István Nánay: The tragedy of the man of tools
In the centre of the performance of the National Theatre together with Zoltán Balázs we cannot find the main character but Bosola, the man of tools.
We do not know a lot about John Webster’s life, even the date of his birth and death are uncertain. Only some of the plays by the drama writer, who was Shakespeare’s peer, are known today, between them The Duchess of Malfi is the one, which is played the most for sure.
In this bloody thriller drama, Ferdinand the duke and his brother, the cardinal forbid that their widow sister would get married once more, but she seduces one of her subjects, Antonio, and she got married to him secretly in front of God. They have three children, but when the siblings find out their sister’s secret, they kill her and her two twin children too. Finally, both Antonio and the two Aragona brothers become victims of violent death. The one who performs the terrible acts, is Bosola, with undefinable status, who usually follows orders, but either willingly steps over his defined authority or acts in good faith, but the result of his acts is fatal. He is the only really active character, who continuously comments the happenings and himself too. He seems to be the only one, who has conscience, which he has to suppress again and again, he always searches and finds reasons for his acts, he talks about goodness and then kills. He is the most complex character of the play, it is not surprising that he rises Zoltán Balázs’ interest.
Webster’s play according to the fashion of this era, it is full of murders, madness, poisoning, listening, hiding in fake costumes, tortures, love between siblings and other forbidden partners. The performance of the complex actions is a serious challenge for the director, he has to decide: if the staging was realistic, naturalistic or stylized, Zoltán Balázs – according to his previous staging – has chosen the latest one, he has increased the abstraction and stylization till the end.
First of all, with Judit Góczán, the dramaturg they almost cut the half of the text; he has left those episodes, which are irrelevant from the point of view of main actions, the colouring elements, the side stories and side lines, and he concentrates first of all on Bosola’s personality and role, and the opening of that unhealthy relationship between the three siblings. Some roles fall out because of it, others become weaker, and less important. Mostly the female characters lose their importance, mainly the main character, who is as a strong one in the play, even in the prison as her twin brother, Ferdinand is or the former of cruel ideas, the Cardinal, but in the performance of the National Theatre there is hardly any possibilities for her to control her fate, she mostly suffers from the things, happening to her.
Judit Gombár forms an abstract space, there are four long benches behind each other in two lines, in the background there is a black podium, which shows mostly a picture of a church, metal-like, grey walls surrounding the stage, they can be open to a door size on both sides, the background surface can be divided not only into two but into four quarters too, so a cross form is made there. In one of the most beautiful pictures of the performance, the dead Duchess falls down as Madonna till the intersection of the cross, and the church-scene happens under her, in which the escaping Antonio decides when he hears his wife’s voice: he returns to the palace to meet the Cardinal.
The costumes set the visuality of the performance. The actors – like priests – are wearing robes over their shirts, which go on in long barges, at the edges of which we can find the hems with their characteristic colours. Their hands are covered with giant, stuffed gloves; the Duke keeps his index finger frighteningly up, the Cardinal’s two closed fingers indicate the well-known sign of communion, some of them keep their fingers like claws, his other palm is there to pet someone. The characters are wearing huge caps, which end in heads, the faces of these heads form ancient idols or medieval face performances. At the edge of the hat the colours of their clothes are repeated. Bosola is the only one, who does not wear gloves or cap, the director emphasizes him that way too the central character of the performance.
In the tragedy we learn most of the happenings by the different characters’ speech. Balázs gives this dramaturgical function to the four membered choir that comments too, sometimes he over organises the stage, and most of all they are the emotionless and cruel fulfiller of fate. The four of them do the murders, so they pull of the gloves and take off the caps from whom, who has to stop their lives. They talk in songs and singing speech. One of the unalienable components of the performance in László Sáry’s music on stage, which he composes to a string quartet, which sometimes strengthens the visual and oral statements by some sounds or turns, or the choir’s following. The members of the choir can partly sing those solos, which require serious vocal abilities.
