About two performances of the 10th Shakespeare Festival of Gyula (extract)

This year, at the beginning of June, the Shakespeare Festival in Pécs has been held for the tenth time, this Shakespeare celebration, which can be called to be a fine artistic one too, where usually many exciting performances appear from the plays of the English play writer from the scale of the latest Hungarian and foreign performances, where besides the performances there are classical and popular music concerts too, thematic conferences and exhibitions with which they re-interpret again, what is known as William Shakespeare’s inheritance. One of the most exciting moments of the annual festival is always the new performance, which the Castle Theatre of Gyula always performs in coproduction with another theatre/troupe. This year, together with the National Theatre, the Midsummer Night’s Dream is performed with the staging of the Georgian David Doiashvili. From now on I would write about this performance and about the Macbeth/Anatomy performance (d.: Zoltán Balázs), which also takes place on the festival, and it is performed by the Maladype Theatre. Both performances independently from the genre of the play, which they use as a base, and depended on it they try to find the key in some kind of playfulness. But while in case of Doiashvili the technique and the enchanting performance can make the performance operated, in case of Zoltán Balázs’ performance, the play is a form of cruelty and fighting.

If in case of Doiashvili’s staging the joy based on laugh and tricks are necessary elements, then in the performance, which is directed by Zoltán Balázs, it is surprising that Macbeth can make us laugh freely or smile and deeply terrified at the same time. And the question rises up, that these two really different points of view, how can work together, without extinguishing each other, so how can it happen that the performance can make us forget that we are watching Macbeth, than on the other hand it can make sharp with its special power, the ideas of Shakespeare’s play. The answer of the Macbeth/Anatomy by Maladype is that it takes obvious, that both the most frightening and most wonderful things can exist at the same time, and they can gain meaning together. This clever counterbalancing organises the whole performance, from the set and costume, through the actors’ performances, until the solutions of dramaturgy and staging.

On the middle-sized stage of the lake stage of Gyula, the sets of the performance are placed a little bit strangely, we can hardly see the actors, who appear from the cable tray for example, but I rely on my imagination and I try to remember the place of Trafó, which has accepted the performance. In the place a long, black podium can be seen, in the middle of which, we can see a dinosaur skeleton, which is put into a hole, filled with sand. On the right-hand side there is a corridor singed by cables, behind it there is a musician (Pál Péter Szűcs), who plays with specially designed guitars (Péter Üveges) the music of the performance, which has elector-psychedelic sounding. Behind the podium there are more long lines of cables. All of it seems to indicate, that the performance is going on Macbeth’s (Ákos Orosz) nerve fibres, who himself holds a guitar at one moment of the performance to start a rock-like performance together with Lady Macbeth (Andrea Petrik). The coldness of the silver strings comes back on the tiny chains of the plate-armour of the usurper couple, which are very strange on these human bodies that are shown many times explicitly during the performance. On Macbeth’s soft body, which was naked at the beginning of the performance, an armour and then a royal dress is put on, while Lady Macbeth’s tallness is covered by colourful odd wigs and dresses from rough material, which are similar to the ones of Macbeth. Similarly to it, the story by Shakespeare is also performed in its roughness, dryly and tightly. The performance assumes the knowledge of the play, so it does not take care of the details, and it focuses on the Macbeth couple and the birth of craziness instead. But we do not have to think about anatomy from the psychological point of view, mostly from the points of view of the body and musicality. Maybe, because of the acoustic surrounding, Ákos Orosz as Macbeth speaks dispassionately, and by this simplicity he always emphasises the poetic and text like nature of the play. By Andrea Petrik’s deep voice Shakespeare’s lines are seemed to be clicked. The weird nature of the text becomes evident with the play of the man of sticks, which is performed by Zoltán Lendváczky and Erika Tankó, who perform professionally the other characters: they move this enchanting puppet of sticks together, which cartoon like appearances can make the performance for some moments unexpectedly free and easy.

The strange mixture of elements, effects and styles always stop the viewers to nod comfortably because of the previous knowledge of the play during its stage version. Zoltán Balázs’ staging is always against the original text and all connotation that we have culturally; as the performance itself is fighting against its ancestor. If you like, it is the same kind of usurpation and cruelty, as Macbeth’s royal killing. And if Macbeth tries to find out, how far can he go on the way of living the destructive freedom, and during this experiment, he himself stops existing (the ending scene of the performance with the vivid rats is disgusting and genius at the same time), then Macbeth/Anatomy has similar questions toward Shakespeare’s play too. This later one, so the performance itself, has more success, than our hero, and maybe because of it, while it is deconstructed fully, what we thing about Macbeth, he can use its pieces productively to create a polarizing, changeable performance.

Panna Adorjáni, Játéktér, 2014

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)