This year I met director Zoltán Balázs again at the premiere of For Your Own Good, a production created together with the team of Odeon Theatre.

We had not seen each other for some time, but at the press conference I was pleased to notice that the passing of time had only added a slight melancholy to the features of this always cheerful artist, who chose the freedom of expression — something that inevitably comes with the financial difficulties of independent theatre.

I first met him in 2011 at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, where he arrived with his own ensemble, the dynamic troupe of Maladype Theatre, bringing an energetic performance that was just crazy enough to be exciting for audiences. In Egg(s)Hell, eight young actors perform movements timed down to the second: with the speed characteristic of slapstick, relationships between individuals and within the group gradually emerge while the actors attempt to catch and pass on a highly valuable EGG without breaking it. But should we understand this as a real egg, or the symbolic and primordial one?

A year earlier, at the same festival, I had seen an unconventional and brilliantly choreographed Leonce and Lena by this independent Budapest theatre company, in which the audience could choose from several possible outcomes for the story. The fact that Constantin Chiriac, director of the Sibiu festival, invited Balázs and his troupe back again was probably due to the ineffable quality this young theatre-maker possesses — the thing that makes his stage vision unmistakably unique and whose boldness enriches the language of contemporary theatre.

The surprises did not end there. On the evening after the performance, when the director arrived at the filming location of an interview introducing the theatre artists participating in the festival — which we were preparing for the Romanian public broadcaster TVR — the Hungarian Zoltán Balázs greeted us in vivid and nuanced Romanian. He had, after all, been born in Romania and spent around eleven years there. And he is one of those people who not only do not hide their origins, but value them.

So in 2019, when we sat down to talk at the Odeon Theatre after the premiere of For Your Own Good, neither his openness nor his excellent command of Romanian surprised me anymore.

Based on a text by the young award-winning Italian author Pier Lorenzo Pisano, the director created a visually overwhelming performance structured around the questions raised by the play: how dysfunctional are today’s families, and how can one escape their bleakness?

Sanda Vişan: In a 2013 interview, you said that contemporary texts did not interest you. And now, surprisingly enough, your current production is based on a text written by a 28-year-old playwright, while last year — also at the Odeon — you worked on a text by a Polish playwright born in 1982. Did you take a little break to see what is happening in the world today?

Zoltán Balázs: You see, we say one thing and do another, but that also means we are open to opportunities that arise. I never thought I would work with a contemporary text when this opportunity came along. And it is no secret that I first discussed things with Dorina Lazăr at the Odeon. At the time we talked about a large-stage adaptation of La Fontaine’s fables and Matei Vișniec’s Dada Cabaret, which I had already directed successfully in Budapest.

Things changed afterward, and the theatre got a new director. To my surprise, Cristian Șofron called me and said he wanted to continue the collaboration. Honestly, this is a very rare gesture — directors usually prefer choosing the people they work with themselves and do not typically continue collaborations started by their predecessors. I was very surprised, but I told myself: why not say yes if they want it too? Let’s see what this Fabulamundi Playwright Europe project has in store for us. After that I chose the play Gardenia.

The Odeon Theatre became a partner in the European Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe project in 2012 and, within the framework of the programme promoting contemporary drama, staged eight readings of plays from the contemporary dramatic literature of ten member states between 2012 and 2016. In 2018, a text by the Polish-born playwright Elżbieta Chowaniec was staged under the direction of Zoltán Balázs. The Hungarian director preserved the essence of the repeatedly tragic fate of four women who, from the tyrannical great-grandmother to the modern great-granddaughter, all search for their own freedom but ultimately follow the same path through the turbulent second half of the twentieth century.

The director also managed to retain the text’s cruel honesty, elevating the play — at the level of relationships between the characters — onto a foundation free of sentimentality, while channeling emotionally charged moments symbolically into operatic excerpts performed by the actors.

S. V.: In 2019 you also chose For Your Own Good by Pier Lorenzo Pisano yourself?

B. Z.: Yes. Tamara Susoi was a tremendous help — she is the heart and mind of this project and works with great motivation both on Fabulamundi and on fulfilling our directorial wishes. She motivated me as well to embark on this adventure. I never illustrate the author’s text; what interests me is how I can complement and enrich it, how I can create a personal mythology.

There is no doubt that he elevated the meaning of the otherwise overly simple realist text to another level: he created a baroque and tension-filled stage universe in which the confrontations caused by the prodigal son’s return to a dysfunctional family take place aboard a ship headed nowhere — yet one that transforms the banal figures of reality into legendary characters.

S. V.: How did you arrive — from the language characteristic of your troupe, based largely on physicality and the rhythm of movement and music — at the kind of language we saw at the Odeon, rich in a sort of profane sanctity, where movement mostly appears on the level of hissing confrontations?

B. Z.: A great deal depends on the play itself, the author’s intentions, and naturally the troupe, the situation, the possibilities, and my own vision of the text. I haven’t changed, but I want to find the right interpretation for each play so I do not repeat myself or recycle elements from previous productions.

My greatest desire — sometimes it succeeds, sometimes not; that’s life — is to observe, invent new things, important things, to discover fresh impulses that open new possibilities of expression for me as a director, as a human being, as a man. I would like to live on Jupiter, where, as far as I know, one day equals three Earth days, because 24 hours are not enough for me to deal with this source of joy called theatre.

It gives me enormous joy to find collaborators in whose eyes I can see understanding awakening; to see people connecting with one another and understanding something anew; to see two or three actors suddenly grasp the whole picture while others get lost, and still others — from whom you would never expect it — discover themselves. It is fascinating, this thing that comes from setting thought into motion.

Without thought behind it, any movement becomes false, neutral, anonymous, empty of content. That is why I am always interested in the actor’s thinking and personality, and I try to guide them toward their personal desires so they can fulfill the requirements of the play in that way. Pisano’s text is completely different from Büchner or anything else I have worked on in recent years. For example, last year at the Odeon I worked on Gardenia by the Polish playwright Elżbieta Chowaniec. At first the text struggled to find its way to the collaborators, the actresses, the audience. Then it began to flow naturally.

S. V.: Both texts you selected revolve around generational differences and dysfunctional families. Two different authors, two similar themes. Have you encountered similar dilemmas in your own life?

B. Z.: Every family has problems, but joyful things as well. I was born into an exceptional family, inheriting the traditions of a noble lineage on one side. At the same time, my father was an extremely simple man. My mother and father loved each other, but a large part of their conflicts stemmed from cultural differences between them.

S. V.: So your mother, who came from a noble family, felt she had married beneath her social rank?

B. Z.: Exactly. Moreover, the two families barely kept in touch.

S. V.: That’s understandable.

B. Z.: After a while I understood it too, but when they divorced I was still a child. My sister and I were left without a father, and we did not understand the situation at all; it was very difficult. We need time and maturity to understand such things. Family always offers an opportunity for reconsideration and reevaluation — if we manage it, if we receive help.

In this play, for example, the Stranger both helps and obstructs the Boy in making a life-defining decision before setting out on his own path. But is this the only possibility, the only answer to the questions: what is the purpose of my life, how does my father feel, what is my mother doing? This text led me toward magical realism, inspired by Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Born in 1977 in Cluj-Napoca, Zoltán Balázs studied acting and directing in Budapest and, at the age of 24, took his artistic fate into his own hands by founding the Maladype Theatre, which has since become an important pillar of Hungary’s independent theatre movement. The experience he gained in workshops abroad — with Anatoly Vasiliev and Josef Nadj, or while learning alongside Robert Wilson — is clearly visible in his theatrical vision, where music and scenography are equal to the spoken word.

S. V.: From what I have seen of your work, I sensed a consistency and an ability to create a symbolic framework for a performance. For Your Own Good is a text that, when read, has almost no chance of escaping the cage of realism. Yet on your stage the visual layers sometimes have a Wilsonian quality — you once called it monumental minimalism. The ship in which the action unfolds symbolizes sorrow rather than hope.

B. Z.: Charon’s ship does not bring much hope. I mean, one may hope that on the other shore we will find what we could not find here, but we do not know exactly what awaits us there. The ship is a space of possibilities, relationships, hierarchies, of the vertical and the horizontal, of distance and closeness — therefore it is in constant motion. Constantin Ciubotariu’s set design contains many surprises.

The text also offers the possibility of constructing a thriller that ends in a powerful metamorphosis. At least that is how I interpreted this somewhat banal text, from which one could easily have made a social-documentary production. But there are already excellent directors working in that style — for example, Gianina Cărbunariu would probably have created a wonderful performance from it. It benefits both the troupe and the audience when a foreign director arrives who sees things a little differently. These different colors, signs, and flavors accumulate and diversify the Odeon’s palette.

Zoltán Balázs directs productions in Romania, France, the United States, Slovakia, and Germany. His enthusiasm resembles that of a child marveling at the world and wanting to show others the starry sky. He is the kind of artist for whom creative freedom is not negotiable. This also means that sometimes he must face the financial insecurity that accompanies the path he has chosen.

