confusing, then multi-simultaneous happenings. There is real concentration, being together, fall from two and half metres high – I do not even watch if they caught me or not, as I know that they did it. There is real nudeness, there is real spit on the eggs, which they give to each other from mouth to mouth. They play and they play well, the question is that they do it on their own or to us too?

The director, Zoltán Balázs does not leave many catchable to his actors, in the newest performance of Maladype, in the Egg(s)Hell: there is neither text nor any frame of dramaturgy. Which remain there: 32 pink flamingos, 8 chairs, properties (mainly eggs, sugar cubes, cigarette...), some music parts in an unfixed order (mainly Ravel), some etudes of scenes, and they, the eight actors, in the place of the New Studio of Thália Theatre, which is enlightened evenly, naked into blackness with the viewers on the one side. They have to do something today with it.

In case of Leonce and Léna the choice of marking physicality as a mode of speech has already been exciting (physical theatre), however then the actors still had the chance to speak, the safe calmness of intonation, to which they could return in this doubled (composed from text and sign-like movements together) performance. Now they do not have this handhold. There is always some special kind of excitement when those kind of actors deal with physical theatrical forms, who do not have any experience (or they are unexperienced at all) in the art of movements: the formation of movements can give elemental experience of truth on the one hand, on the other hand, there is the risk, that because of their civilian lumpish nature, the concrete physicality cannot reach any metaphorical level, so the performance become either arty or meaningless.

The Egg(s)Hell, which starts from Sándor Weöres’ one-word poem, tries to avoid these extremes, however it moves towards both sides: the poetic nature of speech with the closest connection to the music, can lower down the elemental experience of truth of the naturalness of movements, while simple scales of movements, the clear sign language of gestures can avoid mostly successfully the trap of vulgarity on artistic meaning and arty nature. I think there will be people, who will like very much this wonderful, vivid togetherness on stage and there will be those, who however like the troupe of Maladype – will suffer all through this one and half hour long period, especially if they arrive unprepared (with expectations, hungry for stories, sweaty after the fights for parking spots).

Despite Zoltán Balázs’ and the troupe honourable initiative nature – with which they are searching for unversed ways and speaking form for themselves again and again – they perform a play again, in case of which we cannot feel the experimenting nature anyway. I am watching it, and I can see a complete performance, which worked out nature does not mark the quality, but some kind of readiness, which is noticeable in spite of all stylistic openness and incompleteness (now it is the improvising nature).

The Maladype seems to reach the end of something all their performances from one to the another, and in spite of the elements, which can be found in many of them and obviously over brought results of some of them, but they seemingly start something different all the time, which they will finish again in some months.

The Egg(s)Hell is mainly the togetherness of eight people, their careful watching of one another – through the signs of touching, approaching, moving away. It is a real and symbolic play with eggs. In the performance, I watched, some of them broke – I think sometimes none of them does it... Today there were too many changes of position on the chairs, for me it was much over that point, when the drive of the meaning of its multiple sounding can hold out, as all the performance pulses finely between the excitement of beauty and the boredom. Today it was better to be on the stage than between the viewers. It was that kind of evening.

Ákos Török, Ellenfény, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The Hungarian actors have fixed legs, György Cserhalmi, the artist with perfect moving culture and even acrobatic abilities, said it once. It meant that here we have psychological, realistic performing, so in most of the performances the actors are standing and sitting, and telling the text with different levelled empathy. While in happier theatrical cultures, not to go far away, for example in Polish and Romanian that is more stylistic, so the method of performance, which is connected more that mother tongue of theatre needs more movements and high levelled physical preparedness. Of course, in Hungary there have been always exceptions. When Jirí Menzel in the József Katona Theatre during a rehearsal period, which was full of conflicts, he directed Gozzi’s play, The Deer King, there was an actor, János Bán, who seemingly very naturally was suitable for this necessity of this elevated moving, which Menzel would like to except from the others too. As the director and actor with an Oscar Award, when he performed in a guest role in the József Katona Theatre, in the wonderful comedy, in the Pension for Single Gentlemen, he arrived on the stage, so lazily flipping into an armchair, so everybody could admire him, who watched it.

The young generation of today’s Hungary is of course, more prepared on their fields, than the older one was. It can be thanked for many musicals from one side, in which they have to dance, however in these performances many times the prosaic scenes are the most conventional ones. Since then Andrea Ladányi has become the leader of dancing course in the University of Theatre and Film Art, she makes all generations work hard, wonderful exam performances can prove it. Around the József Katona Theatre the situation has changed a lot. Yvette Bozsik likes to put actors and dancers next to each other and then she makes the earlier ones dance and the later ones perform.

