Prestigious Productions to Take Center Stage at the Newly Inaugurated METTRIN Center. On March 27, Hungary’s artistic landscape will welcome a unique new cultural hub: the METTRIN Center, situated on the shores of Lake Bánki. This prestigious venue will serve as a stage for both Hungarian and international productions. The visionary founders, Ferenc Karacs and Julianna Karacs-Zagyva, have appointed Zoltán Balázs, a leading figure in both Hungarian and international theater, as the center’s artistic director. Together, they aim to present high-quality cultural events, champion forward-thinking contemporary artworks, foster complex and enduring talent development, and promote artistic enlightenment through cross-border collaborations.

This year's International Bartók Seminar and Festival offers a unique multimedia production. In a joint performance by the Maladype Theatre and the Qaartsiluni Ensemble, László Sáry's semi-serious opera Great sound in the rush, based on a variation poem by Sándor Weöres, will be staged. We spoke with the director of the performance, Zoltán Balázs (Maladype Theatre), and its musical director, Lajos Rozmán (Qaartsiluni Ensemble), about the upcoming production.

- What prompted the beginning of your collaboration?

Lajos Rozmán: It was the composer who initiated this work. He has been working with me for decades, and Zoltán has had many joint projects with him as well. He reached out to Zoltán to dive into this venture together.

Zoltán Balázs: Indeed, the composer took charge of his own project.

- Did he keep control during the rehearsal process, or did he give you more freedom?

LR: I can say that he completely entrusted it to us.

ZB: Although, I should add that Lajos and I thoroughly prepared the musical material.

LR: Yes, I haven’t left him alone for a year and a half. We went through it until I understood exactly what it was about. Although I had already worked with this material and many of his other works, I really needed to understand it precisely this time.

ZB: At our request, he even made changes to the music, and he even added new sections.

- So, the piece has changed since the world premiere?

LR: The music is a living thing, so it could still be considered a world premiere, especially since it was a completely different constellation back then. The main difference now is that musicians are primarily performing the piece, with actors joining them – specifically six musicians and two actors – whereas in the original premiere, a full cast of actors performed, and their musical tasks were, of course, extremely challenging. So, every such task was simplified, and some details didn't even make it into that interpretation.

ZB: The production now aligns with the composer’s original intuition, especially in terms of the musical material. Everything else is a matter of imagination. It’s important that it is not aligned with one team or another, but rather with the “Common Cause,” for which I am responsible as the director, and Lajos is responsible as the head of the musical work. Lajos subtly embedded the material into the musicians’ and actors' minds so that it would serve as a solid foundation for further development, for movement, spatial play, and intense concentration tasks that test focus. It’s a truly great symbiosis between the musical material and the directorial concept.

- I had the chance to briefly peek into the rehearsal, and it was hard to determine exactly who the musician and who the actor was...

LR: That was one of the main tasks, to integrate the actors among the musicians, meaning we are creating an orchestra where everyone is equally important. The fusion was the main goal. We are merging tasks, merging people, so that it’s hard to tell who’s the actor and who’s the musician, and we do everything together.

ZB: And it wasn’t even a difficult task, because those actors from Maladype who are involved in the production are musically well-trained but have further developed through the tasks. The musicians of the Qaartsiluni Ensemble are also exceptionally talented actors. This doesn’t mean they’ve spent years on stage or in studios, but they are very tastefully aware, very sensitive artists. From a theater perspective, it’s very useful that those taking on acting roles in the performance are such precise and thorough individuals, as precision is often what actors lack. Acting is an intuitive genre: “I’ll feel it, I’ll be carried away, it will take me along...” Musicians, however, cannot engage in such instinctive play (other than perhaps improvising in a piece) because music is based on rhythms, precise structuring, parts, and needs more professional knowledge. Acting, on the other hand, can afford a bit of leeway. But here and now, neither side can afford to be vague; full presence is required, because it challenges both personality and creative ability. It was truly an exceptionally fortunate encounter.

- What was the biggest challenge during the process?

LR: The main challenge was focusing all our attention on this specific task, first mentally, when building the vision in our minds. For me, that’s one of the most important parts of the work, and it can take a long time. I dream up who could work with whom, who might be suitable for a certain task, and then I connect these people, and once a concrete idea forms, we meet the material itself. In this case, it was very special, as such musical material is not widely available. This musical language is incredibly unique, and that's precisely why it is not in circulation; it demands very specific constellations, and a more casual, everyday practice cannot realize it.

ZB: Sándor Weöres has very special mindsets, and so does László Sáry, so our minds couldn’t loosen up or rest either. We had to be very focused on these strange, distorted, at times seemingly overly simple yet incredibly complex formulas given by the poet and the composer. We have to constantly move a kind of structure or fabric, which, beyond requiring very precise coordinates from the participants and the audience (since the audience is the one continuing the drawing of events), keeps its focus on irregularity, continuity, and change. You can’t prepare for this in a day. Rehearsal is there to let the participants overwrite everything we’ve worked out in advance. Progress can’t be dictated solely by a strong concept, or else the result would be robots and executors. Their creativity, their personality, is what energizes the events. We have to build the shared language, the dictionary, for the actors and musicians. (Perhaps now we’ve reached a point where they can move the whole thing themselves, in the spirit of personal responsibility.) So, the challenge was that the big picture belongs to them, and they can represent it even when they are only responsible for a small part of it.

- Lajos Rozmán is participating not only as the musical director but also as a musician. How does he experience this dual role?

LR: This is definitely a parallel task. One of the common problems in opera performance is the harmony between the director and the musical director, their mutual understanding. In the classical setup, the director is the external eye who brings everything together, and the musical director is typically the conductor, who is a performer, a player in the process. In a sense, that’s what’s happening here too, but the internal play of the so-called orchestra is much more balanced, as there’s no conductor directing the musical process. As soon as I step into the orchestra, I’m also a soldier in this whole game, part of the team, just as important in my place as everyone else.

ZB: This role comes with many sacrifices. It really challenges Lajos...

LR: Yes, but I’m happy being a soldier. It’s interesting how hard it is for people to accept leadership; they constantly argue with it. I don’t quite understand it. When I’m a part of it, and I can’t see, hear, or embrace the whole thing from the inside, I fully accept whatever is given to me from the outside because there’s no other option. It’s strange that many people find this so difficult, even though it’s a perfectly clear setup: when I’m outside, I lead; when I’m in, I’m a soldier. People should learn these two roles, and there wouldn’t be any issues. I also encourage my musicians to take leadership on certain tasks, to experience what it’s like when they’re responsible for that woodwind quintet, for that sextet, for that movement... They really struggle to take it on.

ZB: Don’t be misled by the "soldier" term, it doesn’t mean they need to participate without soul, but their small task contributes to the larger whole, as independent personalities with independent responsibilities. But their energy, attention, adds up and creates that something which, if we call it a hot air balloon, might one day lift off...

- The Maladype Theatre’s artistic philosophy is freedom. How does this manifest in this opera?

ZB: This is freedom itself. The variation surface offers many possibilities, and our theater, and I think Qaartsiluni as well, loves variations, change. The idea that you pull on the net at one point and the whole thing moves, then pull at another point and it moves again; constantly searching and exploring.

LR: I think that no matter what creation we take, freedom is not primarily in the material. It only has the possibility for freedom, and it unfolds when the one touching it demands it. In classical music, even with well-known, established pieces, the experience is that the greatest performers are the ones who approach it the bravely. I’m a proponent of the idea that if you’re capable, rewrite the piece according to what the current situation dictates.

Zsófia Hózsa, playlist, 2015

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

Recently, Viktor Kravchenko's world-famous but lesser-known work I Chose Freedom was published for the first time in Hungary by the Maladype Theatre. The author was, in his youth, part of the establishment of the Stalinist regime; having turned away from the system, he emigrated to America, where he wrote his memoirs. He was likely executed by the KGB. His work is often compared to Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's writings on the Gulag. Kravchenko’s autobiographical account, which is a powerful indictment against Stalin, will soon be dramatized and performed by the Maladype’s leader, Zoltán Balázs – "as a one-man manifesto." The actor-director recently issued a statement protesting the absurdities in the support of independent theaters.

- In his book, Kravchenko demonstrates that even an active participant in a dictatorship can return to the deeply encoded human desire for freedom. Why has this globally recognized work not been published here until now?

