Katalin Gabnai: The confusion of intentions
The practical reason of this writing is a little opera, the Great Sound in the Rush, which was written by László Sáry to Sándor Weöres’ poem, titled Topic and Variations. It was performed by the Maladype Theatre and the members of the Qaartsiluni Ensemble, with Zoltán Balázs’ staging. Its emotional reason is my individual involvement, that state of soul, which can catch people while following amazed the meeting of talents. To all of it an analysing challenge can be connected to, as also those, who often go to theatre can feel themselves dizzy a little bit after the experience, which has been shown now, and they are unconsciously whispering the line – which anyway refers to love – by Gyula Juhász: “I do not know what it is, but it is very good.”
Everything is theatre – musical theatre! The older theatre critics tell it many times, and those, who have not understood it today, would understand it later. On the same way, everything depends on the approaching and moving away, deeps and height, opposites and similarities, on turning points which die into chime or silent, on the relationships, and the living of them, as in case of music. And to talk about the most important thing, a director can be very clever, enthusiastic if he does not have any sense of rhythm, it does not matter anything. “Rhythm, you are the nanny of hearts!” – as László Nagy says it, by venerated in from of the Greek rhei (flow, flowing) and in front of the Hungarian phenomenon and the feeling of the word, which comes from it. But while in case of music the score is given, in case of dance, they have a fixed choreography, in case of theatre, we always have to start everything from the zero, taking care of the contemporary time of the play, period of time, the presented viewers’ excepted accepting abilities at the same time, than later working with the abilities of the performers, the performance can be made, as a process, which can effect in area and time, which can be fulfilled with the present viewers’ creative abilities. I can follow, how something is formed, and if we do not have the excitement of birth in the performance, it would become a museum, an operation like pottering. The experience of procedure, which works well, always starts with the rising of expectation: Oh, so this is the topic. So, we have it. Then, how can we go on? What will be? Do we go on or stay? Are we flying? Are we falling? Are we living? Are we dying?
Topic and variations
Hungarian literature has got wonderful editors from life. And during the bright decades of book publishing Illyés, István Vas, István Kormos, Pál Réz, Éva Aszódi T and many others, have taken care carefully of the arriving of the books. For one of them, for István Tótfalusi we can thank for example, that in the scale of The gems of the international literature of the Kozmosz Books, that way the volume of the Tumbling muse could be published, in which we can find Edward Lear, who was brought up on the English nonsense poetry, he is the writer of the The Hanging Tree Song, Christian Morgenstern, and Apollinaire, Eluard and the foreign Dadaists bizarre poems, next to hem Károly Sirató Tankó, Ottó Orbán, Dezsó Tandori and others’ poems, which were upside down then by many seemed to be contemporary Hungarian poets. In this collection I have met first Sándor Weöres’ poem, titled Topic and variations, which has 12 items, and seemed to be classical even then. The first line of it is:
Today is a beautiful day, a real glow, the dogs are running around the edge of the ditch,
everyone is having a wonderful time and even the police radio is playing songs.
And then is goes on like this:
Today is a beautiful glow, all the time, the edges of the pit twerk in the
running, the day is passing with songs to everyone and a
patrol car shines even in the sound.
Then the third topic is here:
Today is a beautiful romp, a whole world, the edges of the pit gleam above the
dogs, time is passing splendidly today and the radio
patrol songs are even in the sound.
Then goes on like this, similary to a hamster wheel, which is made to go around, the words are falling and circulating in it, sometimes they are standing than hanging upside down, in another nine short topics. Later – after feeling more precisely the effects of talents on one another – these lines come into my mind. For example, when I met István Bella’s (1940-2006) and the poetic group’s, named the Sevens (István Ágh, Ferenc Buda, László Kalász, Sarolta Raffai, József Ratkó, Simon Serfőző) greatest poems. The analysts write about the common verbal use of the nouns in his poems, as characteristic signs of his poetry, (for example: “the soil just would like to put into soil...). Me myself, and my students too, the teenagers, adults, university students are ready to accept these things, as we have met “dogish edges of ditches” and “songs of prison van” in case of Weöres. We use the benefits we have got. There have not been any age groups, which have not enjoyed the rustling of the lines, especially when we could tell them in choir, canon, stronger and stronger, then softer and softer, making it more interesting with the usage of crying monologues. Last time in 2000, we played with it with the members of ELTE Stage. But music, it has never been under it. Later I heard, that there was a performance, which unfortunately I did not see, but I know that in the Chamber Hall of József Katona Theatre, in April, 2004, they performed the play, the music of which was composed by Láazló Sáry, together with the composer and university teacher’s students of art, who has been admired in all his working place. In the promoting text of that performance, we could read: “those kinds of texts will be formed, which have effects not with their meaning, but with their weird associations and musicality. This musicality is fulfilled with László Sáry’s composition. There are short, singing topics: arias, duetts, quartets, choirs are coming one after another, they are connected and divided with funny interludes. The parts – with the performance of the composer – are followed by piano, the interludes, which are similar to singing-speech (Sáry calls them “text-music”) and these are followed by the actors, who play the special instruments (with tile and wood tools and so on). The 26 parts, which are composed together, is about an hour long all together.” Even then the title was given by the elevated form from the ninth speech of the verbal kaleidoscope-like basic material by Weöres: Great Sound in the Rush.