But the is a troupe, the Maladype Theatre, whose members take part regularly on trainings, their stamina is enviable, and in reality it cannot be said, if they are prosaic actors or artists of movements instead. Their leader is Zoltán Balázs, he learned to be a theatrical artist in Paris, he is a director and an actor at the same time. From the beginning, he has differed from the realistic style. He has celebrated ceremony-like theatre, with the emphasised presence of music and vision. Sometimes I have felt the same, that the strong conception, and the hard working of the group push the individualities behind, there are fewer individual performances, it is hardly “training”, what I see. It has resulted in coldness, affection and monotony. But by now the regular work seems to get its reward. In spring, the performance of Leonce and Lena has already been gracefully playful in the Bárka Theatre. The actors learnt all scenes in four different versions. As the members of the auditorium, we could order, if we wanted to watch any scenes in different version and with different cast. The prose has become equal to the moving. The actors could stand on one another, they could form pyramids or walk on narrow planks, while they were telling convincingly Büchner’s lines. There was show and trial of strength in it too, to show that how many things could a troupe perform, but it melted up in the playfulness, in the ingenious improvisation. In the present performance of the Egg(s)Hell in the New Studio of Thália Theatre the actors hardly tell any words or cry something out. Anyway we can see an hour and half-long moving at one go, mostly on Ravel’s music. But it is not dance, especially is not ballet, it is more warming, joyful, childish mischief, it seems like children with huge fantasy would do tricks, they would play with everything – even with themselves too – which comes into their hands. They try out what they can use these things. They kiss for example the eggs into each other’s mouth. Or they even sniff up into themselves with narcotic pleasure the raw egg. They are throwing to one another a ball with egg shape, they are posing in a tricky way, as they are playing displacing in real life. They run against the wall with silly energy, as they would like to get out of the world. Some things have been fixed before, but anyway they improvise freely. They have tried out their own possibilities too. Thirty puppet flamingos, who are living partners sometimes, serve as a set. They are pushing them, as they are forming an army from them, they hide behind them, or even dance with them. They are wondering then sometimes get into increased state of Bacchanalia, they deliver their bodies to the others, and without being ashamed to us too. They put on display their virtues and mistakes. They ask the basic question of theatre. That how much the actors can be taken according to their physical and mental strain, without suffering any permanent injuries.

Pál Frenák has dealt with similar dilemmas for a while, who tries to mix different genres too. He connects dancing with circus-like acrobatics. He expects abilities of an actor from his dancers. He connects mental revelation with real nudeness. His performance from last year, the Instinct spoke about that how hopelessly we have been alone. His performance in Trafó, last year, the Intime was about how much bodies try to get against one another, how much they desire touch, the cuddling to one another, the mixing, and what kind of social loneliness comes from it in the end. Then social lies would disappear, the body requires its properties, it explodes the formed out relationships, it pries apart all borders and here we get to the silly Bacchanalia. The senses riot, the nerves dances acrobatic dances, the tempo becomes maddening, the performers have become sweaty. As Balázs, Frenák also chases their actors to ecstasy, the basic mood of the two performances are different anyway. The Egg(s)Hell frees the hormones of happiness firstly, the mixture of playfulness and pleasure, while it is the declaration of love about theatre too. Frenák is more liturgical. He performs the destroying powers. He has been more grotesque, sarcastic, tricky as in the Tricks Tracks or in case of The Boys. Now he is more lethargic. He tries to widen the borders too. He has been more powerful, he has been better too, what he has choreographed, but now there is now sign of steadiness, we can feel that he does not only chase the body till the end, his brain is working too, he tries to give out everything from himself, what he can. He does not make a performance to lazy viewers with season tickets, and he does not work with experienced, steady actors. As wall as the troupe of Maladype Theatre too. Most of the Hungarian theatres are lazier than they are. But thanks for their raising effect too something is moving anyway.

Gábor Bóta, Népszava, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The Egg(s)Hell performance of Maladype, which is full of vitality, game and joy of life, is composed between the others on Bolero by Ravel. Mainly without any voice, they put on stage some memorable moments of the relationship between men and women with the egg in the main role, on the scale from the childish teasing until the sexual giving and getting, the common characteristic of these is the game, which has bigger and smaller bet.

A strange tension fills the whole place of the New Studio of Thália Theatre, which can be thanked only for some eggs, which are going against all physical rules, from hands to hands, mouth to mouth,, and from any other places to anywhere else, with pulsating dynamic, and some actors, who are similar to precise artists, but they are working with defining delicacy, who are concentrating with all their parts. This atmosphere forms a strange composition with the motives of game, which are composed on classical music, built well over-thought, and it is opened in symbiosis with the sounds. These motives are often repeated, but the individualities, who are opened freely between very strict formal frames, with different contents, and they fill with newer and newer surprises the similar elements on the stage (we just have to think about the scenes of choosing of chairs).

Zoltán Balázs’ performance starts its story with a serious show of strength of maturity, which slowly turns into a chasing, then into a game of cats and mice, after it they change it into a genesis metaphor of balls and eggs, and after the fulfilling of love in a demonstrative way – but not pitifully – make it smear on the sad, black wall (supporting the safe sex!). It is not the end, so they immediately go back to play, because it is good to be a child, and it is not even impossible as an adult.

The troupe is shining, they feel themselves well, they play joyfully mainly to one another, and with each other, sometimes in a childish way, they show themselves to the world. It gives such an intimate atmosphere to the performance, which can get the viewers easily. It is true, that for it we need the musical material too, which helps the viewers to keep their attention on the “opening” fazes of each scenes. We have to add to it, that the music is very good, the Bolero, which is chosen to the final – and those intermezzos with Latin mood too, which follow the evening. Éva Bakos, Hermina Fátyol, Kamilla Fátyol, Ákos Orosz, Zoltán Lendváczky, Zsolt Páll, Katalin Simkó and Ádám Tompa are taking care of one another all through the performance, they work together like a well-operating machine, while they are moving huge physical and mental energy on the stage.

