King Ubu’s empire is a mountain of newspapers, and he is sitting in it covered by neck. He is in shit by his neck, while he is gossiping about this shit-like world, drooling the paint of newspapers in reality and the world, which can be read from them.

The actors are singing the Duo of Cats by Géza Hofi and János Koós, followed by their impish blinks as a prologue for the play by Jarry. However, it can create the basic mood of the performance, the director’s possible aim – according to which in this song Hofi and Koós’ personalities can “get together” as much as Papa Ubu and Mama Ubu’s do it – does not got any more concrete interpretation.

Zoltán Balázs’ staging of King Ubu is a really static one: the space of the performance, which is performed in the Maladype Base, is made of packs of newspapers: in the corner of the stage-room there is a huge, top of mountain of newspapers. The four male actors perform all the roles of the play. King Ubu (Ákos Orosz) while he is calling everything to be a shit, he is standing by his neck in the “dug” hole in the side of the mountain, the other three characters are dividing the space by forming a triangle. Lendváczky Zoltán, who performs mostly Mama Ubu is sitting on the top, the other two characters (for example Zsolt Páll in the role of Boggerlas and the Officers, Ádám Tompa in the roles of Captain Bordure and Councilors) are at the two foot of the mountain.

Papa Ubu lives through all of his adventures in his own hole, he does not move, sometimes he dives to get another toy. The other three characters sometimes climb up and down or crawl to him or if they need they would fight figuratively with one another. The dynamic of the performance is not hidden in the movements, but mostly in the telling and performing of the text: the expression of “sitting on edges” here means the same, the back of Mama Ubu is stuck by wooden sticks by Papa Ubu from underside, the other expression of “we can do it as well as a hitting on a circle” means the physical hitting on the circle of the tape. The abstract expressions get their own place, to the real ones usually there is a reference by a mocked scale of movements: the queen’s running is a good example for it, who moves her leg fast while laying on her son’s lap.

This special abstract world is strengthened by performing possibilities, which are hidden in the mountain of newspapers: the continuous mining, the finding of newer and newer properties. This world and its material – the newspaper – can give tools to reach any aims: Papa Ubu pushes it all the time into his mouth, a piece of paper can become the stolen baked slice of veal, the rat stew and other kind of foods too. But from these newspapers, shako, armour hat, a horse can be made too and then they can use them as puppets. King Vencel’s two sons are made of two packets of newspapers, and the competitor runners will be made of chain figures that have been cut of newspapers and thread on a string. The associative chains of the news of papers can actualize the performance: from time to time, according to the context they show up headlines, maybe with some politicians on the “picture”. Meanwhile between the executed nobles “there is” the “momentary caught” Simicskó too (maybe as the result of the improvisation of that day). But not to get too deep into the political references, between the next names we can find Meryl Streep or Federere, and a ghost of hospital appears too. Or: at the reference to the poor ones, appears an article, which enlists the politicians’ financial statements.

The performance is built on the stable mountain of doubtful articles, the whole world is based on the shit around us, Ubu is in it by his neck: he believes anything, which can be good for him. He symbolizes the values in a different way too: the King’s crown is a dental crown, which Ubu with greedy simplicity grabs from his ancestor’s, from Vencel’s mouth after his murdering, and at the same time fixes it into his own. The self-crowned King talks as the small mice of the cartoon (or if like it as Hofi and Koós). Ubu is a real creature of instincts, he does not have a real self-portrait, which he would like to live up to, but he listens to the impulses of his greed. The newspapers around him, in contrast to it, shows a world, which is shared to labelled roles, he believes in it too, as he cannot see above these. He does not even want to. The politicians and other celebs, who appear in the news of newspapers, accidentally mentioning can be similar to the moment when Ubu got to power: the coward man, who lives according to his deformed instincts and violence, gets to throne as an accidental happening, as an appearing news of paper, and then loses it with the same speed. He is turned by some kind of political and social wheel of fortune, as the “reality”, which is “shown” in the newspaper, and put together as a wallpaper of news.

We can feel anyway that the performance does not want to move in any political direction. It is the parody of parody anyway, where the pictures of actual social life serve just as the source of humour. We laugh because as we can see through Ubu’s glasses, to tell it by everyday words, our own misery.

Alfred Jarry’s was once born as the developed version of students’ tricks. Zoltán Balázs must have followed this kind of methods of creation too: the actors, in the well bordered and hardly recognizing space, in the most variable ways, would make scales of tricks, well-seemingly they enjoy it. And if the game goes too far, then they call from their role, that “well we should not do it”. By words to light fire above the newspapers, and to fire up this world of shit.

Ágnes Bakk, Ellenfény, 2010

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)