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)

Bartók Seminar and Festival in Szombathely – thirty-first time

After the third performance in the evenings we could not call it (simply) a concert. In it – in the coproduction of the Maladype Theatre and the Qaartsiluni Ensemble – they performed the Great Sound in Rush, the “half-serious opera” by László Sáry, which was inspired by Sándor Weöres’ poem, by the Topic and variations. And it has not only inspired László Sáry – form whom these kinds of things have not been far away even before – with the example of a combinatory play which is used consciously all through it, but we can hear those more and more surreal permutations of the text too that are in the poems, in very different kinds of realizations, during the more than one-hour long performance. Meanwhile eight performers are the singers of the Qaartsiluni, the others are the actors of Maladype, and everybody plays an instrument and sings on the one hand, and acts and dance in the other hand (then we have not talked about the acrobatic elements – an artist troupe could be the part of the performance too), that is why the music director of the musical group, Lajos Rozmán, who is the music director of the performance at the same time, while the artistic leader of the theatrical troupe, Zoltán Balázs is the director of this performance at the same time. So – which is not so unusual in case of an opera – here there is a double leading, but not exactly that way as it would happen in the opera house. It is less than this, because László Sáry is not that kind of traditional composer, who gives the score of the opera and then we can meet him at the reception after the premiere.

As many times before, Sáry has not given a fixed score into the hand of the performers, but a series of musical plays instead, and more exactly the rules of these plays, which – mostly improvisations that are combined in – and with accidental moments – and they general a kind of procedure; a circular musical story, which is edited professionally or goes on in some kind of space – the possibilities are endless. And they are endless in reality, if we take into consideration that on the stage there are permanent movements, activities, and marked conflicts, different stable and changing configurations are formed, the roles, the places and the most variable properties are continuously changing. So, the musical dimension has multiple layers on their own, it is combined with visual dimensions that are happening at the same time, without any limits, so that way all happens on behalf of Weöres.

The plays, the exercises, the polyphone musical and spatial processes are very complicated and hard many times; the performance is the result of the work of many months, and if somebody takes care only on the playfulness, on the movements, which seem to be easy and spontaneous, it can be surprising too. However, here every moment is very controlled, and they need great concentration; for some moments it becomes very obvious too, for example, when according to some order, they circle, throw up with double hand the pair of teak woods and they never let them fall down, or when for long moments, three women characters blow up again and again a colourful feather (you mustn’t touch it!) which from those situations, when it seemingly almost falls down onto the floor in a beaten situation can fly up again and again. And of course, these are just the very obvious moments, other times they have to intonate clearly or perform irregular rhythms in different physical and other kinds of positions, during complicated movements. We can feel: these challenges can make the performance vivid, the beat of them is the main joy of the performance.

All of it from many points of view widen the borders of the artistic ideas – from this point of view Sáry can always be connected to John Cage. But there is a basic constitutional difference between them: these are the discovering ways in case of Sáry – even if they are not lack of deepness, or as it is written in the programme, something is also formed, which is “heart-breaking and cathartic”. So, the playfulness is always important part of Sáry’s discovering ways, and they are always filled with the gaining of experiences, the dizzying joy of learning.

As a chronicler I have been circulating around the performance for a while, without being able to write down what is exactly happening in the really small theatrical arena. Anyway, what is happening that is so enchantingly various, unexpected, teenager like, imagined, erotic, comic, human, surprising, that it is totally impossible to show it by words in its concrete way. But I promise, that all of it is always enjoyable and we are unable to get bored with it.

There are eight absolutely substantial musicians and actors, whom we can thank for the excellent performance, they are: László Borbély, Lajos Rozmán, Anna Rákóczy, Anna Petrovics, László Kéringer, Ildikó Duffek, Kata Huszárik and Ágota Szilágyi.

János Malina, Muzsika, 2015

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

“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)

Etudes. Feelings. Experiences. Linguistic bravura. Musical thinking. There are twelve words, twelve parts, twelve scenes.

Sándor Weöres’s poem, the Topic and variations, together with László Sáry’s composition can make us, the viewers fly into a magical world. It is not surprising and Zoltán Balázs and the Maladype invite the viewers again to a modern performance, which makes us think it over. The twelve pictures in duets, quartets, colouring with interludes can take us into the world of imagination.

The actors’ concentration that is above human nature, and the concentration, which can be felt in every moments of the performance. The personal responsibility, which the director puts on the actors, and which makes the troupe work together as a well-composed scale of sounds, can reflect a workshop, which is rare in Hungarian theatres. The chain of association, which is put on stage with good taste and perfect sense of rate, is thick, meaningful and gives us an experience, which makes the viewers think for days. During the tight, almost an hour-long performance, neither the performers nor the viewers can relax. Something always happens in each moments.

Besides the framed structure there is not any conventional in the performance. The work of the troupe can raise accepted and prejudiced respect in the writer of these lines, the order behind the seemingly playful nature of it, and their respect, which is shown towards their director and viewers.

Péter Gál Molnár said about Zoltán Balázs: “Zoltán Balázs’ performances are looking for the something special. And there is something special in them.”

MGP can state perfectly the multi coloured and untouchable nature of this excellent theatrical professional person and his performances. Zoltán Balázs’ excellent talent can always make me surprised. The thousand number of layers, which can be found in him, his age-defying education and his special relationship to the world are reflected perfectly by this performance (too). All his performances, plays indicate: for him the effort for perfection can be the key of happiness.

Eszter Vámosi, forgottenman.blog.hu, 2017

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Zoltán Balázs, one of the most versatile masters of the Hungarian and international theatre scene, is particularly proud of his Transylvanian roots. Director, actor, set designer, theatre director—in a word, a theatre-maker—he has been achieving success after success around the world for decades. Born in Cluj-Napoca but raised in Sighetu Marmației, the artist premiered a production in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October; he was due to direct in Israel in November and December, had war not broken out; and in mid-December he travelled to China, where his production of Gardenia, part of the repertoire of Bucharest’s Odeon Theatre, was presented. He never seems to stop, yet he still found time to give the readers of Székely Citrom an in-depth holiday interview.