The Egg(s)Hell becomes not an importantly whirling, but dynamic and cosy performance, which gives a unique form of entertainment in an elevated sense, and they invite the viewers with more childish soul for a passive game.

Balázs Zsedényi, 7óra7, 2010

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The elegant pink flamingos fill the stage in groups. Between them the elegant actors-dancers are sitting on thonet chairs. Four wonderful women in black, pure dresses, four men in white shirts with black ties. For different music – from the pop music through jazz until classical one – they are getting the rhythm, they immerge into common games, they lighten nicely erotic sparks with childish innocent, playful movements to show the games of owning and leaving.

Who gets from whom? Who can get the best position for themselves? Who and how can raise the others’ interest? In the performance everything goes around the egg. They dance and perform with them, throw them, they aim the others with it. Who and how will reach the others? The egg is a fragile toy. If they do not use it carefully enough it will break immediately. It does not just symbolise the beginning of life, but it can be the tool for two people to get closer to one another. As the couple, who is laying on the ground, blowing the rolling eggs, with their hot breath get closer to one another too. The hell of the egg, which is hard outside seemingly, but in reality it is very fragile, it symbolizes the fragility of our soul.

The flamingos are chasing around the chairs, the actors are throwing the eggs to one another, and we, the viewers try to follow the free chasing. We turn our heads, try to follow it, who moves where on the stage. When an egg “breaks” accidentally and its yellow part flows around on the stage, the small, colourful baskets are there by hands. The actors clean up after themselves the rubbish and all the tricks, sinfulness, which they have committed. Sometimes they give the eggs to one another that way, they do not even use their hands. The desire towards physical touch, the fear of the passion can ruin everything. Then suddenly they offer the eggs to the viewers, as an offer: let’s come and play with them.

The women, who are competitors of one another, try to raise the men’s attention with different tricks. They suddenly fall down the chair, they show poses with many meanings, they light a cigarette temptingly and blow the smoke provocatively. They put on new, colourful dresses asking for help from the men. Finally each woman tights and owns a man to herself. A couple has a fabulous circling dance in the middle of the stage, until they fall tiredly. The men take the women on their shoulders, and uses the half-naked bodies as the string of a guitar. They close into their laps the female bodies that fall from above, hold them. Then, when women need help, they push them away. The men forma pavement from their bodies and a woman cruelly steps through on them, while she is going towards her destination. The men play masculine games. During the sport-like exercises from the flamingos they make football or handball goals. The women are watching them, and support them. Like a magician between his hands with the hells of the egg, the actors are pushing that way the chairs on the stage for the last tones of Bolero by Ravel, to show the relationships between them. The flamingos become voyeurs, the barriers and the birds symbolize the connection.

The scale of colours of the movement theatre of Budapest, in Zoltán Balázs’ performance goes from the playfulness and jokes, which captivate the viewers, until the sensitive expressions of human soul. In spite of the performances, which are tiring physically and make the actors work technically, from the actors come the joy of playing all through the performance.

Zuzana Perůtková, rozrazilonline.cz, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The seven-eighths percent of the Maladype invites us to an asymmetrical game during some evenings of January. Of the “invite” is a poetic exaggeration: Zoltán Balázs and his troupe let me watch them. We can watch it. This – this time takes it seriously – unique performance, as Éva Bakos is “missing” from the group. The original pattern of four boys, four girls, breaks during the performances in January, and that way we can see for a moment, even from closer the inner structure of the Game with capital letters. That the castle of cards can collapse, which was built of invisible rules, surprises, improvisations, well used routine, raised instincts on the stage, if a piece of card momentary falls out. For example, the queen of clubs. I even go further: maybe, just maybe, it can be felt more strongly here, that are there any sets on the stage. Is there a frame of structure built of humour and honesty? Can a real construction be built from – strong bases – gesture-pillars, and elements of movements.

The title of the performance, Sándor Weöres’ one line long poem is a wonderful brand on the performance. Almost all articles, which have been written about it, accept the “critical temptation”, and at least in four lines they talk about the real fragile beauty of the scenes in poetic pictures. As it is very obvious to answer to its own stage language of the performance with quasi poetry, to the unusual theatrical magic of the movements without words, which tell a lot or nothing. It is real. Here are these seven wonderfully talented youngsters on stage. The universe hides in their eyes. But we cannot do not to notice, that nothing hides in their eyes too. We can see the comfortable-uncomfortable pale pink flamingo nest in their gaze and movements. And if we can escape from the forced poetic fixing of the “difference every evening”, we can get to extremely touchable problems. Where are the borders of the conscious usage of “here and now”? How can we handle the dissonance between workshop and the performance? How can the performers, movers, viewers, doers see the sharp difference between the choreography and the sequences of movements on stage?

