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

Have you directed musicals before?

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

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

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

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

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

Have you seen productions at the Operetta Theatre?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why did the company change?

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

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

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

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

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

Gyula Balogh, Népszava, 2020

translated by: Zsuzsanna Juraszek