– You were born in Cluj-Napoca, spent your childhood in Sighetu Marmației, and then moved to Hungary with your family at the age of twelve. What do your Transylvanian roots mean to you?

– Permanence in our constantly changing world. In Japanese there is a word with a powerful meaning that expresses the strongest possible sense of belonging: yemoto. It means “a house with roots.” To me, this embodies the essence of my Transylvanian identity. The twelve-year-old Zoltán Balázs is still waiting for me at the railway station in Sighetu Marmației. That night, when I said my final farewell to the Eden of my childhood, the train set off and then suddenly stopped. I jumped up and was about to leap off the train, but at that moment we started moving again, unstoppable. Between those two departures, I got off in my imagination; my consciousness split in two. My twelve-year-old self is still sitting there at the railway station, patiently waiting for my present-day self to return.

– Cluj-Napoca is a kind of country within a country: while preserving Hungarian traditions, it is also extremely diverse. Is that important to you?

– Of course. Although I came into the world in Cluj-Napoca, because my mother was there to sit her university entrance exams, I spent only a few days in my birthplace as an infant. Later, we often travelled there to visit family friends, but those trips remained in my memory merely as exotic experiences. I grew up in Northern Transylvania; Sighetu Marmației was the inspiring setting for my childhood adventures of discovery. The attempts of different nationalities and cultures to coexist enriched my everyday life with truly diverse and varied experiences. We often played together: children of Hungarian, Romanian, German, Jewish and Roma backgrounds. This was how I came to know the particularities rooted in different languages and national traditions, and value systems based on distinct ways of thinking—knowledge that would later prove to be a significant advantage in my life.

– If I remember correctly, you arrived in Budapest with your mother under rather adventurous circumstances. Would you tell us the story?

– After my mother unexpectedly announced that we were moving to Hungary, a self-fulfilling process began, one that could best be compared to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. However, the road to experiencing the final stage was a very long one. The authorization and implementation process intended to ensure the success of our relocation brought with it countless bitter, painful, ridiculous and at times bizarre events. Cold and rainy dawns at unfamiliar railway stations, endless, nerve-racking waits, never-ending journeys in train compartments covered in grime like a layer of grease, crowds of people pushing my mother through the window onto trains that were already departing, motel rooms rotting from leaks and mould, frighteningly grinning strangers, aggressive and arrogant border guards, unfamiliar landscapes and suspicious people, and finally a freshly whitewashed chicken coop where we were able to shelter for a while—and the scabies we received from our new home as a welcome gift...

– On your Wikipedia page, the words following your name are actor, director, set designer and theatre director. Is this your true status, or does it make you look like someone collecting job titles? What do you actually consider yourself?

– Faced with the functions you have just listed, the portrait that emerges is that of an overburdened, restless fellow. The truth is that the common denominator of all these activities is nothing other than the curiosity that springs from within me and an elemental appetite for play and adventure, a desire to experience the world in its entirety. As a director, I try to create the conditions that support the creative act; as an actor and director, I am interested in the complex manifestation of a personality unfolding through the creative process.

– You have received countless Hungarian and international awards. Most recently, in Sarajevo, your production of Susan Sontag’s Alice in Bed received the Golden Mask Award. You have also received the Mari Jászai Award, the Miklós Gábor Award, the Lajos Őze Award and the Sándor Hevesi Award, among many others. Which of your awards is closest to your heart?

– The love of my family members, friends and colleagues. None of us can receive greater recognition than that. The honour and attention surrounding me and my work is the most important distinction I could receive.

– In October you had a premiere in Bosnia and Herzegovina; you were due to direct in Israel in November and December, had the war not broken out; and in mid-December you travelled to China, where your production of Gardenia, part of the repertoire of Bucharest’s Odeon Theatre, was presented. Your extraordinary international successes receive hardly any attention in Hungary. Doesn’t that hurt?

– Today it is not successes and achievements that receive the spotlight, but scandals and smear campaigns. I am not driven by an obsessive desire to be visible, nor do I feel the need to draw attention to myself as an opinion leader or someone who always has something to say. Nor am I attracted to the activist artistic attitude that is so fashionable these days. I rarely get the opportunity to speak in Hungary, but when I do, the focus of the conversation is one of my artistic achievements. I have no reason to complain. Many Hungarian artists can only dream of the kind of life I have been fortunate enough to lead for decades. Invitations from abroad generate continuous international attention, professional renewal and further engagements. It is also true, however, that with every new invitation I move farther away from the everyday reality of Hungarian theatre. That affects me deeply. The time will come when I can once again focus my talent and knowledge on my home country. Certain things must not be rushed.

– However, Balázs Zoltán fans will soon be able to see the grand New Year’s Eve gala, which also pays tribute to the memory of Maria Callas. It was conceived by and stars Andrea Rost, and is directed by Balázs Zoltán. It is well known that when Andrea Rost applied for the position of director general of the Hungarian State Opera, she asked you to become her artistic director. Where does this deep artistic relationship and trust come from?

– A few years ago, at the Kék Madár Festival in Kalocsa, a wonderful mutual friend of ours, bassoonist György Lakatos, introduced us. It soon became clear that we shared similar values and had the same understanding of the contemporary role and transformative function of the arts. We are both fascinated by authentic artistic personalities and captivated by creative individuals who inspire change and renewal. Over the past few years, we discussed the possibility of working together several times, but because of our multifaceted projects, most of them abroad, the plan never materialized. The opportunity for an artistic partnership arose this year, when Andrea decided to apply for the position of general director of the Hungarian State Opera and asked me to serve as chief director and artistic director. I was delighted to accept because her ideas for renewing opera in Hungary perfectly coincided with plans I had been considering for a long time.

– What kind of Opera House would Balázs Zoltán’s have been?

– I could answer that question credibly only if Andrea Rost and the creative team she assembled had ultimately been given the opportunity to bring the Opera House into a new era whose success could also have been demonstrated internationally. In our application, particular emphasis was placed on formulating artistic plans with clear objectives and on creating a precisely executable process for implementing them. Among our forward-looking commitments was the careful design of the casting for each season, reflecting the overarching artistic concept while providing the members of the company with regular and varied opportunities to appear on stage and to develop professionally. We also focused on the need for modern organizational structures for creative partners, performers and artistic staff, as well as on employing them under creative and rehearsal-friendly conditions. We placed great emphasis on thorough preparation for new productions, on deeply immersing ourselves in the work in question, and on the necessity of developing roles down to the smallest detail. The implementation of all these elements together would have ensured the effective, energy-, time- and cost-efficient operation of the artistic concept we had envisioned together.