Egg(s)Hell is an experiment of theatre of movements, it is a dance-like theatre, or something very similar to it, and the uncertainty of the definition is serious symptom too. But before we would analyse carefully this dissonancy of the genre, it is worth stating: in this performance there are many tiny, wonderful solutions and surprises, that the basic conception has “a classical Maladype-like character”, so that way it does not affect with the power of new. It does not make me surprised. We have seen similar things before. We have thoughts about its operation. Zoltán Balázs always draws with excellent feelings, pale rules as the plan of the performance, between which they can live through, experience the infinite freedom of performance and actors. He opens the place as a master of the performance – the place of the performance (too) of course – in front of his actors, who can live it and for it according to their visions this world, which is made of some fixed elements and many improvisational possibilities. Now he gives a structure of place, which (sometimes, not in the evenings for sure) can be reformed, and this structure is not anything else anyway, than a huge group of pink flamingos. The stage is ruled visually by horde of human sized birds, with feathers, beaks, vivid colours, which can be pushed back and forward, about thirty birds are watching with their glass eyes the performers, and drawing – as they like it – smaller and bigger places, circles, sides, corners, above and under places, here and there. There are eggs besides these. There are bigger and smaller ones. There are small plastic baskets, if the hells of the eggs break, and the white and yellow are flowing, they can be cleaned up with something. There are obvious properties of a sandbox. And there are sugar cubes too. There are cigarettes and lighters. The dresses are black (black and silk, colourful). There are black chairs, eight of them. These are the properties. And the music is given, in which Raven’s Bolero is the most fixed element. The performance is ended with it, meanwhile Latin songs, classical melodies, songs by Kispál és a Borz come one after another in a random order. These are the components. Seemingly, there is not any story, there are not characters of stage – just eggs, micro- scenes with improvisational taste formed around the flamingos, moving etudes, moving practices. That way, it can happen, that there is an evening, when the hell break all the time, flow the yellow one, the game turns to be a little bit burlesque. Zoltán Balázs this time – as he promises during his welcome – instructs the troupe. A noise “who knows what” structure is formed, the performance can be turned back and forward, we can re-watch some scenes faster and slower too, there is a parody of Zoltán Balázs, parody of modern dances (fantastic!), humorous parody of movements about a wedding, about a summer camp, about a travelling by bus. It is a hardly ruled “let’s put everything into it” – like theatrical chaos. It is poached egg(s)hell. Then another evening, there is a finer, more stylized, more counted performance, which we can see from the seven actors – with less egg yolk, more smoke of cigarette, with more lyric, more abstract, less narrative and instructed scenes. It is soft egg(s)hell well-seasoned, on porcelain.

The spontaneity and this special organised uneditedness is very exciting, but – to tell the truth – it is a strange, dual thing. The performers’ incredibly intensive concentration brings up intensive concentration in the auditorium too. There is breathless attention, which follows the way of the eggs. The mood of “they cannot know too, what would happen” brings up obvious sympathy from me too, from the viewers, like all these would be shown to me in the so-called intimacy of the rehearsal room and closely. The two planes of the idea and performance melt into one another: it is the informality of the rehearsal room with the responsibility of the situation of the performance. And here is the incredibly dissonancy. There is no use of the attention, deep interest, and workshop-intimacy. In spite of it – or because of it – some kind of impatient expectation is born in me. Because it is good, good, I enjoy it too, many times all of it is wonderful, it excites me, rocks me to sleep, makes me laugh ... but what is the bet? Does the performance have real bet, aim? Obviously, it has: but what is it exactly? Before I would answer the question (for which – I emphasized strictly – according to me answer can come only from a viewer), it worth thinking a little bit about the problem of its choreographed nature.

One of the exciting basis of the performance is the troupe’s improvisational ingenuity. Hermina Fátyol, Kamilla Fátyol, Ákos Orosz, Zoltán Papp, Zsolt Páll, Katalin Simkó and Ádám Tompa work on the stage with full heart and soul: with heath, soul, body, with impressively original and seemingly professional solutions, with innovative or even with less innovative artistic tools. But they can hold in hand just scenes according to their mood and conception. Obviously it (can be) is the director’s intention too, as the changing musical material is there to keep on its level the continuous attention of the actors. Anyway, this intensity, which is changing from scenes to scenes and the thinking in micro-units can recreate this strange and very captivating workshop atmosphere, which can generate again feeling of lack at the same time. This feeling is strengthened on the side of acceptance if the structure of the performance is not – as the troupe moves comfortably in a noticeable way, very confidently in the “here and now” according to Zoltán Balázs, they now what and how effects from the stage, in which they are good at, they have and we have known it since the Leonce and Lena, and they perform routinely with this super-present on the stage – the language, which is used on the stage is new for the troupe. More punctually, this situation gives birth to all ifs: the language, which they should use, is new. It would be new, if they were able to use it. To make it clear: some members of the troupe move perfectly, we can see the common, hard work, which has been before the Egg(s)Hell. But during the one and half hour of the performance, there is not any choreography, which can be born. It is not the positive or the negative side of the performance: it is a fact. There are actors in this performance. Actors, who cannot speak now, but move – they are not dancers, and this means a totally different attitude and relationship to moving. The fact is that these seven actors start all scales of movements from a figure, they would do it, if they had a character. But all constructed characters last only for a scene. The cigarette monster, the couple, who connect together during their kissing scene with a sugar cube, the tricky figure of the egg hunter, who crawls under the legs of the flamingos, the exhibitionist members of the male group, who jump against the wall, disappear simply, when the exact melody finishes and a newer picture comes, another picture, another scene, part, act to solve come. The freedom is too big, to be able to reproduce the movement of one figure from the stage, to build figures from the movements: so the playful repetition remains, the imitation, lazy connection of drawings and ideas of movements. The choreography is not born, it cannot be born, as the thinking in choreography does come from the actors’ characters in reality, but from a problem of movement. Katalin Simkó has – sometimes she has, than she does not – a wonderful, choreography-like scene. By the black wall, which closes the stage, she climbs, rises from one boy’s shoulder, hands, laps to another one’s shoulder and she is getting further and higher. Her legs never reach the ground, but she moves: towards the black podium, pedestal with more floors at the edge of the stage, on which she stands for a moment, like a happy statue, which reaches her destination, then finally laughingly fall into her partners’ arms. It is a high-level play of trust, but it is not the only one, which makes it beautiful. Then in one of the evenings of January, Katalin Simkó takes this road towards the podium from hugs to hugs. So she can find an element of movement, which she can do in pattern-like way during the scale of movements. First she steps over, then hugs, then leans on, then hides, grabs again, then fits tight and smooths. She performs the expected exercise, but then makes a real material of movements from elements of it for the beauty of movement. It is good to see this scene with dancing-like sensitivity. I have to state: I would not like to see the performance as a dance-choreography, as its strength comes from the fact, that this performance belongs to the actors, to the Maladype. Anyway this nature without choreography can be a kind of key, as the mood of the rehearsal room comes from it. As all my feeling of lack. What is the aim, where is the structure, the over-thought form (it can be theatrical form, or form of movements)? It is few for a theatre somewhere. Especially for dancing. But it is too much for a given phrase of a performing procedure, or for a workshop performance, it is thick, entertaining, exciting. The performance resonates a little bit differently in eight to eight rhythm – I will examine interestingly later – but the basic structure, according to me, is independent from the headcount.