S. V.: Now that Hungary’s political system has taken a different direction, what is happening with your theatre?

B. Z.: For the Maladype Theatre this is a very difficult situation. Eighteen years have passed since its founding.

S. V.: Meaning eighteen years of struggling against political and economic tides...

B. Z.: Against everything at once. Two things help enormously: the support of the audience...

S. V.: But no performance can survive on ticket sales alone.

B. Z.: That’s true, but whenever we enter a crisis or face major problems, the audience immediately stands beside us. They raise money and help us with their own hands. It means a lot that Maladype is internationally recognized as an independent theatre, so we can also rely on the international market. This is a great joy for us.

Unfortunately our headquarters was destroyed after the upstairs neighbor flooded us. As a result, many sets and costumes became unusable, and we cannot perform seven out of ten productions. Recently the company participated in three festivals, and I accompanied them. Now that we premiered at the Odeon, we are preparing for more festivals.

Interestingly, after the accident many people from the theatre scene contacted me to say how much they respected and loved our work. Even if they cannot host all our productions, they would gladly invite us from autumn onward. We are very happy about this because it means our presence also matters in Hungary.

To answer your previous question: I find it very sad that even after working for years, proving your worth, leading people, collaborating with emblematic actors, teaching, directing, and creating unique collaborations throughout the country, what you do still does not count. What matters are political and family connections, communicating in a certain way. Of course, this is not true only of Hungary, but such things are alien to me; I want to sleep peacefully at night. I try to stay away from solutions that may rescue you in the short term but afterward leave you unable to look at yourself in the mirror. In the performance we presented at the Odeon, I also tried to speak about this.

S. V.: So you sustain yourselves through tours and festivals?

B. Z.: Yes, through tours, performances in different countries — from Iran to India, from Albania to America; we are preparing to go to Egypt and Vietnam... Through different unfamiliar situations I give my actors opportunities to develop both artistically and personally. We have a mode of expression and theatrical language that cannot easily be absorbed in a short period of time; even if people are open, when I work with foreign companies there is usually neither enough time nor the right conditions for this kind of work. I need to know everything in advance: what kind of theatre I am going to, what play I will work on, what my possibilities are, how I can push them out of their comfort zones while still ensuring that there is pleasure in the symbolic and concrete journey we take together toward the performance.

S. V.: Although Hungary is moving in an illiberal direction politically, the country is doing well economically. Aren’t people in the business world — who are making a lot of money through state contracts — open to supporting the arts?

B. Z.: That would be wonderful, and in some form it does exist. Our sponsors, for example, help us, but it is not enough to establish long-term relationships. Besides, those who are on good terms with the state do not have financial problems — they receive support. These things are painful, and I would like to find proper solutions, especially for my team, who work day and night.

So I try to work with what I have, but naturally there comes a time when things can no longer continue this way. I must choose whether I will find a home in Hungary or in another country.

S. V.: After so many years, so much perseverance and resistance — because despite the economic circumstances your troupe still exists — do you still ask yourself this question?

B. Z.: I try to ask the right question. I believe a person should be where the world needs them. Where they are not needed, where people do not know they are needed or simply do not want them, the artist should not remain present. That probably grants us the necessary freedom as well.

Whatever fate may bring, whatever the future holds for Zoltán Balázs, one thing is certain: his encounter with theatre in the country where he was born has borne fruit. In Timișoara, Sibiu, Târgu Mureș, and Bucharest as well, audiences will be able to board the “Ship of Good Hope” at the Odeon Theatre in November to see Zoltán Balázs’s two productions, Gardenia and For Your Own Good.

Sanda Vişan, Adevărul, 2019.

Translated by Panna Adorjáni

For eighteen years now, one of the country’s most unusual independent theatres, Maladype Theatre, has operated mostly from a second-floor apartment known as “the Base” at 2 Mikszáth Kálmán Square. Zoltán Balázs is its founder, artistic director, stage director, and actor — the driving force through and through. We talked about him and the company. And about everything else...

As you rushed in just now, I’m sure that, as always, you’re in the middle of something. What is it this time?
I’m preparing to go to the Odeon Theatre in Bucharest, where last year I directed Gardenia by the contemporary Polish playwright Elżbieta Chowaniec. The production was very well received by both the Romanian theatre community and audiences, so the theatre management invited me back to further develop the theatrical language that had already emerged with the actors of the ensemble. This time I’m staging For Your Own Good by the contemporary Italian playwright Pier Lorenzo Pisano.

Let’s jump way back: when and how did theatre first capture you?
It wasn’t theatre that captured me, but the circus. I was born in Cluj-Napoca, but until I was twelve we lived in northern Transylvania, in Sighetu Marmației, before relocating in 1989. I was six years old when my grandfather took me to see a travelling circus. I saw half-successful tricks, sad performers, and a tired snake lazily twisting around without enthusiasm — and yet the experience was overwhelming. I was completely enchanted. As a result, that very night I packed my things, and at dawn I showed up at the travelling troupe.

The caravan was just taking down the tent, and without even asking who I was, they took me along with them. Back home everyone was desperately searching for me, but my grandfather, remembering the look in my eyes during the previous evening’s performance, quickly figured out where I might be. They came after us with the police, stopped the caravan, and took me home. For more than a month I refused to speak to my family because I felt they had deprived me of the meaning of my life.

I longed to become an acrobatic clown who, after every blood-curdling stunt, could turn to the audience and say: “Hepp! Calm down, people, it’s only a joke and a game...” The circus became the most alluring art form for me, and the duality of sacred and profane moments captured my heart and imagination. For a long time I searched for similar impulses but couldn’t find them. After changing countries, I hitchhiked across Europe purely for pleasure, meeting Native Americans, sumo wrestlers, housewives, all sorts of people... I had an enormous appetite for life and threw myself greedily into every adventure that seemed promising.

Did you find what you were looking for?
Yes — at the drama department in Szentes. My teachers, Mihály Bácskai, Mrs. Mihály Bácskai (Erzsike), Imre Keserű, Zoltán László, and Erzsébet Dózsáné Perjés patiently and wisely guided me along a theatrical journey infused with personal experience. That was when I first encountered acting as one of the most exciting and complex forms of expression. A defining experience for me was a production based on Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil, which, thanks to the francophone connections of the Szentes secondary school, we were able to perform at the festival in Avignon. There I met Marcel Bozonnet, then director of the Paris Conservatoire, who, after seeing me perform as Baudelaire, invited me to continue my studies there. At the time, though, I felt I had things to do in Hungary — I had found a home there. And besides, I was in love... For three years I attended the studio of the National Theatre, and then I was admitted to the acting class of Miklós Benedek at the University of Theatre and Film Arts. A year later I was also accepted into the directing program, in the class of László Babarczy. Later, circumstances allowed me to begin studies at the Paris Conservatoire simultaneously with my training in Budapest. During the combined semesters I had the opportunity to learn from masters such as Robert Wilson, Anatoly Vasiliev, and Min Tanaka.

As a trained actor-director you worked at the Bárka Theatre while founding Maladype at the same time. How did that happen?
Coincidences organized my life. In the spring of 2001, several people drew the attention of the Serbian producer Dragan Ristić to a “strange, unruly, rebellious” character — a graduating directing student who was open to any kind of madness. That was me. Ristić wanted to create a European-level theatre production in Budapest with Roma and non-Roma actors working together. He asked me to direct Eugène Ionesco’s Jack, or the Submission in both Romani and Hungarian. “You do know this play has failed everywhere in the world?” I asked him. “I know,” he replied, “but this time it won’t.” He was right. The premiere took place at the Roma Parliament, and the troupe — assembled from different places — became a huge success with both critics and audiences. We performed at impossible hours, at night, to packed houses.

Maladype grew out of that ensemble. What does the word mean? And how did you begin?
In Lovari, it means “encounter.” That word most accurately expressed the experience that united all of us during the Jack production — the connection born between performers and audience. That is why we chose it as the name of our theatre. Our next premiere took place at the Szkéné Theatre and was based on School for Fools by Michel de Ghelderode. In the performance, the actors spoke Romani, Hungarian, and Latin. We were convinced it would be a disastrous failure, but to our surprise it became an even greater success. Our third premiere seemed an even more impossible undertaking because we chose a playwright whose works and personality had not yet been accepted by Hungarian theatrical taste: Jean Genet’s The Blacks, which we premiered in 2004 at the Bárka Theatre with music by László Sáry.

What made it seem impossible?
Because of the complete absence of traditionalism and social realism characteristic of the French author, and because of the unusual, innovative fusion of the formal and thematic features typical of my own work. The production was essentially a contemporary opera in which singing and speech appeared as “masks” within a story boldly integrating motifs from various exotic movement cultures. In the plot — built on peculiar reflections and rituals — the actors of Roma origin played the white aristocratic court, while the Hungarian actors portrayed the slaves, the Blacks; for example, Artúr Kálid played a white woman... These productions established Maladype’s reputation both in Hungary and abroad. They articulated the company’s unique conception of theatre and turned the actors into emblematic figures of a different kind of actor. That’s how we began. Everything afterward became organic chapters of a story writing itself.

You suddenly had a company, with all the joys and burdens that come with it. Let’s take them one by one.
I quickly had to learn the uncomfortable tasks of grant writing and fundraising. I had to pay attention to the kind of collaborators I surrounded myself with. I also had to make the members of the company understand that our work was defined by a competitive spirit. For example, if the development of the ensemble is endangered by a difficult-to-motivate actor who lags behind, then we have to let them go, because in the long run they hold back the “racehorses” of the theatre. In short, I had to quickly grow into the not-so-popular role of company leader and always be ready for replanning and redefinition.

