Zoltán Balázs’ and the Maladype new performance will be the King Ubu by Jarry. The performance is making in an unusual way: in front of the audience. Because of it I would not leave the possibility to be the part of it.
We are coming together at 5:45 in the Pál Gönczy Street. It is really the base of Krétakör, but they have been so kind that they have “lent” it to Zoli Balázs, until Maladype do not find their own place for the performance. Of course, the fact that we are coming together, needs some exclamation. What do twenty strangers do on a reading rehearsal? The answer is – thinking together with Zoli Balázs’ head – very easy: they are watching, commenting on, taking part in. There it is. The aim is: to be vivid, possible to experience, to be a knowable process of performing. The tool is: the open rehearsals.
We are sitting around, like in a séance, like on a group therapy, the actors (Kamilla Fátyol, Zoltán Lendváczky, Ákos Orosz, Zsolt Páll) are next to Zoli Balázs. Ádám Tompa is a little bit late – there is a problem with the bike. Zoli tells some sentences about what we can expect here. There will not be big analysis, interpretation now, only what is needed. He does not give a small lecture about Jarry, he does not show parts of the Ubu, he does not want to give a lesson of drama history. What is important to him now, is that everybody would sit here with open ears and hearts, and become the part of the procedure of the rehearsal. We can go home any time, nothing is compulsory.
We have started it, we get copies (Zoltán Jékely’s translation with Béla Kondor’s illustrations), the director reads up the performers. We are thinking about the names, who can be what kind of character. We spend more time with the members of the orchestra, we try to find out what “csimpolya”, trial “búgósíp” or the “bombard” are. What we cannot find out, will be our homework. (Later I can see on the webpage of Maladype that the question of “csimpolya” gets on the blog too.) The first scene, Zoli gives out the roles. Kamilla would be Mama Ubu, and Zsolt would be Papa Ubu. At the end of the scene we discuss about it. Who can remember similar characters? Where can we meet similar situations, either in films or in theatres? Why the candelabra is green exactly? What kind can the space be, where they live? All his questions mean as many versions, our own experiences, anecdote and experience arrive as an answer. At the beginning the actors are bolder – of course, as for the “guests” it is not so easy to open suddenly – then the situation becomes obvious. We become equal partners, we are not sitting in a circle as viewers and silent readers. Zoli helps us and get us involved in the reading too. Independently from our age and gender, we can read Mama Ubu, Papa Ubu, Captain Bordure, King Wenceslas, Queen Rosemond, princesses, nobles, guards, peasants, rebels... In case of every scene the cast is different. After a while he tries out, how the actors and viewers can function together. Now it is going well.
We are practising on with our association skill. Almost all scenes have a scene from a Shakespeare drama, which rhymes on them, we have mentioned III. Richard, Hamlet, Macbeth, but we come up with Les Misérables, William Tell, Robin Hood, Mel Gibson because of the Braveheart, and the absurdity of the situations make me remember Brian’s Life too. And what is all of it for? If it is only a game, it is not a problem. But Zoli has other aims too. On one hand, he would like, if his actors treated the viewers as partners, if the rehearsals broke out from their very closed and very intimate surrounding. On the other hand he is interested in, who the viewers would inspire the actors in different phases of the creation.
He has thrown the ball into the crowd, and then it can be given on. The result of the game will turn out on the premiere on 20th December. So far, I will report the actual stage every week.

Zsófi Rick, Fidelio

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)