The question is still given: what is the real aim of this performance? Is it that I can watch into an intensive togetherness of the troupe, which works as a so-called workshop illustration? As it can – by more and more beautiful moments – happen. Anyway, nothing else has happened. For the troupe this performance must be important, I believe, that they have learnt and are still learning a lot from it. It is (was) good to watch. But I miss the deep research, the structure, the direction, the decision next to/against something. Because this that way is just: sunny side up eggs deep.

Dóra Juhász, Criticai Lapok, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Zoltán Balázs’ name, in its own, guarantees the quality of the performance. His troupe, the Maladype has moving-improvisations, which have been performing for three years under the name of Egg(s)Hell, which I compensated not long ago, and I got one and a half hour long carefree game between the walls of Thália Theatre.

It is compulsory to tell that the Egg(s)Hell is a performance of movement art, which is built on improvisations without any dialogues, which was inspired by Sándor Weöres’ one-word long poem. The members of the troupe, are performing in scenes and situations, in which the viewers are involved too, they have got just the frame of it from the director, and they can work freely by the leading line. The game is the most emphasised one. We refer many times to actors’ work, as game, but I have never felt so vivid and real this expression, as now, watching the performance of Maladype.

When we talk about the actors’ performance, we rarely think over, how much it is that, how much it is about imitation, travelling, learning, working or suffering. We can rarely experience the obvious joy of game. Zoltán Balázs’ troupe could show exactly what, we can see so rarely.

It is an interesting question anyway, that such an alternative trial, as the Egg(s)Hell, which importance is the grabbing of the moment, the improvisation, do not get tired, can keep their freshness even three years after the premiere. I can give a clear answer, according to it, the performance has not got tired at all, and yes it can remain totally fresh. For it, we need the fact, that the performers can accept, that with some help, they spend the time on stage in free fall, while they are there with incredible attention and discipline. We can rarely come up against, that transparent way, with the fact how much the characters are connected to one another, as freedom reaches just as far as this does not endanger the creature’s freedom. This attention, the responsibility towards one another appears in the Egg(s)Hell, while they are telling relationships and moods with their bodies and faces.

The excitement, the changing and colours of the circle game are built on the momentary mood of the participants, it gives spontaneity, fragility, that pulsation, which vibrate between the certainty and uncertainty. The game is indicated by sounds and rhythms, they come into our head and legs, that by the effects of the played music in different orders from performances to performances we can experience together with the performers all vivid moments of their performance. The eggs go around hand by hand, mouth by mouth, sometimes they isolate, then connect, they are fragile, as the relationships are, as the difference between the performance and the game. They form a strange connection between people, while they separate them from one another too. The plastic symbol of the egg follows the whole evening, it reflects sometimes eroticism, then humour, or even self-forgetfulness. The liberation is just the appearance, the concentration is very stressed behind it, as they are performing with all their muscles, bones and breath.

The greatest virtue of the Egg(s)Hell is its vulnerability, the openness, the acceptance of mistakes, the individuality of improvisations, but I can feel some kind of trap in it anyway. A kind of competition comes up between the performers, who dares better and more honestly, roughly accept the “free fall”, who dares to open that much, to be able to give permanent memories for the viewers too. The competitions have winners and losers, that way become paler Ákor Orosz with his excellent sense of humour, and Zénó Faragó, who is really characteristic, and has strong body-awareness, or Erika Tankó does it next to Kamilla Fátyol, who is fine and shines as a sexual diva, and charming with her naturalness. She “gets” a characteristic scene, when she climbs on a ladder of people, she struggles on a human bridge between two shores, but there is the calming light of certainty on her face: where she steps, there caring hands, shoulders and stomachs keep her between the earth and air. Her face expression is the trust itself, I shiver because of its reality. Fátyol is charming, her face gives me the creeps, in which the dizzy madness and sharp attention are together. There is tense drama in her small body, an erupting power and incredible concentration. At the end of the fight, she is falling and falling, she throws herself down as an artist, under whom there is not any protecting net, but knows that she does not have to be afraid. The shiver runs by my backbone, it touches us that way it grabs our nerve fibres, then she softens the movement into a charming smile.

