MGP: Dr. Faust
The Puppet Theatre of Budapest performs Faust in a subway carriage. They climb in and out of the windows. The metal poles reach up to the sky, sometimes people in black suits slide down on the holding poles. There are two maps on the wall, but the viewers get lost soon to know where are they.
First the viewers would be interested in: who is who on the stage in the crowd of the performers. It is not easy to answer to it: there are women and men in black uniforms. More of them play the same role. Next to them moving their puppet copies. Zoltán Balázs has worked hard to freshen up the Hungarian theatre art by introducing performing methods, which seem to be exotic in his performances. He tries to strengthen and renew our staging with the training of ancient type theatrical styles. On the university he directed with the puppet art students and the opera singers of the music academy the operetta, Mikado by Gilbert-Sullivan. The puppet, the actor, who gives life to the puppet and the opera singer, who sings the role were a logical tripling.
In case of the puppet-Faust the turned out meaning of the folk song is relevant: While I was going home, / Myself was opened in three directions...Everybody is broken in three. Judit Gombár got the puppets from the puppet performances of different cultures (wayang puppet- and shadow play, marionette) and from the traditions of fine arts. The puppet actors have sworn to move and give life to puppets, they adore them, if they do not have to hide behind the display panel, but they can stand in front of the audience with bare face, with their own personalities. Their desire to show themselves displace the puppets from the stage.
The name of the institute should be changed from Puppet Theatre of Budapest. The brand must get rid of the puppets.
Gombár’s imagination, which is nourished from ancient sources can give a fantastic flourishing magical world to the subway car, which can evoke Autant-Lara Yves Mondtand’s devil, the Margit of the Night, who travels on the luxury train. The opened wings of the creatures of the under world, the prehistoric reptiles with beaked mouth perform as guests in the contemporary surrounding. The playfully opening and closing structure on the stage works rationally. But it hosts irrational visitors. The separated togetherness of the technical and tale-like world, the view which can feed well the eyes, but from Mental and dramatic point of view they cannot spark together.
The disinformation-like program of the theatre does not mention Goethe’s name, and the guest texts, which were written in by the dramaturg, Sándor Zsótér. It does not talk about the names of the translator(s). We cannot learn who composed the used music. Who plays which roles.
The viewers would be interested in what they tell anyway on the stage. We are listening hard: for nothing. It is good that they do not rolling the poem, but the voiced consonants are ill, they sound on voices, which are corroded by sodium hydroxide, they talk without movements. I think that on the premiere not all of them knew: what and why they say.
István Erdős is an old Faust with tremulous-voice. He is similar to a GP from Soroksár. I wrote they he is from Soroksár, as in the history of puppet theatre of Hungary there was the social entertainment during the time of the market, which as written on the program of the market. It was carried out by Czech and Moravian wondering comedians. Schorokscharer is the descendant of the puppet family of Faust. Károly Hientz noted its text in their wondering book.
The Faust by the Puppet Theatre of Budapest is more graceful than its predecessor on the market.
Márta Szakály as Helen of Troy throws the poetic lines on the viewers like a sacred hapax. She prays to the viewers more than tells them something. Anna Simándi is a rival supporter with her stage-like diction. Between the youngsters Péter Bercsényi and Zsolt Tatai has an understandable diction. They perform their monologue by puppets of sticks. The performance always becomes more vivid if the puppets get bigger role than the saving of the text. Gyöngyi Blaskó performs bare foot the old Margit, while sitting on Norbert Ács’ neck. The actors’ air seems to get thicker during the second half of the three hours long performance. The concentration is stronger. The prison scene can be the example of the whole conception of the director, where the artistic connection, concentration bring up sub-textual powers and make the performance captivating.
Which is felt to be mannered minimalist staging during the two hours long first part, it becomes tensed sub-textual and sub-picturesque during the second part of the performance. It reports abundantly without telling anything.
Péter Gál Molnár, NOL.hu, 2009
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
First the viewers would be interested in: who is who on the stage in the crowd of the performers. It is not easy to answer to it: there are women and men in black uniforms. More of them play the same role. Next to them moving their puppet copies. Zoltán Balázs has worked hard to freshen up the Hungarian theatre art by introducing performing methods, which seem to be exotic in his performances. He tries to strengthen and renew our staging with the training of ancient type theatrical styles. On the university he directed with the puppet art students and the opera singers of the music academy the operetta, Mikado by Gilbert-Sullivan. The puppet, the actor, who gives life to the puppet and the opera singer, who sings the role were a logical tripling.
In case of the puppet-Faust the turned out meaning of the folk song is relevant: While I was going home, / Myself was opened in three directions...Everybody is broken in three. Judit Gombár got the puppets from the puppet performances of different cultures (wayang puppet- and shadow play, marionette) and from the traditions of fine arts. The puppet actors have sworn to move and give life to puppets, they adore them, if they do not have to hide behind the display panel, but they can stand in front of the audience with bare face, with their own personalities. Their desire to show themselves displace the puppets from the stage.
The name of the institute should be changed from Puppet Theatre of Budapest. The brand must get rid of the puppets.
Gombár’s imagination, which is nourished from ancient sources can give a fantastic flourishing magical world to the subway car, which can evoke Autant-Lara Yves Mondtand’s devil, the Margit of the Night, who travels on the luxury train. The opened wings of the creatures of the under world, the prehistoric reptiles with beaked mouth perform as guests in the contemporary surrounding. The playfully opening and closing structure on the stage works rationally. But it hosts irrational visitors. The separated togetherness of the technical and tale-like world, the view which can feed well the eyes, but from Mental and dramatic point of view they cannot spark together.
The disinformation-like program of the theatre does not mention Goethe’s name, and the guest texts, which were written in by the dramaturg, Sándor Zsótér. It does not talk about the names of the translator(s). We cannot learn who composed the used music. Who plays which roles.
The viewers would be interested in what they tell anyway on the stage. We are listening hard: for nothing. It is good that they do not rolling the poem, but the voiced consonants are ill, they sound on voices, which are corroded by sodium hydroxide, they talk without movements. I think that on the premiere not all of them knew: what and why they say.
István Erdős is an old Faust with tremulous-voice. He is similar to a GP from Soroksár. I wrote they he is from Soroksár, as in the history of puppet theatre of Hungary there was the social entertainment during the time of the market, which as written on the program of the market. It was carried out by Czech and Moravian wondering comedians. Schorokscharer is the descendant of the puppet family of Faust. Károly Hientz noted its text in their wondering book.
The Faust by the Puppet Theatre of Budapest is more graceful than its predecessor on the market.
Márta Szakály as Helen of Troy throws the poetic lines on the viewers like a sacred hapax. She prays to the viewers more than tells them something. Anna Simándi is a rival supporter with her stage-like diction. Between the youngsters Péter Bercsényi and Zsolt Tatai has an understandable diction. They perform their monologue by puppets of sticks. The performance always becomes more vivid if the puppets get bigger role than the saving of the text. Gyöngyi Blaskó performs bare foot the old Margit, while sitting on Norbert Ács’ neck. The actors’ air seems to get thicker during the second half of the three hours long performance. The concentration is stronger. The prison scene can be the example of the whole conception of the director, where the artistic connection, concentration bring up sub-textual powers and make the performance captivating.
Which is felt to be mannered minimalist staging during the two hours long first part, it becomes tensed sub-textual and sub-picturesque during the second part of the performance. It reports abundantly without telling anything.
Péter Gál Molnár, NOL.hu, 2009
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)