– Let us turn to the coming year! In January 2024, Nine, the musical inspired by Federico Fellini’s film 8½, will be revived at the Budapest Operetta Theatre. You are both its dramaturg and director. What kind of artistic adventure was it to direct a musical?

– It is no secret that I like working with pieces that require special theatrical solutions and whose staging cannot be approached in the usual way. My choice of plays and my particular working method offer new challenges and professional renewal to the company of the theatre in question, while creating opportunities for collective thinking, deeper exploration and a better understanding of complex relationships. My consciously structured creative strategy and workshop-like approach to directing actors activate the possibilities inherent in the characters brought to life by different types of actors, as well as the multitude of impulses arising from their different relationships. In light of all this, it is understandable that I had avoided the musical genre until now, since both in Hungary and abroad it is constrained by firmly established performance traditions and strongly defined rules that restrict the creative freedom of artists. It is no coincidence that I ultimately chose the musical adaptation of Fellini’s autobiographical film 8½. Just like the film, the musical belongs to the category of “uncategorizable genres”; its innovative, extreme and personal mode of expression is enormously inspiring. Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston’s highly successful work embodies this kaleidoscopic creative game, drawing on many different cultures and genres and requiring from the director and his collaborators a unique perspective and stylistic diversity. During rehearsals, my only task was to provide the artists with the appropriate atmosphere and working strategy for understanding the network of relationships that gradually unfolded.

– In your artistic credo, you always state that you feel close to avant-garde theatrical aspirations. What exactly does that mean?

– According to Tadeusz Kantor, one of the most original theatre-makers of the second half of the twentieth century: “There is another entrance too, a side door that is not very elegant, and may even be ridiculous, but through it art can sneak in...” I believe this side door is the passage leading to the avant-garde. Honest artists who encourage the dismantling of traditional artistic forms and the search for new forms of expression try to smuggle renewed knowledge back in through this side door. Kantor passionately confronts us with our accumulated inertia in the arts, particularly in theatre. He also warns us that our intellectual idleness will have irreversible consequences, and that it is time to search once again for that “lowest common denominator” capable of bringing seemingly distant contents into unity. Through persistent searching, we must once again find this alternative entrance, so that we can open it and leave it freely accessible to all those who seek change and continuous development in the arts.

– So, in your interpretation, avant-garde does not simply mean something abstract.

– Above all, it means an artistic outlook capable of redesigning itself and a constantly renewing source of creative energy. A creative playground of imagination and knowledge where cause-and-effect relationships acquire new meaning and familiar patterns of relations lose their stability.

– What would you bring into Hungarian theatre from your experiences abroad?

– A childlike spirit free of clichés and prejudices. Unfortunately, the psyche of Hungarian theatre has long been held hostage by its own myths, trapped by its small-realist habits. It is like a ghost, an emotion that has lost its form, existing as the haunting presence of airless and unartistic currents. It is difficult for me to understand why our theatre community clings so tightly to frozen patterns and stereotypes, to fashionable and false impulses. If we do not want the walls of our theatre system to collapse under the pressure of our internal tensions, we need to use different building blocks, and we should use common sense as the mortar holding them together.

– Although your productions are always very fresh and topical, you brilliantly avoid and steer clear of politics and current political affairs. Why did you choose to do so? Can a director or a theatre afford not to engage in politics today?

– István Bubik, who would be the same age as me if he had not lost his life in a tragic car accident in 2004, used to say that we must not confuse things. Theatre should not use performances as political pulpits, and politicians should not perform on political platforms. The Maladype Theatre and I follow this principle as well. Since the founding of the creative workshop I lead, we have strived to be an independent and autonomous theatre, both in spirit and in operation. As a director and theatre-maker, I have never felt the need to conform to fashionable ideologies, current artistic trends or other norms. Throughout my life I have represented the “outsider tendency.” The main pillars of my creative strategy are professional commitment, a long-term artistic concept, an investigative and exploratory attitude, and an integrative approach. Current political and social “earthquakes” do not consciously influence my carefully formulated visions, and I do not need a “dictionary of secret codes,” nor a “message book” containing insider information, in order to make valuable encounters happen.

– Your name has become inseparable from the Maladype Theatre, which is also connected in several ways to artists from Târgu Mureș. Why and how did this relationship develop?

– As the founder and artistic director of the Maladype Theatre, I have long been examining the traditional and contemporary theatrical tendencies whose strong embeddedness in our theatrical culture shapes our cultural consumption habits in a largely demand-driven way and represents a serious obstacle to the modern possibilities of artistic innovation. Drawing on my experiences in Hungarian and international theatre and on professional insights based on wide-ranging connections, I formulated my theatre-methodological concept entitled Five Gates, which I intended to develop through several years of professional training for members of a research group functioning as a talent workshop. The opportunity to take my ideas further came through the graduating acting class of the University of Arts in Târgu Mureș, whose internationally successful graduation production, August, I directed in 2018. Having experienced their exceptional work ethic, I decided to sign all of the newly graduated students to the Maladype company in order to concentrate the “theatrical energy” capable of renewal that they represented. We were able to support talented young actors at the beginning of their careers who, by placing the general processes of theatrical understanding into a new perspective and mastering the fundamental elements of the method, will be able to make use of this exceptional knowledge as the “Modern Artists” of the theatre of the future—knowledge they will need throughout their careers to establish connections between “old” and “new” forms of understanding.

– Significant changes took place at the internationally touring Maladype Theatre during the summer. Although it did not cease to exist, it can no longer be maintained in its previous form. What happened?

– Due to increasingly limited financial resources, at the beginning of the summer we were forced to part ways with the permanent members of our company. We managed to deal with the increasingly critical situation for a while, but eventually my colleagues and I realized that we had to radically rethink the previous form of our operation. Similar circumstances have arisen several times over the years, so we have become experienced at managing such situations. Fortunately, our international invitations have remained uninterrupted, and we can count on our partners. Our latest production, Penelopiad, based on Margaret Atwood’s novel and scheduled to premiere on 1 March 2024, is also the result of collaboration among several international theatre festivals.