There is no use talking about the scenes, as they are always changing, the properties flamingos and chairs of the really bagatelle set do not give any characters to the play, the performers use everything anyway, which comes into their hands, legs, from baskets through holes on the walls to the speaker cabinets, but nothing can make us forget, that their real properties are their own bodies and souls. There are fire, battle, sex, eroticism, love desires told in chansons, playing with fire and smoke, but music is played on human bodies too, while everything is moving all the time.

It is hard to write about it, when we get into the game, which is ordered by momentary impressions and improvisations. I become a part of it, I experience that intimate atmosphere, which I can compare only to the experience of the watching through the keyhole, and sometimes I get confused but then leave the auditorium pleased and even happily. The Egg(s)Hell is a brave experiment, whose performers accept, that entertain us that way, that they are entertained too, but even give out everything from themselves, which is possible physically and with concentration.

Anna Nikoletta Nagy, Kultblog.hu, 2011

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Four men and four women (Éva Bakos, Hermina Fátyol, Kamilla Fátyol, Katalin Simkó, Zoltán Lendváczky, Ákos Orosz, Zsolt Páll and Ádám Tompa): they are in night dresses, according to the modern fashion (but without shoes). Anyway, all these seem to be from other time, or at least not here; but somewhere in the timeless, outside the places, which exist according to physical rules. As beyond senses; on the ground of instincts. Where the theatre begins, when it starts in reality. The eight actors seem to have only that one and half hour to live through their life.

“Once, once / we were children” Sándor Weöres wrote it, who is the title giver of the performance (this is the title of a poem, with one line: Eggshell) in another of his poems, which is on stage by accident. This once is the time of the performance: we can see it from the bare foot, but from the soon beginning, from the special game of chair taking too. The game is made according to inner rules, filled with tension, all through it – with some kind of sexuality: not certainly with eroticism, but with interesting meeting, running around, shy interest.

The eggs soon appear – of course, this is a reference for the title too, but it can be interpreted so many ways as we can use them too. It is the question of origin, the symbol of fertility, the embodiment of easiness, fragile and momentary nature (these are similar characteristics together with the beautiful flamingos of the set director, of György Katus), which put some risks into the game too: put responsibility into the performers’ hands. Of course, not a big one: just as big as they need to learn maturity. Who drops one, “loses a circle”, goes for the basket and the shovel, and while the others are going on with their frivolous dance, he is just cleaning. In one performance, he has raised his partner’s interest so much, that she helps him to clean up (what a small sign it is of the flourishing love!) – the other one has not yet.

This performance, as many times during the director’s, Zoltán Balázs’ career, changes from evening to evening. Just some basic rules are fixed (for example, if a girl steps up onto the top of a chair, then they have to put the other chairs under her leg), the others come from themselves, even the order of the music can express Bánk Sáry’s actual mood too. The director tries to take care of the dramaturgy: the last music is always – what else – the Bolero, and the time is given too, which they can spend in one costume. Despite of that, the quality of the performance is not fixed: some days are totally different from the others. If everything goes bad – for example the music is boring – all can be lost. From one performance, which I have watched, one actress was away, because of an illness (Éva Bakos): her missing of course, broke the balance, broke the symmetry between the actors’ ages too – she sent her lack onto the stage, instead of herself. Now the theatrical experiment is not just the boys and the girls’ work: the viewers, even if is not important for them where Zoltán Balázs is during his improvement as a director, can feel on their own skins the eventuality of the experiment. Because if during an evening the movements cannot come well, and it ruins the actors’ stressed presence on stage (which is the main character, object and action of the performance here), then there is not plot, which can keep all of it. But if the stars stand well together, very beautiful things can be born.

For example, that the performers can learn one another, they chose a partner for themselves with different acts (for longer or shorter terms): they kiss from mouth to mouth the egg or blow the smoke of the cigarette, which is equal with the egg in the performance, or help the others change their clothes. (As there would be some of them, who have already eaten from the sinful apple, and there are those, who have not: there are some, who just show their body and get down their dresses, then later put on another, but there are some, who try to hide themselves shyly.) Besides the collective experiences (when like monkeys, everybody starts to imitate those, who have pushed themselves to the wall, or when somebody climbs up, and then experiences the intoxicating power of community and falls into the others’ arms) the doubled existences appear too: some wild dances, some sex-like actions, some really absurd games, like the testing of their pain threshold by cigarettes. Of course the pair fights of the “male characters” appear too, but do not leave the lightness and strong aesthetic nature of the previous things – and then merge all these fast in some kind of silly and lazy game. The best thing is, that all of it works not only in writing: the actors can experience all elements of movement theatre, that it can effect with all its elemental power towards the viewers too.

