It is worse to do a brave conception cowardly, than not to accept it, and that way do not do anything. Then people would not accept anything, they are just acting out thing, performing on stage, moralizing a little bit on the stage, and after the applause everybody can go home without any more special pains, and forget about everything short after. But when most of the theatrical properties and a brave idea are also presented for a performance, then all the missed acts on stage can be stabs into Thalia’s heart. It is compromise and bartering away.

The performance of the troupe of Maladype, after we have spent a hundred and thirty minutes in an under-lighted place with bad acoustic, at once indicates that it is the Macbeth, which has gone so far in a weird acoustic trap, towards a totally untouchable and imperceptible, possible ending (fate). After all it is nothing else than a big social metaphor, in which the one with despotic tendency, can get on the throne in a sinful way, and the king, who is crueller and crueller is eaten up by community of rats (mean it by words, with many rats). This must be the “brave” part of it, however, if we leave it, the use of strings, which criticise the political system, means courage as a matter of right. We must admit, it should not be a big thing on its own, then not so many brave things would remain in the artistic conception, which tries to avoid fearfully the concrete ones. But let’s start at the beginning.

The beginning is funny. A pencil puppet, which is similar to the Menő Manó – in Zoltán Lendváczky and Erika Tankó’s hand this puppet can become vivid – tries to carry a basin, which is three times bigger than it is, in it the cut head of an important person can be found. This is a likeable part of the performance; it is a returning figure, together with the punctual and humble puppet work, always become a refreshing phenomenon on the stage. But even then it seems to be fatal, that 1) it is hard to hear the text, which volume has not been matched to the area of the Trafó, 2) basically the actors are working with scales and not interpretations. Mostly in the performance, it does not turn out, that the given sentences – which are strongly cut parts of Macbeth, which concentrates on the morals, colouring, feelings instead of the happenings – are told on behalf of what. Many times the form is more important than the content, then the form also gets tired, and it is endlessly goes on, many times it is monotonous, its slow and reserved flow of text does not want to get into anyway the lines of the viewers. Everything has its meaning, but only a few sentences can get real meaning, which is really painful, because two excellent actors get lost in the form world of the director, which seems to be rather self-serving, like Ákos Orosz and Andrea Petrik, who obviously could be wonderful Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Now it can be felt, that somehow Zoltán Balázs’s staging individuality and the actors’ performances (from which, we can see that they do not miss the energy) cannot find a common voice. Because of it, the basically formalist surrounding goes against the reserved, precisely set telling of the text, which must be overthought, and they cancel reliably each other out. The place, which must be fine-artistically interesting with the huge throne of a rat skeleton – also the director’s design – turns out to be useless as a set on stage – or maybe the actors have not got used to it, or maybe the director has not caught up with the set designer. The stylized area, which combines the stylizes text telling with the stylized lights and costumes, stylized music and a little bit cacophonous leading of actors. The constructed gestures cannot find the common voice with the instinctive outburst of feelings in the offered area – it seems to get over that elevated phase, which a stage can handle. And which slows down even more the viewers’ subjective sense of time, is the fact that besides the puppet we can find the sparks of humour only in case of Pál Péter Szűcs’ musician, who is without any trousers, but the whole performance tries to prevent that it can become a little flame, even for a moment. Before the desperate experience of endlessness could take over the auditorium, suddenly a moment happens, which can show theatre again to be a spontaneous, witty and living organism. A rat – who knows how – gets free from behind the carefully closed plastic thing, and it starts walking around the actors’ legs with interest, and it can raise instinctive, childish reactions from the faint viewers. Deus ex machina? If it is then Thalia has a sense of humour at least, but it is for sure, that it marks well: some kind of elemental thing has been missing from the stage up until this moment, without which there is no theatre.

Balázs Zsedényi, 7óra7, 2013

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)