– Do you think it is possible to survive as an independent theatre? And if so, how?

– The most important thing is to be able to respond quickly and in varied ways to factors that unexpectedly affect our everyday operations, depending on what kind of structural or artistic strategy the new situation requires. This means having different versions of our plans and keeping our thinking flexible. The essence of our conception of theatre is continuous renewal and adaptation. As a company capable of reinventing itself, we have carried out numerous internal reforms over the years, which have effectively responded to the negative processes affecting us and, over time, have organically become integrated with one another. Today the “Maladype brand” means a unity of content and form that cannot be fitted into any canon, an unconventional approach to theatre and a radically innovative mode of stage expression that differs from tradition. Intellectual independence is our greatest sustaining force, but a secure and predictable financial foundation is an indispensable prerequisite for planned artistic work.

– How is that supposed to work? Crowdfunding, begging for money?

– Neither. There is no truly sustainable form of community contribution. We were among the first to try this form of financing, but for our operations it amounted only to local anaesthesia. Through our support programme called “A Hundred People, a Hundred for One,” we did manage to raise some money, but neither companies nor audiences were able to make a meaningful contribution to solving our long-term operational problems. The main pillars of our survival strategy continue to be grants, international festival invitations and tours.

– Why is the cultural sphere so indifferent to the situation and struggles of certain artists and theatres?

– This is a complex problem with very deep roots, one in which there are countless conspiracy theories, but as we know, theories are attractive only until we get to know the facts. And the facts are shaped by many people in many different ways, most often according to their own interests. We have to accept that theatres’ political, social and cultural engagement varies enormously; their value systems are complex and branching, and their artistic modes of expression and theatrical creeds are rarely in harmony with their ideological commitments or their sense of cultural-policy mission. Sooner or later, every theatre community realizes that there are no absolutes in our world. Our theatrical society needs more caring citizens who can demonstrate, through both words and actions, that there is no place in our diverse theatrical environment for artists burdened by prejudice and dogmatic thinking. The attitude that devalues the role of independent theatres has unfortunately become a force that distorts reality and prevents forward-looking and meaningful dialogue from developing among theatre-makers. It will take a long time before efforts to uncover our inner truths once again point in a unified direction.

– In your interview with Rita Szentgyörgyi, you said that you would like to focus your energies on Hungary and would be happy to be much more artistically present at home. Why?

– Because although it is a privileged and wonderful experience to be part of international theatrical processes, to shape the artistic outlook of different creative communities and to try my hand at many different genres, I want to achieve my artistic fulfilment in my own country. As a theatre-maker at the height of my creative energies, I now feel that I could make the knowledge and experience accumulated over the years available to others in Hungary within structured frameworks.

– With qualifications like yours, the minimum would seem to be that you should be running a theatre. Do you aspire to that? Are you planning it?

– Our world does not place qualities and abilities at the forefront; it is built on other kinds of “values.” I have been running the Maladype Theatre for twenty-two years and have experience as a theatre director, but in the current situation it would give me serious food for thought if I had to decide whether or not to take on the leadership of an institution. Of course, everything depends on the circumstances. Throughout my career I have been invited several times to take up positions as theatre director or chief director, but not once did I feel that the structural and artistic conditions necessary for long-term development were guaranteed.

– What would a repertory theatre directed by Balázs Zoltán be like?

– I would be motivated by the multifaceted task of modernizing theatrical culture. I would consider it important to rewire the nervous system of the theatre of the future. I would create a creative space for a return to “the essence of theatre,” and I would strive to free our stage culture from the misguided reflexes and blocked creative processes that have embedded traditionalism into the system over the past decades. I believe that genuine change can only be brought about through a consciously and consistently implemented concept.

– You have not appeared on stage as an actor for a very long time. When will we see you again, if at all?

– Unfortunately, alongside my directing commitments in various parts of the world, I currently have no time for acting. I have to turn down exciting offers because, given my present lifestyle, I cannot commit either to a two-month rehearsal process or to the continued repertory performances following a premiere. It would be an irresponsible and dishonest gesture on my part to accept any offer in Hungary merely for reasons of vanity. There is still uninterrupted interest in my one-man manifesto I Chose Freedom, but for the reasons I have already mentioned, I am unable to accept any of the invitations.

– Where and when can audiences see your productions? Might one of your foreign productions come to Budapest, or perhaps Transylvania?

– Outside Hungary, my productions are currently being performed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland and Romania. At Sarajevo’s SARTR Theatre they are performing the absurdist Alice in Bed; at the Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn, Forefathers Eve; and at Bucharest’s Odeon Theatre, Gardenia, For your own Good and Pandorium can be seen on a regular monthly basis. Our co-production Alice in bed, which received the Golden Mask Award, will arrive in Budapest in May 2024 as part of the Budapest Spring Festival. Almost all of the productions mentioned are festival favourites, so audiences can encounter them in many places, including Transylvania.

– And finally, allow me a personal question: what does Christmas mean to you?

– In my eventful life, Christmas is a time of quietness, turning inward and cosmic joy, when I can give quality time and attention to my family and friends. And I can enjoy the unforgettable flavours of my mother’s magnificent fish soup.

Judit Beszterczey, Székely Citrom, 2023

translated by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

Zoltán Balázs is an actor, director and company leader, but above all a creative partner who thinks about theatre, life and challenges on a broad scale. Founder and director of the Maladype Theatre, he is independent, free-spirited, theatre-centred and adventurous. From puppetry to opera, dance theatre to musicals, classical drama to experimental productions, he has directed almost everything. Elusive, impossible to pigeonhole, he is always coming up with something new. One thing, however, remains unchanged: the spirit, philosophy and concept of Maladype. As an independent artist, he has directed a succession of productions that have resonated internationally, from Bucharest to Chicago. With his company, he has travelled half the world, and last year Maladype received awards at three African festivals. This year he is directing in Jerusalem, Nitra, Zagreb and Sarajevo. And as if all that were not enough, Andrea Rost named Zoltán Balázs as chief director and artistic director in her application for the position of general director of the Hungarian State Opera.