- I don’t know, but I’ve experienced this myself: Hungarian literary figures and historians have heard of it, they know Kravchenko’s name, some have researched it, but very few have read the book in English. The book no longer offers new insights into the era of Stalinism, but it is unique in how the author describes the "replanning" of his own thinking under the conditions of that system. His childhood memories are marked by continuous self-examination and self-reflection. Meanwhile, it also becomes clear that there is no social system where the issue of personal responsibility can be avoided.

- How did you come across the book?

- I read about the work six years ago in an interview with Ariane Mnouchkine. The world-renowned French director mentioned it as one of her five favorite books. The title of the book struck me due to its personal resonance. I tried to find the book through Russian sources because, at first, I didn’t know it had been written in America. Ilona Kiss, the former director of the Hungarian Cultural Center in Moscow – with whom I worked on Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita – helped a lot. Through her, we managed to reach the heir to the author’s rights, Andrew Kravchenko, the only living son of the author, who lives in Los Angeles. After three years of negotiations, we obtained the exclusive rights to the work and the opportunity for a stage adaptation.

- The title of the book aligns with what you usually express as your company’s artistic manifesto: their greatest asset is freedom. Kravchenko was likely executed by the KGB in New York in 1966. Today, other forces are draining the blood of Hungarian independent theaters.

- Unfortunately, our experiences testify to the pressures we face from multiple directions. That’s why, when it comes to the possibilities of our work, we always need to be prepared with scenarios a, b, c, and additional plans. This is, of course, only possible with a strong intellectual base and an unwavering creative value system. Otherwise, true change, which also keeps the spirit in condition, is the essence of theater. If a creative workshop cannot identify with this, it is not viable.

- That's quite theoretical. You recently bid farewell to the Szputnyik Hajózási Társaság, led by Viktor Bodó, but others are facing issues as well. A recent news: the Jurányi House, one of the most important bases for independent creators, had five million forints retroactively withdrawn by Deputy State Secretary Péter Hoppál from the sum already awarded by the relevant board. You also issued a statement protesting the absurdities in the funding process.

- First of all: this broken state didn’t start now. It has happened before that deceptive dialogues were based on seemingly superficial encounters. However, this year, in the chaos surrounding the distribution of operational funds, we were shocked to see that the board withdrew nearly four million forints from Maladype, not the deputy state secretary, which further strengthens my belief that we must respond with a more determined attitude to such events.

- A series of statements?

- It’s better to work. We need to continue to present measurable and justifiable results. It is everyone’s individual and collective responsibility that the profession has reached where it is now. And unfortunately, it’s also a fact that the constant SOS signals or the endless mourning music for the fallen distract from those who are still alive. Those who do not see their survival strategy in the repetition of emergency calls.

- Where do you get money to operate?

- Mostly from collaborations with foreign partners and domestic support. However, the money awarded in the operational grant cannot be equated with state and non-state project grants, contributions from foreign partners, and other types of support. The latter can only finance the costs of a given project, they have measurable professional criteria and strict accounting rules. These are largely not "additional" funds that help with operation, and cannot be used for operating costs, so the amount awarded in the annual grant is of huge importance.

- I can feel the suppressed anger in you.

- Yes, it angers me the decision made regarding the operational grant, as it swept aside the activities and results of Maladype’s fifteen years. But let's also consider the numbers: last year, the curators were drawn from representatives of the non-independent sector, but this year they were from the independent sector, and yet they reduced the support. Think about the absurdity of the situation when even Béla Pintér and his company – who received one of the highest grants this year, 30 million – are outraged by the decision of the board. Of course, there are cliques now too. However, the support for independents has radically decreased, creating even more tension among their representatives. Some of the companies that were once subsidized have transformed, others have ceased to exist. Everyone sees the past differently. A company truly committed to its freedom is handicapped in this professional environment. I don’t want to forget when I only had dreams, and I started fighting for them, because it would lead to self-destructive processes within me.

- Your company participates in foreign festivals one after another. They will perform in Liverpool during POSZT, then direct in Chicago. But they always return.

- Primarily because I am still responsible for Maladype. However, regarding our existence here, the question constantly pressures me from within: how much longer can we keep doing this? Perhaps the staging of Kravchenko’s work will provide an answer for me. After all, the character of the author-hero also encourages me to strong self-reflection.

Interview by Ádám Sztankay, 168 Óra, 2015

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

Jászai Mari award-winning actor and director, an independent person at the helm of an independent company, who believes in human-centered theater, the power of words, collective thinking, and dialogue. He says he builds consciously, moving in a designated direction, yet allows chance to sometimes overwrite his previous ideas. It was chance that not only led to the founding of Maladype, which has been running for fourteen years now, but also defines the company’s performances night after night.

- Your latest production, the stage adaptation of Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in style, presents the text in the styles of different filmmakers. He has mentioned in several interviews that he finds it important to incorporate film into theater, blending genre boundaries. Can we see Exercises in style as an experiment in this direction?

- These multi-artistic ambitions have been present in my creative strategy from the start, but film holds a special place among them, due to its unique treatment of time and space. No matter how skilled and sophisticated a theater maker is, they will never be able to create the rapid and extreme shifts in mood, image, and composition that film allows. That’s why it’s important to see the theatrical implications within filmic possibilities. I’ve used filmic solutions in several of my past works, but Exercises in Style connects to film differently: the variations of Queneau’s text are presented in the styles of different directors. This allows us to observe the worlds of individual directors and their influence on the material. Each scene has its own unique dramaturgy, spatial-temporal treatment, and directorial instructions that activate the actor’s personality and presence, along with the cultural and personal background of the director. These various cinematic worlds are translated into theater language to form a single great story, which, of course, requires the audience’s imagination. I think the visual and dramaturgical style of directors like David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick is most suitable for achieving this, because their approach expects a complex and creative viewer activity.

- If we consider this production as a milestone on a journey defined by film, what would be the preceding milestones?

- In my staging of Ostrovsky's The Tempest, I placed the action in a studio set, where the crew lit the performance in front of the audience. The actors were illuminated by spotlights mounted on movable carts and cranes, lighting them for brief moments. In Empedocles, I slowed down the passage of time, allowing the audience to watch what happens to the protagonist in individual frames. My collaborators and I created a strange, timeless world in which slow-motion revealed invisible dimensions that I couldn’t have created in real time, everyday space, with a linear dramaturgy. Other cinematic solutions included attempts to show simultaneity, which characterized several of my previous works, such as Sándor Weöres' Theomachia, Jean Genet’s The Blacks, or Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas and Mélisande. In these works, the actors existed on several levels and in different genres, in sync with the story, their character’s fate, and the time of the performance—both literally and figuratively. The adaptation of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, created in co-production with the Radu Stanca National Theater in Sibiu, explicitly incorporated film and filmmaking: scenes that took place in hidden spaces of the theater were projected onto a cinema screen for the audience.

- You often say that theater can only be a living genre if it is practiced in a contemporary way. Is that why you seek a connection with film?

- I believe it’s time for Hungarian theater to seriously embrace the successful efforts and innovations of cinema and attempt to translate these cinematic achievements into the language of theater. But this applies not only to film but to other related arts as well. We ourselves hinder the development of theater if we don’t allow it to integrate the achievements of other art forms, if we cling to the somber Hungarian small realism, to the creative existence confined in the prison of reality, lacking imagination and perspectives. However, if we incorporated the accomplishments of other art forms into theater-making, they would create new audience attitudes and reveal themes, content, and formal connections that are only found in very few creative workshops or productions. I see that most directors adhere to traditions and expectations, and that’s why they are afraid to take risks, to search for something new, different, or unknown. Hungarian theater should have long since opened its doors to genres, events, authors, thinkers, visual and acoustic impulses, and dramaturgical differences that could be fertile for its development. By the way, if I had to give priority to any related art form in my work, it would be circus. There are so many ideas in circus arts, so-called world-class acts, that could revolutionize theater.

- You’ve often mentioned that the theater profession is not open enough, and it generally seems to me that it trusts the audience more.

- The audience wants to ask questions and make statements, and they do so while being genuinely interested in the process. And if they are taken seriously—Maladype Theater takes its audience seriously—then they give long-term trust. Our audience comes back, follows us from performance to performance, and their attention becomes a resource for dialogue. I believe many in our audience are now able to distinguish the useful from the useless, the credible from the less credible, and perhaps no longer fall for every actor’s trick or every directorial cliché. I think that’s a serious achievement.