As I see it, you carry all this on your shoulders. Don’t you get tired?
So far I can still handle it. Maybe my childhood circus experiences also play a role in that. Every one of my productions contains an element of risk and resistance. Maladype actors must be able to focus on many things at once; their nervous systems cannot be ordinary, and they must adapt to every unexpected situation...

...where even the audience almost becomes part of the performance because they are so immersed in it. In a large repertory theatre, the audience applauds or boos, but in your intimate performance space the fifty spectators surrounding the stage immediately laugh or shout into the play itself. How can actors adapt to that?
Through daily practice and conditioning. This kind of attention cannot be learned at university. The actors who work with me possess a certain kind of “recklessness.” During performances they must apply a special ability of flexibility and spiritual-emotional suppleness, which they acquire over time through various training sessions. Someone who lacks this may still be a good actor — just not with me.

What kind of theatre is the Odeon?
One of the world’s most respected theatrical workshops. The Romanian equivalent of Budapest’s Vígszínház. After the 1989 revolution, under the directorship of the internationally renowned Vlad Mugur, it became internationally famous. Directors such as Andrei Șerban, Mihai Măniuțiu, Alexander Hausvater, Radu Afrim, and Gianina Cărbunariu have worked there. As far as I know, I am the first foreign director to work with the Odeon ensemble. That also places a great responsibility on me.

What makes directing abroad different?
Mostly the fact that I can devote all my nerves and attention entirely to the creative process and the actors’ work. That is a huge luxury! In Hungary my everyday life is dominated mainly by organizational and managerial tasks. I’ve become accustomed to the reality that the leader of an independent theatre company, whose troupe lives from day to day, always has to redesign and rethink everything.

András Váczy, Business Class Magazine, 22 July 2019.

According to the director of the Maladype Theater, it would be worth to distinguish amongst the independent companies between the ones with serious past and early-stage companies.

The alteration of the Corporate Tax system puts the nearly 18-year-old company in a difficult position. At the same time, the theater director believes that the current situation creates a good opportunity to clarify the real professional questions, which have been swept under the rug a long time ago, and to radicalize the situation of the independent theaters. He finds this achievable on a strictly professional basis, taking in consideration real values and performances.

- Can you remember what situation were you in and what was your first reaction, when you have been informed about the Corporate Tax decision?

- We’ve been in a waiting position; we should have found out which companies will offer us the maximum amount of the Corporate Tax based on the number of the audience and income. The Corporate Tax support covers nearly two months of Maladype Theaters’ functioning. It is very important since as an independent theater with constant company and team of associates we have to maintain seventeen people. It was questionable, how we can agree with future backers, such as MagNet Bank, and when can we start the subsidy process. Then we received the news, that the Corporate Tax system will be abolished or changed, but we did not receive any information about the criteria’s of how all this will happen; unfortunately, the distribution ration is still unclear. We did not see the point of reacting to the initial rumors. We wanted to wait for unambiguous information. Since then, we know that the cost plan for theatrical support is ready and the cultural under-secretary of Ministry of Human Capacities, Péter Fekete, will be responsible for distributing the 37 billion HUF theatrical support budget.

- What did you do about these unexpected situations so far?

- Taking into consideration the changed situation, we tried to find a financing solution from alternative sources. We can handle the unexpected circumstances only if we are constantly ready for a change and we have multiple survival strategies. This can be a creative, puzzle game as well, but you can’t gamble with an artistically and structurally functioning company. A large part of our income it is from our foreign tours, our guest performances, and thanks to this are we still alive. It is a decisive question for us, that in the revised Corporate Tax system on what conditions will the payment happen, who will benefit from it, and will the independent and private theaters and cultural festivals have a place in this new package, and if so, what kind of place.

- On your website, it says that you are a company that can always redefine itself, and you consider the actual changes as a natural process of theater making. Is this statement valid for the current situation as well?

- As we know, some terrestrial life forms do not grow in a light and oxygen-rich environment, but instead they are found in hot water, alkali or acidic soils, nevertheless they live and exist. Translated to our theater situation: thanks to our adaptation, we are „survivors” among the independent companies and this gives us support and strength. If we would truly face the misuses and professional anomalies caused by the previous Corporate Tax, and the whole matter would be responsibly and prudently investigated, then this current situation could even bring positive changes by rethinking the entire support system of the performing arts.

There could be also a reconsideration in long-standing structural issues. For instance, selection between independent companies could take place and they could highlight those five truly independent theaters, that for many years have been showing earnest professional accomplishments home and abroad as well with little, incalculable financial support. I find it inappropriate that in 2019, the Maladype Theatre is in the same position as the start-up companies, that are often organized for a single event. This does not mean, that in the course of time these theatrical adventures cannot grow into a serious, considerable ensemble, but we, who have already been through this process, know from our experience, that a lot of things are necessary, first of all, long-term professional and operational concept and planning.

I do not believe that anyone could contest the almost eighteen-year-old Maladype with its innovative performances and special theater education programs for contributing to the current character of the Hungarian theater; which is why I feel that this secondary treatment that concerns us and other independent theaters similar to ours it is derogatory. It would be opportune reconsidering the value-based system of transparent financial and professional support and take accountability seriously.

- What criteria do you think should be laid down for this?

- Very concrete ones. The companies should present long-term functional plans built on genuine professional ideas, but not just on paper, but also in an effective and demandable way in the theater. They should be able to maintain and improve their function; they should be interested in the implementation of complex theatrical processes and in the restore of their achievements as widely as possible. They should have a place in their structural-intellectual strategy for innovative ideas and solutions, and a place in their communication, a straightforward, dynamic, and active tone addressing to a multigenerational audience.

However, the most definite measure of effectiveness is that, from a professional point a view, what can the company add to the canonized greater whole as a valid practical suggestion. Beside highlighting those five independent theaters that show proper function, it would also be important for these companies to have their functional support at the beginning of that particular period, to ensure planning and functional safety. Many suggestions have been written as a response in the previous years, but nothing happened. This is what the Board of Trustees, published on April 12, 2018, is about.

- From this, I conclude, that there are people near the government who are well aware of this situation.

- Yes, there are professional councils, curators, under-secretaries, and ministers who recommend the same thing year by year. To no avail. We all know within the profession which of the independent groups are really operable and which truly regular guests of foreign festivals are. The intention to change the Corporate Tax was, among other things, the fact that among the performing arts organizations were some, who misused the „whipped” data of the pseudo-spectators from foreign performances and thus received extra funds. The problem is that not only those, who caused this whole issue to explode had been affected, but also those who had done their job honorably compared to their own possibilities. The baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.

- What could be the solution?

- The most correct would be to account those responsible, and those, who were not part of this dirty game, would be given the opportunity to put a word in the reallocation of the Corporate Tax system. Now it seems, that following the example of the Film Fund, the Corporate Tax support of theater art community is also being resolved by distributing Corporate Tax offerings from a common pot. But what and who exactly this decision affects, we don’t know it yet. It is heard, those national and advantaged institutions will benefit the most. No one talks about us, the independents. It is also important to mention that the dust cloud swirling around the Corporate Tax was a good cover for the fact that the National Cultural Fund of Hungary’s production applications were not announced in the autumn of 2018. Also not to mention the fact that the announcement of the 2019/2020 operational applications is already in one-month delay compared to last year’s date.

- How does the current situation affect Maladype in terms of premiers?

- I hope that one of our two premiers planned for this season, Euripides Trojan Women will take place in the direction of István K. Szabó. In the midst of fateful wars, the play that focuses on different female principles is very relevant and a worthy task for the actresses from our company. Also, our audience can welcome Mária Varga as a guest artist in the performance. Witold Gombrowicz Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy would have its premiere at the beginning of April in my direction. The twelve actors of the company would play together in this performance, but the fate of this is still uncertain because of the mentioned reasons.

- How do you find the silence of the theatrical scene?

- We do not have a positive experience with different professional and interest organizations. We have also left the Independent Performing Artists’ Association a couple of years ago because we felt that it did not represent our interests at all. The fabric of theater society is also very damaged. Coming to a new age, a new dimension, I find it necessary to think and want to think together about the new theater life form, but I do not like the violent manifestation of criers and the those who call themselves „professional mouthpieces”. In my opinion, any ruthless and reckless statement about the common cause of our profession is extremely detrimental. For me, true professionalism means only one thing: the consistent and involved search and research work. How we are capable of artistic and human solidarity for the development of theater art, the launch of incentive and integrative creative processes and their widest possible completion and preservation. Do we strive for a greater understanding, consensus, dialogues of the past truths and the theatrical processes of our times. Today I feel timely the world-renowned Japanese writers, Mishima Yukio, an urgent call from the mid-twentieth once more, in which he draws the attention of artist to the risk of arts over-politicization: „It is time for artists to return to the art!” Maybe we should also think about why are we dealing with theater making; business and self-interest control our everyday theater activities or we have deeper, stratified connection with the essence of the Theater, which cannot be regarded as just a concept or an object. The FIVE GATES era-specific theatrical-methodology concept, which I started in September 2018, examines these theatrical and technical issues with seven young graduates.