– Alongside running the internationally touring Maladype Theatre, regularly directing guest productions abroad and going on tour, how would you fit in the artistic direction of such a mammoth institution as the Hungarian State Opera?

– A lot can fit into my life when change is at stake. Andrea Rost’s confidence in me is a great honour and a source of inspiration. The position of chief director she has in mind for me would represent a significant step forward not only in terms of my artistic ambitions but also with regard to my innovative interdisciplinary artistic plans. The multifaceted task of modernizing opera is particularly motivating. Beginning with Bárka, I have been invited several times during my career to lead artistic institutions or take up positions as chief director, but I have always felt that I can remain free if I have several possibilities to choose from. I did not want to commit myself to a company that I would simply inherit. That is why I chose instead to lead my own ensemble and embrace cosmopolitanism.

Now I feel that the time has come to focus my creative energies on Hungary, and to make the knowledge and experience I have acquired over the years systematically available to others. In Plato’s Apology of Socrates, society is compared to a sluggish horse that occasionally needs the sting of a gadfly to force it into motion. For the circulation of blood to begin flowing in twenty-first-century theatre and opera culture, and for vital, relevant responses to emerge, we need a precisely designed and effectively executed “gadfly attack.” Partly on the basis of this idea, Andrea Rost, Gábor Káli, whom we invited to serve as chief music director, and Zoltán Tamás Nagy, our candidate for ballet director, and I jointly formulated our innovative artistic vision, both in a Hungarian and an international context.

The most important task of our concept, which seeks to rewire the nervous system of the theatre and opera of the future, is to create a creative space for a return to “the essence of theatre” and to free our stage culture from the misguided reflexes and blocked creative processes that have embedded traditionalism into the system over the past decades. Real change is not easy to bring about, but it is essential—for the sake of both artists and audiences.

– What is your relationship with opera as a genre?

– For me, opera represents the most complete synthesis of the arts and embodies the idea that art is merely an abstraction of imagined nature. This artistic outlook has shaped my thinking from the very beginning, which is why my productions are also referred to as interdisciplinary or total-art events.

In Hungary, there is a false perception of me according to which I have shut myself away inside Maladype and do not accept guest-directing assignments at other theatres. My productions in Hungary and abroad repeatedly disprove this misconception, but the emblematic performances presented at our apartment theatre on Mikszáth Kálmán Square—which fell victim to water damage a few years ago—left such deep and exclusive impressions on both general and professional audiences that they strongly reinforced this assumption.

Maintaining the Maladype Base was a necessity for our company, since for a long time we had to struggle to establish ourselves in Hungary without a permanent venue. In the apartment theatre, which could accommodate only a small audience, we sought to achieve maximum impact with minimalist means. From there we flew off to different parts of the world to perform as guests, and I too returned there after my international directing engagements, so that with one premiere per season we could continue to make our voice heard in Hungary.

– Maladype’s international career receives very little attention at home. To what extent is this due to the indifference of the Hungarian cultural milieu, and to what extent to the fact that the company promotes itself rather modestly?

– This is a multifaceted problem. Although the news is not full of reports about us touring Africa or Asia, everyone in professional circles knows exactly that our company travels frequently and extensively. But one cannot expect members of our theatre community—who are more preoccupied with their own daily struggle for survival—to speak up when the news media remain silent about our international successes.

While most Hungarian creative workshops do not even make it as far as the neighbouring city, the Maladype company, also performing a kind of cultural-diplomatic role, has travelled to more than forty countries on four continents over the past twenty-one years. Our theatre is a cultural export product. We live in a world where professional recognition and achievements have no real news value or impact. Our situation is made even more difficult by the fact that our productions are not accompanied by scandals and the members of our ensemble are not activist artists. We are interested in the exploratory, investigative creative processes of theatre-making and in artistic development.

– Perhaps you do not position yourselves strongly enough in the digital world, in the online space...

– We are not intrusive, and our technical possibilities are also limited. We instinctively keep our distance from certain fashionable forms of behaviour. We are repelled by arrogant and aggressive opinion leaders and by people who lack knowledge and facts and spread fake news. I am sure that if I regularly expressed opinions on political and social issues, our other activities would also receive greater publicity. But unfortunately, I was brought up in a theatre culture based on values and knowledge.

– Would a conscious marketing strategy be incompatible with artistic values?

– Not at all. It is simply a question of money. And we are not in a position to afford that luxury.

– Have you considered crowdfunding?

– I do not believe in sustainable community funding. We were among the first to try this form of financing, but for our operations it amounted only to local anaesthesia. Through our support programme called “A Hundred People, a Hundred for One,” we did manage to raise some money, but neither companies nor audiences were able to make a meaningful contribution to solving our long-term operational problems. In the long term, we can build on our professional expertise, international reputation and network. The main pillars of our survival strategy are the numerous invitations to international festivals and our tours.

– Independent theatres and companies are slowly disappearing or being forced to shut down because of a lack of funding...

– Yes, but the self-appointed messiahs of the sector have contributed considerably to this process as well. The anointed “most independent” players have gradually eliminated the “merely independent” ones.

This year we did not even submit an application for the NKA [National Cultural Fund of Hungary] operating grant, because we have not received a single penny from its board for three years. The reason is that we do not belong to the closed circle of FESZ, the Association of Independent Performing Arts, nor do we maintain private or vested-interest relationships with the members of the board, most of whom are delegated by that organization.

If you do not join one of the factions, if you do not align yourself with the individuals and principles they designate, they take petty revenge. In a caring, values-based cultural environment, the necessary selection processes would have taken place long ago, with the result that everyone could receive operating support distributed from taxpayers’ money according to their achievements and merits.

In a rationally functioning funding system, it should be inconceivable that the NKA’s board, organized along lines of personal alliances, would award zero forints in operating support to a company with twenty-one years of history and international recognition. The distribution of funding should be justified by decision-making processes that consciously and thoughtfully recognize unquestionable artistic achievements as well as professional and structural viability.

– What does someone from the for-profit sector receive in return for deciding to support Maladype?