- The fact that you can report such results is the result of conscious work that dates back to Leonce and Lena—since then, you’ve explicitly opened up to the audience. Beyond this aesthetic education, in developing discerning theatergoers, is there another intention? You often talk about the willingness for dialogue, the development of argumentative abilities—these seem to touch on the socially useful category.

- I don’t have any direct intention to educate the public. However, it’s true that curiosity about the more complex layers of theater-making has become the entry card to Maladype for everyone. We’ve never made things easier for the audience. In the early period, before Leonce and Lena, we adapted works by authors who were either disliked or completely unknown in Hungary: Wyspiański, Hölderlin, Ghelderode... Authors with no recipe, so our performances couldn’t be compared to previous shows, directoral, or acting solutions. This early period was part of a “world-creating” director’s strategy, but even in these works, there was already a playful element: messing around with different genres and cultures. Over time— as the company developed—Maladype began to define this as a specific language. However, I believe that no theatrical language should wear itself out or become empty, so I’ve always consciously shifted. From ritual theater—this was how our early performances were labeled—I moved toward playfulness, and from that point on, our audience not only became observers and critics but also active participants. The next step in this concept was the open rehearsal process of King Ubu, where the audience played with us from the table read to the premiere. They could feel what it means to create something out of nothing, then lose it all and rethink it. To rejoice in a successful moment and then despair that it may never come again. By understanding the fallibility of theater-making, they increasingly learned to appreciate the successful moments. This motivated them to show interest in more complex theatrical solutions. They realized that an actor’s work is truly a profession requiring technique and knowledge, and that its all-encompassing and defining center is the human being.

- In other words, what you do—and what they do—is conscious sensitization.

- That’s right. The broader the associative field we offer the audience, the more easily they will venture with us into unknown territories they wouldn’t normally explore. Working with people, preparing for encounters, asking questions, and generating more questions is a responsible task; it’s not easy, but it’s a long-term intellectual investment.

- During one open rehearsal, you asked someone what they thought of the whole thing, and they responded that they were bored. It’s not typical, in such interactive events, for someone to say this openly.

- Moreover, this person also said that they didn’t know exactly what the point of all this was or where it would lead, but when asked why they didn’t just get up and leave, they couldn’t answer. They stayed the whole time and came to the next rehearsals too. Interesting. I think the alienation in the form of boredom may come from the fact that these events are not what most people expect. In most theaters, open rehearsals are based on prior arrangements, where the director and five or six actors do something "nice," mostly so they can tick off the theater education activities promised in applications. The Maladype open rehearsals are not like that. Our company members don’t try to present themselves as more beautiful, better, or more exciting than they are in a rehearsal without an audience. The actor is a human being, trying to concentrate with all their nerve endings, but it doesn’t always work. It happens. And sometimes, they don’t immediately understand something, or it seems like they understand it, but later they realize it doesn’t work, and so they become disappointed. These are not spectacular moments, and they might not seem too interesting at first, but those who are part of such an event usually return – because there are still enough questions and secrets – to look for more answers with us. The encounter with the audience’s truth is sometimes uncomfortable and difficult, but it is extremely valuable for the company. If someone is bored, has lost track, or doesn’t understand something, it shows what position they’ve taken in the situation, and it forces us to be more specific. Often, it’s about seemingly trivial things, but then when you poke at them, deal with them, you find out they’re not, and a lot has to be put in place for the creator and receiver to find common ground. Often, you have to subtly guide the audience to think and form an opinion. I believe in the pleasure of thinking, and I consider thought exchange essential. If we don’t think, we don’t live, and if we don’t exchange our thoughts, we don’t live at the same time or in the same space, but in separate dimensions. That’s why I would consider it harmful if we didn’t ask the audience or if they didn’t share their opinions.

- Do you feel the benefit of the open rehearsals from the company’s side too?

- The audience sees the actor as much more talented when they understand how much is needed to create a magical moment. I think we were right to deprive the actor of protection, to show them as vulnerable and human. It’s important for the general audience to understand the anatomy of the general audience. Not because they will be more forgiving of us, but because they will expect more refined solutions from us, and that’s inspiring. The audience’s demands and refinement motivate me.

- Making the actor appear human, showing them making mistakes, is a great responsibility and a difficult task. How do you condition the actors so they don’t burn out and can be present with their whole being, night after night? How do you know if someone will be suitable for this?

- A lot depends on the actor’s basic personality. If they are malleable, if they are demanding of themselves and of theater, if they are willing to mobilize their energy for instructions that are foreign to them and outside their comfort zone, then they can easily fit into this actor-pedagogical process. For this, they must trust themselves, their partners, and me. It’s very important that they’re ready for change because that spontaneous, fresh moment of the day can override everything. From this point of view, the fact that our performance space is a bourgeois apartment, where a maximum of sixty viewers can fit in the large room, matters a lot – it gives intimacy and assumes directness. The noises filtering through from Mikszáth Square can’t be ignored either; they can interfere with that day’s performance. Since the actors react to these, they can’t play it safe, and I think they’re also happy for unexpected impulses because they allow them to express the next sentence differently. For example, if one of them has already fallen into a rhythm or technique, or if they’re saying a line from routine, it’s definitely refreshing because they can hear that they didn’t think through what they just said as thoroughly as before. This all requires a lot of work ethic, the need to deal with themselves, and to continuously invest energy in expanding their knowledge. Also, the duality of learning and teaching, the act of passing knowledge, must occupy them so much that they can dissolve into the given task. This is the most wonderful acting ability: the ability to transform and melt. At the same time, the actor deals with problems written by others, becoming interested in the subject. As a director and leader of the company, I condition this path with games, various theoretical and practical tasks. It’s also important to watch the performances and discuss them afterward – to maintain a constant dialogue between us. If we grow old together, let’s grow old with content, and be able to share more and more with each other with increasing courage. The more sincerely we are, and the more we discuss sensitive topics with less discomfort, the more the company and the audience will profit from it. But this is an internal need that can’t be taught. If someone doesn’t have it, they can be a good actor, but the right place for them is not Maladype. Most actors easily burn out their talent, and neither they nor the environment they work in sees the importance of replenishing it. I hope that Maladype actors invest in their talent and develop it.

- From what you've said, it seems that you consciously guide their shared path. In previous interviews, you've mentioned that the choice of play is also influenced by the actors’ personalities and where they stand at that moment. Where does Stílusgyakorlatok fit into the company’s life and development?

- I believe that the actor is made up of four different acting selves: the seeking-researching self, the learning self, the processing self, and the performing self. The ratio of these changes constantly, and I must feel where each actor is at this moment. I also need to see where the company itself is in terms of development, and how much it can borrow from each individual and what must be integrated into the next work. Excercises in Style is complex from this perspective. The recurring story, in its many variations, is fundamentally banal, yet it is capable of asking something essential about the actor's work. It creates an opportunity to harmonize the four acting selves. They can perform, demonstrate their technical skills, but it is also an important learning process because they can observe and absorb the behaviors and patterns created by influential filmmakers with their actors.

- Finally, let’s talk about the difference between the domestic and international theater scenes. Is the foreign theater environment more receptive?

- I would say it’s more open. Abroad – especially in certain countries – the variety of genres is much broader, and the theater scene is more colorful. They are more open to initiatives that can give new momentum to already known efforts. Our company is fortunate because almost every performance in our repertoire travels a lot, so we often test ourselves abroad. This year, we’ve been to Montenegro, Slovenia, Serbia, and the USA, and next we’re going to Poland, then I will direct in Chicago. It gives me a good feeling to know that our actors feel at home in the world, that they find their place, and that the Iranian audience understands and loves them just as much as the American audience.

Natália Kovács, Élet és Irodalom, 2015

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

The Reinterpreted Master and Margarita Will Be Seen by Audiences on October 19 at the National Theatre as Part of the Café Budapest Festival

In connection with the play, director Zoltán Balázs gave an interview. This time, the Maladype Theatre invites the audience on an adventure as part of the Café Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival. Under Balázs Zoltán’s direction, in collaboration with the Radu Stanca National Theatre from Sibiu, the play The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov’s classic, will be staged in two versions on October 19. We spoke with Balázs Zoltán about the creation of this co-production and the reinterpretation of the play, during which he revealed that after a five-year break, he will soon return to the stage.

- Your relationship with the Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu goes back quite a while, but the Master and Margarita coming to the Café Budapest Festival marks a completely new dimension. How did the idea for this joint production come about?