- It is also stated on your website that you support yourself from funding applications. The interviewees of this series of interviews so far have all said, that these funding sources are so small that they do not provide enough coverage for not even one new premier. How can you solve this?

- With a lot of work and trained nervous system. We try to apply everywhere. Thinking responsibly, we have no other choice in the current rules of the game. Some other methods of obtaining money have also been developed, but for their validation deliberate supportive strategy and constant expanding contact network was needed. We have built our Maladype support programs with a lot of energy. For example, thanks to a part of the previous Corporate Tax support we could make happen the very successful poster campaign called I also watch Maladype. We are aware that we need to address new investors in order to stay alive. If everyone would contribute only a small amount to the projects of our company, that can get bigger. This, of course, does not solve our annual operating deficit at all, but it is convenient for gaining time.

- Do you have somebody whose job is only this?

- All of us are multifunctional because it is necessary, efficient and economical. Although the applications are not yet written by our actors (although I have seen an example of this kind abroad), and our staff did not have to perform, but it is important that our company members can turn their hands to anything and to have quick, flexible problem-solving skills.

- In what way are actors’ moods affected by this situation? Do you perceive existential fear on them?

- As constant members of an independent theater company, unfortunately, over the years, they have got accustomed to the regular presence of uncertainty about their future. They know that they are part of a problem-solving team, and if we already have valid information about them, we’ll share it in time. In the meantime, they concentrate on what is their main task on the rehearsals and performances. For this special form of life, it is needed plasticity and constantly renewing trust that distinguishes maladype actors for other companies actors’.

- If you had to say today how long you see the future of Maladype, what date would you tell us?

- By mid-march. All of this because we successfully managed to separate the costs for the seven young people we hired in September from the cost of the theater. Last summer we took a huge risk by inviting seven members of the graduate acting class from the University of Art Târgu Mureş to our three-year talent care/support program. However thanks to some of our enthusiastic backers, and especially the long-term cooperation concept with the director of the TRIP Ship, László Magács (director, theater director, initiator of Átrium –ed.) we managed to provide for this season the necessary resources for the research-work of our new actors. László Magács recognized the importance of the FIVE GATES concept and he became a professional mentor and patron of the juniors participating in the program.

- Do you have any answer to what could be the purpose of the Corporate Tax action?

- I have several possible answers, but I hope that the main aim of the change is to have a more transparent system to operate the target amount of the guaranteed aid to be distributed from the common pot. In my opinion, a Corporate Tax system that is selective and up-to-date cannot have the only starting point of maximizing the audience. The real change would be to determine the rate of Corporate Tax support for those concerned by other professional criteria, true values, and performances. Corporate Tax support for development could also play a very important role.

- It is not clear from the government decree from December what the independent companies can expect.

- Indeed. It should be taken in consideration the fact that there are beginners among the independents and there are teams that have been working successfully for several years, who have been able to prove their viability in hopeless circumstances. This fact itself could be a powerful filter for the long overdue and necessary reduction process. The operating and support conditions for the registered organizations should also be reconsidered.

- Maladype is a theater open to the audience. Among other things, every performance is followed by a meeting with the audience where you talk about what they have seen. In the course of these conversations is the audience interested in what will happen to you?

- They always ask about the company and us; it also happened that we had previously received some useful information personally from them and not from official sources. They keep an eye on us, on the changes. We also have some of them, who regularly supports our theater with a monthly transfer. We have always considered the importance to involve our audience in our creative processes and share the concerns we face on a daily basis about our function.

- Is the old-time patronage system revitalized in Hungary today?

- It is revitalized if there is a Prometheus of our time, who will share the flame between the patron gods and the creative people. Intelligence, sensitivity, empathy, professionalism, and last but not least, practical experience and relational capital. We can consider us lucky because in almost eighteen years we have met with such backers, and we are thankful for them.

- If you had a situation where your company could not continue to function, what kind of personal plan do you have for the future?

- We’ve been struggling for a long time to survive to be very experienced „situation managers”. We have different emergency scenarios. We flip through the pages and with little risk factor we try to bring it to effect. Certainly, this does not mean that we will survive this period under all circumstances because if there is no support and applications, this is simply impossible. Practicing theater directors know exactly what a long-term artistic concept is an indispensable prerequisite for stable administration and finance.

Without this in the 21st century, you can’t develop or improve; we cannot guarantee the rental cost of our permanent theater space, the infrastructural background required for quality work and the honorary payment for our artists. Our name is well known abroad and by our international appearance we can be active participants in the worlds theater events, but as we get closer to the jubilee year, I would like if Maladype would be appreciated at last at home as well, and to see our operating amount, based on our many years of operation and achievements. Simply because we deserve it.

Anna Rácz, Szinhaz.hu, 2019

Translation by Brigitta Erőss

How did you react when Zsótér wanted to direct the play with you?

The same way I reacted in 2005 with Hamlet, when it turned out that Tim Carroll was thinking of me for the role: with astonishment, but also with great curiosity. At the time Tim said that his Hamlet needed my “director’s brain,” the playfulness of a spirit constantly renewing its strategies, and also my ability, as an actor, to plan ten or twenty steps ahead beyond the immediate situations and moments of the character. Sándor Zsótér saw me several times in Hamlet and liked my stage presence. Our Richard may in fact be an extension of Hamlet. Since Sanyi had already worked several times with the Maladype Theatre ensemble and with me personally, it was obvious that we were preparing a non-classical production of Richard III.

What do you mean by “non-classical”?

The beginning of the performance already reveals the unique nature of the directorial intention and the unusual perspective with which Sanyi and his collaborators — Mária Ambrus, Mari Benedek, and Júlia Ungár — approached the classical drama. In my opening monologue I take out a bubble wand and play mischievously with it; through this conspiratorial interaction with the audience I suggest that compared to the perfect proportions and form of a soap bubble, even the most attractive woman or man is imperfect. If I can convey this idea — one of the central pillars of Richard’s program — in the first person singular, then the audience immediately senses that our production requires a different kind of reading, a different spectator attitude, and a greater capacity for abstraction. Maladype’s Richard III will not be a conventional adventure. That is why, as Richard, I do not wear orthopedic devices, nor do I need to spend a long time demonstrating my “science of limping” at the beginning of the performance.

Instead, diction plays an important role.

We perform Shakespeare’s history play in the 130-year-old Hungarian translation by Ede Szigligeti. The text, rich in unusual expressions and never before heard on a Hungarian stage, does not provide audiences with the classical musicality they are accustomed to from István Vas’s translation, so spectators must keep their antennas much more open throughout the performance. They must pay close attention to how each character speaks, what strange adjectives and startling expressions they use. In this way the audience also invests attention and energy into taming the Szigligeti text, making it more tangible, and reaching the essential information and realizations together with the actors. Many people return to see the performance again precisely because of the text.

Your Richard is an outwardly attractive man, and inwardly he is neither satanically evil nor grotesquely twisted. This is not at all a conventional interpretation.

Certainly not. Even from Sanyi’s casting choices and analysis of the play, it became clear that we would not be using stereotypical solutions during rehearsals, and this motivated all of us greatly — for example, in how we would jointly decipher the unexpected losses within the drama.

Losses?

Yes. Because sooner or later Richard must reckon with loss. He overdrives himself, and by the time he finally acquires everything he desired, he is no longer capable of enjoying his victory; he feels like a loser. His separation from Buckingham becomes a serious trauma. The Duke of Buckingham — in our production every “cz” is pronounced in the old-fashioned way — refuses to fulfill Richard’s most important request: he does not want to kill the royal children. This leads to complete estrangement, almost a kind of “romantic rupture” for King Richard, who was elevated to the throne with Buckingham’s help. After that he loses his sense of play, his humor; there is no longer anyone to dazzle. The process of isolation intensifies, and physical and psychological disintegration takes over. We witness the collapse of the concentrating power of an exceptional mind, which eventually — at least in our interpretation — causes Richard to lose his sound judgment as well.

Thanks to Sanyi’s radical directorial gesture, we do not perform the final act. Our production ends with the line: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” By that point, a disintegrating mind is already examining itself, analyzing real and imagined intentions. “Richard loves Richard, that is, I am I” — I began it, and I must also finish it before myself, for myself, by myself. No one will mourn me or search for me. I must confront the end, which means that the “mirroring technique” I previously used so successfully on those around me must suddenly be applied to myself. And that is not so simple. Sanyi’s directorial demand is that Richard prepare an inventory of himself with an ice-cold, razor-sharp mind, and afterward accept that there is nothing more left in him — he is exhausted. He almost longs for death.

The space is tiny, and you are extremely close to the audience. Yet you are not exactly the central figure in the usual sense. Your Richard almost seems to withdraw, though at decisive moments he is there like a spider.

That is exactly what we wanted! That is what makes him dangerous. The fact that he does not reveal himself.

The Anne–Richard scene is often considered one of the key scenes of the play. In your production it seems less emphasized. Was that not of interest to you?

Sanyi thinks that what happens there is essentially a warm-up exercise — Richard is warming up, treating seduction as a kind of training program. If he succeeds there, then his much more complicated later actions will also succeed. We wanted to show Richard’s rare ability to melt so completely into the empathetic observation of another person that the other — in this case Lady Anne — feels that Richard’s claims are backed by attentive personal understanding, and that despite all his disturbing assertions, his concrete rhetorical techniques contain serious and useful truths.