– A brand. Exclusivity, internationalism, uniqueness. Maladype is a hallmark of quality, professional expertise, consistency and artistic renewal. One of the most versatile and original theatre workshops in Hungarian theatre has an extensive international network and can make its broad network of contacts available to its partners in a variety of ways.

Last year, for example, under the auspices of the company, we organized the Isra-Drama Festival at Eötvös10, presenting works by contemporary Israeli playwrights in cooperation with the Terézváros district municipality. Our guests included the district mayor, the Israeli ambassador and numerous international invitees. The multi-day event featured performances, professional conferences and discussions where participants could build connections with one another.

This was not the first time our involvement had contributed to stimulating the cultural, economic and tourism life of a particular area. Naturally, a sustained partnership could provide further mutual benefits both to our company and to those who join forces with us.

– Your latest production, Someone Like Me by Israeli playwright Roy Chen, is about young people struggling with mental disorders and is told through the language of movement theatre. What inspired it?

– Until now, our repertoire had lacked documentary-style explorations of particular subjects, so we found it exciting to present a contemporary play that addresses psychiatric disorders—issues still treated as taboo today—in the form of an honest confession.

The central premise of Someone Like Me bears many similarities to the central question of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros: Who is considered normal? Who is watching whom: the visitor the inmate, or the other way around? At the audience discussions following the performances, we explore the psychological, sociological and anthropological dimensions of the subject with the help of respected specialists.

– You recruited the current team largely from an acting class that graduated in Târgu Mureș, most of them in their twenties. How much has the Maladype brand changed as the company has been renewed several times?

– Our trademark remains unchanged because it represents continuous renewal. The different creative periods of Maladype are shaped and defined by different creative partners. At present, the theatre’s permanent company consists of its fifth-generation team.

Five years ago, I directed a non-verbal production for them as their graduation performance, August, inspired by the short stories of Bruno Schulz. It immediately received numerous festival invitations. In Prague, theatre scholar Patrice Pavis saw the production and emphatically told me that I had to keep the group together.

Thanks to the dedication of my colleagues, we managed to raise the initial capital within six months and were able to sign the entire class. The productions that subsequently came into being under the Maladype banner also became festival successes, allowing the current generation to demonstrate its talent and knowledge in many places, from Algeria to Vietnam.

For the time being, the members are primarily focused on professional development and gaining theatrical experience, but before long, starting a family, improving their financial situation and establishing themselves individually will become priorities in their lives.

– They are also participating in the Theatre Olympics, with invited productions...

– Two productions are coming to Budapest under the auspices of Maladype. A performance by the Israeli Frechot Ensemble, which tells the moving stories of three mothers who were forced to give up their children in the Palestinian-Jewish conflict, will be presented at the Bethlen Téri Theatre.

A production by Bucharest’s Odeon Theatre, portraying the stories of four strong women across generations, will be presented at the Pesti Theatre. Both productions explore the complex interrelationships of women’s destinies, generational labyrinths and social problems through the performances of actresses who remain true to themselves.

– You received a special invitation to Sarajevo: to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Susan Sontag’s iconic production of Waiting for Godot, in the besieged city. What exactly is this project about?

– The MESS International Theatre Festival has wanted to collaborate with me in some form for a long time. The opportunity has now arisen in connection with the ninetieth anniversary of Susan Sontag’s birth, the thirtieth anniversary of her death, and the thirtieth anniversary of her iconic wartime production.

I am preparing to stage Sontag’s Alice in bed with the company of SARTR, the Sarajevo War Theatre. The play is a remarkable pamphlet, a profound social critique of the world we live in.

The co-production is intended by the organizers to be one of the highlights of the festival, and after its Sarajevo premiere it will embark on an international tour. The extraordinary attention surrounding the project has already resulted in numerous festival invitations and guest-performance opportunities, including an invitation to La MaMa Theatre in New York, where Alice was first performed forty years ago.

– What would you bring into Hungarian theatre from your experiences abroad?

– The joy of reinventing oneself. The liberating and inspiring experience of cultural universality, which boldly breaks with realism, convention and academicism.

I consider it important that artists create more internally driven works formulated according to their own standards. It is time for us to relearn the arts and make room for creative zones that have not yet been contaminated.

We need a kind of new artistic authenticity. It is frightening that the majority of theatre-makers do not even know the basic concepts of theatre and know nothing about the work of an actor or director. Today it is almost impossible to refer to professional theatrical fundamentals, pioneering artists or styles; most of our peers are incapable of thinking in terms of connections and contexts.

Every encounter requires us to construct a new vocabulary, which makes deeper engagement difficult. What we desperately need in Hungary is a generous, attentive and integrative approach arising from confidence in professional knowledge—one that conveys the following to everyone:

It is perfectly fine if we disagree, but—in professional terms—we must assume the best of one another!

Rita Szentgyörgyi, Art in Business, 2023

translated by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

His troupe, Maladype, has been part of international theater since its beginnings in 2001, and he himself directs worldwide. We talked with him about adaptation and a paths made difficult, independence, inspiration and progression.

- At the end of last year, you won the main prize of the Egyptian Theater Festival with two widely traveled performances of Maladype. Adapted from Bruno Schultz's Cinnamon shops, August hardly uses language, and Yvonne is not only made difficult by language. How do you solve these?

- We have already gained a lot of practice in the field of different situation management techniques. When you play in Iran one day, Albania the next, then in America or Vietnam, adaptability becomes an essential factor. In the case of Yvonne, this is all the more true, since our performance does not have a title character. According to Gombrowicz, Yvonne herself is a temptation for good or bad, a mobilizing personality. Why couldn't it be a random spectator who is chosen by the actors from the audience? The actors of Maladype speak languages, use non-verbal signs well, and easily supplement the English text of the performances with specific expressions taken from the given linguistic environment. In Africa, I experienced a particularly great openness towards us. I rediscovered an adjective that I heard a lot in my childhood, but later became worn out: pure-hearted. During our North African tour, I was impressed that after several decades of work, they were able to realize such an international theater festival in the Sahara, where they hosted 23 African and 17 European ensembles. It's a really doping force. I already had the opportunity to participate in theater festivals in Tunisia and Egypt, but Algeria opened up a completely new world for me. We also played August in Algiers and Adrar. We flew three hours from the capital to the middle of the desert, where, as incredible as it is, there is a car wash!