- Thanks to our production of Leonce and Lena, which in 2011 not only opened the program but also achieved great success at the Sibiu Theatre Festival, I was invited to hold a workshop for the artists of Radu Stanca. The idea of creating a joint production emerged after that. Talks about possible collaboration had already begun in Bucharest, where we had been performing with King Ubu, so when our play Egg(s)Hell was also invited to the Sibiu festival, there was no turning back. Initially, I hesitated because I knew it would not be an easy task to create such a large-scale collaboration amid the various constraints our company faces, but the people from Sibiu were enthusiastic and persistent. Constantin Chiriac, the director of the theatre, then asked me to create a list of ten plays I preferred, from which one would be chosen for me to direct at Radu Stanca. At the top of the list was Bulgakov's classic The Master and Margarita. When he heard this, he asked me not to read further, as it had always been his dream to have the play staged in his theatre by a “daring” director. A curious coincidence is that the costume and set designer for the co-production is Velica Panduru, the daughter of Catalina Buzoianu, who was the first in Romania to direct The Master and Margarita. The production, which premiered at Teatrul Mic, remains one of the iconic performances in Romanian theatre.

- Why did you place The Master and Margarita at the top of the list?

- It's a complex, multi-layered work that helps one face uncomfortable truths and raises sensitive questions that a person, as they approach the halfway point of their life, might want to find answers to. This is not the first time I've staged such a piece; I have always been interested in these kinds of works, and my career has been marked by confrontation, constant questioning, a search for connections, new paths, and opportunities. Moreover, The Master and Margarita expresses timeless ideas that fascinate me—such as when Jesus says that telling the truth is easy and pleasant... What’s amazing about this novel is that it associates boldly, so the true story never exists in me as the director or in the actors, but it emerges in the collective medium of this social game—not in the performance itself, but in the audience or the “benevolent reader”, as Bulgakov puts it. The most exciting part is that they finish it, they continue it, or, if it happens, open a new story.

- Is there a specific inspiration or recipe for what motivates you?

- I love change. Even when it seems like nothing is happening around us, the possibility arises to redefine our essence and goals internally. To this day, I am driven by the desire for freedom and curiosity. The constant experimentation, pushing boundaries, and expressing myself in unique ways makes it difficult to define and categorize my work. I enjoy inviting the audience on an adventure. The reason I was interested in the Romanian-Hungarian co-production of The Master and Margarita is that, starting from the novel's vast world, I could think about unknown genres and theatrical solutions. This led to two versions, which are connected but differ in their approach to key scenes.

- This adventurous, experimental spirit also characterizes the theatre in Sibiu, as the director could easily have invited world-famous directors like Silviu Purcărete, but instead, he entrusted a young Hungarian director with the project. How did that feel?

- It gave me great freedom, but also a huge responsibility to realize my vision accurately. However, the artistic environment provided the opportunity to blend theatre with music and film in the stage adaptation.

- So much so that two versions of the play were created...

- It happened naturally during reading, and I somewhat regret that only two versions were created—I would have liked to try several more (laughs). The two performances don’t differ drastically from one another: the essence remains the same, but there is a point where the story takes a different direction. In the Romanian version, giving space to metacommunicative expression, a fantastic actress, Mariana Mihu, plays Woland using sign language. In the other version, Maladype actor Ákos Orosz plays the same role in a polyglot manner, in Romanian and English. Their different temperaments, genders, ages, and acting solutions shape the relationship between the actors playing the Master and Margarita (Marius Turdeanu and Ofelia Popii) differently. In both versions, these actors also portray Pilate and Jesus—this might be unique in the history of the play’s adaptations. On stage, 26 actors are needed, and their collective focus intensifies the material’s density, with individual transformations gaining emphasis. During my reading of the novel—which was adapted for the stage with the help of Ilona Kiss, a Bulgakov expert—a reductive and an integrative line emerged in my mind. One lets go, the other integrates reality into the story. In one version, the Master and Margarita break free, leaving behind the illusory, false world, while in the other, they integrate reality, making it a part of their created universe. The boundaries blur, but which path they take and how the possible reading of the story is determined in the end depends on the differences between the two versions.

- You mentioned that it is important to live with constant questions directed inward. What are the thoughts or questions that occupy your mind right now?

- The question of where I come from and where I am going. This is an eternal, yet particularly relevant theme in both my personal life and the life of my theatre company. It’s not easy to keep Maladype alive and functioning on a daily basis, to create the right material conditions for our collective growth, and to challenge the actors with intellectual stimuli that will push them to give their best energy in return. After a five-year hiatus, I will soon return to the stage, and this also preoccupies me... Since Hamlet, I have accumulated so much to say, and I’ve encountered a personal topic that touches me, one where I can speak in the first person. I believe in constant self-reflection, in the power of thoughts that trigger each other, and in the belief that the human mind cannot be controlled. Anyone who tries to do so commits a crime.

Kulturpart, 2013

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

Interview with Zoltán Balázs, Director of the Maladype Theatre in Budapest

Sibiu has always been a special place, and the Sibiu International Theatre Festival is now a meeting point for some of the most prominent creators in today's theatre scene. During this time, the city’s squares and streets serve as a source of inspiration for Zoltán Balázs, the director who is currently working on a new production with the actors of the National Theatre, which will be presented next month. In the following lines, you can read about this, as well as how the director feels in this city.

- We can say that you are an old friend of the city. Two years ago, your production of Leonce and Lena was presented at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, and last year you brought Egg Night here. What do you think of the city outside the festival?

- The city literally buzzes with life, and the intimacy of its spaces is conducive to the arts. Sibiu is a beautiful, quiet city. It's especially quiet at night. In its interestingly atmospheric cafés, new friendships can be born. I love walking through the city’s squares and streets, where I sometimes engage in conversation with the people around me. I could never get bored here.

- You really enjoy walking at night? Do you never sleep?

- At night, you can both search and find. Also, I can't stay in one place for long. I can't stand being locked in a house, especially when I’m traveling. I feel the same way at home; I always want to go, to be on the move. This is how my ideas come to me, which I then write down. Sibiu has a special atmosphere that inspires me.

- At the beginning of the year, you started working on Mihail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. What are the actors of the Radu Stanca National Theatre like, and how is it working with them?

- The actors in Sibiu are truly open and creative, which I think is very important. Although they are involved in several parallel projects, we’ve managed to form a team. They are all very busy, reviving productions and going on tour. Of course, this takes a toll on them physically and mentally, but together, we’ve managed to find the right energy to bring this text, rich in layers of meaning and challenges, to the stage. During the rehearsal process, there will also be breaks, as the actors are on tour with The Ball (directed by Radu Alexandru Nica) in Luxembourg, and I will be presenting King Ubu with Maladype at the Tehran FADJR Festival in Iran. By the way, The Master and Margarita was first staged in Romania by Cătălina Buzoianu in 1980 at the Teatru Mic, and it was a great success. The set design for the current Sibiu production is being done by Buzoianu's daughter, Velica Panduru. So, I can say that I enjoy the support of many extraordinary people, from the company to the technicians and my collaborators. I am very satisfied.

- You have high expectations. Are you nervous about the premiere?

- No. I’m generally not someone who gets nervous. I get asked this question often, but I always give the same answer: I wasn’t nervous as an actor, and I’m even less nervous as a director. If I know what I want to achieve and I can be committed to my team, if the actors are performing their tasks attentively, then everything will be fine, and people will pay attention to us. This city fosters creativity, and its theatre is highly valued. The actors are very good, true professionals, and at the same time, they have managed to retain a certain childlike playfulness, which they can show in this production. I believe that together, we can create a new world on stage.

Zile și nopți, 2013

Translated by: Panna Adorjáni

Translated to English by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

The theatre profession is also significantly responsible for the current situation; instead of dialogue, personal conflicts and lobbying activities are predominant, and selection has been lacking among the troupes – says Zoltán Balázs, with whom we spoke about cultural politics, the role of theatre, and the company during the break between Christmas and New Year’s, in the middle of the rehearsal process for The Master and Margarita.

- Why is your next performance going to be in Sibiu?