Because of her own situation and emotional agitation, Anne knows perfectly well why she should have nothing to do with Richard, but Richard — still Duke of Gloucester at this point — turns her arguments around with such logical precision that she increasingly loses the thread of her own reasoning and cannot continue what she started; she gets stuck and begins new lines of argument. Taking this kind of structure, these logical leaps and rhetorical rules seriously, Sanyi did not force me into the stereotypical behavioral model that allows the actor playing Richard to conceal a gigolo beneath apparent deformities.

This scene is a huge challenge both for Ágota Szilágyi and for me. We have no grand emotional amplitudes or direct acting templates. It is a complex and demanding acting task to allow the audience, step by step, to notice the contradictions in Anne’s statements and enjoy the way Richard exposes and reflects them back to her. At first it is not a meeting between a man and a woman, but between two people who understand the situation and genuinely want to communicate about it. Yet at the same time they “click” with one another, and from this unexpected and exciting pseudo-erotic experience Anne’s relationship to life is refreshed — in short: Richard breathes life into Lady Anne.

Has your performance changed over the course of the productions?

I am convinced that it has. Returning spectators also tell us so. During the first few performances we still respected Sanyi’s concept almost too much, but over time we began to sense where there were gaps in the concept that could be filled with ever-new acting discoveries and subtler nuances. If Sanyi also appreciates these moments, it elevates all of our performances.

You mentioned that in a relatively short time you already reached your fortieth performance. I assume you are not playing only at your own Base venue.

We are receiving invitations to more and more festivals, especially festivals presenting contemporary theatrical tendencies, so there must be something unusual and formally innovative in our production. The directorial emphases are placed completely differently, and therefore the acting is built from different tools than in conventional Richard III interpretations. It demands from the actors a sense of proportion and style, as well as delicate modulation, which must be applied entirely differently in a room-sized venue, or in Gyula on the large stage of the Castle Theatre, or at an international festival — most recently in Brno, next in Bitola — where the playing area is set before an imposing large auditorium.

Foreign audiences also watch very attentively because they are not primarily given spectacular effects and grand gestures, but rather a finely tuned, intimate, and highly personal adaptation of Richard III. As the performance progresses, the special beauty and power of this approach gradually opens up to them. For example, if my healthy-looking Richard, through his straightforward behavior and direct communication, succeeds in winning the audience’s sympathy and making them my accomplices, they sometimes end up pitying me by the conclusion. Thus, although we begin from very far away, we eventually arrive very close to that single sustained note which, over time, comes to signify for everyone the inevitable essence of the fulfillment of life and death.

What we represent with this production is essentially a kind of minimal music. A work by John Cage — if we do it well.

István Nánay: “Richards,” Színház, July–September 2018.

It is a very erotic theatre. However, the actors do not get naked. Except for Ákos Orosz: he pulls down his trousers as king Pipo and suffers from constipation while he is squatting. The usual sexual teasing is missing too. Fortunately, we cannot even see the often imitation of any sexual activities. In the narrow cellar room of Bárka Theatre the air is shaking from eroticism, where Maladype Theatre performs Leonce and Lena by Georg Büchner, on a Japanese like ballet mat, in front of bamboo sticks.

Eight actors are in T-shirts with short and long sleeves, with salivary-like black – it is tight at the bottom part, a really buggy at the top – uniformed trousers. The generous usage of clothes let them pupated if they pull it up, they can use it as a bandage, they can even touch between their partners’ leg to put away the ruffle of the salivary, as they would push away the branches of a tree to see better. The outside characteristics makes us remember the Indonesian religious theatre, the primitive tricks of the Balinese theatre, which inspired Antonin Artaud too. It is a very erotic performance. It is made by the eight performers’ connection and by their concentrated looks. By the intensity of their presence. The roles and genders, which are mixed as cards, strengthen the confused world of Büchner’s comedy. They are arguing with Leonce’s sentence: “Oh my God, how many women do we need to sing through the whole scale of love? ... I turn myself out twenty-four times every day as a glove.”

The performance has biological effect too. They are young and show their hidden secrets of their personalities as they are ready to play (to those, who have eyes to see). From them the most irresistible one is Katalin Simkó, who is glorious. I seemed to be prejudiced in favour of her, however she did not convince me less when in an excellent exam performance of Brecht, in the role of a mother in The Wild Duck in the Katona Theatre, as Hedvig, who is admired by many. In Büchner her look sticks up as a dagger those she looks at. Or she melts into the other’s body gently. There is huge power in the small blonde girl. She can whenever move her magical power to destroy a big city too. She can brings up easily from herself the opposite contents. Her partners do the same. The performance is built on it. They are closed into a well-made or bad structure of cast. They do not play only one role. All eight of them play the whole play. They know its turns, thoughts, hidden words. It there is a wish they can enter any role. Zoltán Balázs, the director, encourages the viewers to edit the performance, do not believe it to be an eternal one, which cannot be changed, as it is called to be the reading of the director by professional writers. They should play together with the performance. They should be interested in the other interpretation and formation of the same scene. The complete performance, which is free to be change as a puzzle, should be built on strict, unmovable, final worked out variations, and permutations of play.

Balázs jumped over himself. He jumped more freely his own top as a director. Up until now he has worked with plays, which avoid the stage. Büchner – however, he is out of the so called European order of drama literature – is the first play, which has national theatrical historical background too. Of course, Balázs’ Büchner is original that way, that it avoids traditions. It would not be proper it we compare it to Tim Caroll’s Hamlet, just because it gives possibilities of alternative variations. The interpretation of Büchner goes deeper. Instead of the scholar-like explanation of the connections of changing partners to one another, the concentration, the inner attention and the attention to their partners, they let the viewers in confused human-social relationships. We forget our reading experiences before. Whether we have seen the play before. Have we know anything about it or meet the first time. We get into the centre of human circuits and accurate attentions. And we follow the performers’ attention. They guide our attention.

Gábor Thurzó’s translation is valid from 1955 for 53 years, it is fresh, with modern words. It grabs me even with its trimmed, shorter poetical accuracy.

Ákos Orosz owns the whole scale on the stage from the childish smile joyfulness over the used and disciplined concentration, which is aimfully applied objectivity similarly to a set, until the heroic role. He is a soloist and then serves subordinately as a side character, or an effect on the stage. Ádám Tompa can express himself plastically even with bare fingers standing upside down. He articulates so happily with his fingers, that he is more understandable than many who cry on the stage. If he is put on his feet from his head, he takes place in the group in doubled version. He creates distance for himself with a repressed smile.

Éva Bakos, the hard worker of amateur theatres for many years and of Maladype, shines in her private scene. She performs Leonce’s monologue by popular demand or as a result of the director’s tricky game. She performs with sign language the main character’s monologue, which we have heard before, to those who do not understand these signs. It is a grate artistic trick. My only question is that how can she sign the Nankeen trousers?

Zsolt Páll is the strictly serious man between the youngsters. He is emphasised by his Swedish language knowledge and his authentic Transylvanian dialect, when joke comes out from his dark mood. The large-bodied man goes easily on all fours, as a child from the nursery school, who climbs out of the cot. They have changed the German child song into a more joyful one. They cheer it in German, holding each other with checked infantilism. Here I should note that the songs, they use in the performance, are all very fresh and anachronistic, if we take care of Büchner’s era instead of ours. Kornél Mogyoró with his percussion set gives rhythm and calming ending to the play. Swedish, Transylvanian idioms, German, sign language. They make the properties speak. The bamboo stick can be weapon, penis, carrying chair, monument, cross, instrument and a tool that hits the rhythm. They handle them perfectly. They give sound to the silent objects.

The performance speaks all language. Mostly the language of theatre. On the level of a mother, father tongue. Leonce and Lena is not an experimental theatre. It is a well-made theatre.

MGP, szinhaz.hu, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Zoltán Balázs’ (and Judit Gombár’s) creamy white stage, which is bordered by slanted fixed bamboo sticks is an inspired place: it place for thinking, the hugging of bodies, and their fighting. The performers – four men and four women – are in black slimmed tops and buggy black trousers, and they take place in the game bare feet: all through the pink feet, ankles, fingers „are playing” as well in the light area, as the arms, faces, the looks connected to one another.

The acoustic world of the performance is created by Kornél Mogyoró, the musician, who is also in black dress, he gets place at the edge of the stage: the exotic percussion instruments, which have special voices, which he plays, he can close the actual scene shortly with stress. The rite and meditation can widen the performance into the place of nice touches and harmony. There are not any sets and properties on the pure stage, just the longer and shorter bamboo sticks, which can have many functions, they can embody sometimes forest, weapon, podium, throne or even a phallus.

The basic frame of the performance is drown by the virtuoso movements for us: the performers show just episodes from Büchner’s play, and the introducing commentary by the director can connect each scenes. Meanwhile the performance was advertised with the fact that the actors would “fight” with each other for each scenes, there was nothing like this in the performance, which I saw. Instead the viewers’ wishes and asks were built in: by strong encouragement from the auditorium “orders” came to play another version of some scenes, and shortly came out that all the performers know all the roles of the play as their mother tongue.