- As you have stated many times, the survival of the company is basically ensured by these tours and festival invitations. Are you traveling the world for money?

- My theatre-making nature represents a Bauhaus attitude, I also like the unification of the arts, the all-arts formulation. In order not to get stuck in one kind of vision, I consciously look for new content and form units, modern tools of art. The fact that we are constantly present in the world helps me a lot in my endeavor to play out this interiority. We interact with many different people and cultures and it keeps us fresh. We learn something every day. In Vietnam, they don't use ladders because they use bamboo sticks to adjust the reflectors. In India, at the local MÜPA, the cables were still made by hand five minutes before the performance. Two days later, in Switzerland, the set workers unpacked our set elements in white gloves. A constant state of readiness keeps our mental condition lively. Our performances also change according to what new impulses the given theater environment stimulates the wide-ranging attention of our actors. If you always work only in your own environment of love, the pursuit of originality will quickly fade, because your partner and your audience will be forgiving and forgiving towards you.

- In Iran, however, there are many rules. For example, men and women cannot touch each other. You have a lot of physical contact. How do you handle these?

- We adapt to local customs. The Iranian Fajr Festival (Fajr is the morning prayer of Muslims - ed.) invites the production of the given company after a multi-round selection procedure. But even though the performance is "screened" in advance, the local censors also watch the main rehearsal in person. This was also the case with our King Ubu. Then they told us what was allowed and what was not. Boys, for example, were not allowed to play shirtless. Of course, we answered that everything was fine, and then we started to smuggle back the most important elements. By doing so, we risked the stopping of the performance. Fortunately, they didn't make a scandal in front of the audience. After the performance, the "local Mari Törőcsik" ran towards us ecstatically, then suddenly stopped. She said she wanted to hug me, but she couldn't because we couldn't touch each other.

- You direct in many places yourself. Last year, after similar invitations, Josef Nadj, for example, included a lot of African elements in his new performance.

- It is unpredictable what affects me during my work abroad. In the middle of the Sahara, for example, I was impressed by a self-conscious peacock that repeatedly attacked our actors. I thought of Olga Varjú, who in my production of Pelleas and Melisande regularly got into trouble with another aggressive peacock, who without a problem pooped on her during the performance. I relived the fantastic preparation period with Judit Gombár, the special rehearsal process together with the actors and opera singers, and I felt like watching Parazhanov's masterpiece The Color of Pomegranate again. In short, even the most banal things can trigger my ability to associate and my curiosity. In Algeria and Tunisia it was interesting to see traces of cultural colonialism and those architectural heritages. The once snow-white buildings that now stand dirty. I would have liked to peel off the huge foil covering the houses of Algiers and Tunis so that their white light could shine again. I always try to understand the local people's way of thinking and their background.

- You directed Adam Mickiewicz's play Forefathers Eve in Poland.

- I did not work in Poland during the most fortunate period, but the guest directing, supplemented by the support of Hungarian-Polish foundations and institutes, eventually grew into an event of cultural diplomatic significance. Its extraordinary character was also enhanced by the fact that, for the first time in Polish theater history, the "holy work" of the Poles was staged by a Hungarian director. This is as rare as entrusting the staging of the Tragedy of Man to a foreign artist at home. Breaking with the previous adaptation traditions, I approached Mickiewicz's universe from a different angle, but it was well received by both the actors and the audience.

- However, they often don't understand, at home we interpret theater within rather narrow coordinates.

- I have no compulsion to conform. As a director, it is not my job to illustrate the story that viewers and critics do not know or read. My concept continues to think about the writer's intentions and is fulfilled in the unfolding of the problems he raises. At Maladype, we hold an audience meeting after each performance, but we do not want to influence the spectator's curiosity and imagination with didactic messages beforehand. We let everyone react to the theater world we offer according to their upbringing, experience, culture, age, gender or mental habitus. However, only those who are familiar with the relevant code systems can comment professionally on our unique offers.

- Did you have such critics?

- Péter Molnár Gál monitored my creative development from the beginning, and analyzed the company's work step by step. This was a huge gift. He wrote it in connection with our anniversary performance, Inferno, so that no one expects a crash course in Dante from us! Not only in his writings, but also in his verbal criticisms, he warned if he experienced an artistic deviation or a conformist derailment. He considered it important that we remain a progressive company. Thomas Irmer and Jan Herbert, president of the Guild of European Critics, were such critics in our lives, to whom we also owe our international career. Today, this kind of mentor-critic attitude that examines processes and connections is on the decline.

- MGP's book caused great storms.

- Just like he did in his life. He was a divisive personality. So is his book, but maybe it would have been different if he edited his own stories. Anyway, these stories were popular and he told most of them himself during a friendly conversation. His theater education and vitriolic humor are legendary. Many people were anxious in his presence, I liked him. Maybe because I've never been an anxious person.

- You would have fair reasons to become anxious, wouldn't you?

- I lived through the last twelve years of communism, so I know what it means when a black car stops in front of our house and how a house search takes place. I saw my grandmother appeal for amnesty for my grandfather, who was in prison because he was Hungarian. There were also regular fights between the Hungarian and Romanian classes at the school. Very quickly I realized what the real face of the world was like. We lived in Sighetu Marmației, which, although a beautiful place, looks like the end of the world from here. Apart from Catholic mass and traveling circus performances, he didn't have many cathartic impulses. I had to find them in my own world. That's why I started provoking those around me. The immaculate cleanliness and pedantry of the apothecary widow who dines with us on Sundays, for example, irritated me so much that I repeatedly blew my nose into her clothes. For others, I tied their shoelaces or poured soup over them. When we changed countries and I lost my environment that provided me with security, I fell into a vacuum, but I quickly redesigned myself. I hitchhiked across Europe, carried a sumo wrestler, an Indian and a French housewife: the adventures sublimated my fears. Maybe that's why I put a lot of strain on myself.

- But aren't you afraid that you won't be able to cope with so much work?

- I see it all as a game. My creative self has never let me down. Somehow, the solution always pops up. And that sets you free.