- Romania is my homeland. I was born in Cluj-Napoca and lived in Sighetu Marmației until I was twelve. This shaped my whole life, just like the drift and whirlwind that followed after we left there. For a long time, I exiled Romania from my dreams because the noise of the railway stations haunted me. I never thought that I would return as a director, especially not to the Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu, which is currently one of the best theatres in the country, receiving significant international attention, with a troupe that travels a lot. Through invited directors, the theatre presents new, unfamiliar content, forms, and styles to the actors and, through them, to the audience. When we first performed there in May 2011 with our Leonce and Lena production at the International Theatre Festival, the theatre’s leadership made us feel that we had a special place there. The successful debut and the ongoing negotiations culminated in the rehearsal process for The Master and Margarita now. The performance is a co-production of the Radu Stanca Theatre and Maladype Theatre – while this prestigious theatre could invite internationally recognized professionals like Brook or Marthaler to guest direct, its director, Constantin Chiriac, has still chosen to invest time, money, and energy in a small company of young Hungarian actors and a creative team with a different approach to theatre. This venture is part of building a "new theatrical civilization," something I truly believe in.

- What do you mean by building a new theatrical civilization?

- We are living in a new era of human civilization, where media and the internet force people to think and learn in different ways. In this culture-shifting, visual age, the focus is moving away from linguistic, conceptual thinking to creative thinking. Creativity and everything that machines cannot or can only do in a limited way are becoming more valuable. These skills are most effectively acquired through the various arts, including theatre. That’s why I think it’s important for artistic education to be increasingly emphasized, and that the "high culture" of theatre doesn’t lose its social weight. We need to acknowledge the change and turn it to our advantage. It’s not enough to simply consume and exhaust traditions and acquired knowledge; it’s wise to rethink them and write down our new discoveries in a new notebook. For this, we need new paper, new colors, new pencils, and new thoughts. A troupe can only stay viable if it constantly reevaluates and redraws its own boundaries. It’s important not to be afraid to demolish old buildings because even if they were structurally stable or forward-thinking in their design at the time, we can always build newer and bolder ones. The cultural shift questions established artistic canons, thus changing the role of art and the artist in society. The artists of Maladype represent a new type of artist with a fresh perspective on theatre, one that has a more vibrant, open relationship with society and everyday life, treating the audience as an equal partner.

- How do circumstances like money, or the lack of it, limit this idea?

- A partially secure financial background definitely helps. It’s good when the leader of a troupe knows how much to plan for the next season, whether they can count on the money allocated for operations, and whether it will arrive on time. Sponsors also trust us more when they see that the state is counting on our theatre, rather than when uncertainty surrounds support and payments. But I don’t want to repeat the facts because – as Woland says in The Master and Margarita – they are stubborn things, and they speak for themselves. Still, it’s not just about money. Creativity, strategic sense, courage, and a sense of humor are essential – above all, a sense of humor. There has been no solution for a long time other than finding alternative sources for survival, but an artist’s goal cannot be just survival. I have always believed in work, and right now, that work ties me to Sibiu with Maladype. If we hadn’t developed such a strong relationship with our domestic audience over the years, we wouldn’t have even come home to perform during the break between the holidays because financially, it would be absolutely unprofitable. If we only considered financial aspects, we could have moved our base abroad.

- Earlier you said that although you'll be abroad the most this year, you would work only in Hungary for a whole year if the conditions were right.

- This is natural because I am Hungarian, and I can express myself most personally in my mother tongue. I would like to work more at home, and I would be happy if our knowledge and our work were appreciated here, and if we were recognized with the necessary financial support for our long-term operation. Maladype represents Hungary everywhere in the world, acting as a theatre diplomat for the country. At the end of last year, as delegates of the Ministry of Public Administration and the Hungarian Fest, we traveled to India with Lajkó Félix and Ferenc Fehér, and at the end of January, we were in Iran, performing at the Fajr International Theatre Festival in Tehran. Currently, despite the not-so-harmonious relationship between the two peoples, we are rehearsing The Master and Margarita in a Romanian-Hungarian co-production. In Sibiu, a city predominantly inhabited by Romanians and Germans, where the Hungarian population is dwindling, a small Budapest troupe represents the innovative force. What is this if not diplomacy? It would be great if international troupes came to us, which would have an impact on our audience and the art of theatre in Hungary. The more sincerely and comprehensively an adult society talks about its own responsibility, its everyday and abstract problems, the richer a legacy it can leave behind for the next generation.

- How important is it within the profession that a troupe has a theatre ideal, a strategy, and what it has contributed, or is domestic theatre life organized based on other principles?

- The apartment is small, and many people live in it. Hungarian cultural life is angry, its participants are disappointed, at the mercy of their own emotions, panicked, rushing, trying to save whatever can be saved. Only rarely and by a few can proposals be made that are not only forward-looking for their immediate surroundings but for the larger whole. I see few defining personalities who could pull our cultural life out of this swamp, but many "opinion leaders." Much more real dialogue is needed, with thorough, reasonable, and credible plans to define and share tasks, but not through undermining each other and lobbying. What we need is a comprehensive strategy that would result in long-term collaborations between creators and creative groups. The current environment is not very suitable for this: personal battles and goals are the driving forces, which, here and there, with smaller or greater effectiveness, can get things moving, but they do not bring radical change and cannot bring radical change.

- What led us to this swamp you mentioned?

- We are all significantly responsible. For example, we allowed an overwhelming number of small theatre groups, each creating a production here or there, to flood and consume a significant part of the independent theatre space. The key and more innovative players in the sector did not manage – or did not want – to assert their interests against this phenomenon, and slowly, they all got worn down. We should have stood more firmly and radically for selection earlier – whether we liked it or not, the failure to do so is one of the causes of the damage we are now suffering. On the other hand, there is almost no analytical and evaluative dialogue between the independent and non-independent theatre sectors. Only a small percentage of critics are capable of understanding and interpreting everything that may have a positive or negative impact on our everyday theatre life. Thirdly, we hardly care about the wider world. We don’t know – and the professional press doesn’t write about it – what’s happening at theatres in Berlin, Paris, or Tokyo, we don’t know where Warlikowski is directing and why exactly that play. The topic of world theatre has ceased to exist; it is no longer part of Hungarian theatre culture. When Hungarians are abroad at a festival, instead of showing interest and engaging in a multilingual, rich conversation with an international community, they tend to retreat to a corner, factionalize, and repeat their own grievances.

- You say dialogue is the solution, but the environment is unsuitable for that. Does that mean the situation is hopeless?

- Everyone is trying to save their own skin, trying to keep alive what they consider valuable in one way or another. Maladype has no other option but to use and make use of its own past, knowledge, and network, and as long as possible, survive, grow, find new environments that are open to talent, and try to gather as many financial and intellectual investors as possible. Complaining, "telling it like it is," or unarticulated anger has never helped us, only focused work has.

- Is the managing authority interested in what we’ve talked about so far – theatre ideals, strategies – when deciding on Maladype’s support?

- Public interest is not focused here right now, the spotlight is not on us. Healthcare or education are much more problematic and frequent areas, which is understandable. Still, we understand theatre, and it is our job to take care of it and raise alarms from here. Countries that have experienced rapid economic development – Finland, Japan, South Korea, India, Germany – invested money and energy in the cultural sector, education, and the arts during their greatest crises, within their means. Every politician in a country that has undergone significant economic development knows that it is worth investing in education and artistic training because nothing can be more fruitful than intellectual capital. A country is only as valuable as the investment it makes in the mental condition of its population.

Kovács Bálint, Magyar Narancs, 2013

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

"We want our audience to look beyond the theatrical experience, to see the world and art in its context. Our goal is to function as a kind of multidisciplinary workshop, which is much more than just theater," says Zoltán Balázs, the founder and director of the ten-year-old Maladype Theater.

We asked the actor-director about the achievements so far and the planned productions and programs for the upcoming season.

The Maladype Theater was founded in 2002 by actor-director Zoltán Balázs. It started with both Roma and non-Roma actors, and three years ago, the company moved into its own venue (the Maladype Base, a spacious bourgeois apartment located in the 8th district, Mikszáth Square). This season, in addition to its current repertoire, the company is preparing exciting new premieres, as well as new programs and events for the audience.

By now, the Maladype has become one of the most well-known and respected independent Hungarian theater companies, recognized abroad as well. Over the past decade, it has won numerous professional awards, participates every year in the POSZT (Hungarian National Theater Festival), and is regularly invited to prestigious international festivals. Their guest artists include major names such as Ilona Béres, Andrea Ladányi, Mari Törőcsik, and Sándor Zsótér. Zsótér will also be involved in the new season at the Maladype Base: he is directing a special production of Don Juan, which is a "shared" adaptation of the works of Molière, Pushkin, Byron, and Brecht (the script will be created in a new translation by dramaturg Júlia Ungár), a kind of style experiment.