What did we see in the experimental theatre of Maladype? Some role-play exercises with the usage of Gábor Thurzó’s translation of well-known texts? Some kind of special symbiosis of the sounding texts and acrobatic movements, which can create intensively a picture of a coherent world. It seemed to be obvious anyway, that the texts, actions, movements are not in the usual relation with one another: the order of sounds and movements can create their own world, speech has subordinate role. Anyway, the performance widens the borders of human speech too: many sequences of speech become into squeaky and whining animal sounds, magical signs of tribe rites or deformed sign language. Hermina Fátyol tells in Arabic language prince Leonce’s well-known monologue in the repeated scene; another character (Zsolt Páll) talks with emphasised dialect, and puts grotesque nature into another scale of scenes. The dramatic text is counterpointed sometimes, then it is stressed by intensive physical work: the power and drive of the performance is given by acrobatic movements, connection, leaving of bodies. This performance can be similar to acrobatic trick of a circus, as the performers do with lightness and airily movements, which require the hardest, the most complex – intensive physical power and strict discipline. The harmonised actions finally always form some kind of composition, which reports about human relations, which are lived through intensively, and about feelings. It is about the fighting and merging of bodies and transfiguration.

We can see a theatre with biological base, which is wonderfully sensual. It carries us away with itself, enchants us, even if not all moments of each scenes can have suddenly obviously evident meaning. The strong troupe of Maladype with Zoltán Balázs’ leading have been making experiments with new, organic theatrical language for a while, and now as they use Büchner’s tale as the base for it they can go on so far with the language formation. The visual picture of the performance is really unique and artistic: it is an intensive game of bodies – on the border of the pure sensuality and pure philosophy.

As episodes are going on, the play is filled with charmingly gentle eroticism and grotesque humour: “the scene of urination”, which is played by long bamboo sticks, is irresistibly funny, it uses tools surreally, the shacking and tricky operation of the polygonal throne, which is built with crossed laid sticks, the grotesque biological forms of the squatting male body (Ákos Orosz), all of them are well-worked out scenes, which can form stressed pictures. All the performers – Ákos Orosz, Zoltán Papp, Zsolt Páll, Ádám Tompa, Éva Bakos, Hermina Fátyol, Kamilla Fátyol, Katalin Simkó – take part in the production with devotion, discipline and with extreme effort. Which is an example of the fact as well, that persistent searching of form and formation of language can create not only mental cohesion but a community too.

Dezső Kovács, Criticai Lapok, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The master’s, who died young, second – from the finished ones the last one – drama according to Zoltán Balázs’ words is about theatre making. We do not argue with him, as the performance of Maladype is really about this, it talks about theatre(making). And do not with only a few words.

The area of the performance, which was designed by Judit Gombár, is a white tatami rectangle (a so called mattress, from which many bamboo sticks come out: the actors are standing between them in statue-like silence, in a black uniform, in the middle there is Kornél Mogyoró with his percussion instruments. But before they “can” move, Zoltán Balázs grabs the word and makes the situation clear. The performance consists of twenty-five scenes, which (for a while) the troupe has learnt in four different versions: with four types of dictions, with four types of music and movement, and above all with four possible Leonces, Lenas and their companions. Nobody knows in advance that which chain of scenes will take place on the tatami each evening. Nobody, as during the performance sometimes the director indicates that what and who has to play; sometimes the actors can choose; and sometimes the viewers can do it. But it is not the end. Balázs encourage the audience: would they watch a scene again, but with different Lena and Leonce, with different tone, or even in different language. So that way the whole picture of the performance that evening depends on the viewers’ enthusiasm, openness and mood, and the time of ending depends on it too.

Maladype leaves the everyday linearity from every point of view, and puts theatre into more dimensions than usual both literally and metaphorically – Zoltán Balázs uses very well, mixes, widens and forms his earlier well-known masters’ catches into his own images. However, the scenes – supported the story for sure in a sort way, by the guiding director’s verbal crutch – follow each other logically in time and the short intervals between them (a momentary silence, while the troupe gets ready again). Because of the accidental repetition and the always-changing performing style, we cannot see it a unity, which is chained onto one line. Anyway, there is not any structure of “actor comes from the left – dialogue – the actor leaves on the right”: exactly the actors, who play the main roles – and their helpers, who are managing the bamboo sticks – always perform a scene, which was made with a unique, perfectly valid ideas on their own, by a given (mostly built on intensive moving theatre) ideas by the director. The moving is emphatically spatial: sometimes the actors’ exercise are wantonly acrobatic: in one of the possible ending scenes, titled The Giant, for example the four female actors are standing on the male actors’ shoulders, but anyway, it is rare when all the performers’ feet are on the ground at the same time.

These scenes are very colourful: we can feel exponentially the experience of the once in a lifetime, of the unrepeatability – it can be counted, that how many evenings can be born if we chain one after another from the hundred ones, in random number and form. This is the paradox of apparently improvisation, which is put between the strictest borders: its special nature is given, the negatively accepted eventuality of improvisation is excluded, as all segments are worked out up until the last parts of them. Eventuality is there only in case of the random order of the scenes: the performance on 21st May started seemingly in an unlucky way, because the second scene was still un-understandably surprising with its unusual form, with seemingly weird silly pop songs (Ákos Orosz performed them); then after it came a dialogue in partly German language, in that way the whole impression has not been improved. It is true that it was suddenly followed, according to the director’s order, by its Hungarian pair – here we can fell the existing order of this. It must have been luckier, it the German scene had come later, that way we could appreciate well the wonderful pictures: Éva Bakos gets dressed Leone (Zoltán Papp), who is crawling on the ground, while she is repeating with calming voice her calming words.

Meanwhile the performance becomes extremely good not because of the words, in contrast with it: Maladype is talking mainly not with words now. With body and bodies; with the help of the stresses, faces, shouts and questions hidden in the permanent moving: Éva Bakos’ monologue, told in sign language or Hermina Fátyol’s, who tells it in Arabic language are characteristic with their despair, they can express. These “flowing” cannot stop at the edge of the stage: especially the great monologue which is told and performed by all the eight actors at the same time, cannot remain on the tatami – the tension fires up, its effect is greater than of a real explosion. More than the greatest amount of those plays that were put on stage last year.

We can list the excellently made scenes for long: wonderful for example as Kamilla Fátyol rocks Katalin Simkó, who is about to be forced to get married, red because of the heat and shaking because of her inner coldness in the cradle made of her own body. The meeting of the Fátyol sisters – as missing nymphs – with Ádám Tompa and Zsolt Páll’s Leonce and Valerio, who are travelling by a boat is similarly beautiful.

I do not know when I saw such a directly, strongly effective performance last time. I do know whether I have seen any time.

Bálint Kovács, Magyar Narancs, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

It can happen anyway, but Leonce and Lena by the Maladype Theatre may be the first national performance – that comes from prose theatre - , which makes its basic tone that thing, which will be defined as physical theatre.

I have thought that we can start with that Zoltán Balázs in the Studio of the Bárka Theatre started with the phrase: „I have thought...”. So let’s talk a little bit what we mean by physical theatre... Meanwhile the term would appear commonly from now on. Then I would write about the unity, mosaic-like nature of the performance, and about the actors’ performances, finally – as a final joke – how I got into it in the final scene as Leonce. Well... I suggest that start it!

1. Prologue: Physical theatre (concept analysis – outline)

To make clear a concept is important to be able to talk about it: it does not mean certainly exact definition, just the practical evidence of something, that we mean by the same concepts the same meanings mostly. The concept of physical theatre, I think – in our country anyway – has not reached it yet. It is mostly the virtual central point of the theatrical language game (it is in connection with the Wittgenstein-like meaning) from the point of view of the discussion about it. From the point of view of creating, it is an idea, an experiment, it is a mostly different kind of approach to body, to movement, to theatre. From the point of view of its sounding and properties - which is in intensive connection with the body and mostly with the text – physical theatre places itself around the borderline between modern dance and theatrical art. On the other hand, both dancing and theatrical art use body first of all: as the interface (as a sign, medium, form) of the non-body (inside, soul, feelings, ideas and so on), which becomes noticeable, while physical theatre named new kind of point of view. It tries to show this same body in its naked physicality and holistic completeness at the same time, as the real subject of the drama. It makes the body a marker, that way it lets the bodywork, (fall down, get tired, get into physical danger) which is the result of lack of stylization. On the one hand, it is a little bit strange, sometimes it is a relative experience of truth in the viewers, on the other hand, the radical here and now nature of the happenings on stage lose their connection with any kind of meaning beyond the pure actions. From this point of view physical theatre is on the borderline of mostly art (dance- and theatre – art) and non-art and – sometimes it is productive and artistic, sometimes it is done in a dilettante and sensationalist way – it asks the question of: “What does art mean?”

However it is not for sure this year, but next year a course of physical theatre director and choreographer will start on The University of Theatre and Film Art, as a result of it, the concept itself will emerge more marked, but at least from theoretical point of view this language game – started from Lloyd Newson (DV8) and it is not infertile at all - will be well defined. It can happen anyway, but Leonce and Lena by the Maladype Theatre may be the first national performance – that comes from prose theatre - , which makes its basic tone that thing, which will be defined as physical theatre. Which from the point of view of the performance is not a compliment just a fact.