The statue-like nature, which appears in their costumes, orders the main style of performance. Zoltán Balázs creates that kind of world here too, as in his controversial Faust performance in the Puppet Theatre of Budapest. In the almost two hours long performance, which is played in one act, there are hardly any outside actions, everything is told by picture, music and text. The actors are moving as Craig’s über-marionettes or as they would be the ideal actor-machines or puppets of Bauhaus. The movements are intermittent and pregnant, not the bodies are moving, but the hands, which impetus is followed by the body. The dialects are neutral, emotionless, their main aim is to tell their thoughts. There is not any possibility for the colouring by actors, for small realism, but the strictly composed form of the outside must be glowed by passion.
The actors can solve this very hard exercise on different levels. The clear articulation means the biggest problem. The acceptability of the performance, which requires a great concentration form the viewers too – as in the case of already mentioned Faust – depends on the fact if they get the information. Here and there it is partly understandable, what is told on stage. In it the well-known bad acoustic nature of the theatre is sinful too of course, but we cannot connect everything to it. This way of speaking does not let that after the first stressed syllable the rest of the sentences fall down, as we can usually hear it on our stages. Frigyes Hollósi (in three roles), László Sinkó (Bosola), Zsolt László (Ferdinand), Andrea Söptei’s (Cariola, the Duchess’ close partner) all words get to the viewers. Zalán Makranczi (Antonio) and János Kulka’s (the Cardinal) sentences need more attention, while only fragments of Bori Péterfy’s, who plays the main character, text can be heard and understood.
Zsolt László presents the director’s ideas the most punctually. His body, if it is needed, is like a marionette, then sometimes he is similar to a clock machine. I experience not for the first time, that even his back is “speaking”: in the depth of the stage he shows perfectly the symptoms of lycanthropy with a few gestures. László Sinkó performs the main character. In the beginning picture all the characters are in the space, when the orchestra is in the foreground, then Sinkó rises up from the deep. His white hair is smoothed tightly to his head, he performs a strange neither a male nor a female figure. He does reluctantly what they order to, but meanwhile he is growling, thinking over, combining or reading a little book. He seems to hold a prayer book in his hands, to which there is not any blood connected. He is a murderer and a moralist, he accepts his acts and denies them too. Sinkó performs perfectly the doubtful tragedy of the man of tools.
The following and acceptance of the performance, which has moderate tempo, wonderful visual world, which is rich in punctual artistic performances, and musical structure, is not an easy exercise for the viewers.
István Nánay, szinhaz.net, 2009
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
We do not know a lot about John Webster’s life, even the date of his birth and death are uncertain. Only some of the plays by the drama writer, who was Shakespeare’s peer, are known today, between them The Duchess of Malfi is the one, which is played the most for sure.
In this bloody thriller drama, Ferdinand the duke and his brother, the cardinal forbid that their widow sister would get married once more, but she seduces one of her subjects, Antonio, and she got married to him secretly in front of God. They have three children, but when the siblings find out their sister’s secret, they kill her and her two twin children too. Finally, both Antonio and the two Aragona brothers become victims of violent death. The one who performs the terrible acts, is Bosola, with undefinable status, who usually follows orders, but either willingly steps over his defined authority or acts in good faith, but the result of his acts is fatal. He is the only really active character, who continuously comments the happenings and himself too. He seems to be the only one, who has conscience, which he has to suppress again and again, he always searches and finds reasons for his acts, he talks about goodness and then kills. He is the most complex character of the play, it is not surprising that he rises Zoltán Balázs’ interest.
Webster’s play according to the fashion of this era, it is full of murders, madness, poisoning, listening, hiding in fake costumes, tortures, love between siblings and other forbidden partners. The performance of the complex actions is a serious challenge for the director, he has to decide: if the staging was realistic, naturalistic or stylized, Zoltán Balázs – according to his previous staging – has chosen the latest one, he has increased the abstraction and stylization till the end.
First of all, with Judit Góczán, the dramaturg they almost cut the half of the text; he has left those episodes, which are irrelevant from the point of view of main actions, the colouring elements, the side stories and side lines, and he concentrates first of all on Bosola’s personality and role, and the opening of that unhealthy relationship between the three siblings. Some roles fall out because of it, others become weaker, and less important. Mostly the female characters lose their importance, mainly the main character, who is as a strong one in the play, even in the prison as her twin brother, Ferdinand is or the former of cruel ideas, the Cardinal, but in the performance of the National Theatre there is hardly any possibilities for her to control her fate, she mostly suffers from the things, happening to her.