The Maladype works with a permanent ensemble and creative partners, operating independently, with its activities solely funded by grant sources. "The restructuring of the funding system strongly affects us. The new support model (as is known, previously independent companies that were categorized as 'sixth' are now placed in the 'other' category under the new three-part system, alongside national and outstanding companies. It is still unclear based on what criteria and how much funding these companies will receive) has created much uncertainty, making it difficult for us to plan ahead. However, freedom is our most valuable capital, which is why we can experiment and research. Our company is strong, we are dedicated, and we won’t stop – we are constantly looking for new opportunities. We’ve been working with foreign companies for the past four or five years – I believe a theater is as valuable as the distance it travels. We have a very good relationship with our audience; there’s a fixed circle that follows us from performance to performance. Our goal is to reach as many generations as possible. This is what one of our new initiatives this season, a drama pedagogy program for children, aims to achieve," shares the founder and director of the company.

In addition to its current repertoire (including Leonce and Lena, Lorenzaccio, The Marriage of Figaro, Platonov, Egg(s)Hell, Tristan and Isolde, and King Ubu), the Maladype plans three premieres for this season. In addition to the previously mentioned Zsótér production, an unconventional double bill of Schiller’s Don Carlos and Goethe’s Egmont will debut in mid-November, directed by Zoltán Balázs. The third premiere will take place at the Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu, Romania: Zoltán Balázs will direct The Master and Margarita in collaboration with the Sibiu company.

Additionally, the Maladype continues its highly successful "Free Academy" series, which will have a special theme in the new season. "We will invite a foreign artist to each of the four events to give a lecture related to our premieres – Don Carlos, Egmont, and The Master and Margarita. We will also launch our reading theater series, where the audience will become familiar with the works of contemporary writers. Among the planned works are Matei Visniec’s Richard III Banished, or Scenes from the Life of Meyerhold, Klim’s The Girl with Candles, and Reflections, a Japanese poetry collection translated by G. András Villányi, staged by invited directors with our actors' performances. Finally, we will continue our international 'crossroad' series launched last year: Viktor Ryzsakov, an artist from Moscow's Teatr Doc, will direct Selma Dimitrijevic’s The Fall of the Gods, and Vlad Troickij from Kyiv's DAKH will bring Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman to our base," we learn.

In a new development, Maladype is starting a film club – twice a month, film director Attila Janisch will invite a guest to watch Hungarian and international classics through the eyes of a director. Once a month, graphic artist István Orosz will lead art lovers on visual journeys. "We want our audience to look beyond the theatrical experience, to see the world and art in context. Our goal is to function as a multidisciplinary workshop, which is much more than just 'theater,'" says the company director.

Another new addition for the season is the Gyerekbázis (Children’s Base): a drama pedagogy program designed for preschool and primary school-aged children, held once a week. Its purpose is to introduce theater to the youngest audiences, teaching the next generation to 'see and understand' theater.

Nóra Zsigmond, Magyar Hírlap Online, 2012

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

In the more than ten years since Zoltán Balázs founded the Maladype Theatre, the company has gained a strong reputation not only in Hungary but also abroad, with its special, groundbreaking, and often improvisational theatrical experiments. In the new season, in addition to several domestic premieres, they will tour "half the world" and organize numerous events. The artistic director and director talks about why they perform less in Hungary, which core pillars show a company's value, and what is missing in Hungarian culture.

- I assume that all these foreign invitations didn’t just fall into your lap.

- It’s the result of several years of work, ongoing consultations with producers and theatre partners, which led to co-production offers and festival invitations. Currently, we have a repertoire of 9 productions, and nearly every performance travels—next, we’re touring India with Egg(s)Hell. After India, we’ll be heading to Iran, followed by a larger American tour. Meanwhile, we’re preparing an unconventional production of The Master and Margarita in co-production with the Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu, on its main stage. I’m directing two performances that build on subtle differences, which will be an exciting challenge for me and for the actors of both companies...

- And between all these travels, you also have several premieres planned in Hungary.

- In mid-November, we had the double premiere of Don Carlos and Egmont. These two performances balance on the edge of very different ways of thinking and worldviews. After that, we start the rehearsal period in Sibiu, with a premiere scheduled for February, then after a few performances, we’ll return home and start working on Don Juan with Sanyi Zsótér. However, we won’t be home for long, because we’ll be attending festivals, and we also need to somehow generate the income to sustain our operations for the year...

- Has the idea of working in a hosting theatre ever come up?

- We’ve done that before and have new invitations as well, but based on various experiences, I think it’s not worth moving into another building temporarily in Hungary, especially if we have a permanent performance space and are constantly on the move. Instead, I prefer the unexpected spaces/conditions of foreign hosting venues or the Radu Stanca main stage. Aside from the variety, this offers a much more financially stable opportunity. A company is only as valuable as how much it travels, how strong and varied its intellectual condition is, and how close its relationship is with the audience. Continuous training and development of these three core pillars is the reason why Maladype has become a "traveling theatre" over the years.

- There will be several regular programs at the Maladype Base in Budapest in addition to the performances.

- The highly successful Free Academy continues, as well as the "Crossroads" series of foreign guest performances. The Base program’s repertoire will also expand with István Orosz’s visual art series and the Maladype Film Club, presented by Attila Janisch. The Carlos Affair has received special attention at the Classroom Review, and it is a key project in our educational programs in close collaboration with schools and universities. In our reading theatre series, in a scenized form, Maladype’s actors will present works by contemporary foreign authors. I’m directing the first play, Theatre of the Absurd by Matei Visniec, and the other three will be directed by guest directors.

- You have a very good relationship with your regular audience.

- So much so that this summer, they volunteered to renovate the Base. It’s wonderful to feel the people’s loyalty and affection, but no matter how full the theatre is, it can’t sustain a company’s operations and planning. It would be better if we didn’t have to worry every day about how we’re going to survive, but could focus on how the company can be more progressive and efficient in everything it has consciously been searching for and exploring over the years. I wish I could guarantee the return on our work every day, for the actors and for the audience. But how and with what, when we still don’t know if we’ll even receive the necessary funding for our operations? Like the other independent theatres, we didn’t even receive our operating grants by mid-November!

- What’s your experience abroad?

- As strange as it may sound, there are still places where patrons are involved in the lives of significant creative workshops and artists because they understand that quality, diplomatic tasks, and convertible culture are areas that return the invested capital. There are difficult situations abroad too, but somehow, the protection of cultural values is more widely integrated across the entire field of culture, so art cannot easily become prey to political games. In these places, it’s unquestionable that culture and education are long-term, sustainable investments.

- Don Carlos, like several of your previous performances, can also be seen as a political reflection.

- Eventually, reality catches up with theatre, as is the case with Don Carlos or King Ubu. The key is to maintain playfulness, the creative and lively nature of the spirit, and not take ourselves too seriously. Krzysztof Warlikowski said about Macbeth: “When ambition pushes human pain aside, lying begins.” Human pain is a part of our everyday lives, and we need to know how to speak about it, give space for self-expression, and bring to light everything that others remain silent about. This is something that is sorely missing today, and the greater its absence, the easier it is to manipulate and dumb down people. And I don’t want to live in a manipulated world.

Krisztina Szepesi, Pesti Műsor, 2012

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

- It seems to me that over the past decade, you have intentionally shaped the program, artistic concept, and your own career at the Maladype Theatre, having a clear vision of where you wanted to go. It's as though you embarked on a staircase, where each step had to be reached to arrive at the highest level. Is high awareness truly a characteristic of yours, or is it just the impression I get as an outside observer?

- I see it similarly, with the difference that when we started (my career preceded the debut of Maladype), we didn’t have the awareness. The team, which didn’t even have a name back then, experienced the encounter as an uninhibited adventure. After the success of our first work, Jack or the Submission, we found the name "Maladype."

"Maladype" is a Romani (Luri) word meaning "encounter."

- It precisely expresses the experience that brought us together and connected us through our shared playing. Our next performance, The School for Fools, was already performed under the name "Maladype Troupe" and was also successful. From there, the process could not be stopped—it was a story that wrote itself. From the coincidences and adventures, a more and more conscious theatrical thought emerged. I couldn't ignore the fact that the role of leader/guide increasingly demanded a more responsible attitude from me. Over time, as The Blacks was completed, more and more people joined us—civilians, critics, theatre people—who were watching our activities with growing interest. We couldn’t ignore the demands that came with this, which required more, more sophisticated, and unexpected things from the troupe.