Well, during the next ten years there were great meetings of performers and adventures of productions (I will write about them later). The important thing is, that the play in its present form, with the same performing team, in the evening of the 15th July, 2015, in Szombathely can appear again in front of the viewers, during the 31st International Bartók Seminar and Festival. This time the play was performed as the co-production of the Maladype Theatre and the Qaartsiluni Ensemble, the musical director of the performance was Lajos Rozmán and the director was Zoltán Balázs. The performers perform the play besides their instruments, with different stones, teak woods and with other creative „instruments“. The performing team has not changed since then:
László Borbély – piano
Lajos Rozmán – clarinet
Anna Rákóczy – flute
Anna Petrovics – flute
László Kéringer – vocal
Ildikó Duffek – vocal
Kata Huszárik – vocal, prose
Ágota Szilágyi – vocal, prose
The backstory of the event
When in the late autumn of 2016 I met the performance on the University of Theatre and Film Art, I was not very innocent in connection with the acceptable pleasures, because of the following things: At the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a course of dramatic teacher in the Vas Street. The lessons of creative music was held in my class by László Sáry too, and “I could see happiness” (J.A.) on the face of the participants, I could listen to the practices, and I have known the first version of that little, 150 pages long book, titled Creative musical practices by László Sáry. The book, which has pictures and figures in it, first was published in 1999 and for the last time in 2010 by the Jelenkor Kiadó. The book, which has been published also in German and English languages too, can be found in Hungarian language by the most determined ones – while we are waiting for its next publishing – in libraries, but they can find information on the internet too about the most important things, if they cannot buy it anymore. So I have had some ideas, about the sounding – before the Weöres-adaptations – of the musical performance of Tyukodi pajtás, which was performed by the students of acting course, and could be connected totally to László Sáry and the students, in 1999 in the Chamber Hall of Katona. This was the performance, which Tamás Ascher simply determined as “rap of the Rákóczi era”.
But the director’s, Zoltán Balázs’ performances, which I had seen also helped me “wait”: 2003 - Michel de Ghelderode: School for Fools - Maladype Theatre, 2004 - Maurice Maeterlinck: Pelléas and Mélisande - Bárka Theatre, 2004 – Sándor Weöres: Theomachia - Maladype Theatre - Bárka Theatre, 2008 - Georg Büchner: Leonce and Léna - Maladype Theatre, 2009 – Sándor Weöres: Egg(s)Hell - Maladype Theatre. The play with “sticks”, which could show a different face every evening, in the play by Büchner, still had to serve the actions of the given play. It required huge physical strength and high-levelled improvisational knowledge from the troupe. This was that performance, where Zoltán Balázs every evening took part in as a master of the performance. The Egg(s)Hell which was memorable, because of the group of pink flamingos, which were going around in the black place – this improvisative performance of moving theatre, which used the one line long Weöres’ poem as a title. It did not have any connected story, there was not any master of it, but its always changing music, compositions of place, which were made of objects and bodies. It all had elemental effect on the viewers and on the professional ones, on the critics too: "It is secret. It is ancient. It is modern. It is old fashioned. It is childishly innocent. It is cunning in a crafty way. It is obviously simple. It is complicated like a Chinese puzzle. It cannot be understood, however it is clear, as the rising dawn by the side of the river.” Péter Gál Molnár wrote about it. “Without a concrete story it is still meaningfully epic, it is a chain of scenes, which show us the ancient forms of behaviour and relationships, its choreography is soft. It was born in the director’s, Zoltán Balázs’ head, will, nerves who is drunken by the dreamy honeys, to make the members of Maladype live, circle, fall, slide it into mud, gold, muddy-gold.” – Tamás Tarján analysed it that way. (From my colleagues’ nice reports I have learnt that the Fernando Pessoa performance (This Ancient Anxiety), which was performed in Merlin Theatre in 1999, and then the Genet performance (The Blacks) from 2004, in the Maladype Theatre, showed the sings of that typical theatrical phrasing, which has been formed by today.)
The event
And now finally I could watch it. Finally, I could listen to it. I have watched it twice. For the second time the recognised demand by the director from the warming up rehearsal, has caused familiar joy: “Do not overwrite the previous ones!”. I do not know exactly who gets these instructions, but I know the basic rules of improvisation: Which you hear first, this is the true one. We cannot argue with it, we stand into it, accept it, we may climb from it with a phrase of “yes, but”. It can be also good. But if it is possible, never tell, never show, never state that NO, do not block any intentions, because it can make the play die, give up yourself to the possibilities, lie down on the edge of the play. I am not surprised, that Zoltán Balázs ends the rehearsal with the sentences: “Well! Today the clarinet starts! Have a good journey!” In the mostly empty, black place, there are eight, round, black piano chair with metal legs together with a piano, which is put into the right hand corner. Three different sized men are presented here, one of them is in black, the other one is in white, the third one is in grey theatrical training suit, they are wearing T-shirts and soft trousers. Next to the piano there are other main instruments too, there is a clarinet and two flutes. The musical beginning changes sometimes. The introduced ones can laughingly remember that moment, when we could suddenly listen to Bartók’s Allegro barbaro, but after the shock of the surprise, the staccato parts of it, could strengthen the performing energies. After the entrance, the performers are waiting in lonely poses, in forms of statue-like groups, without any movements. There are five beautiful young women on the stage, they are bare feet too, as well as the men, but all of them are wearing silk slip with classical forms, which never show any wrinkles. On the most blonde one, there is a brown dress, on the black haired one there is an ivory dress, on the three middle ones there dresses are getting lighter, and darker, as the opposite of the colours of their own hair. They start with some kind of tiny aria. There are beeping teak woods, the pushing of chests, palms that are hit on the thighs, claps with hundreds of different soundings, smacks and cries follow and overcome the changings of places, different couples are formed, groups are made. There are meetings, approaching, growing, softening, and the tensed measuring of the possibilities of relationships happen in the place. Invited, lived through and sent feelings are on the figures. During the building of “buoy-situations”, which are used as written, tried out final words of constructing forms, plays, which has molecule-like sizes, are formed. And how interesting, that these molecular happenings are similar to chemical processes, that way new kind of qualities are formed again and again, and the multi-layered symbolic moment can show itself up to the time. That we live that way. We are that kind of people. We win and lose. In the review of the Egg(s)Hell, those ancient-forms of relationships have appeared again, which Tamás Tarján has mentioned.
