(Chamber Theatre of Budapest, Tivoli; Bárka Theatre)

The viewers from Budapest could watch two Hamlet premiere a few kilometres from one another within six weeks. (At least the determined members of it, who are ready for this kind of parallel theatrical experiencing).

One of them – the performance of the Chamber Theatre in Budapest, directed by János Sándor – tries to hold a mirror with the tragedy to the our present, which does not offer more attractive life circumstances than Denmark with its out of joint time, it expresses the hopelessness which reaches over centuries by the lonely one against the powerful political plays. The other one – the performance of Bárka Theatre, which was put on stage by Tim Carroll – plays with the theatrical situation itself, it treats the material not as a classical one, which needs explanation, but as a play, which suitable for spontaneous situation practices by actors. From the point of view of the performers’ aim the performances are similar to one another in only one thing: both of them use the translation by János Arany. According to the realization, there is one more parallel between the two performances: the act by the actors, who play Hamlet – for different reasons – but they are separated from the others.

The lonely hero

In Tivoli the performance starts with Claudius’ apotheosis as a politician and leader: while the king is coming on the stage together with his wife and followers, from outside speeches of a celebration can be heard. On Claudius’ (Levente Törköly) face there is satisfaction – the machine of the state runs well. The royal couple’s behaviour is pragmatic, they are similar to successful entrepreneurs, who handle their things with normal loyalty and their – well-selected – people. The people in the court are all grey, both their dresses and behaviour: they are all yuppies in graphite grey suits, ties, with back combed hair, who are always ready to form a lazy saving circle around the appearing king. If needs, they have another strong man with wilder appearance, in boots and leather clothes on standby. The royal couple get red brocade coats from the same material, as accessories to their grey elegant outlook from Márta Jánoskúti, the clothes designer, which suit only to someone with strict posture and confident behaviour. (When the king during the scene of praying pushes himself to the ground his red coat follows his movements without its wings.)

In this world, everything seems to be dependent on the question of organisation: the old Hamlet was in way. He had to be killed. Cannot they teach the younger one? The plan is ready how can they get rid of him. It is easy to find helpers for the implementation, however Rosencrantz (Attila Dolmány) and Guildenstern (Ferenc Kovács), mostly the later one from them, shows honest signs of hesitation, but it makes their voluntary and disciplined informing service more determined. On an emphasised point of the place (on one of the way above) they tell the dialogue about the total meaningless nature of the fights, at present, and about that political narrow-mindedness that has led there – but these powerful words have no results on the usual cringing, which is characteristic of the everyday life in the court.

Horatio (Soma Zámbori) with his appearance and outlook suits perfectly into the same kind of courtiers: however on the level of words he stands next to Hamlet, he serves him, he is always ready to get into the group of those, who are loyal to the power: when the king, with his followers, and the also Hamlet are on stage, he does not stand close to Hamlet, but he gets into the members of the followers. When the person of the future arrives with careless steps, in sunglasses, the flippant and conceited Fortinbras (Zoltán Dózsa), Horatio – after he has kicked away brutally the dead Hamlet – knows immediately, where he has to stand.

Lajos Bertók’s Hamlet has no connection to the world around it, for the first sight. His lighting eyes, sensitive face and characteristic appearance – white shirt, bright trousers, and millimetre long hair – all tell about his natural outstanding character. He misses all the characteristics that make the members of the court so similar to one another; but he has the need of questioning and the ability to accept exercises. According to the force of the situation, without any heroic posture, but he accepted the fight with belief against cynicism and adventure of time that is out of joint. His scenes with the actors show him to be freely witty, he might become an excellent artist and philosopher, if he escaped from Denmark to Wittenberg. And then he could get rid of the distortions of his personality, which are also emphasised in his performance: he steps into Ophelia’s soul with extreme cruelty (there is in it the feeling of better if it is worse, which he can experience); and then by accident he stabs Polonius, he does not show even the smallest regret – he becomes sinful from more points of view during his fight against the sin.