- Is this connected to why you chose only works that did not fit, or barely fit, into the Hungarian theatrical tradition for a long time? I’m thinking of authors like Ionesco, Ghelderode, Genet, as well as Sándor Weöres’s Theomachia, Hölderlin’s Empedocles, or Wyspiański’s The Acropolis.

- There was no pre-established approach for these authors and their works in Hungary. It’s a bit of a cliché now, but still true, as Weöres Sándor pointed out, that our task is to make the invisible dimension of literary material, like drama, visible. This is a huge challenge because you have to create theatre behind it. Weöres didn’t give us any instructions in Theomachia; we only had the grand flow of words and thoughts, from which we had to extract the story and formulate its essence both visually and acoustically. The mentioned plays posed challenges to the troupe that required actors, directors, and creative partners with intuitive abilities and resources.

- The need for conscious thinking, mentioned earlier, might also require the occasional need for retrospection and summarizing. The troupe’s anniversary offers a good opportunity for this, with screenings, book launches, and gala nights that recall the first ten years of Maladype. How do you see what you have achieved over the past years? How close have you come to realizing your goal? Let’s look at the two ends: on one side, the debut works Jack or the Submission and The School for Fools, and on the other side, the performances created in the last three to four years, which are still on the repertoire.

- Let those who watch our works decide where we are. One thing I’m sure of—we’re still far from the goal. A few years ago, Orsolya Kővári asked me in an interview if there was a performance in my future plans that I absolutely wanted to create. I answered—and I can’t say anything else today—that there is an author, a play, a desired performance in my head, and there are actors who may someday reach the knowledge and quality required for that particular performance. But until then, we have to build the path leading there with enormous patience, concentration, consistency, and painstaking, hard work—the very staircase you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation. The most important thing is that I have constant playmates—first and foremost the actors and my collaborators—who work with great devotion, persistence, and commitment.

- How do you avoid the story becoming insular? To what extent do external impulses influence your work?

- External impulses, on the one hand, refresh our way of thinking; on the other hand, they make us uncertain and question everything we’ve done up to that point. This forces the whole troupe to formulate new, powerful, and valid answers. Everything that touches us is there to shake us up, refresh us, and push us to rethink the directions, intentions, and goals that have shaped our work until now. If necessary, we’ll erase everything in one motion and head in the opposite direction. We cannot exclude the concept of change from the workings of Maladype because, without it, what we’re doing would not just become insular but barren, dead, and sterile. That’s exactly why I asked Sándor Zsótér to work with the troupe three times, and why I invited Italian director Claudio Collova to direct Woyzeck—because I wanted to avoid insularity.

- In addition to directors, we should also mention actors who have worked with the troupe as guests: Ilona Béres appeared in Theomachia, Mari Törőcsik in The Marriage of Figaro, and Andrea Ladányi in In Inferno.

- It’s a great feeling that those artists who are already icons in their own field are happy to come to Maladype to perform. They trust the whole troupe, Sanyi and me, unconditionally, and are fresh and open, willing to take risks. Maladype actors learn a lot from them, and we deeply appreciate it that they like and respect our work.

- What factors determine your choice of plays, beyond ensuring they’re optimal for the troupe’s functioning?

- The theme of the play primarily determines my choice. While compiling the anniversary publication, I realized that almost every play I’ve done revolves around the same theme, with the same questions recurring. Over and over again, I explore the relationship between the collective spirit of the community and the identity of the individual; in Theomachia, it’s through Kronos and the curates, in King Ubu, it’s through Ubu papa and his surroundings, and in Inferno, it’s through Dante and the damned souls' relationships with each other.

- The same applies to Ostrovsky's The Tempest, which, in contrast to your previous choices, is a realist drama.

- I picked The Tempest because for years it was pointed out to me that I wasn’t able to tell a linear story. The play’s everyday, gradually unfolding story wouldn’t have been enough on its own to satisfy me, so I tried to capture the essence of the story by transposing the main motif and climactic moment from László Németh’s Villámfénynél into Ostrovsky’s family drama, where the characters’ lives are briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning. Together with set designer Judit Gombár, we placed the story in a studio set: a ramp steeply rising before a vast painted panorama with doors cut at odd angles, evoking Russian Constructivist artists. Although the roles were developed using Stanislavsky’s psychorealistic method, the moving lights of cranes and trolleycars continuously flashing across the “studio” acted as a sobering effect on the actors’ presence—the machines, which illuminated the scenes up close, became another source of tension for the already agitated and confused characters. Ostrovsky’s "protected heroes" could thus never truly be alone. This Brechtian effect was amplified by the initial parallel, later disjointed use of Leos Janáček’s opera Katia Kabanova, where music and text almost came into Beckett-like contact.

- As an artistic director and director, you naturally have a strong influence on Maladype’s performances. But how do your actors affect you? Do you see them as co-creators, or more as executors of your concept?

- On one hand, as children whose essence is play, and on the other hand, as co-creators. A special relationship has developed between us: they are both my “children” and my friends. Of course, they don’t always agree with me, and we often argue, but this is essential within the troupe’s work. My job is to understand them and help in their development.

- I imagine that it’s not easy for your actors to adapt to your directing methods, at least they have to shed many things and rethink their approach. You’ve often said—and you alluded to it again—that your actors need to rediscover their childlike selves, the unrestrained joy of play. What kind of presence, attitude, and mental (and perhaps even physical) condition does this require of them?

- There’s no place for actors who seek an easy adventure, no matter how talented they are. Maladype demands basic abilities, professional knowledge, and proficiency from its actors, just like any other troupe, but our actors must also possess certain additional qualities. If an actor doesn’t want to constantly renew, change, and eagerly and greedily "attack" topics, tasks, situations, they’ll "starve" here. Most actors are set up for comfortable acting, so they use rehearsals mainly to fortify themselves with tools that ensure their safety.

- However, the opposite is happening at your company.

- At Maladype, the most important thing is that the actor creates their own safety in their head and prepares for unexpected situations during rehearsals. However, there is no single possible alternative or solution; the actor must always find and choose the most appropriate one. Their choice must never come from panic; panic must be completely eliminated from their performance. During rehearsals, they must prepare for the possible appearance of new and unknown elements. Let me give an example: in Egg(s)Hell, accidents can happen just like in any moment of our lives: an egg could break, someone could fall off a chair, the performers could accidentally hit each other, but the actor's reaction cannot be panic-stricken. It's similar to when a parent is watching their child on a playground, and suddenly the child falls off the swing. If panic appears on the parent's face, the child will become scared and start crying. But if the parent smiles, the child calms down. The same applies to the actor, who, if they can accurately perceive the reactions of their environment and publicly accept their failures, even think them through and incorporate them into their performance, will be successful; if not, they will become tense and full of anxiety. The gesture of generosity is essential in the functioning of Maladype. I must be generous with everything—my own vulnerability, my mistakes, my successful or unsuccessful solutions. This is all me. This is who I am.

- Your thought leads to the concept of the human actor, which is one of the foundations of your work.

- We tend to forget that actors were first human beings, and moreover, children, who for some reason longed to become actors. We have to return to that state, break down bad habits, shatter the idol of vanity, and rebuild the person in front of the audience's eyes. This, of course, is not simple and requires a special spiritual disposition and mindset. Most actors do not trust the power of spoken words; they want to assist the audience's illusion by expressing their emotions more forcefully. Yet, tension is not revealed in the moment of speaking the words, but before or after it. I am not worried about whether I can say the word "I love you" to someone, but whether they will respond with what I want to hear.

- You mentioned Egg(s)Hell, which was first performed in December 2008 at the Thália Theatre Studio. Many have tried to describe the play in various ways, including references to movement theatre and physical theatre. Undoubtedly, the play is unique in your efforts, yet it directly follows from Leonce and Lena. How would you define the kind of wordless acting you employed in Egg(s)Hell, using music, dance movements, and improvisation?

