We should watch our favourite performance a dozen times, for thousands of reasons it would have different effect on us because of personal and other reasons. The theatre is the art of the moment, the of the here and now. Despite all these, most of the performances have a “score”, which is formed by the director and his partners, from which is has not use to differ much. To tell it differently: the troupe and the director usually try to repeat more punctually, and make us remember again and again the untouchable, once in a lifetime moments. What would happen if the actors do not try to get rid of the accidental and unexpected things, but make them to be the basic of their performance on stage, to be a quality, which define and reform the viewers and partners’ thinking? Tim Carroll tries to answer this question with his Hamlet performance in the Fencing Hall of Bárka Theatre.

The performance defines itself as a theatrical experiment, but they could write theatrical therapy under the title. The director has healing aim to free not only the drama, but also the troupe and the viewers too from the clichés, which were in them deeply, to emphasise (above?) its occasional nature, he can free it from the layers of expectations then dress the text up unexpectedly in shining formal clothes. To be punctual, he is not the director, who does it all, but the public, who is with them in the same place, and the actors together. Carroll does not push himself into the lights of reflectors all the time with a new interpretation of Hamlet, which wants to delete arrogantly all the others before it, but he indicates, that there is not any like this. Only one thing exists: the performance that evening, for which we, the viewers bring the properties and music, and we decide the cast and the place too. What “remains”: János Arany’s wonderful text, which can create the beneficial tension of the distance between the own time of the masterpiece and our time with its own timeless phrases. (Add to it, that because of the so-called fixed text we immediately have the answer to the question of from where to where inside the drama. The question is about the how.) So the director eliminates all circumstances that can be handled as given and sure, to give place to the...

To what? To the relieved, joyful, but not shallow, on the contrary: to the play with relative power, which requires deep, great concentration, to become the real meeting between the actor and the role. He frees the actors from all the usual turns of many accidental things, from whom the director expects exceptional brainwork and extraordinary forms of relationships with the viewers. When we enter the Fencing Hall, in the middle of Judit Csanádi’s waving structures of podiums (which is the stage and the auditorium together) a great amount of chairs are waiting for us: all of us can choose one of them and sit there we want (we mustn’t sit on the carpets, these form the main power lines of the performing area). There is a white cloth stretched above us, there is a great round hole in its middle. There must be the sky full of starts over it, as well as in the Globe. The actors are in the viewers’ lines, who are sharing four to six roles each evening, they are in civil clothes, they are already there, and a draw will decide their role for that evening.

The only exception is the main role: Zoltán Balázs, who has become well-known nowadays as a director, performs again – maybe this is the biggest pleasure of the evening (the young director-actor’s ritual performances, which are counted till the edge in all their gestures, according to their method, are not so far from this Hamlet, as we would think first). Zoltán Balázs is great, not only in the usage of ad hoc objects in the place (a crown of thorns or a plastic rubbish bag, jumping rope or mobile phone, they are all reformed in his hand). He always has enough impressive energy to become the engine of the performance, the indicator of the sweeping actions and – maybe too many times – he is the controller of them too. That way it is understandable and indicated that his role is not doubled: his joyful, wild, childish Hamlet is the shining star in the middle of the universe of the performance, the others’ place and function are defined according to him one by one.

Of course, the cast of the evening, which is written accidentally, influence mostly the viewers’ experience of that day, and from now on I talk about those two performances, which I watched. Olga Varjú, as Gertrud without any attributes of the queen is a royal phenomenon. Zoltán Seress first became an immaterial, unearthly creature because of the African mask, he held in front of him, the second time he was a strict ruler with strong arms, who would convince Laertes about his truth as a sumo fighter. Attila Egyed was a jovial Claudius first, then an ominous ghost of a father with his silent wandering. Béla Gados’ Polonius was pedantic, a meddlesome minister of the state, he was always in a bad place at a good time. Kinga Mezei’s Ophelia was buried to Vivaldi’s aria in the first evening, the next time she was the tyrannical Fortinbras (Gabi Varga was her pales partner both times). In case of József Czintos, as a gravedigger, we could feel that he learnt in another school, his comedy with louder voice could fix itself into the structure of the performance. Tibor Mészáros, university student, as the friend, Horatio than as the enemy, Laertes could be extremely powerful.

The empty statement, according to which the whole world is a stage, became direct reality in case of Hamlet by Bárka: there are not any barriers between the viewers and the actors, the interactive adventure can turn theatre into close, sensual experience. The fulfilled effect is changing a lot from evenings to evenings here of course. While on the first performance, which I watched, close to the premiere, the joy of the carefree game, the magnificence of the free experiments remained defining all thorough it. During the second one, two months later, I could feel, partly covered individual conflicts during the really true-like fighting or in case of some harsher actions, which could hurt the other actor or the viewer. Apart from all these, the later performance could work with similar effects as the earlier one, but it warned me from close for that obvious possibility that even this wonderful theatrical therapy, which could give exceptional experiences for most of the viewers, could have unexpected side effects...

Tamás Jászay, Kritika, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)