The previously written and fixed composition during the performance – I cannot use a better word – get somehow laced into the space. It is an acoustic embroidery of the place, which is born here in front of us. The given sounding effects help us live through the experience of the “AS THOUGH”, the plays in the space anyway, for example the flying by blowing of the red as embers, palm sized, down of a bird, its hide or robbery, or the breath-taking building of the tower from the piano chairs and its moving, can show us the tension of tricks. As it was sentenced by so punctually by Péter Gál Molnár, with the phrase of “MAYBE” – not without any kind of perfidity – but it can bring the excitement of the circus. The vision itself can wave and click, the music is flying with it and behind it, above and under it, by a very punctual, well-trained choreography, or it is followed by the shivering of the excitement of the trick, which is born now. They put on high-heels, they ruffle their freed hair up to be high, they backcomb it, the women are going on a mission of love, they move themselves as beautiful walking birds, and by the forming of opposing lines, the place appears as the form in the folk culture of the teasing of the girls and boys. The attacking starting of the girls, with lipsticks is followed by laughing, when the boxes of the lipsticks fall onto the black ground knocking, as jumping casings. With the picture of the scootering girl the joy of childish pride of owning. The phrases of “I have, you do not, that is your way – I am sorry” – turn into physical telling of lies: “Are you flirting? You will feel sorry for it! You will give it to me!” There are bodies, souls, games, sounding and the owning of balancing states and the leaving of them, and everything has been enchanted around us. The lamp turns into a sun, the dogs are barking, then we play a funeral. Through the great amount of models of movements we can see the well-known basic and higher levelled practices of moving, it can be recognised, that they have had concentrations and practices of trust once, which can gain poetic meaning now.
All the turns are possibilities to celebrate. However, there are not any concrete sign, which would refer to it, it is very interesting, that all the tensed moments of the staging, which is surrounded by question marks, refer to an opus by Pilinszky, the Preface of which starts that way:
„A young boy and a girl are in front of the curtain. They close their eyes, they are in the time of dreams. The boy with outstretched arms touches the girl’s shoulder.
YOUNG BOY
After a long, dream like break. I have touched you.
YOUNG GIRL
You have touched me.
YOUNG BOY
The performance can be begun.
YOUNG GIRL
Without any movements. I touch you.
YOUNG BOY
You touch me....”
Who believes me? I have found only after it on pages about László Sáry’s career that the composer has a chamber opera, which was written based on the play by János Pilinszky, titled the Tableau and performed first in 1993, when – have not been able to remember the music, but think about the motifs of Zoltán Balázs’ staging – I start involuntarily murmuring the introducing lines of the dramatic dialogues, which I read once. In this rainbow-like text, by the enjoyment of rolling dogs, after the noises get silent, as the choir of those, who are standing in the middle, were rocked by moving-away ships, with the rhythm of the beating of our heart, suddenly the feeling of passing appears somehow. A rocking goodbye is being prepared, the silent, nursing letting away makes us remember one of Sándor Weöres’ greatest poems, the Bolero. And everybody can feel that this is the topic here, even those, who has never met these lines: “All of us go away, from under the rocking trees, all of us, / under the humid sky all of us go away through the steppe / under the dry sky, all of those, who are here together.../ ...all of us are going away / always in a different way, behind the stars, on the circular wall of the steppe, / all of us who are finally here together, we all go away.” But in a strange way, not the sadness of the feeling of “we have to go”, but the elevating feeling of “We have been here!” can become important during the period of saying goodbye. For the ending scene, they always get somebody involved in from the viewers, who according to their shapes, can always get the rhythm of the last moments, and by it, they can prove the power of the common experience. And the fact that meanwhile we are here – “it is a beautiful day”.