- Egg(s)Hell is a complex system, a series of exercises, and a set of possibilities that utilize and exhaust the acting abilities I’ve mentioned before. It doesn't want to tell a story, it doesn't want to be an "explanatory" performance. There, and then, as the art of the moment, it tries to dissolve into the joy of playing. The new members, Erika Tankó, Judit Ligeti Kovács, and Zénó Faragó, worked for a year before performing their first show. You can’t just step into Egg(s)Hell. The hardest part of this performance is that you have to notice when someone, at the same time as you, offers something stronger, and you must not be afraid of giving it up. An actor is inherently exhibitionist and self-actualizing, living for "me, me, and me." But here, we need "you, you, and you." This is just one example, but from this, you can already sense how much self-discipline and concentration this performance demands. There’s no recipe for it, so after the performance, I can’t tell the actors, “You should have done this or that...” We can only talk about possibilities and optimal solutions. Egg(s)Hell is like drawing a tree, which is destroyed after the performance ends, but the next day, we draw it again, and maybe it will be much smaller or more robust. Leonce and Lena, Egg(s)Hell, and later performances didn't come out of nowhere. If those incredibly strong, uniquely structured, unusual texts hadn't existed, those reflective thoughts that required distinct external and internal formulations, we wouldn’t have been able to loosen up and lighten our acting, and we wouldn't have been able to build this troupe.

- Staying with Egg(s)Hell, how does the composition and improvisation relate to each other in the play?

- There’s no composition. There are very difficult and precise exercises that I put together, but what happens in the moment, or how the partner reacts at any given time, cannot be predicted. Take, for example, the chair game, which everyone thinks is choreographed. It’s not. You can’t perform it the same way twice. It’s the same with the music; the actors don’t know what comes next, so they always have to be ready for quick changes.

- Leonce and Lena offers more scene variations rather than fixed scenes, and it seems there was a sharper shift in the company’s functioning around it. Can we talk about a standstill or crisis in connection with that?

- No, it was a completely conscious change, preceded by a horseback riding accident that kept me bedridden for three months. By then, I knew I had to make Leonce and Lena, as it was a troupe play that raised many generational, gender, and identity issues, which the members of the troupe needed to think about and discuss. I asked myself why I shouldn't show the audience what I think is most exciting in the actor's work? The moments when, in rehearsals, the actor brings out their most creative abilities. And so, the performance was born, in which the audience gets a glimpse of the actor's true workings by not seeing a single fixed, director-approved version but several variations of a scene on any given night. I believe a much fresher and more truthful Leonce came to life this way than if we had only locked in a single version.

- But this solution involved serious risks.

- We’ve performed it 86 times so far, and it has been very successful at several foreign venues. The possibility of new adventures has always strongly inspired me. I could have created eras for each performance, but I immediately moved on because I didn’t want to preserve it. That’s why my work might be hard to "pin down." I know that some critics withdrew back then because I didn’t give enough time. If I had done three more shows like The Blacks, they might have stayed with me. But I didn’t have the time for that. I decided early on that I would walk my own path and not try to please anyone. Of course, partners are needed for this, because no matter what I come up with, if they don’t accompany me on the journey, it won’t work. Everything that the actors have learned, whether in Egg(s)Hell or Leonce, is just the foundation for what they need to use in the upcoming Don Carlos/Egmont. We’ve reached a turning point, so we’ll be exploring different directions, but everything we’ve considered important so far will continue to accompany us: playfulness, directness, the everyday tone, and the presence of the human actor.

- How do you approach Schiller’s and Goethe's works Don Carlos and Egmont?

- I don’t want to tell Don Carlos and Egmont as a classical story. I want to examine the case of Carlos and Egmont in a trial setting. This idea came from the rehearsal process of Platonov and the Miskolc camp, which we also closed with a trial. Very strong arguments were made both for and against the rebuilding and complete dismantling of a factory system. Some performed well as actors but weren’t convincing, while others were excellent at arguing, but poor actors. The actors of Maladype must attempt to create a new form of play in which intellectual and emotional "manipulation" come together. The audience will watch the outcome of the case as if they were members of the jury.

- We’ve already mentioned that Maladype signifies an encounter, and indeed, the history of the troupe can be described as a story of encounters. But I would add one more word: dialogue, because you are constantly in dialogue with each other, with your creative partners, with the plays, and, of course—and perhaps most importantly—with the audience.

- I hope that we can take a step further in this communication. Many civilian experts are now joining our work, people knowledgeable in law, constitutional issues, and the media. The audience will increasingly participate in rehearsals, with a larger scope and presence. Earlier, during the public rehearsals of King Ubu, the audience could actively observe every aspect of the creation process. Most recently, in In Inferno, civilian participants embodied the "sinful souls."

- Why do you think the constant presence and participation of the audience in the performance is so important?

- Because I love the audience. I trust them. Just as the actor is always right, so is the audience. An unwritten contract has been formed between us regarding something we call theatre.
The Mikszáth Square Base, where you’ve been working since 2009, seems particularly suitable for such an intense dialogue with the audience. You perform Lorenzaccio and The Marriage of Figaro there, and King Ubu was created there. How do the theatre spaces affect your directing work? Currently, your performances are seen in three main venues: the Base, the Thália Theatre Studio, and Trafó.

- They have a very strong influence. I was eager to finally work in spaces that weren’t sterile, enclosed theatrical spaces, surrounded by artificial lights and barriers. I wanted to stage works where actors and audiences could meet directly in an exchange of energy. The spaces we use offer a new kind of theatre experience: one that isn’t mediated by illusion or separation, but one where everyone works together in a common sphere.

- Let’s not forget that you also started as an actor. You played Romeo, Tuzenbach in The Three Sisters, Bicska Maxi in The Beggar’s Opera, and János Szász assigned you the role of Treplev in The Seagull. Important roles found you, but I believe the turning point was the title role in Tim Carroll's Hamlet production, which radically broke with previous theatrical stereotypes in staging the play. It is no small matter that you received the Gábor Miklós Prize for this role, but what’s much more important is how it influenced your directing work and later productions. What experiences did you gain from that work?

- For example, the experience I gained in Hamlet was very significant during the staging of Leonce and Lena. I got to experience firsthand, with my own body and nervous system, how limitless the actor’s communication tools are. There was one Hamlet performance where I stopped in the middle of a monologue and asked for a break from the audience because my brain was exhausted. That can’t happen—the actor must not stop because their job is to stay in the moment and finish the performance, no matter what. But I couldn’t continue because I would have been lying. I sat down for two minutes, went through the thought process in my head, and reconstructed the monologue word by word. There was stunned silence, and my partners were "shocked," as they weren’t prepared for something like that. It was only on my way home that I realized what I had done. I realized that I had been "interested" in solving Hamlet’s problem; I had truly used my brain, not just pretended to, and that’s why I was exhausted and needed to stop. I had normal symptoms because the actor, and the role they represent, is fragile, vulnerable, and easily fatigued—it can easily "drain." The actors of Maladype also stop during performances and tell the audience if something isn’t right inside. I am convinced that the audience is much more likely to embrace this type of actor than one who constantly shows that everything is fine.

- Let’s return to the current situation! Maintaining an independent company and securing the necessary funds has not been easy in recent years, and it is an even greater challenge now. Recently, the Performing Arts Act was amended, creating three main funding categories: national, prominent, and other. How does this affect your operation?

- That’s hard to predict. We automatically fall into the "other" category, the "scraps," which is essentially doomed to die. We can propose our classification, but if I were to put Maladype into the prominent category—nationally, it’s clearly not possible—the curators can override that, and the final decision is with the minister. Right now, the entire Hungarian cultural life is in a trap. It saddens me that a country is consuming and then spitting out its intellectual resources.

- What can be done in this situation? How can you ensure the survival of the troupe?

- Maybe we can count on some sponsors. But the most important thing is the loyalty of the audience. I still see opportunities in co-productions and foreign guest performances.

- If I understand correctly, you are focusing on creating more performances and taking on more guest appearances.

- Yes, you understood that perfectly. It’s all about work, nothing else. I don’t like to complain because so many others are doing it. Why should our voice be the one they hear?

- Does the constant struggle for survival consume a significant amount of your energy?

- It would be better if I didn’t have to deal with it, but I have no choice. One must work hard for their freedom.

- As the artistic director, you lead the work of Maladype. How much do your own artistic ambitions take a backseat? Do your personal directing goals still shine through behind Maladype’s work?

- They must be visible because I "stimulate" this team. My philosophy shapes Maladype’s operations. If I didn’t stay at least ten to twenty steps ahead of the actors, I couldn’t function as either a company leader or a director.

- Now, as we speak, Maladype is reflecting on its ten-year history. Do you see another ten years ahead for yourself and the troupe? What are the prospects, and how do you imagine the future?

- I can imagine anything, including the possibility that we won’t have another ten years. We might move forward, but we might also get stuck in a rut. One thing is certain: we must continue our work as we have, and our path will reveal itself.

Gábor Ménesi, Műút, 2012

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek