“Do not take into consideration the role of the things, but their effects instead, their patterns and speed: you can understand life, nature, other human beings and yourself only on this way.”
Sándor Weöres

László Sáry’s half-serious opera is based on Sándor Weöres’ poem, the Topic and variations, on this game of language. The complicit shared wink of the two writers could create such a linguistic, combinatoric, musical bravura, which with Zoltán Balázs’ performing creativity, visual and metaphorical thinking, humour, can become a sophisticated, thought-provoking, philosophical and entertaining performance, in which the text, the world of the writer, the music and the musical world, the theatre, so the movements, vision and play – and the philosophical deepness of all these get the same stress.

The variations act as dynamic idea of text editing in the text that is used as a libretto. The rhythm and the repetition can for a pattern, they can bring musicality. The primary meaning does not appear on the level of the words: it is not important that what they say, but how they say it – from this point of view Weöres’ poem is an unfinished one: with the music, the interpretation on the stage it can become complete in the viewers.

László Sáry’s musical practices, the creative instruments (the elements of the offered instruments by the music director, by Lajos Rozmán are: high heeled shoes, teak wood, whistle, stone, wind chime, the human body, sounding – claps, patters, smacks and so on) and the music of text can express Sándor Weöres’ playfulness and view. His scores are many times opened structures – they bring in themselves the philosophy of the untouchable multicoloured musicality which is simple and unique.

Zoltán Balázs’ theatrical performances can give wide space to the variations, to the play, change, creativity, inside the frames of the set structure. He likes making experiments, his continuous creative wish is to renew. He does not handle the viewers as passive accepters but as performing partners: his performances opens the meaning of the play – the content according to the writers’ wish – symbolically, with picturesque metaphors, culture historical references / connections, sometimes with a simultaneous performance, which is different from the traditional European theatrical traditions, with a special usage of time.

The three artists’ creative attitudes, points of view, in his own genre are unique, anyway their really similar career have predestinated their multiple meetings, which happened for the first time with the successful stage adaptation of his oratorical play, of the Theomachia by Sándor Weöres in 2003. Building on Ildikó Pethő’s ideas – Sándor Weöres’ intellectual heirs, those, who continue his career, are not obviously from the poets: creative performers of other areas can bring on his ideas, knowledge, approach, and I may say: that these heirs can be László Sáry from the point of view of music, and Zoltán Balázs from theatrical art.

The number twelve, as one of the basic organizing principles of the universe, the symbol of the order of space and time, is characteristic for the poem, which is used in the libretto and for the structure of the “half-serious” opera too: first it is made of twelve – which are made one by one of twelve words – verses, this latest one of twelve scenes, framed with a prelude and a postlude. The number twelve as a watershed moment appears in the psychical and social improvement of human life too: according to this theory during the first twelve years long period of human life all experiences happen with them – the friendship, love, disappointment and so on – and during their life on, only these variations appear again. The first twelve years is the topic, and the others after it contain the variations of it. The pictures, movements of the performance from this point of view shows the topic itself: the building, moving, basic experiences of human life – in a playful form. The variations appear in the viewers according to their accepting sensitivity, experiences, memories and creativity, habits.

The minimalist vision helps the projection: besides the drum chairs only the “instruments” can be seen on the half circle of the stage, and they leave the middle of the stage empty. The chairs appear in the performance as space organising elements and properties too. The costumes can show the man and woman in their own complexity; the clothes, which are underwear ones originally, can refer to the innocence, vulnerability, intimacy, privacy, and private sphere – so to the secrets, fears, the world of personal experience. The performing characters are characterised by agelessness, the most extreme interval is held by that “trick”, in which Anna Petrovics goes on balancing on a teak wooden pavement with Ágota Szilágyi’s devoted help. On the surface we can see a trick of a circus, we can sometimes even hear the word of “hep” as a reference to it: the action is characterised by risks, cooperation, humour. Anyway, the vison of the movement – as the person can go on with the help of the other one – can raise those kinds of associations, as children, who try their steps for the first time, and who are learning to walk, or those old people, who by the passing of time, can move harder, uncertainly: the beginning and the end, with the duality of “not yet” and “already cannot”, this is the living together with the disturbing knowledge of passing away.

One of the dominant organising elements of the scenes, besides the music, is the play, which is carefree, has its real meaning, and continuously forming, it has its rules, but inside the set structure it can give total freedom to the participants. The end of the game is up to the encounter of presented energy of the given moment: it is up the “state” of magic in which “here and now” the performer and his partner are – and because of it, it has its own risk and the moving etude is always different.