In the empire of the bright D
The opera harmonic basis of the almost one hour-long semiseria (so: half serious) is the D, one of the most general sounding of the history of music – as it is said, the “bright, light tone of the glorification” – which is sometimes appears here with a dur or moll sounding. There are arias, duets, choirs that are changing many times with the sometimes serious then funny moods. This form, the opera semiseria, which is divided from the opera seria or melodrama by the presence of basso vufo, was formed at the end of the 18th century from the opera buffo, which the performers of that time thought to be too awkward. Especially the Italians like it. Donizetti Torquato’s play the Tasso and Linda di Chamounix can be put into this line, however The Thieving Magpie by Rossini and The Sleepwalker by Bellini and the opera, Benvenuto Cellini by Berlioz can be mentioned here. Between those musical soundings, which can be connected to this present tiny opera, we must mention the work by John Cage, which was almost ten minutes long, the Living Room Music, which was born in 1940, this composition, which was written mostly on irregular “instruments” – mostly those ordinary objects that are hit, shacked – and its rhythmical, multiple sounding, text-music part, titled the Story. (Who is interested in can find it on YouTube.) In Hungary the poetical inspiration was Sándor Weöres’ long poem, the Drum and dance, which six-voice text-canon, which was written by László Sáry, even Weöres, himself had “accepted” at the beginning of 90s. And it is not an accident that from time to time Bartók’s Allegro barbaro gets into the performance, this series of variations, which were written on ostinato bass, and made up of eight beats, this way to make hurry up, this cold repetition can give the pulsation of this present play. Between the twelve parts, which are in the poem, some relaxing parts are put in seven times, which can mean relaxing moments and preparation too. To the story we must mention, that Zoltán Balázs in the Vas Street was László Sáry’s student both on the course of actor and later of the director too. First Lajos Rozmán fell in love into this composition, who is the leader of the Qaartsiluni Ensemble, who could work perfectly together with Zoltán Balázs. The Ensemble debuted in February 2012 with great success in front of the viewers of Trafó. His own defined aim in the distance and his ars poetica too, is to “make us know the composers, and artistic performers of the area of Central Europe, to form works together, to rise the feeling of being together, to get a common thinking of without borders.” The word of “qaartsiluni”, which is not a common one, in reality it is an Eskimo expression, which means some kind of waiting for a great outburst, solidarity and reckless hope. (There is not any Hungarian expression for it, but why not the Eskimos have this kind of. According to the news, they can name 41 states of the snow, they can express these with different words. For example from the “dust like” snow until the falling, mushy state, just to ask for fast help two Hungarian poets, Lajos Áprily and Attila József.) Well, this troupe is important, because however, everybody knows everybody, everybody has worked together with everybody, the idea was born in Lajos Rozmán’s head, that László Sáry’s already existed work, which has been performed by other troupe too, should be given to Zoltán Balázs, who is the leading director of Maladype. The decision was followed by great workshop, but that mental and physical effort, that way of approaching by the performers, which they needed for this task, was not far from the actors and director of Maladype, at all. This troupe, which was formed in 2001 characterize themselves that way: “This theatre, over the years, has always remained that kind of troupe, which can redefined themselves again, which by getting into new context, has been able to get new recognitions, and they handle the changing of all the time as the natural process of theatre performances. They are consciously looking for the unexpected possibilities, which are given by theatrical and non-theatrical places, the irregular artistic solutions, and those direct reactions from the viewers, which are without any traditional theatrical expectations and classical ways of behaviour.” This theatrical behaviour could be perfectly connected to the given musical challenge. Sáry’s musical offer can work as ideal theatrical base. It is similar to the best dramatic texts, in the empty places, on the places, which are left free, can be connected and grown onto the actors, or we can say, we can trust the performers with this symbolic moment, which has a big effective power, the multi layered time, as we have already mentioned it. Here everybody talks, everybody plays music, and the musicians and actors are presented in a similarly fine way, during the elegant nature of waiting, they can attack and back down with the same power in the heat of the actions. This happy work can affect viewers too. We should search the possibilities of meetings.
......................................................................
Bonus – so connected pleasures – for mathematicians
Before saying goodbye let me draw attention to an article, which analyses Sándor Weöres’ combinatorial poems and written by dr. Ernő Keszei. It is started that way: “In more Sándor Weöres’ poems can find the combinatory editing idea, so the repetition and variation of the elements of the poem – mostly of the words – according to a given rule. Between these two poems are more important, according to their length and complexity, there are the “Topic and variations” and “The cloud of the sea...”. My 11 years old daughter has drown my attention to the first poem, who – however can learn poems easily – could not learn anyway the one of “Topic and variations”, meanwhile she wanted to do it. Originally, I tried to make the learning of the poem easier by finding out its structure, but finally it turns out that in the structure there is not many that kind of regularity, which can help the learning of the poem. In this report, I would show the basic structure and the combinatory analysis of this two mentioned poems.
The structure of the “Topic and variations”
In this quoted poem the normal, smaller letters can mark the permanent parts of the poem, which divided the changing parts, while the changing parts are marked by the basic letterform. For the later, easier identification we give numbers to the lines:
Topic and variations
1 Today is a beautiful day, a real glow, the dogs are running around the edge of the ditch,
and everyone is having a wonderful time and even the police radio is playing songs.
2 Today is a beautiful glow, all the time, the edges of the pit twerk in the running,
and the day is passing with songs to everyone and a patrol car shines even in the sound.
3 Today is a beautiful romp, a whole world, the edges of the pit gleam above the dogs,
and time is passing splendidly today and the radio patrol songs are even in the sound.
4 Today is a beautiful dog, all a running around, a patrol car is singing as it passes by,
and the whole world shines brightly, sounding by the edge of the pit, and time shines brightly even from the day.
5 Today is a beautiful edge of the pit, a whole song, a splendid sound from the dogs and
and everyone is spending the day in the patrol car, even time runs with radiance.
6 Today the whole world is beautiful, everything is splendid, the patrol car races along the edge of the ditch
and the dogs shine with sounds towards time, even the day is passing with songs.
7 Today is a splendidly beautiful, all a sound, scampering through the day from the edges of the pit,
and a tempered radio patrol shines over the dogs until everyone sings about passing by.
8 Today is a beautiful passing, quite a dog, a resplendent song in the day,
everyone timing splendidly in the radio patrol, even the running around is bordering the pit with sounds.
9 Today is a beautiful time, a whole radio patrol, a splendid sound in the running
and everyone is passing dogs on the edge of the pit, until the diareia song in radiance.
10 Today is a beautiful patrol car, a real sight, it shines brightly on the splendid day
and the edges of dog pits sound as they run around, even time itself sings.
11 Today is a beautiful song, a whole edge of the pit, dogs are splendid over passing
and running with sounds the whole world shines, even the time of day is in the radio patrol.
12 Today is a beautiful sound, all day long, the song runs along the edge of the pit,
and a splendid patrol car shines in time and everyone is dancing even as they pass by.