Maladype dances on the edge of the knife with the Egg(s)Hell – they are walking on the hells of eggs in reality. There are not neither implicit nor said rules that if it can happen, or if it is acceptable, that there is such huge difference between two performances: but the probe of pudding is its consuming, it cannot be taken from the viewers. Who – like me – could watch a performance, in which real things were born on the stage – the real game with capital letters, for example – must be permissive. The others – well they can talk about it with Zoltán Balázs.

Bálint Kovács, AmaroDrom, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Zoltán Balázs in the Gergely Csiky National Hungarian Theatre in Timisoara directed such a strictly and punctually built up performance (Odysseus’ arrival) in which the theatre and opera music can be there together. The director’s business card is fascinating: he learnt from Robert Wilson, he took part in the workshops by Josef Nadj and Anatolij Vasziljev. He has put on stage theatre, puppet theatre, opera, he has performed on stage and in film. Since 2003, he has been the leader of Maladype, independent theatre form Budapest. I have seen their four performances, if I had to characterize the troupe according to these, the following things would come into my mind: openness, naturalness, mood to play and playfulness, lazy movements, fast reaction, sharp listening and artistic punctuality. The director builds his performances mostly on the actors’ freedom and the involvement of the viewers (the viewers many times become active participants of his performances). It is that kind of journey; on which you can feel yourself in a special state as a viewer.

EGG(S)HELL: What was first? The egg or the play? (d. Zoltán Balázs)

In English the title of the performance is a game of words, which refers to the hell of the egg and the hell of that at the same time. The Egg(s)Hell is a performance, which is built on the rules of improvisational theatre, it is a performance without texts. The performance, which I have watched, was made special by the jazz orchestra, who played alive. At the beginning of the performance I have seen an ironic trick: the actors were in costumes, but barefoot, the actresses were in night dresses, and high-heeled shoes, but all of them were on stage in the shadow of chicken and ostrich eggs. The visual world of the performance has been made more colourful by graceful groups of flamingos. The mood is made complete either with whitish or reddish light. The competition began: the steps on the ground and the higher and higher arcs drown into the air all were organised around the egg. The actors’ joy was obvious, when they were chasing one another, playing tennis, billiard and even when they tempted one another. When the egg broke, the offender became a clown, and started to make tricks – they became the mirror of the other, two or three of them at once – other times they shot the offender, then they had to bring back to life the “dead body” (with rhythmical drum playing or they blew air into their mouth).

All scenes have their own moods, which were brought up by the music, and the connection, which was formed there between the actors. For example, there was a scene when the actors rose the neck of their shirts, pushed down their hair, put lighting cigarette into the edge of their mouth, and their smoke flew mysteriously, it reformed the stage. The women’s bodies could become musical instruments, the orchestra was doubled. A wonderful scene, which was built on the thought of competition between the boot-licking and narcissism. Two women were arguing about their superiority, and they did not afraid of doing anything in this game: there are breath-taking flips, jumps into nothing, calm movements, kisses, desperation. All of it seemed to be connected in the reddish light, which appeared at the end of the performance, which would take us into a photo studio, where it was hard to grab the pictures of the moment, and put it into static forms.

Daniela Magiaru, Orizont, 2010

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Zoltán Balázs, leader of the Maladype Theatre, is preparing a new production with his own company while also set to direct at the Budapest Operetta Theatre. He considers finding a permanent venue for the troupe to be the greatest challenge in the near future.

Have you directed musicals before?

Not musicals yet, though I have directed opera and operetta before — works by Janáček, Marschner, and Gilbert and Sullivan.

However, this is your first time directing at the Budapest Operetta Theatre. As an independent director, your appearance in a heavily state-funded repertory theatre seems somewhat surprising.

There is nothing extraordinary about it. My independence is the trademark of my creative method. I have already directed at the National Theatre in Budapest, in Sibiu and Nitra, at the Budapest Puppet Theatre, Bucharest’s Odeon Theatre, and the Opera House in Rennes. We had already discussed guest-directing opportunities with the Operetta Theatre’s previous management, but it seems the collaboration is only now becoming reality.

Another harassment scandal recently erupted at the Operetta Theatre. What do you know about it?

Exactly as much as an outsider can know about the internal affairs of a theatre. An investigation is underway, and we will soon know more about the results.

Have you seen productions at the Operetta Theatre?

Of course. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, I watched almost everything. Since the musical I am directing will be staged with three separate casts, I felt it was important to become familiar with the company’s current technical, physical, and mental condition.

Why did you choose Nine, based on Federico Fellini’s film?

Because it is a true ensemble piece with fantastic roles and songs written with, at times, operatic sophistication. The subject matter the work explores is highly unusual within the musical genre, and it is also important that it provides nearly every actress in the company with a virtuoso-level challenge. Fellini’s constantly renewing artistic personality is also very close to me, and perhaps it is no coincidence that he made 8½ — the film that established him as a confessional filmmaker — at the age of forty-three. Like Guido, the film director protagonist of both the film and the musical, I too am turning forty-three now.

At the Operetta Theatre’s season-announcement press conference, you also spoke about how decisive your Transylvanian roots are for you.