The frame of the performance – so the prelude and the postlude – the beginning and the end of life, the sparkling pulse and the ending music, the rhythm as life itself, the metaphor of the heart beating: which can express the momentary state of feeling, as well as the temperament, the individuality, and the presence of life. The beginning and the end can be turning to the outside – so towards the outside world – are turnings to the inside, towards ourselves as well: after experiencing it is a kind of memory, they live in the tension of accounting. After the topic and our own variations, the piece of returning, of which the viewers can become the part too.

The topic of the poem the soloists – Ágota Szilágyi and László Kéringer – sing upside down, that way they advance the playful, creative, sometimes grotesque points of view of the performance. The beginning – just half-serious – opera approaches the life, the philosophy of existence, the everyday actions, situations, experiences from different point of view, in a playful way; but it does not make the performance to stop, to deal with deeper, philosophical layers too, and above it: the easiness can have freeing effects on the freedom of thinking and associations. The games can build their own, ideological-feeling-creative world of the performers, their own defining universe – always between defined frames of music and movements – but freely: Weöres-Sáry-Balázs’ playful, special, creative world, which is there to discover, where all viewers can search their own performing form, where everybody can form their own variations.

The concentrated attention, the presence of “here and now” of the performance, the experience of body and soul with different intensity, the tempo is the one, which basically defines the play, in which the moment is created with the common presence of performers and viewers, the rhythmical pulsation of creating and recreating energy. The micro happenings of the etudes, its plays can become their own, individual story, feeling, personal, “exclusive” theatre in the viewers.

The solos and the common etudes, in the harmony of the individual and the community/surrounding or even in the tension of their disharmony, they are built in the moments of working/running/cooperation.

The duets of Ildikó Duffek (singing) and Lajos Rozmán (clarinet) – the road which is built from nothing by steps, the wonderful harmony of forming/formation, the inspiring waving of their effect back and forth – which the building of the career or creative process (spiral of sounds, artistic performance, structure of performance), the dialect of the originality and their own decisions, or these are formed into condescended energies, which are going towards an aim in a concentrated circle, as the sound, movement, and the “helpers” are being condescended in smaller and smaller energy, as the diverse time and space can thicken, as in a perfect moment they can concentrate in a new quality, in a new existence with the crossing of a border.

László Kéringer’s figure of a “lying stone” of the passive, inactive, incapable body of lifelessness, who can exist just outside the flow of life can become the opposite of the mental, philosophical and physical activities. He can be held of feet just by the others, and only they can move him from and away. He joyfully ears others’ energy, he contentedly watches the action around him from outside – in which the sparkling of life/movement/creativity/musical structures; the drive of encounters, changings, creativity, the dynamism of getting together and away from one another, which is set by the creative subjectivity, can become “self-working” that way. The personal leading (whistle) is an artificial intervention into the arc of the process – the try to coordinate the present world can create order for a while, but the moving of the process can happen only with the breaking of the order.

Anna Petrovics’ scales of scenes are shocking: it is an accelerated life story in the flow of time, in the continuous circulation of scooters, in the cyclical repetition of spatial circles – as the parts of the days, the seasons and the years can change – the happenings of the scene is widened in the space, which are moving like films in front of us. The movement, the music, the artistic performance moves towards a widened moment, in which the present is condescended: the soul gets out of this flow, gets trapped – and becomes a symbolic wind chime. The shaking sign of the metal tubes (bells), which make sounds by sticks, the great amounts of greetings, the intention to speak, the wish: the sound of the desire for freedom; the enclosure, the silent cry of exclusion, the silent mental agony of hollowing out... But all these are games! At the end of the etude Anna is smilingly ready for the new adventure, she can get into the new action. During the performance – in contrast to this scale of scenes – the pictures of perfect fulfilment can also appear sitting or lying on the drum chairs, while they are opening their arms, during their slow circulation with the vision of the singing and playing solo singers. It can raise the feeling of the moving, the floating, the flying, it can quote the moments of fulfilment: the flying happiness, the feeling of freedom: it is the experience of the perfect life, the moments of self-fulfilment, the experience of flow, which fills everything.

The self-fulfilment of men and women, the attracting differences, which can create the excitement of common rites, and elevated mood of feelings: the free and common joy of the magic of fertility; the ageless rite of the choice of a partner, which in case of women can be the preparations, the getting dressed; in case of men it can be the competition, the act of showing their power. The sounding effects of the flirt (high and low vowels, sharply differentiated sounding effects), the choreography of teasing, the pulsing rhythm of excitement can be freed in the game of carefree tag of couples: the marks of lip-sticks, which they get during the chasing, the mental and physical connection, the experiences can be eternal marks on body and soul. Ildikó Duffek and László Kéringer’a duet is the poetic expression of spiritual and sensitive relationship between men and women: it shows the perfection of their mental tune into each other – it is a kind of ceremony of a “spiritual marriage” – during which the men and women’s fingers are connected by the teak wood. Their physical distance stresses their sacral connection. This wonderful connection, their harmony can be kept by taking care of all the movements of their partners. Their surrounding takes care, supports, then with one single movement – “the third one” – cuts them apart. The asymmetric attraction that becomes a obsession, the fanatic adoration (Ágota Szilágyi and Lajos Rozmán’s duet with “scooters”) can force both of them to be prisoner: the chased one is captivated by the fear, which becomes anxiety, the chaser by his mania and frustrated unfulfillment nature.

The further thinking of Weöres grammatical plays can be built on sexual differences, the play of linguistic deconstruction, which can create an absurd, grotesque world on the level of sentence and words: the “living dead” women’s voices, who are murmuring, sniffling, hissing rhythmically consonants are softened by the vowels which are sung by the “victim” men – in the extremity of the harmony of this world and the mythical fear, which is connected to the other world, to the unknown – the woman, who we are unable to know well, the myth of the destructive femme fatale.

In the scene of the “sewing worker” the empty pulsation of syllables – with the feeling of lack, with the eastern-like sounding of the deconstructed words. The movement, which follows it, can be connected to the routine of everyday life: there is not any feelings, real interactions, connection between the characters. Seemingly, we are watching a scale of photos about “ordinary” life at home: next to the women, who are sitting in the armchair and sewing, there are men, who are frozen into a pose, their hands are on their wives’ shoulders to express their owning and protective task... It all seems to be a world, which gets into life from Ionesco’s play of The Bald Soprano, and we can see many Mr. and Mrs Smith in their living rooms, who are fighting their selfish fights for power to put themselves in the foreground – their being together is based on habits instead of harmony.

Because of the fight of competition and success, the chasing, the getting of chairs, the games of choosing partners it can appear with many humour and in a calm from: the two flute players are the main motifs: with the competition of Anna Petrovics and Anna Rákóczi. Who are in front of each other, and they are elevated between the others – in the boys’ necks. They can go on with their “fights” with instruments, like the queens of the imagined chessboard, while the other “figures” are fighting their close battles that come from the everyday desire of owning.

One of the most memorable scenes of the performance is the flying of the red feather, which can be the visual metaphor of the artistic ars poetic of the Maladype: the flying feather, which is kept in the air by their common attention, which can give life to it, they can make it fly, lead and float – and only sometimes let it have a rest on some of the performers, to be able to dance again in the air, after getting enough power from there. Under the colourful, spectacular, easy surface there are concentration, cooperation, playfulness, creativity, fight to serve the “action”. Here the acceptance of risk, improvisation, technical, the widening of the borders, and the building in of the gained experience can happen: the volatile moment with always changing intensity and direction, is formed by the cooperation between the viewers and the actors. The attention towards the performers, the anxiety, the breath taking, which after a while happens with the same rhythm, can grab the viewers in a moment, and we cannot divide the viewers, the performers and the performance, the feather is flying for all of us and “for me”: the outside world, the space and time disappear. In the perfect present time of the almost meditative, concentrated attention only two things exist, the feather and me. The feather and I are connected: I am made to fly, I am made to float on the stage. This vision is the fulfilment of human existence, the flying of the idea, the life, the creation, the magic of performance – the experience of existence – THE LIFE itself, it is breathed to life, while the power of existence is there, and it can keep it, lead it, help it or even get it out of its natural floating. It happens softly, but powerfully at the same time, but always upside, and it always energizes the flying in different direction. During each performances there is a different given time, as the feather is going on different ways, and it fulfils its actual destiny, as it is animated by the energies of that day.

The half-serious opera can enchant me with its perfect theatrical moments, besides its personality: it invites us to play, captivates us, it gets us from the reality, to be able to return there – we, viewers and performers – with different nature. They do it all on behalf of Weöres, who – with Dezső Tandori’s words – “puts the untouchable one on its airy place, has not closed it, let it opened.” With the help of the associations, which are given by the music, the movement, the picture, we can think and bring on our own variations and the patterns of our surroundings. We can get closer to ourselves, “we have left opened” the untouchable one, the mystery of human life...

Mónika Németh, 2017

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)