The flat theatre of Maladype is a place with theatrical scent. There is a cash desk behind the small counter in the hall, the three rooms, which can be opened into one another (too) is the space of theatre, and the kitchen part can be the changing room, I think so. The walls of the corner flat on the first floor on the Mikszáth Square are not black, its windows are not covered, the light is on all through the performance – so the birth of theatre can be entrusted to the performers and us.

In 2009, it happened that they performed – still not here – the “student parody” of King Ubu by Alfred Jarry, in which the main attraction was the burlesque style with its incredible tempo, without any breaks, which would rise up, which collects different ideas. So how long and how can the actors show, or even par excellence increase the formation or penetration of madness; how can they handle the difficulty of the pieces of papers from piles, from which they would organise the formation of forms and situations; and anyway, how can they drive themselves and their viewers through the laugh physically and with humour. Well, they do it perfectly – but I would mention this performance not because of it. But because during this two and half years they have been connected together, but as the result of the four actors’ (Ákos Orosz, Zoltán Lendváczky, Ádám Tompa and Zsolt Páll) performances, we can see a permanently fresh and powerful production, which froze the laugh to our throat not only once. Zoltán Balázs’ staging – it is visual now – is well worked out and meaningful punctually during the current comedy. The intoxication of power, which turns into delusion of laugh can become a modern documentary-drama now based on Jarry’s play, the performance is inventive and punchy, it is a meaningful comment to the social situation of our everyday life.

But in reality, I would like to write about The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais – but it is good to draw those people’s attention to the fact, who know Maladype and those who have not, that the troupe performed their newer and older performances too on the flat of Mikszáth Square. Beaumarchais’ Figaro is a comedy, we know it: but that how much it is, we can learn from the staging by Sándor Zsótér, from a hand long distance from us. We can learn, that comedy on its own, has an “inside”, so it is coloured not by the tragic shade but by the immanent comedic thoughts. Especially after that, Júlia Ungvár, the dramaturg not only cuts but writes over the text into a “flat theatre”.

I was afraid of (as I do not like interactive theatre, more punctually if I get involved in it), the fact, that once a character would step to me, and asks something. But it has happened just once, when Ákos Orosz, who performed Figaro, warned the two boys, who were sitting thirty centimetres from him, to stop talking, because they were annoying him. Yes, he did. He did not tear away the theatrical “curtain”, just rise attention to the natural sharing of work: I perform, you watch. This is the rule.

Between the minimal possibilities of all weight and exercise all exercises are pushed on the actors – the set is the room itself, the middle room, in which we are sitting, and the two smaller ones, which are opened from it, we can watch into them. Mária Ambrus has some work with it too.

As Mari Benedek does with the strongly eclectic costumes: training shoes and long night dress – all from the torn version – the actors are performing in the dresses between them and the way of wearing them is strongly connected to the costumes, which is the artistic performance itself, anyway.

Figaro by Ákos Orosz, he is not that kind of subject, he has known many things of life, by the time, he gets to Almaviva’s side, so suspicion is in his blood. And the knowledge, that who is suspicious, they can be cheated. And the fight, that this cannot happen to him too. But we can guess, that it can happen anytime, we can see it from the gestures of his bride, the wise Susanne, who is performed by Erika Tankó. Zsótér “helps” his actors with the punctual interpretation: he matches the figures, and not only the couples, however it is the most obvious in case of them: besides these in case of the relationship of Almaviva (Ádám Tompa), who performs the womanizer mostly for himself, not live it over truly, and the Countess (Judit Kovács Ligeti), who gets a little bit resignedly bored of her husband’s childish nature. Cherubin’s (Zénó Fagaró) genre is the childish flaming – it is obvious that he will have a hard fate next to Fanchette (Kamilla Fátyol), who get along well by her nature in the mazes of life.

So here the women are stronger (however it does not make them happier) – and the Mari Törőcsik’s Marcellina is here too.

No, she does not stretch out the walls of flat theatre, and no, she does not perform Marcellina into the middle of the place. Anyway, she is the engine of the performance, as she is almost moving the woman on an unimaginably wide scale in her scenes: the seducer, the intriguer, the peeved, the one, who is begging, the winner, the mother, the resigned one, and even the acquiescent one. Her changes and waves can effect not only the viewers but her partners too: they go on with her.

In case of the night scene, not only that means the pleasure that the cheated men walk in the trap. But – and it can be seen really well from that close – the way as they cannot see it and each other so much. However – in blue, so with a changed lighting but – there is light. And we can change our points of view actively: now we can see it, as we are the viewers, now we cannot, as we are Almaviva. And at the time of clapping we realise, that it is so much that way. Can you see, or cannot – well, you can!

Judit Csáki, Magyar Narancs, 2012

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)