The analyzis of the poem is easier if we use codes of numbers instead of the words. The base forms of the first line we have numbered one by one, while the bordering elements do not get any numbers, so we will not work with them later on. The words according to their codes are these:
1 = sun
2 = ray
3 = running
4 = dog
5 = roadside
6 = everybody
7 = excellent
8 = fill
9 = time
10 = patrol car
11 = song
12 = voice
Well, I do not quote more. Let’s take it all as luring. And if you have reached so far with the reading, than I thank you for your patience.
Katalin Gabnai, GRAMOFON, 2017
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
Everything is theatre – musical theatre! The older theatre critics tell it many times, and those, who have not understood it today, would understand it later. On the same way, everything depends on the approaching and moving away, deeps and height, opposites and similarities, on turning points which die into chime or silent, on the relationships, and the living of them, as in case of music. And to talk about the most important thing, a director can be very clever, enthusiastic if he does not have any sense of rhythm, it does not matter anything. “Rhythm, you are the nanny of hearts!” – as László Nagy says it, by venerated in from of the Greek rhei (flow, flowing) and in front of the Hungarian phenomenon and the feeling of the word, which comes from it. But while in case of music the score is given, in case of dance, they have a fixed choreography, in case of theatre, we always have to start everything from the zero, taking care of the contemporary time of the play, period of time, the presented viewers’ excepted accepting abilities at the same time, than later working with the abilities of the performers, the performance can be made, as a process, which can effect in area and time, which can be fulfilled with the present viewers’ creative abilities. I can follow, how something is formed, and if we do not have the excitement of birth in the performance, it would become a museum, an operation like pottering. The experience of procedure, which works well, always starts with the rising of expectation: Oh, so this is the topic. So, we have it. Then, how can we go on? What will be? Do we go on or stay? Are we flying? Are we falling? Are we living? Are we dying?
Topic and variations
Hungarian literature has got wonderful editors from life. And during the bright decades of book publishing Illyés, István Vas, István Kormos, Pál Réz, Éva Aszódi T and many others, have taken care carefully of the arriving of the books. For one of them, for István Tótfalusi we can thank for example, that in the scale of The gems of the international literature of the Kozmosz Books, that way the volume of the Tumbling muse could be published, in which we can find Edward Lear, who was brought up on the English nonsense poetry, he is the writer of the The Hanging Tree Song, Christian Morgenstern, and Apollinaire, Eluard and the foreign Dadaists bizarre poems, next to hem Károly Sirató Tankó, Ottó Orbán, Dezsó Tandori and others’ poems, which were upside down then by many seemed to be contemporary Hungarian poets. In this collection I have met first Sándor Weöres’ poem, titled Topic and variations, which has 12 items, and seemed to be classical even then. The first line of it is:
Today is a beautiful day, a real glow, the dogs are running around the edge of the ditch,
everyone is having a wonderful time and even the police radio is playing songs.
And then is goes on like this:
Today is a beautiful glow, all the time, the edges of the pit twerk in the
running, the day is passing with songs to everyone and a
patrol car shines even in the sound.
Then the third topic is here:
Today is a beautiful romp, a whole world, the edges of the pit gleam above the
dogs, time is passing splendidly today and the radio
patrol songs are even in the sound.
Then goes on like this, similary to a hamster wheel, which is made to go around, the words are falling and circulating in it, sometimes they are standing than hanging upside down, in another nine short topics. Later – after feeling more precisely the effects of talents on one another – these lines come into my mind. For example, when I met István Bella’s (1940-2006) and the poetic group’s, named the Sevens (István Ágh, Ferenc Buda, László Kalász, Sarolta Raffai, József Ratkó, Simon Serfőző) greatest poems. The analysts write about the common verbal use of the nouns in his poems, as characteristic signs of his poetry, (for example: “the soil just would like to put into soil...). Me myself, and my students too, the teenagers, adults, university students are ready to accept these things, as we have met “dogish edges of ditches” and “songs of prison van” in case of Weöres. We use the benefits we have got. There have not been any age groups, which have not enjoyed the rustling of the lines, especially when we could tell them in choir, canon, stronger and stronger, then softer and softer, making it more interesting with the usage of crying monologues. Last time in 2000, we played with it with the members of ELTE Stage. But music, it has never been under it. Later I heard, that there was a performance, which unfortunately I did not see, but I know that in the Chamber Hall of József Katona Theatre, in April, 2004, they performed the play, the music of which was composed by Láazló Sáry, together with the composer and university teacher’s students of art, who has been admired in all his working place. In the promoting text of that performance, we could read: “those kinds of texts will be formed, which have effects not with their meaning, but with their weird associations and musicality. This musicality is fulfilled with László Sáry’s composition. There are short, singing topics: arias, duetts, quartets, choirs are coming one after another, they are connected and divided with funny interludes. The parts – with the performance of the composer – are followed by piano, the interludes, which are similar to singing-speech (Sáry calls them “text-music”) and these are followed by the actors, who play the special instruments (with tile and wood tools and so on). The 26 parts, which are composed together, is about an hour long all together.” Even then the title was given by the elevated form from the ninth speech of the verbal kaleidoscope-like basic material by Weöres: Great Sound in the Rush.