Judit Gombár forms an abstract space, there are four long benches behind each other in two lines, in the background there is a black podium, which shows mostly a picture of a church, metal-like, grey walls surrounding the stage, they can be open to a door size on both sides, the background surface can be divided not only into two but into four quarters too, so a cross form is made there. In one of the most beautiful pictures of the performance, the dead Duchess falls down as Madonna till the intersection of the cross, and the church-scene happens under her, in which the escaping Antonio decides when he hears his wife’s voice: he returns to the palace to meet the Cardinal.
The costumes set the visuality of the performance. The actors – like priests – are wearing robes over their shirts, which go on in long barges, at the edges of which we can find the hems with their characteristic colours. Their hands are covered with giant, stuffed gloves; the Duke keeps his index finger frighteningly up, the Cardinal’s two closed fingers indicate the well-known sign of communion, some of them keep their fingers like claws, his other palm is there to pet someone. The characters are wearing huge caps, which end in heads, the faces of these heads form ancient idols or medieval face performances. At the edge of the hat the colours of their clothes are repeated. Bosola is the only one, who does not wear gloves or cap, the director emphasizes him that way too the central character of the performance.
In the tragedy we learn most of the happenings by the different characters’ speech. Balázs gives this dramaturgical function to the four membered choir that comments too, sometimes he over organises the stage, and most of all they are the emotionless and cruel fulfiller of fate. The four of them do the murders, so they pull of the gloves and take off the caps from whom, who has to stop their lives. They talk in songs and singing speech. One of the unalienable components of the performance in László Sáry’s music on stage, which he composes to a string quartet, which sometimes strengthens the visual and oral statements by some sounds or turns, or the choir’s following. The members of the choir can partly sing those solos, which require serious vocal abilities.
The statue-like nature, which appears in their costumes, orders the main style of performance. Zoltán Balázs creates that kind of world here too, as in his controversial Faust performance in the Puppet Theatre of Budapest. In the almost two hours long performance, which is played in one act, there are hardly any outside actions, everything is told by picture, music and text. The actors are moving as Craig’s über-marionettes or as they would be the ideal actor-machines or puppets of Bauhaus. The movements are intermittent and pregnant, not the bodies are moving, but the hands, which impetus is followed by the body. The dialects are neutral, emotionless, their main aim is to tell their thoughts. There is not any possibility for the colouring by actors, for small realism, but the strictly composed form of the outside must be glowed by passion.
The actors can solve this very hard exercise on different levels. The clear articulation means the biggest problem. The acceptability of the performance, which requires a great concentration form the viewers too – as in the case of already mentioned Faust – depends on the fact if they get the information. Here and there it is partly understandable, what is told on stage. In it the well-known bad acoustic nature of the theatre is sinful too of course, but we cannot connect everything to it. This way of speaking does not let that after the first stressed syllable the rest of the sentences fall down, as we can usually hear it on our stages. Frigyes Hollósi (in three roles), László Sinkó (Bosola), Zsolt László (Ferdinand), Andrea Söptei’s (Cariola, the Duchess’ close partner) all words get to the viewers. Zalán Makranczi (Antonio) and János Kulka’s (the Cardinal) sentences need more attention, while only fragments of Bori Péterfy’s, who plays the main character, text can be heard and understood.
Zsolt László presents the director’s ideas the most punctually. His body, if it is needed, is like a marionette, then sometimes he is similar to a clock machine. I experience not for the first time, that even his back is “speaking”: in the depth of the stage he shows perfectly the symptoms of lycanthropy with a few gestures. László Sinkó performs the main character. In the beginning picture all the characters are in the space, when the orchestra is in the foreground, then Sinkó rises up from the deep. His white hair is smoothed tightly to his head, he performs a strange neither a male nor a female figure. He does reluctantly what they order to, but meanwhile he is growling, thinking over, combining or reading a little book. He seems to hold a prayer book in his hands, to which there is not any blood connected. He is a murderer and a moralist, he accepts his acts and denies them too. Sinkó performs perfectly the doubtful tragedy of the man of tools.
The following and acceptance of the performance, which has moderate tempo, wonderful visual world, which is rich in punctual artistic performances, and musical structure, is not an easy exercise for the viewers.
István Nánay, szinhaz.net, 2009
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)