The significant element of Bertók’s Hamlet performance the unemotional natural behaviour: He tell János Arany’s lines self-evidently, which I have never heard before, that way we cannot feel the patinated expressions beautiful because of elevated nature and celebrated solemnity, but on the contrary because of the simple nature of statements, behind them there is the perfect organisation of the interpretation of text and expression. Bertók makes Shakespeare and János Arany our contemporary that he does not put nothing direct, modern from the outside world neither into the performance, nor into the telling of the text. His loneliness and intellectual sensitivity the acceptance of "those have to go to hell” through the very accurate opening of situations, naturally, becomes complete on its own.
The main value of the performance, directed by János Sándor, is Lajos Bertók’s acting, whose meeting up with the role is not the first one, but – as many told, who watched the performance in Zsámbék one and half years ago – he had the power to reform his earlier performance. His loneliness on stage does not just define the interpretation of the role, but at the fulfilment by an actor it is really characteristic to the performance, which main disability it is. Between the side characters only two remarkable performances were born: Levente Törköly has his own special personality – he does not show chiselled operation of soul, he quotes an ordinary boss’ behaviour – as Claudius and Zsolt Körtvélyessy’s Polonius, who shows enthusiasm and worry behind the compromising clownery. The other characters are really weightless, they are not even without any false sounds, and these can create very odd situations especially in case of the scenes by Horatio, Gertrud (Zsuzsa Szilágyi) and Ophelia (Linda Verebes) – who is similar to a giant kid, dressed in netted stockings by the costume designer. The set (János Mira’s work) tried to make advantages from the disadvantages of the place, when he works with the above and under, inside and outside places; but the grave, which is there from the first moment of the performance, if it is a symbol, then it is oversimplifying, if it is technique of stage (or the lack of it) then it is a depressing solution, which does not get its meaning even in the suitable scene during the gravediggers’ badly imitated digging work.

The whole world is a game

A funny board game is going on in Bárka Theatre. Except for Hamlet, they draw the roles before the performance from the enlisted possibilities of the programme; the drawn actors play in their own dresses, and when they are not on stage, they are waiting for their scene at some point of the stage. A draw helps decide the places of five scenes; in the place, which is designed by Judit Csanádi, and which is divided well with podiums and carpets, the viewers can put their chairs where they want – except for the place, which has been drawn to be the stage. The viewers get involved in the formation of stage personally, that excessively that they have to bring some kind of objects or music with themselves: from the earlier ones the actors, from the later ones the music designer Béla Faragó choose during the performance. Together with the useful tools – or without them – sometimes the viewers get involved in the actions too.

Because of all these the performance is similar to a students’ performance, it is an improvisational scale of pranks: a chain of situational practises, the collection of ideas, which were born in the place, it is all surprise, both the acting partners and the viewers too. “It was Hamlet, here and now that way” – as a side character, who is a master of ceremony at the same time, summarises it at the end of the performance, she refers to the one occasion like nature of their performance. The viewers – the average age can be between twenty and twenty-five – understand it; they appreciate that they are got involved into something form, which they stay out in an “ordinary” theatre. I cannot tell, that how much they can take care of the story of the tragedy; but we can believe that most of them – at least those viewers who are older than sixteen, most of them are at that age – have already known well (?) the play.

The director talked about the unexpected situations, which were natural in the theatre of Elizabethan era, on the day of the premiere in a radio interview, he told that then anything anytime could happen because of the openness of the buildings and the viewers’ reactions, who were standing close to the stage. He said that the performance of Bárka is based on this kind of artistic readiness, on spontaneity. After it I personally expected, that the impulses from the viewers and the answers to them from the stage would influence the flow of the performance. However, when in the hall we could hear the usual warning about the switching off the mobile phones, I had to realise that nothing like this would happen there. And in reality, one viewer did not react well-behaved to the involvement into the game, or on the contrary with his enthusiasm he even told something – all things stopped, as all these had not been taken into consideration. Seemingly, the director decided that the rehearsal period, which was built on some kind of improvising exercises, would be finished with a (mostly) similar performance, and he matched the theatrical historical explanation to it. If the material is Hamlet, and not any other play, it can be an accident, but there is a reason too: as an important aspect of Hamlet’s role, that he plays – he pretends madness – and other characters can connect to his play too.

