They perform improvised Hamlet by Shakespeare in Bárka Theatre. The viewers draw the roles before the performances between the alternative prepared members of the troupe, only the main character, Zoltán Balázs is constant. The actors are wearing their own dresses. Judit Csanádi, the set designer formed a common auditorium and stage from the structure of elevating podiums on both sides and backwards. The viewers can choose their own chairs from the others, they can put them where they want, they just have to leave free to the all sides running ways, which are marked by carpets. They can sit anywhere, they can become participant of the performance, the actors are moving in front of, behind and between the viewers. The order of sitting changes by acts, according to the original division of five acts, a draw marks the place of the next act, who are “in way”, will move backwards. According to the previous wish we bring objects and CDs with us; the later ones we give to the “music master”, to Béla Faragó, who plays them meanwhile (if he wants), we hold the objects in our hands, or put them next to us, so that the actors (if they want) can use “play them into” some scenes as properties.

I have watched the performance twice, to review its organisation and summarize its résumé. The blind luck chose both times the same Claudius (Zoltán Seress), the same Ophelia (Gabriella Varga), the same Ghost / Actor King (Attila Egyed), the same Horatio (Gábor Nagypál) and the same Fortinbras (Kinga Mezei) too. Gertrud was performed by Kriszta Szorcsik first, the second time by Olga Varjú; the other evening they performed the Actor Queen. In the doubled roles of Polonius and the First gravedigger, I could see József Czintos and Béla Gados first in that order, than they changed the roles. The situation was similar in case of the Second gravedigger (Anikó Varga) and Ostrick (Kristóf Horváth). As Laertes, Tibor Mészáros was followed by Róbert Kardos and the later one was Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern?) too as well as Erik Ollé and Tibor Mészáros. In case of these roles there were four, in the others even more possibilities to choose from, so I am not sure about Tibor Pásztor, Tamás Törőcsik, Gábor Szabó, Richárd Bodor, Réka Császár and Kamilla Fátyol.

From this can come that theatrical historian decision that Hamlet is a drama of one role. Which, of course, is not true at all, but it has a basis that – I make is easier by intention – Hamlet “is mainly about” Hamlet, the main character “plays everybody off the stage”, he is in the centre of the power plant of the drama, everything “goes around him”, all gets meaning in connection with him, which cannot be said about, for example King Lear. It is mentioned as a counterpoint from this point of view, it is similar in its “weight” but its conflicts are more balanced. In Hamlet, he is one, who mostly performs, who “to put an antic disposition on” not long after the beginning of the play, with his changings, jumps, ripostes – with his so called improvisation – he surprises, puts into unexpected situations, makes fun of, sometimes insults most of the character. So it is very suitable for that, which Tim Carroll, the director has found out. The question is that what is good for Hamlet, is it good for Hamlet himself too. Carroll does not want to take any (pre)conception (less harshly: interpretation) into the performance – “I am the conception” as Miklós Gábor said, when he performed Hamlet – he does not want to decide in advance that Hamlet should be about this or that (“in present time”), it is enough for him, if the drama “talks on behalf of itself”, it talks about its inner relationships in front of the audience. In front of the audience of the given day, coming from the fact, that all audience, performance are different, so mainly the Hamlet of that day exists, or as Brook told it once, the performance can be performed just once.

It is obvious that in Bárka we cannot enter the same Hamlet twice. The role of eventuality is obvious. Above all, of the objects, which were got from the viewers. In one of the performance, the letter: a roll of toilet paper or a string as the paper of telegraph, in the other one, the mobile- and video message. Yorick skull can be the tennis ball or a hat: the earlier one can be thrown up onto the cloth that is stretched above on the ceiling, the later one can be put on anybody’s head. They can duel with a rope or with the biting of snacks. There are properties, which work well, and there are those, which do not. With a tape measure or a headed ruler you can measure (figuratively too) a person, or you can push him into a vice too. A plastic bag of soil (if it is there by accident) is good to throw away, when they are talking about: “Foul deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.". When Czintos / Polonius instructs Laertes with the phrases of “No, this also” not only by words, but by a deodorant sprays his armpit, that is a wise joke. When the usage of a shoetree results in the taking of a viewers’ shoe that has not had any meaning at that time. For the second time, I brought tendentiously a mirror (it is a common metaphor in the play) and it worked. Gábor Nagypál took it from my hand then Zoltán Balázs took from his hand and made his partners swear to be silent with it. After it, he reflected the “time out of joint” into the ceiling.

The object cannot stand in for a person. The closeness of viewers can be useful if they can get into real connection with them. An actor on the auditorium means a challenge to address automatically the flattering sentences to them about actors. It was good to me too when – whether it was ironical or not – I got into my face that "...the censure of which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others." The moment can be made honest and intimate when they get a viewer into their neck, sit into their lap, sit next to them to talk to them, and this become meaningful that way; Balázs once managed to do it. The other time, a viewer, who was said to be Polonius, answered spontaneously to the question: “do you have a daughter” that “no, I do not”, and then it stopped there, as Shakespeare has not text to it. During the monologue of “To be or not to be”, Balázs made a viewer to tape him around, then he also tided Ophelia to himself with it, so tightly that Gabriella Varga could not get out of it (neither as an actress) and they could finish the scene in time only with a life threatening fall. It was Hamlet-like in a different way the other day, when Hamlet became drunken from a bottle of vine (or he just played it), in the same place, Ophelia made bitterly fun of him, then Claudius, who thought about madness of love, could pointed at the bottle and told "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go”.

The examples and variations are endless, but the lessons can be learnt from it. One of them, that improvisation as the possibility of game is endless only for Hamlet, and Zoltán Balázs could use it well, he pushes himself really energetically into the game, he enjoys it too, he can do it too – it is his performance.

The others – in any roles – are strongly limited. But it is not useless for them too, it works as a public rehearsal, with unexpected changes of partners, with unexpected reactions, with fresh ability to concentrate, which can work as a relieving breeze in the mostly complacent, cliché favoured, lazy practice of Hungarian theatre making, which is built mostly on overuse patrons and patterns of success. Of course, for a good performance, they would fix the best solutions on the rehearsals, and keeps the vivid feeling of its birth there every day in its fixed form too, above all from the point of view of the formal – ideal – conceptual whole, which can summarize the spontaneous parts. But, that would be real art then.

Until then I have welcomed the noble challenge, as we would do it with a stranger.

Tamás Koltai, Élet és Irodalom, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)