2. The play and / or the performance and / or...?

Zoltán Balázs, the director on introductions, leaflets has stated that his idea was to make his actors apply for the roles, which can be won mostly according to their physical conditions, at the beginning of each performance in front of the viewers. As the requirement of it everybody knows all roles, and different couples by actors, who are chosen by the director, have to make for each scenes whole and ready plans, that way they have got only two instructions: the bamboo sticks as properties and physicality as the basic tone. As the result of it there are four versions of each scenes, and a possibility, that anybody can fight for the role of Leonce and Lena. However, it did not happen neither on 21st May - nor any other time before it. We have to accept another kind of game for a while: Zoltán Balázs chose or left out some scenes there reacted to the momentary atmosphere of the auditorium and performers’ mood, besides it, the viewers have the possibility to choose and watch some scenes with different cast with different creative ideas. As the scenes, according to their formation, works more properly – from parodic loudness until the shocking dramatic effect – as atomic scenes, they do not do it by some kind of stricter dramatic arc. They have play hardly the half of Büchner’s scenes (two of them, Leonce’s monologue all of them do – simultaneously), for the first time, we got some kind of workshop than a play... Not even Leonce and Lena by Büchner.

From the other point of view this kind of divergent theatrical formula can be the counterpoint of a strict and pure clean unity: in the intersection area of the auditorium, which is placed on the two sides, the white tatami is similar to the unity of the stage with bamboo sticks placed onto the two ends of it; as well as the unity of the buggy buttoned black cotton dresses, which can be pulled up into the whole body; the unity of bamboo sticks with different length as the only permitted properties; the unity of musical instruments on the stage without any metal and plastic; and above all the unity of special attitude towards human bodies and objects. As the human body sometimes appears as a barrier, then sometimes as an object in danger, sometimes as a challenge, but always as a real human body too (a concrete person’s concrete body). From the strictest point of view, we have seen a play despite the fact that from a strict point of view we have not.

Büchner’s drama is organised repeatedly (not less ironically) by the philosophical and kitchen-like philosophical question: “Who am I?”, at the peak point of the play – at the arrival of Leonce, Lena and their servants to Popo – the problem of indefinability pf identities culminate in an absurd language game. Zoltán Balázs, the director’s basic idea – with the simultaneous cast, with the applying form performance to performance, next to the mechanical structure of the beginning singing-moving scene, with its meaningful moving picture and with its intransparent mixture and finally two viewers moving onto to the stage in the final scene as Leonce and Lena – puts into the centre the question of theatre existence, next to the meta-theatrical reference to the important things of it, as well as the question of self-identity of identity, its changeability, its confusability. From this point of view even if we cannot see the whole text, we can see the most adequate way Leonce and Lena by Büchner.

3. The actors’ performance

The ideas, which the actors have brought up “in connection with bamboos and Büchner”, make differences according to the creative diversity of the basic mood of each scenes and the quality of speech too. Put apart some less lucky way illustrative, some pathetic parts, we can usually see creative, exciting – from the experience of surprise until emotive catharsis – solutions. In one scene Kamilla Fátyol, as Rosetta is in her weird cage of chaotic mixed bamboos, other time she is raised up as Lena with a cross stick, hold under her neck – both scenes refer to the icon of crucifixion. The first is a descriptive and inspired scene, the other one is a little bit pathetically obvious. Sometimes the excitement of the game with the borders of physical and conditional possibilities is weaken by the overplay for it and by the obvious falseness (Maybe the most characteristically during Leonce’s monologues by Ádám Tompa, where the actor with over drown face-game tries to emphasise the overload of his stomach muscle).

For the eyes and ears that get socialized to physical theatre by dance-art performance, the actors’ performance, the complete presence on the stage with it verbality, and its obvious safety offers that kind of calmness, which they can get more often from the modern dance, which tries to “perform” – mostly because of less authentic artistic presence and fake intonation – but with less possibility. The actors of Maladype – Theatre of Encounter do not dare to go farther than it is let by their possibilities, their movements are neither dance nor motion art: these are signs, gestures, drawings, they properly know the borders of the pureness of their civil body, conditional readiness, sporty prosaic nature. Their Leonca and Lena as physical theatre can be perfect and not a complete one. (The lack of training of motion art can be seen in the fact as they articulate as a temptation of the borders of physical capacity sometimes much more often and sematic way.)

There is something undefined shocking in the way as they are standing at the edge of the stage and waiting for calling, more tiredly, even looking at their partner, or backwards to them, but always with motionless faces. And when Zoltán Balázs or the viewers decide that way, they walk onto the stage... They give themselves, they play, and then with the same look they stand back. Like some kind of melancholic gymnastics, sad clowns. However, they are obviously neither these nor those... Maybe they are not sad anyway.

4. Epilogue

Physical theatre is both body and meaning according to the most concrete meaning.

In the ending scene of the performance on 21th May, because of unpredictability and/or by chance they invite onto the stage a theatrical production manager professional writer and a critic: Mari Szilágyi and me. The constellation was perfect because of our shape, criteria of physical-quality nature, and it is not without any meaning that during a theatrical performance with very nice empathy and the kindest, hardly sensible signs they instruct two totally helpless in the situation and shy professionals, who are close to theatre to get married by saying that men are wonderful automats.

The world has turned around with them, they have woken up sweaty from nightmares for days, then one of them starts writing that “I have thought...”...

Ákos Török, Színház, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

We can sit on the two sides of the elevated, rectangular stage in the black studio-box of the Bárka Theatre. From north and south, the viewers are opposite to one another, from west and east the rare set- and properties-like forest of bamboo sticks border the place, which are fixed into the edges of the stage. Obviously it can happen easily that we are sitting on the east side and the bamboos arch on the north – normal compasses do not work inside the theatre, the place of the place is an organic one, which is in motion, which can be perfectly seen from both sides. East and west do not mean points of reference, however it is true that both the bamboos and the uniformed beautiful black dresses, which can be anything (Judit Gombár’s works) referring to the eastern culture with their mood, but they do not have much meaning from the point of view of the playing method or story. They are only beautiful frames and it is not a problem at all. Anyway, if something can be really interesting and exciting in the Maladype Theatre - like theatrical world, these are not the sets or costumes, but what do the play and presence mean for them and us, how can we use the power of „here and there”, it is a kind of dramaturgy of freedom and concentration formed by unpredictability from the side of the viewers and the performers.

The importance of the (board)game of Leonce and Lena is the exciting probe of the eight actors’ readiness and the tension of the variability of the scenes – as Zoltán Balázs, the leader and director of the troupe, similarly to a master of ceremonies and host tells to the viewers at the beginning of the performance, he does it always a little bit differently (it is the factor of unpredictability anyway). The story by Büchner is given with its humour, irony, the tale-like plot is compulsory, but with its re-drawn components; with the prince, who is getting bored spectacularly, enjoyably, in a selfish way, with the escaping princess, and with the ending, which has fake-philosophical lesson. The five main characters of the play are given and many side characters and the exact number of scenes are given. And of course eight excellent actors are given too (Éva Bakos, Kamilla Fátyol, Katalin Simkó, Ákos Orosz, Zoltán Papp, Ádám Tompa, Hermina Fátyol, Zsolt Páll) and a very stick workshop-like working process, which on the one hand has not finished yet, it will not in an ideal situation, on the other hand their results can be seen. The group of Maladype Theatre has done at least four – in some cases eight – different versions to each scenes during the rehearsal period. It can happen with other troupes of course. But in this case, Zoltán Balázs keeps all useable variations and formed (made) them perfect. It means that there are almost one hundred scenes, which are all there equally, with the same possibility in the “pocket of the evening”, one by one. There four different opening scenes on standby, then another four of the second scene, then four of the third dialogue, and they are waiting for the decision of which one of them will be played that evening. This performance is similar to an “onion: there are only layers and layers”! In every scenes – above-under, during, next to, around – there are three another possible versions. The characters are also layered like onions, as in every momentary Lena there are the other Lenas with different characters, ages, bodies, moods, four variations of the nanny, some Rosettas and of course, many Pipi and Popo followers and citizens. With one actor, more different kinds of Leonce-versions are standing on the stage. There is a line of Lenas. Uncountable (so many) possibilities of Leonces and Lenas. And of course many Lenas and Leonces too.

The story of Leonce and Lena is performed every night with the help of some kind of puzzle-like dramaturgy, from fragments of situations, consistently. The order of the scenes is obviously fixed, but there is not one main character, one – used during all scenes – method of play or mood. One scene can be played even four times, with four different versions. The idea is extraordinary good and exciting, the solution of it is not easy of course. According to the original idea, Balázs would “make each scenes applied” by his actors from scenes to scenes for each roles, with a special play of concentration – this system of appliance would create the arc of the performance, the dynamic of the choice of the scenes. But later he uses the experiences of the dress rehearsal and premiere and leaves this game behind for a while, and uses the viewers’ activity for it instead. The viewers can ask for scenes, they can sign if they want to see a situation again, the different version of it, if there are not any wishes, the director orders the happenings and chooses the characters of the next dialogue. Of course, it brings the risk of the shift of stresses in itself: if the audience is passive viewer only, the director’s aim can work all along. From scenes to scenes. It makes the performance closed and the spontaneity and social experience of it get weakened. If it works, and the interested viewers’ point of view construct the arc of the play, set the rhythm of it, an endlessly free stage is formed, where the acceptors can (also) lead, where the childish interest sets the rules and the experience of “what can be” and “it can be somehow different too” (?) remain there. “In everyday life it is fiction, in theatre it is an experiment...” The Maladype Theatre accepts all risks of this incredibly inspiring experimentation with surprising bravery.