Well, during the next ten years there were great meetings of performers and adventures of productions (I will write about them later). The important thing is, that the play in its present form, with the same performing team, in the evening of the 15th July, 2015, in Szombathely can appear again in front of the viewers, during the 31st International Bartók Seminar and Festival. This time the play was performed as the co-production of the Maladype Theatre and the Qaartsiluni Ensemble, the musical director of the performance was Lajos Rozmán and the director was Zoltán Balázs. The performers perform the play besides their instruments, with different stones, teak woods and with other creative „instruments“. The performing team has not changed since then:
László Borbély – piano
Lajos Rozmán – clarinet
Anna Rákóczy – flute
Anna Petrovics – flute
László Kéringer – vocal
Ildikó Duffek – vocal
Kata Huszárik – vocal, prose
Ágota Szilágyi – vocal, prose
The backstory of the event
When in the late autumn of 2016 I met the performance on the University of Theatre and Film Art, I was not very innocent in connection with the acceptable pleasures, because of the following things: At the beginning of the 2000s, there has been a course of dramatic teacher in the Vas Street. The lessons of creative music was held in my class by László Sáry too, and “I could see happiness” (J.A.) on the face of the participants, I could listen to the practices, and I have known the first version of that little, 150 pages long book, titled Creative musical practices by László Sáry. The book, which has pictures and figures in it, first was published in 1999 and for the last time in 2010 by the Jelenkor Kiadó. The book, which has been published also in German and English languages too, can be found in Hungarian language by the most determined ones – while we are waiting for its next publishing – in libraries, but they can find information on the internet too about the most important things, if they cannot buy it anymore. So I have had some ideas, about the sounding – before the Weöres-adaptations – of the musical performance of Tyukodi pajtás, which was performed by the students of acting course, and could be connected totally to László Sáry and the students, in 1999 in the Chamber Hall of Katona. This was the performance, which Tamás Ascher simply determined as “rap of the Rákóczi era”.
But the director’s, Zoltán Balázs’ performances, which I had seen also helped me “wait”: 2003 - Michel de Ghelderode: School for Fools - Maladype Theatre, 2004 - Maurice Maeterlinck: Pelléas and Mélisande - Bárka Theatre, 2004 – Sándor Weöres: Theomachia - Maladype Theatre - Bárka Theatre, 2008 - Georg Büchner: Leonce and Léna - Maladype Theatre, 2009 – Sándor Weöres: Egg(s)Hell - Maladype Theatre. The play with “sticks”, which could show a different face every evening, in the play by Büchner, still had to serve the actions of the given play. It required huge physical strength and high-levelled improvisational knowledge from the troupe. This was that performance, where Zoltán Balázs every evening took part in as a master of the performance. The Egg(s)Hell which was memorable, because of the group of pink flamingos, which were going around in the black place – this improvisative performance of moving theatre, which used the one line long Weöres’ poem as a title. It did not have any connected story, there was not any master of it, but its always changing music, compositions of place, which were made of objects and bodies. It all had elemental effect on the viewers and on the professional ones, on the critics too: "It is secret. It is ancient. It is modern. It is old fashioned. It is childishly innocent. It is cunning in a crafty way. It is obviously simple. It is complicated like a Chinese puzzle. It cannot be understood, however it is clear, as the rising dawn by the side of the river.” Péter Gál Molnár wrote about it. “Without a concrete story it is still meaningfully epic, it is a chain of scenes, which show us the ancient forms of behaviour and relationships, its choreography is soft. It was born in the director’s, Zoltán Balázs’ head, will, nerves who is drunken by the dreamy honeys, to make the members of Maladype live, circle, fall, slide it into mud, gold, muddy-gold.” – Tamás Tarján analysed it that way. (From my colleagues’ nice reports I have learnt that the Fernando Pessoa performance (This Ancient Anxiety), which was performed in Merlin Theatre in 1999, and then the Genet performance (The Blacks) from 2004, in the Maladype Theatre, showed the sings of that typical theatrical phrasing, which has been formed by today.)
The event
And now finally I could watch it. Finally, I could listen to it. I have watched it twice. For the second time the recognised demand by the director from the warming up rehearsal, has caused familiar joy: “Do not overwrite the previous ones!”. I do not know exactly who gets these instructions, but I know the basic rules of improvisation: Which you hear first, this is the true one. We cannot argue with it, we stand into it, accept it, we may climb from it with a phrase of “yes, but”. It can be also good. But if it is possible, never tell, never show, never state that NO, do not block any intentions, because it can make the play die, give up yourself to the possibilities, lie down on the edge of the play. I am not surprised, that Zoltán Balázs ends the rehearsal with the sentences: “Well! Today the clarinet starts! Have a good journey!” In the mostly empty, black place, there are eight, round, black piano chair with metal legs together with a piano, which is put into the right hand corner. Three different sized men are presented here, one of them is in black, the other one is in white, the third one is in grey theatrical training suit, they are wearing T-shirts and soft trousers. Next to the piano there are other main instruments too, there is a clarinet and two flutes. The musical beginning changes sometimes. The introduced ones can laughingly remember that moment, when we could suddenly listen to Bartók’s Allegro barbaro, but after the shock of the surprise, the staccato parts of it, could strengthen the performing energies. After the entrance, the performers are waiting in lonely poses, in forms of statue-like groups, without any movements. There are five beautiful young women on the stage, they are bare feet too, as well as the men, but all of them are wearing silk slip with classical forms, which never show any wrinkles. On the most blonde one, there is a brown dress, on the black haired one there is an ivory dress, on the three middle ones there dresses are getting lighter, and darker, as the opposite of the colours of their own hair. They start with some kind of tiny aria. There are beeping teak woods, the pushing of chests, palms that are hit on the thighs, claps with hundreds of different soundings, smacks and cries follow and overcome the changings of places, different couples are formed, groups are made. There are meetings, approaching, growing, softening, and the tensed measuring of the possibilities of relationships happen in the place. Invited, lived through and sent feelings are on the figures. During the building of “buoy-situations”, which are used as written, tried out final words of constructing forms, plays, which has molecule-like sizes, are formed. And how interesting, that these molecular happenings are similar to chemical processes, that way new kind of qualities are formed again and again, and the multi-layered symbolic moment can show itself up to the time. That we live that way. We are that kind of people. We win and lose. In the review of the Egg(s)Hell, those ancient-forms of relationships have appeared again, which Tamás Tarján has mentioned.