Zoltán Balázs’ Hamlet in T-shirt and jeans is the only stable point of the performance – meaning the undoubled role and his performance’s drive too by it. The two are connected obviously: if for someone it is not a question who he will perform that evening - and he searches for spontaneous ideas from this position – he can obviously have more balanced performance than those who know before the beginning of the performance, that they will have only a scene with a few lines or an important role that evening. Balázs’ Hamlet has teenager-like appearance and habitus. He is de-fetishized. Sometimes he is over-moving and extravagant – his ideas of game are connected to it: the provocation of his opponents, the embarrassment of the viewers, who can be the people from the court; meanwhile anybody can expect that he will talk into his face, pushes something into his hands unexpectedly, or even jumps into his lap. His great monologue with silent words talks about the everyday fear of death.

The other characters’ performances – we talk about the best actors of Bárka, who have proved a lot – are sometimes forced into the background by the ideas, usually based on jokes. Gabi Varga’s Ophelia, without any tools does not need any louder jokes (her parallel partner, Kinga Mezei sat through resignedly both performances, I watched: she always got Fortinbras’ role). Kriszta Szorcsik’s Gertrud had the most wonderful scene together with Hamlet: here the actors left almost all outside tools, and that way they created the possibility of the intimate concentration to one another. Olga Varjú’s performance – showed a prouder and stronger Gertrud – was about the difficulties of the artistic loosening up. Zoltán Seress as Claudius seemed to be even more vulnerable than the others to the situation, that the performance is conceptually lack of interpretation of the play and the roles. (His alternative, Attila Egyed in both performances I watched, got the role of the Actor King.) Both to Polonius and the First gravedigger – József Czintos played one in one performance, than the other in the other one – the humour could be matched more easily, the actor used it creatively, however his performance made the characters, who would be very different from one another, really similar.

Between the properties in the performance the plus animal toys, the balls and globes in different size, the hats, the beer bottles and boxes and many snacks were over represented. So some parts of the ideas were many times similar to the other, which had been tried before; Gertrud’s poisonous glass was once a peeled banana, than an opened chocolate Santa Clause with broken head. The scull was a tennis ball, which could be thrown up to the cloths, stretched above the stage and opened in the middle, then it was a football and a pillow, which formed a turtle, which can be kicked and thrown on the ground. Gertrud, while she was waiting for Hamlet, once was eating scone or drinking mineral water.

When they could find an unexpected solution with multiple meaning, which enriched the situation well, those became memorable moments of the performance. (I wish there would have been more of them!) It was for example, when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stabbed Hamlet full with sticks; when Hamlet tided himself with a tape, than pushed Ophelia to himself, on the same way, or when Hamlet and Claudius without any words, made a dialogue with folk dance-like elements, with the expression of anger from one side, and of incomprehension from the other one.

I am sure that for the actors the rehearsal period was a useful training, the practice of the improvising technique of performance, the improvement of concentration. I believe anyway, that it would be the director’s responsibility to form a complete performance from these creative ideas finally. (My all-time favourite from this genre was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by János Csányi, as the opening performance of Bárka Theatre.) Of course, other performances on the repertoire would go towards this kind of solution; anyway, the time, which has spent since the premiere, proves the opposite of it. Now the viewers collectively get involved in the formation of the sound effects, into applauses together and there is a point, when we have to leave the theatre hall to go on with the performance on another place, between the prepared sets of the performance tomorrow.
After all these one I would like to watch with pleasure, what Tim Carroll – the director of Globe Theatre in London – thinks about Hamlet.

Adrienne Dömötör, Criticai Lapok, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)