Ágnes Bakk: Who knows what about film in 66 parts
The Exercises in Style performance of Maladype Theatre should be watched by all enthusiasts of film. Anyway, it is hard for those, whose knowledge about films are on under construction state, but they can even get an encouragement. But what kind of exercises, the performance, staged by Zoltán Balázs, is about?
“There are 66 scenes instead of 99” – the director starts his introduction with it, before the performance, and he also mentions, that if we see a scene and we do not recognise that which film must have been quoted there, do not think about it more, but let us just accept the next one. However, we can meet many things from Takeshi Kitano, through Fellini until the Pulp Fiction, while also the Godfather smokes behind his cigar. The performance is characterised by the unbelievable, almost unfollowable diversity, while Raymond Queneau’s play the Exercises in Style shows the interpretation of one story in 99 versions. Since Queneau (and his Hungarian translator: Róbert Bognár) was genius, because he could write the same story in 99 different genres, meanwhile the Troupe of Maladype performs the same in the styles of 66 different films. They have reduced the number, because they realise that the Hungarian viewers, especially in the given narrow place, can bear that amount without greater suffering. We should add to it, that all happens with full houses of 120 percent.
At the beginning we can see a typical figure, who is sitting backwards (Ákos Orosz), who tells his story while he is typing, according to it, that day on bus number five, his attention was raised by a weird looking – who has unnatural long neck – young man, who pushed the others on the bus. Which is surprising, that the storyteller, some hours later, could see the same man, talking to one of his friends, who is educated about the fact, that he should sew another button onto his coat. It can be a mystical, unsolved story, or even an everyday side moment. The way, as he tells it, is not something like this. The beginning of the performance is almost frightening: it starts with The Shining. Then newer and newer scenes are coming, and they tell the story differently. The story has an inner mathematic, there are repeated long scenes and meanwhile the actors’ performances are also enchanting.
We have already know about Maladype, that the performing troupe prepares everything for themselves, they find out everything together, they even build up the set together. This kind of unity can be felt from the performance too: however, they “wear” different costume and expressive properties in each scenes. Their ability to connect to each other and the newer styles show us their great experience and feelings of community. Of course, those viewers, who have not recognised any filmish styles for a while, have started to pay attention to the way, how the four performers comes one after another (the already mentioned, Orosz, Zoltán Lendváczky, Erika Tankó and Ágota Szilágyi), how fast they can change costumes, that they are inside even those scenes, where they cannot be seen anyway. The atmosphere of The Shining cannot remain all the time, it is true, that there are some other horrific scenes, for example, Metropolis is cited by the prolonged shadows, and some moments are Twin Peaks-like. (However, maybe it has not been the aim, just the writer of these lines, as a viewer would like to see them everywhere).
The performance can be an excellent subject for lessons of film history, as it is a practice field for different styles and films, from the silent films until The Lord of Rings.
However, the expression of postmodern and post-dramatic has become a little bit old-fashioned, but the performance can be a good example of them. Not the empathy is the most important one, not the structure of the dramaturgy, which try to reach the viewers’ catharsis, but the continuous disruption is the important one, that way, the story is continuously repeated. Anyway, even in the fragmentation of the performance, which is built on sequences, there is a punctually built up and executed aim: Takeshi Kitano’s puppets are going on, and pull each other many times through the corridor like stage, and they always tell something from the well-known story. And they pull each other even finally. We should not explain why. It is wonderful.
Spoiler: after the performance, the director answered to out question that soon a detailed list would be made too, about the film, which “can be seen” in the performance.
Ágnes Bakk, mandarchiv.hu, 2015
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
“There are 66 scenes instead of 99” – the director starts his introduction with it, before the performance, and he also mentions, that if we see a scene and we do not recognise that which film must have been quoted there, do not think about it more, but let us just accept the next one. However, we can meet many things from Takeshi Kitano, through Fellini until the Pulp Fiction, while also the Godfather smokes behind his cigar. The performance is characterised by the unbelievable, almost unfollowable diversity, while Raymond Queneau’s play the Exercises in Style shows the interpretation of one story in 99 versions. Since Queneau (and his Hungarian translator: Róbert Bognár) was genius, because he could write the same story in 99 different genres, meanwhile the Troupe of Maladype performs the same in the styles of 66 different films. They have reduced the number, because they realise that the Hungarian viewers, especially in the given narrow place, can bear that amount without greater suffering. We should add to it, that all happens with full houses of 120 percent.
At the beginning we can see a typical figure, who is sitting backwards (Ákos Orosz), who tells his story while he is typing, according to it, that day on bus number five, his attention was raised by a weird looking – who has unnatural long neck – young man, who pushed the others on the bus. Which is surprising, that the storyteller, some hours later, could see the same man, talking to one of his friends, who is educated about the fact, that he should sew another button onto his coat. It can be a mystical, unsolved story, or even an everyday side moment. The way, as he tells it, is not something like this. The beginning of the performance is almost frightening: it starts with The Shining. Then newer and newer scenes are coming, and they tell the story differently. The story has an inner mathematic, there are repeated long scenes and meanwhile the actors’ performances are also enchanting.
We have already know about Maladype, that the performing troupe prepares everything for themselves, they find out everything together, they even build up the set together. This kind of unity can be felt from the performance too: however, they “wear” different costume and expressive properties in each scenes. Their ability to connect to each other and the newer styles show us their great experience and feelings of community. Of course, those viewers, who have not recognised any filmish styles for a while, have started to pay attention to the way, how the four performers comes one after another (the already mentioned, Orosz, Zoltán Lendváczky, Erika Tankó and Ágota Szilágyi), how fast they can change costumes, that they are inside even those scenes, where they cannot be seen anyway. The atmosphere of The Shining cannot remain all the time, it is true, that there are some other horrific scenes, for example, Metropolis is cited by the prolonged shadows, and some moments are Twin Peaks-like. (However, maybe it has not been the aim, just the writer of these lines, as a viewer would like to see them everywhere).
The performance can be an excellent subject for lessons of film history, as it is a practice field for different styles and films, from the silent films until The Lord of Rings.
However, the expression of postmodern and post-dramatic has become a little bit old-fashioned, but the performance can be a good example of them. Not the empathy is the most important one, not the structure of the dramaturgy, which try to reach the viewers’ catharsis, but the continuous disruption is the important one, that way, the story is continuously repeated. Anyway, even in the fragmentation of the performance, which is built on sequences, there is a punctually built up and executed aim: Takeshi Kitano’s puppets are going on, and pull each other many times through the corridor like stage, and they always tell something from the well-known story. And they pull each other even finally. We should not explain why. It is wonderful.
Spoiler: after the performance, the director answered to out question that soon a detailed list would be made too, about the film, which “can be seen” in the performance.
Ágnes Bakk, mandarchiv.hu, 2015
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)