The previously written and fixed composition during the performance – I cannot use a better word – get somehow laced into the space. It is an acoustic embroidery of the place, which is born here in front of us. The given sounding effects help us live through the experience of the “AS THOUGH”, the plays in the space anyway, for example the flying by blowing of the red as embers, palm sized, down of a bird, its hide or robbery, or the breath-taking building of the tower from the piano chairs and its moving, can show us the tension of tricks. As it was sentenced by so punctually by Péter Gál Molnár, with the phrase of “MAYBE” – not without any kind of perfidity – but it can bring the excitement of the circus. The vision itself can wave and click, the music is flying with it and behind it, above and under it, by a very punctual, well-trained choreography, or it is followed by the shivering of the excitement of the trick, which is born now. They put on high-heels, they ruffle their freed hair up to be high, they backcomb it, the women are going on a mission of love, they move themselves as beautiful walking birds, and by the forming of opposing lines, the place appears as the form in the folk culture of the teasing of the girls and boys. The attacking starting of the girls, with lipsticks is followed by laughing, when the boxes of the lipsticks fall onto the black ground knocking, as jumping casings. With the picture of the scootering girl the joy of childish pride of owning. The phrases of “I have, you do not, that is your way – I am sorry” – turn into physical telling of lies: “Are you flirting? You will feel sorry for it! You will give it to me!” There are bodies, souls, games, sounding and the owning of balancing states and the leaving of them, and everything has been enchanted around us. The lamp turns into a sun, the dogs are barking, then we play a funeral. Through the great amount of models of movements we can see the well-known basic and higher levelled practices of moving, it can be recognised, that they have had concentrations and practices of trust once, which can gain poetic meaning now.
All the turns are possibilities to celebrate. However, there are not any concrete sign, which would refer to it, it is very interesting, that all the tensed moments of the staging, which is surrounded by question marks, refer to an opus by Pilinszky, the Preface of which starts that way:
„A young boy and a girl are in front of the curtain. They close their eyes, they are in the time of dreams. The boy with outstretched arms touches the girl’s shoulder.
YOUNG BOY
After a long, dream like break. I have touched you.
YOUNG GIRL
You have touched me.
YOUNG BOY
The performance can be begun.
YOUNG GIRL
Without any movements. I touch you.
YOUNG BOY
You touch me....”
Who believes me? I have found only after it on pages about László Sáry’s career that the composer has a chamber opera, which was written based on the play by János Pilinszky, titled the Tableau and performed first in 1993, when – have not been able to remember the music, but think about the motifs of Zoltán Balázs’ staging – I start involuntarily murmuring the introducing lines of the dramatic dialogues, which I read once. In this rainbow-like text, by the enjoyment of rolling dogs, after the noises get silent, as the choir of those, who are standing in the middle, were rocked by moving-away ships, with the rhythm of the beating of our heart, suddenly the feeling of passing appears somehow. A rocking goodbye is being prepared, the silent, nursing letting away makes us remember one of Sándor Weöres’ greatest poems, the Bolero. And everybody can feel that this is the topic here, even those, who has never met these lines: “All of us go away, from under the rocking trees, all of us, / under the humid sky all of us go away through the steppe / under the dry sky, all of those, who are here together.../ ...all of us are going away / always in a different way, behind the stars, on the circular wall of the steppe, / all of us who are finally here together, we all go away.” But in a strange way, not the sadness of the feeling of “we have to go”, but the elevating feeling of “We have been here!” can become important during the period of saying goodbye. For the ending scene, they always get somebody involved in from the viewers, who according to their shapes, can always get the rhythm of the last moments, and by it, they can prove the power of the common experience. And the fact that meanwhile we are here – “it is a beautiful day”.
In the empire of the bright D
The opera harmonic basis of the almost one hour-long semiseria (so: half serious) is the D, one of the most general sounding of the history of music – as it is said, the “bright, light tone of the glorification” – which is sometimes appears here with a dur or moll sounding. There are arias, duets, choirs that are changing many times with the sometimes serious then funny moods. This form, the opera semiseria, which is divided from the opera seria or melodrama by the presence of basso vufo, was formed at the end of the 18th century from the opera buffo, which the performers of that time thought to be too awkward. Especially the Italians like it. Donizetti Torquato’s play the Tasso and Linda di Chamounix can be put into this line, however The Thieving Magpie by Rossini and The Sleepwalker by Bellini and the opera, Benvenuto Cellini by Berlioz can be mentioned here. Between those musical soundings, which can be connected to this present tiny opera, we must mention the work by John Cage, which was almost ten minutes long, the Living Room Music, which was born in 1940, this composition, which was written mostly on irregular “instruments” – mostly those ordinary objects that are hit, shacked – and its rhythmical, multiple sounding, text-music part, titled the Story. (Who is interested in can find it on YouTube.) In Hungary the poetical inspiration was Sándor Weöres’ long poem, the Drum and dance, which six-voice text-canon, which was written by László Sáry, even Weöres, himself had “accepted” at the beginning of 90s. And it is not an accident that from time to time Bartók’s Allegro barbaro gets into the performance, this series of variations, which were written on ostinato bass, and made up of eight beats, this way to make hurry up, this cold repetition can give the pulsation of this present play. Between the twelve parts, which are in the poem, some relaxing parts are put in seven times, which can mean relaxing moments and preparation too. To the story we must mention, that Zoltán Balázs in the Vas Street was László Sáry’s student both on the course of actor and later of the director too. First Lajos Rozmán fell in love into this composition, who is the leader of the Qaartsiluni Ensemble, who could work perfectly together with Zoltán Balázs. The Ensemble debuted in February 2012 with great success in front of the viewers of Trafó. His own defined aim in