The risk can be for example, that the invention, the idea – the base structure itself – ruins, breaks the game, the arc of the stage itself. It is not the arc of the story, but of the presence. The “changing” between the scenes – the dislocating act of the changing of scenes, the applause that follows the well-made situations – anyway divides necessarily the performance into fragments of situations, scenes long parts. A deep breath, game, play, applause, deep breath, game, play, applause. These are countable but in time uncountable flows and drifts in the story – but is there any kind of unity? There is and its alchemy on stage can be interesting. According to their atmosphere and set of properties, the scenes can be different in many ways: they are different too. But with the changing of slight differences and strong contrasts the performance can create its own clear form language, and the game with the sounds is an elemental part of it, as well as the simple usage of the body shapes, the structures of movements. The base experience is the natural minimalism of properties: there is not anything else “by hand”, just the numerous bamboo sticks with different length and the magical possibility of “changing into anything” in them. The bamboo can be an element of the formation of the area: a plank over the water, a roof, a raising structure and throne. And anything else too: horse, a blade of grass, sword, penis, microphone, binocular...The raising, and the choreography, which needs great physical work, sometimes acrobatic exercises and the balancing games improves into language of movement, they do not illustrate but follow (strengthen, emphasize, interpret, over tone) the situations. The musicality is also a defining dimension: Kornél Mogyoró’s presence on the stage, the live following by rhythm, these can be the harmonic result of the experiments with acoustic solutions (cries and whispers, games of articulations, singing parts, making of sounds and noises, special recitatives) can create a strong and unified atmosphere, which is strong even in voice. These basics of the form give the frame, which is filled with individual content and characteristics by the performers’ personalities of the actually Leonces and then Lenas: with a dialect, Hebrew words, melody, erotic or other kinds of jokes of the under part – means by word – of humans from the Popo world, with fine shades and vibration, sarcastic humour or even with silent tragedy.

My strong belief that the is not the best Leonce or the perfect Lena – anyway, there is not any time and possibility to identify with one figure character, so something extraordinary happens: we identify with as many people are many there are in the troupe. In this case it is very important, as in this performance a partly renewed, synchronized troupe can be examined well, who take attention to one another with fine sensors. A Maladype, which has been changed partly but it has remained self-identical and promising. This kind of viewpoint is exciting not only for the troupe but for the performance too, anyway instead of Lena’s figure, the act of becoming Lena – or even the movement from one scene to another, the changing from Leonce to Valerio, the formation from one characterised Lena to the other one - holds our attention first of all, the properties of metamorphosis, its forms, dangers, methods. It is important, that these figures are ready, independent by scenes. They have been worked out and thought over, they are nuanced. In case of the different versions of scenes the mood of the picture puzzle, which was reborn from mosaics in the evenings, is important, and there is no place for improvisation that can mix up everything. It slightly makes me remember the inspiring and trying atmosphere for both the viewers and the actors, of the Hamlet by Tim Caroll in Bárka Theatre – the comparison is obvious. In connection with the experience of “here and now”, as well as the ending scene that involves viewers too, where from the innocent viewers the actors lead a man and woman bare-feet onto the stage. Occasional Leonce and Lena can be anybody. With their bare-feet stage fright, exclusive embarrassment of the evening, in a confusion, which cannot be repeated. In case of the performances of Hamlet these kind of calm atrocities on stage happened sometimes. But in case of Caroll’s direction the improvised tightrope act had a very different kind of risk. The actors, who direct themselves and those great amounts of different things, resulted in uncontrolled hairpin bends on stage. That was dangerous and exciting. Leonce and Lena is more stylized, clearer, more manageable: it is ready polished, wonderfully working or even less punctual, but anyway well-choreographed, ordered scenes follow one another. It is a theatrical chain made of pearls of scenes with interesting shapes. The pearls of scenes are the same evening by evening, but the result – re-laced again and again – lights always a little bit differently. In case of the shown version the repeatable unrepeatability of the actual combination is interesting, and the really special, but very theatrical attention in the auditorium.

“Well, can you see Lena, our pockets are full, there are full of with puppets and any kind of toys? What shall we do with them? (...) Shall we build theatre?” We could not hear this sentence by Leonce finally, we dissolve in the public ending scene, however the neither-Leonces nor-Lenas in the auditorium have said yes for it all along the performance, the question is not a question any more. The pockets of Leonces and Lenas of the Maladype Theatre are full of with toys: with talent, ideas and drive, and they use them for very good things. They build theatre. A theatre. A real one. An always-changing one. An honest one. An experimental one. A brilliant one.

Dóra Juhász, Criticai Lapok, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

It is a creative, witty, artistic summery, which widen all kind of theatrical borders, about the way, how we can reform a dead writer’s play, which is written with one simple story. Thanks for Zoltán Balázs’ unique interpretation it is a real delicacy for theatre lovers: it is the importance of Leonce and Lena, which gets alive in the performances of Maladype Theatre in the evenings, always in a new form.

At the beginning of the performance Zoltán Balázs, director tells the viewers obviously (it is a full house, I am sitting on an extra chair), that what is going to happen that evening, and the eight actors with expressionless faces, in black dresses, standing between the bamboo sticks are waiting silently for performing real theatre in front of us. Georg Büchner classical play is about a prince (he is Leonce), who does not want to get married, against his father greatest wish; Lena is a bored princess, who lives her everyday life in the shadow of her nanny, and how surprising, she does not want to get married too. The story is about the meeting of these two people, who hardly refuse love, and how can they fight with their own inner demons.

This is the main story, Büchner’s world ends here anyway, and another dimension appears, which is full of ideas, humour, scenes that are being thought over repeatedly and many bamboo sticks. To make it clear, I try to sum up the young director’s conception. Zoltán Balázs “has made” the twenty-five scenes of the play in different variations (from each scene, four versions have been made), partly he let the actors do it, and let them build bravely in the dialogues their own ideas too. Altogether, one hundred scenes are ready, of course, they do not play all of them, to quote the director’s words: “we would sit here for three days”. The played versions change every evening, so there cannot be the same performance, the mood and the viewers can always form the content and the length of the play.

It is genius, surreal, grotesque, absurd and the most important one, thanks for the actors there are not any confusing interpretations on the “stage”. It is true, that we have to change a little bit, not to get embarrassed and desperate, when the actors are singing pop songs of the 90s between the dialogues, and to push the wider borders of the performance, the Hungarian version of Britney Spears’ song means eroticism.

The audience is laughing and get shocked by the fact how differently can each scenes be interpreted. Zoltán Balázs offers us the alternatives, and we are marvelling and staring, if the actors evoke the same scene in more versions. We can feel ourselves a little bit, as we are looking behind the sets to see how the director create the dramaturgical vision, how he can see differently the personalities and situations from his other colleagues.

The story does not get lost in the performance, the director takes care of it too, he always informs the audience, that where we are and who can be seen in the next scene. So we cannot lose the ground under our feet, and do not get into the trap, that is nowadays lurking for us, if we see those kind of classics on the stage, which is modern, and hardly drowns into the free interpretation, and we think about adjectives like indifferent and outrageously bad after the falling of the curtain. There is nothing like this here. It is a game, which can be taken dead serious, like art, and we can flirt with it similarly to nuances hidden in art.

The actors of Maladype Theatre do exactly the same: they draw nuances around us, and with their performance the content becomes a whole, even if, sometimes they get far away from the reality, which is thought to be touchable.

After we have seen and heard the eight actors in the performance we can say that Zoltán Balázs has not only reinterpreted the play perfectly, but he chose the actors well too. Which is the most important one that the four men and four women’s characters are changing from scene to scene, so it can happen that an actress plays Lena once then in the other version performs the role of the nanny. The four ladies are: Éva Bakos, Kamilla Fátyol, Katalin Simkó and Hermina Fátyol, their creative solutions of characters are in perfect harmony with the four actors, Ákos Orosz, Zoltán Papp, Ádám Tompa and Zsolt Páll’s male roles. The eight of them with the always-changing cast can make the performance even more colourful and more meaningful.

It is interesting that the director has made all the eight actors learn Leonce’s monologue, and that evening, when I have the possibility to watch the performance, he came up with that idea: all the actors, at the same time tell the monologue according to their own interpretation. The actors do not know about it but they solve it perfectly.

I have to mention some other interesting properties, which are bamboo sticks with different length, they have different function in each scenes. Once they are ships, then they form a Jacuzzi, they can symbolize a forest, but it can happen that they have to materialize some kinds of inner feelings.

Who would like to play a little bit with art, as a concept, I offer them to watch anyway, the performance of Leonce and Lena as Zoltán Balázs has put it on stage.

Zoltán Kristóf, Napvilág.net, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)