Maladype has not kept for weeks the secret of the performance, to be able to start the premiere with surprises: anybody can visit the process of rehearsals. The King Ubu is not performed on the stage, but in a flat, on the piles of newspapers in the corner. The troupe de-theatricalize and makes theatre too.

The Maladype on a new base, at the 2 of Mikszáth Square, not many things make us remember a theatre: it is like we are arriving as guests for the newest performance of the troupe, for the premiere of the King Ubu. Hi, terrible ones! – Zoltán Balázs, the director greats us, as a host in the cosy flat. On the holders there are coats of a party, in the room a nice warmth of a home, in the light of the lamps of the streets, there is snowing. The informal start is going on in Balázs’ introduction, which can ease two kinds of anxieties by viewers too. On one side, the director tells some sentences about his conception (that he treats King Ubu as a student trick now), so the viewers do not have to worry, that they would stay alone during the process of interpretation of the performance. On the other hand, the host adds to it fast, that the small intimate space of the room does not serve the viewers’ involvement.

On a part of the viewers can be seen well, that they move familiarly in the space of the performance: from some of their bags, an Ubu book is out, they listen to other things and other ways, some jokes seem to be inner ones. The rehearsals of King Ubu were going on in front of the viewers and with their involvement – it is another gesture of de-theatricalization, with the help of it the wall between the viewers and actors can be ruined down. According to the witnesses the initiation was very successful: the rehearsals had returning visitors and the performance has used many ideas by the viewers.

Fortunately, the sense of familiarity is not only the returning viewers’ privilege; the outsiders get something too from this freedom, and it remains all through the performance. The King Ubu by Maladype does not push us into the ground, and it main aim is not to make the viewers face up to themselves (the ugliest and most frightening versions of it), but to fascinate them with creative energy. Alfred Jarry’s play was originally written as a student joke to mock a teacher, and the Maladype emphasises now this part – that way he pulled out the poisonous tooth of King Ubu, and makes the performers loveable homo ludens, who gets the role of littler students, themselves too.

The performance consistently keeps the student-like context: as students from a boy grammar school entertain their classmates during the empty lessons. Ákos Orosz, Ádám Tompa and Zsolt Páll wear little-boy like shorts and suspenders (costume: Kamilla Fátyol). The actors can use very creatively the minimalised tool-bars of a technical class: newspapers, glue, scissors, tape. Ákos Orosz makes “false teeth” for himself from newspapers, when he steps on throne as a king, then he pins on wooden sticks the pieces of newspapers, which stand in for the killed nobles. His Ubu is wild and naughty boy anyway, who cannot leave even for a moment his self-centred world, from the middle of the newspaper-mountain. Orosz’s performance is so free, that he can reflect on his mistakes and even on the pimple on his forehead. Mama Ubu (Zoltán Lendváczky) pampers her husband with bites of newspapers, and he stands in the role of the wife (wives) and bear. Ádám Tompa and Zsolt Páll perform through virtuously the other roles – they assist almost with childish joy to their ruler’s game. It is indicated by newspaper moustache and hat if Ádám Tompa performs Captain Bordure. Zsolt Páll entertains the viewers and Ubu’s dinner guests with wooden sticks, which are put between his toes. He gives physical punishments too.

The location – the pile of newspapers in the corner of a room, as secondary grammar school boys enter the newspapers collecting warehouse of the school – it is a mountain to climb and explore and a calm island without the adults’ ordering glances. Through the newspapers the real world comes into the childish closed world: the performers grab many possibilities to read up a news summary instead of the original text of the play. The Polish noble people, who line up in front of King Ubu, are celebs, sportsmen, politicians’ pictures, which are torn from newspapers.

The performance of Maladype is a free spark of ideas, the appearance of limitless childish fantasy and creative energy.

Andrea Rádai, Revizoronline, 2010

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)