the distance and his ars poetica too, is to “make us know the composers, and artistic performers of the area of Central Europe, to form works together, to rise the feeling of being together, to get a common thinking of without borders.” The word of “qaartsiluni”, which is not a common one, in reality it is an Eskimo expression, which means some kind of waiting for a great outburst, solidarity and reckless hope. (There is not any Hungarian expression for it, but why not the Eskimos have this kind of. According to the news, they can name 41 states of the snow, they can express these with different words. For example from the “dust like” snow until the falling, mushy state, just to ask for fast help two Hungarian poets, Lajos Áprily and Attila József.) Well, this troupe is important, because however, everybody knows everybody, everybody has worked together with everybody, the idea was born in Lajos Rozmán’s head, that László Sáry’s already existed work, which has been performed by other troupe too, should be given to Zoltán Balázs, who is the leading director of Maladype. The decision was followed by great workshop, but that mental and physical effort, that way of approaching by the performers, which they needed for this task, was not far from the actors and director of Maladype, at all. This troupe, which was formed in 2001 characterize themselves that way: “This theatre, over the years, has always remained that kind of troupe, which can redefined themselves again, which by getting into new context, has been able to get new recognitions, and they handle the changing of all the time as the natural process of theatre performances. They are consciously looking for the unexpected possibilities, which are given by theatrical and non-theatrical places, the irregular artistic solutions, and those direct reactions from the viewers, which are without any traditional theatrical expectations and classical ways of behaviour.” This theatrical behaviour could be perfectly connected to the given musical challenge. Sáry’s musical offer can work as ideal theatrical base. It is similar to the best dramatic texts, in the empty places, on the places, which are left free, can be connected and grown onto the actors, or we can say, we can trust the performers with this symbolic moment, which has a big effective power, the multi layered time, as we have already mentioned it. Here everybody talks, everybody plays music, and the musicians and actors are presented in a similarly fine way, during the elegant nature of waiting, they can attack and back down with the same power in the heat of the actions. This happy work can affect viewers too. We should search the possibilities of meetings.
......................................................................
Bonus – so connected pleasures – for mathematicians
Before saying goodbye let me draw attention to an article, which analyses Sándor Weöres’ combinatorial poems and written by dr. Ernő Keszei. It is started that way: “In more Sándor Weöres’ poems can find the combinatory editing idea, so the repetition and variation of the elements of the poem – mostly of the words – according to a given rule. Between these two poems are more important, according to their length and complexity, there are the “Topic and variations” and “The cloud of the sea...”. My 11 years old daughter has drown my attention to the first poem, who – however can learn poems easily – could not learn anyway the one of “Topic and variations”, meanwhile she wanted to do it. Originally, I tried to make the learning of the poem easier by finding out its structure, but finally it turns out that in the structure there is not many that kind of regularity, which can help the learning of the poem. In this report, I would show the basic structure and the combinatory analysis of this two mentioned poems.
The structure of the “Topic and variations”
In this quoted poem the normal, smaller letters can mark the permanent parts of the poem, which divided the changing parts, while the changing parts are marked by the basic letterform. For the later, easier identification we give numbers to the lines:
Topic and variations
1 Today is a beautiful day, a real glow, the dogs are running around the edge of the ditch,
and everyone is having a wonderful time and even the police radio is playing songs.
2 Today is a beautiful glow, all the time, the edges of the pit twerk in the running,
and the day is passing with songs to everyone and a patrol car shines even in the sound.
3 Today is a beautiful romp, a whole world, the edges of the pit gleam above the dogs,
and time is passing splendidly today and the radio patrol songs are even in the sound.
4 Today is a beautiful dog, all a running around, a patrol car is singing as it passes by,
and the whole world shines brightly, sounding by the edge of the pit, and time shines brightly even from the day.
5 Today is a beautiful edge of the pit, a whole song, a splendid sound from the dogs and
and everyone is spending the day in the patrol car, even time runs with radiance.
6 Today the whole world is beautiful, everything is splendid, the patrol car races along the edge of the ditch
and the dogs shine with sounds towards time, even the day is passing with songs.
7 Today is a splendidly beautiful, all a sound, scampering through the day from the edges of the pit,
and a tempered radio patrol shines over the dogs until everyone sings about passing by.
8 Today is a beautiful passing, quite a dog, a resplendent song in the day,
everyone timing splendidly in the radio patrol, even the running around is bordering the pit with sounds.
9 Today is a beautiful time, a whole radio patrol, a splendid sound in the running
and everyone is passing dogs on the edge of the pit, until the diareia song in radiance.
10 Today is a beautiful patrol car, a real sight, it shines brightly on the splendid day
and the edges of dog pits sound as they run around, even time itself sings.
11 Today is a beautiful song, a whole edge of the pit, dogs are splendid over passing
and running with sounds the whole world shines, even the time of day is in the radio patrol.
12 Today is a beautiful sound, all day long, the song runs along the edge of the pit,
and a splendid patrol car shines in time and everyone is dancing even as they pass by.
The analyzis of the poem is easier if we use codes of numbers instead of the words. The base forms of the first line we have numbered one by one, while the bordering elements do not get any numbers, so we will not work with them later on. The words according to their codes are these:
1 = sun
2 = ray
3 = running
4 = dog
5 = roadside
6 = everybody
7 = excellent
8 = fill
9 = time
10 = patrol car
11 = song
12 = voice
Well, I do not quote more. Let’s take it all as luring. And if you have reached so far with the reading, than I thank you for your patience.
Katalin Gabnai, GRAMOFON, 2017
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)