The King Ubu, Alfred Jarry student trick, which has been ennobled to a classical play, it is an sharp-tongued impudence with the rogues of the world, it pillorizes the bossy ones with witty impudence. If we like it, it is a political blasphemy, it is an elfish sticking of tongue, which had a great scandal even at the time of its premiere in 1896, and there have been many scandals since then after its performances.

There will not be any scandals after this performance of Maladype Theatre. The performance is a nicer one, that it would cause wounds by its harsh nature. It is enviably full of fantasy, but it is not murderously aggressive. It is similar to children, who are playing in the sand, who have already had the ability of aggressiveness, they would play to be a murder, but the emphasis is still on the game, hopefully they will not hit anybody to death. But this „hopefully” means, that we cannot exclude it at all. The performance of Maladype is good because they do not exclude totally the possibility of it. The viewers’ feeling of danger remains here. No matter how intimate the welcoming in the new and perfect home of Maladype, in a cosy flat of two hundred and twenty square metres, on the Mikszáth Square, because of the closeness of the performers, we can think about that they would take a little care of us too.

Kamilla Fátyol the designer of set, has built up a great pile from packs of newspapers, it sometimes seems to be a castle, which is there to stand against its captivating, it is similar to the brave-heart Ubu’s guarded headquarters, but as it is not made of stones, but of easily destroyed papers, it is funny as a bastion, it makes those vulnerable, who try to barricade themselves behind it. Above it, the characters tear out some parts of the newspapers, they make hats of them, or even paper army, some puppets, which can be torn apart, or turn them into balls and stuff into their mouth, as the newspapers would be nice food. So these remainder packs can be used for anything, they show that what seemed to be vitally important yesterday, can be so forgettable little thing today.

The members of Maladype, which has become one of the most exciting troupe of the national theatrical life, always fall in love with some kind of material, object and they organise their performance around it. In case of Leonce and Lena they built a castle of bamboo sticks, or even road, and they used the sticks as costumes too, In case of Egg(s)Hell the stage was full of human sized flamingo puppets, they were sets and vivid partners at the same time. In Lorenzaccio the visual world was defined by red gloves, their colour referred to the blood flow of the play, and of course, they could kill with their help. The newspaper is good because it can be used according to its original function, sentences can be read from them, its photos can be shown to the audience. This is one of the most stunning parts of the performance. In front of Ákos Orosz, who performs King Ubu, articles are put accidentally, freshly torn out of magazines, on which there are huge photos of celebs.

They are stuck on skewers as nobles to be killed, and some comments are improvised to it. A showman, a sportsman, a young actor also get their own. Other articles are mentioned all the time, so the careful improvisation cannot missed any time. The improvisation is a returning element in the troupe’s life, in Egg(s)Hell they had to perform a moving theatre on music, which maybe have not been heard in any performances. It is not a new element, that actors play more roles.

Now four of them perform that many figures. Ákos Orosz does not need to be stuffed to make him a fat dictator. He has his own rolls of fat. And for it he has enchanting projecting ears, and maliciously smiling face. Zoltán Lendváncky performs Mama Ubu. He is not a priggish imitator of a woman, he does not make his voice unrealistically thin, but he shows Mama Ubu’s dangerous moody nature, and her strongly influential abilities. Only men actors perform Ubu now. I have seen this performance only with men, in the Csillagbörtön in Szeged, mostly life sentenced men and killers performed it shockingly. They performed in it their vulnerability against the guards, their own sins, their hopeless situation, their lack of women. And while they were in all of it, they could see themselves sarcastically and with good humour. Maybe they could live on, that they made theatre with incredibly physical and mental energies. I rarely felt, that a performance could be so important. As Ubu was that important in Puck Puppet Theatre in Kolozsvár, when for the first time in Romania, during the dictatorship, the fantastic Ildikó Kovács put it on stage, that Papa Ubu appeared as real human beings as some kind of giants, and he could hit and kill according to his mood, the miniature marionette puppets, their subjects. At the time of Ceausescu it was obvious, that what the performance was about, which when the Free Radio of Europe announced, that a brave group of actors were still performing the Ubu in Kolozsvár, it was banned, then they renewed it after the revolution.

The performance of Maladype has not been about so deeply the questions of existence. It lets the actors free. They can do it as they would like to. They have already had their tools. In case of early staging by Zoltán Balázs I felt the opposite of it. That he works with drill, he trains the actors, he hit in them what he wants, they are beautiful and full of movements, they are similar to ceremonies, but they are monotonous many times, they are a little bit lifeless, he performed well over thought performances. I have admired them, but I did not love, and many times I got bored with them. Meanwhile I have to realise, that the hard process of work has trained the actors well, it has solved their fears, and Balázs himself has given up his burdens of proof. He dares to play while staging. Or just to play. But many times he becomes autotelic. And he relies more on his partners. On the other two actors, Ádám Tompa and Zsolt Páll, who perform in the Ubu, he calmly put great weights. He makes them sweat, but the performance does not have any smell of sweating. Self-forgetfulness flows from it. The joy of the fact that they can freely joke around too. It is not a big problem, if the rhythm is not always the best, some empty positions are formed, than the immersion comes into it again.

I am not so shocked by this Ubu as by the one in Kolozsvár or in the prison. But while it can show, what a mixture it is, in which we are living, and draw a clinical picture of the natural history of human vileness, it does not make us feel miserable, it gives us the joy of life. It fills us with energy. It gives meaning to theatre.

Gábor Bóta, Népszava, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)