My entire childhood. I belong to those who have not forgotten where they came from. Not only Cluj or Sighetu Marmației are important to me, but also the lifelong lessons my family gave me. Despite all persecution and hardship, they were capable of handling dangerous situations with generosity and humor, and of seeing light at the end of the tunnel. This optimistic outlook has accompanied both my career and private life. That is why I always choose the riskier, unconventional, and innovative path. Just as in my passion for the circus, I follow in Fellini’s footsteps in this as well. I have staged works by visionary authors who view our world and its moral, psychological, and social dimensions through entirely different lenses. Artists without formulas, who must be deciphered. They constantly challenge my knowledge and imagination with both formal and thematic puzzles. As Maladype approaches its twentieth anniversary, I am planning to stage another rarely performed author with my company: Tankred Dorst’s Merlin, or The Waste Land.

You were twelve when you moved to Hungary with your parents. What are your return visits to Transylvania like?

The first time I returned — when I directed The Return of Ulysses at the Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre in Timișoara — my heart was pounding. But the stage fright lasted only until the first rehearsal reading. After having to leave my homeland at the age of twelve, feeling that nothing could compensate for my losses, I began hitchhiking across Europe. I traveled widely, and I still spend much of my life on the road, so I no longer feel foreign or lonely anywhere. Home is wherever I currently have work to do. The image of my homeland, just like my twelve-year-old self left behind at the railway station in Sighetu Marmației, is always with me, but I never carry them before me like a sword.

The anniversary of Trianon has once again completely politicized this issue.

Unfortunately, our society lacks the kind of Leonardo-like moti mentali way of thinking capable of comprehensively interpreting both past and present events. We stumble from scandal to scandal, and the constant inflation of the divisive nature of our affairs consumes enormous amounts of useful and creative energy. Most theatre-makers engage in politics as activist artists, leaving them with too little time to practice their actual profession. Slowly, our true masters — those capable of identifying and preserving knowledge — are disappearing, and their places are being taken by part-time instructors functioning as mentors.

You did not sign either petition regarding the restructuring of the University of Theatre and Film Arts. Why?

Partly because, as survivors of communism, my grandparents taught me never to sign anything. The rhetoric of outrage is separated from the rhetoric of fear by only a hair-thin line. And I do not want to live in fear. On the other hand, since it is well known that I have no compulsion to conform and only sign something if I agree with every single detail of the cause represented, no one approached me to strengthen the protesters’ symbolic list of names with my signature.

You also recently spoke out angrily about the distribution of theatre funding. Why were you so upset, given that your company ultimately received support from several sources?

After we issued a public statement reacting to the disproportionate and biased decision of the committee evaluating operational grants. Thanks to supplementary funding applications and private sponsors recognizing our professional work, we eventually managed to secure half of the financial resources for the 2020/21 season. Financing the second half of the season, however, remains unresolved. I consider the current system of funding distribution a discriminatory crime against creative communities that possess long-term concepts and artistic strategies. For years, the amount of work invested and the results achieved have not been reflected in the level of support awarded to us. Everyone knows the insular and exclusionary attitude described in the chapter “Dinner at the Mravucs Family” from Kálmán Mikszáth’s St. Peter’s Umbrella, where self-proclaimed “elites” favor their loyal guests. This kind of dinner-party culture is not for me.

Perhaps you are right, but nowadays everyone labels and categorizes everyone else; hardly anyone can avoid it.

Only those think that way who seek algorithms among various trends. If someone is truly sovereign, they do not seek validation from people who reshape truth according to their own interests into an acceptable version of reality... Anatoly Vasiliev, the renowned Russian director, once said in an interview that many directors around him suddenly turned toward socially and politically sensitive topics. One after another, they produced documentary-style performances. Investigating this sudden change of direction, he discovered that substantial grant money could be won for these professionally immature “acts.” Vasiliev, who also had to ensure the sustainability of his own company, was initially uncertain, but eventually decided that — although it was less profitable and spectacular — he still wanted to devote himself to theatre, because theatre is a long-term investment. That is very much how I feel as well.

Where does Maladype stand now, given that you lost your venue and replaced older company members with younger actors?

Within our possibilities, we are preparing for the anniversary season and trying to make up for canceled performances both in Hungary and abroad. We hope the second wave of the pandemic will not force our partners to cancel festival invitations. Meanwhile, eight members of the company are rehearsing Metropolis, based on Fritz Lang’s film, with choreographer Ferenc Fehér.

Why did the company change?

Existential reasons, intentions to start families, and personal searches for direction all contributed. Everyday concerns repeatedly prove stronger than artistic commitment. I have been working with the current team for three years now, and within the framework of the Five Gates theatre-methodology program we quickly built a repertoire consisting of six productions. Our greatest challenge in the near future is finding our own venue.

You are also invited to direct in many places across Europe and even in America. Have you ever thought it might be better to let Maladype go?

Life would certainly be easier, but I feel about it the way Achilles felt about Briseis: “You were peace to me in eternal war.” Nearly twenty years of shared history obliges us, and we still need one another. If the thaw comes, we will be able to let go of each other’s hands.

Recently, Maladype posted the Bárka Theatre’s Hamlet online, in which you played the title role. What acting plans do you have?

After Hamlet, directed by Tim Carroll, it is difficult to find a challenge that fully engages my entire creative being, but if someone approaches me with a role truly suited to me, I will not resist. I do have something personal to say, but I do not crave the stage at any cost. Alongside directing, writing currently brings me the greatest joy.

Gyula Balogh, Népszava, 2020

translated by: Zsuzsanna Juraszek