- Why do you mostly work with literary material?

- Because I'm old-fashioned. I like to immerse myself in large-scale works, and I love to talk and argue with Stendhal, Merle, Spiro or Wallace. When I was a child, my grandmother, after completing her chores for the day, would sit down at the kitchen table, open a book, light a cigarette and read. To learn about her hidden life, I started reading the same books as her. My imagination was intensely occupied with what she might have thought of certain parts of Mme. Bovary or Lady Chatterley's lover? In the alternative reality through books, I can live the extreme existence. Later, at the drama department in Szentes, teacher Zoltán László revealed to me the public treasures of the world's theater and drama art, opened the way to Japanese theater culture and the perspective-shaping works of major theater masters. There was a moment when I felt that this huge puzzle of knowledge would never come together in me, which really scared me. But fortunately, there were opportunities that made use of the knowledge acquired up to that point. Luck has always played a key role in my life. Also when I was able to move from Szentes to Avignon, and also later on, when I was able to study in Paris in addition to the acting and directing degree that I completed in parallel in Budapest.

- The composition of your troupe is changing a lot, now it consists of members of your last acting class in Targu Mures.

- In Prague, after Patrice Pavis, the internationally recognized professor of theater studies, watched our performance August, he enthusiastically told me that I was stupid if I didn't keep this team together. I asked back: how? In Hungary, it is an art to maintain a company of two people, let alone ten people. But he planted the bug in my ear. Thanks to my colleagues, we finally managed to get enough support for a year and we were able to contract almost the entire department. Later on, foreign tours and extra support helped us stay alive. Now the situation is critical again, and I have no idea how the future of our company will develop. The trade unions' advocacy activities are extensive and ineffective, preference-based money distribution takes place, the nurturing and development of theater art has completely ceased to be a common cause, and decade-long successes and results mean nothing. The Maladype team is made up of search-researcher type actors. The closest to me are the artists who have kept their openness and are not afraid of change, of the unknown. The predators. This is how I saw Ilona Béres as Kronos in Theomachia, Erzsébet Kútvölgyi as Lenin in Dada Cabaret or Mari Törőcsik as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro. They are true reformers.

- Sometimes you also work in questionable productions. You directed Nine, a musical inspired by Fellini's film 8 and ½, in the new Operetta.

- And it was a wonderful job.

- Because of the money?

- It's great if you have a concept that you can implement without material, technical and artistic compromises. All this was a given at the Operetta Theatre. Former managers of the Operetta also invited me to direct, but the plans ultimately did not materialize. It was a joy to compose on the stage where such greats as Kálmán Latabár, Kamill Feleki or Hanna Honthy used to stand.

- But Bence Apáti is sitting outside in the buffet.

- I have work to do in the rehearsal room and on stage. The artists of the Operetta Theater want the same thing as the actors of any troupe in the world: they want to do quality work, in an attentive, motivated environment, under the guidance of a prepared creative team. We were able to cooperate harmoniously. However, we rehearsed Nine in the middle of the covid period with a triple cast.

- Do your own actors have this much-mentioned freedom?

- In addition to Maladype's obligations at home and abroad, they deal with what they want. Why would I block them? If they have a new experience, it automatically affects the joint work.

- But you keep them busy.

- Being a member of Maladype is a special way of life. Our operation has certain rules of the game, which in turn shape our rehearsal technique, the specific nature of our performances, and our domestic and foreign presence. We do not operate as a sect, but the creation, maintenance and renewal of a common dictionary is a time-consuming activity. We are not connected by parties, but by work and creative processes. Although each era is characterized by other playmates, the spirit of the band is primarily determined by me. That is why it is necessary for me to be 10-15 steps ahead of them and the renewal must be carried out by myself first. At home, we have to rethink our strategy every year and have different plans in order to remain viable. For twenty-one years I have been fighting for our survival and for a permanent playground worthy of our name. During this time, many promises were made, but they brought little results. Our international fame is our main asset, but the tours require an extraordinary nervous system and great discipline from all of us, because we have to produce guaranteed successes. If the organizers of the festivals are not satisfied with the work of our troupe and the expectations of the audience are not confirmed by our performances, they will no longer invite us or recommend us. We cannot afford this, because a large percentage of our income comes from our festival invitations. We cannot count on reliable support at home. For two years, we have received zero forints from the NKA Board of Trustees for operation. I am aware that this is punishing our insular existence, but in order to survive we need to raise 50 million a year. In a caring theater society, they would build on our international reputation and experience, they would find a way to an extensive network and professional platforms. The compulsion to conform that we lack is appreciated, but not supported.

- Did you stand up against the occupation of SZFE?

- Our class was on guard. I am not tied to parties or ideologies, rather I represent an ethical position.

- They didn't hold you accountable?

- Cultural savages hold others accountable for everything they do not hold themselves accountable for. I got used to it. I am a supreme creator who mostly tries to stay true to the theater and his ideas about truth. A lot of things don't match my values, and a lot of things I don't think are appropriate, but I always find refuge in art. Today, dexterity and quick success are important, long-term professional investment or deep professional awareness characterizes only certain creative people. An educated person, complex knowledge and a unique vision are not valuable. Unfortunately, there is also a lack of teachers, mentors and masters who can pay attention to others, who are inspiration and role models. Everyone puts themselves together from such and such scraps as they know how.

- You can be curious, but life has to be taken. Not everyone can afford to migrate from country to country, from company to company.

- This is true. I can call ourselves lucky, even if the composition of the troupe changes every seven or eight years. I think it's natural that actors want an existence, a family and more free time. The first transformation was the most difficult, but there was an opportunity to take stock and redesign. Maladype, 21 years old this year, was shaped by the talent and knowledge of many fantastic artists. Today's company is an imprint of their nervous system.

Orsolya Karafiáth, Magyar Narancs, 2023

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

Twenty years ago, in 2001, the Maladype Theatre was founded under the leadership of Zoltán Balázs, after the company staged Ionesco's Jack, or the submission, at the Tavaszmező street headquarters of the Gipsy Parliament, directed by Balázs. For the ten-year anniversary, a large summarization of their work up to that point was published in a book, which - according to István Nánay's criticism - can delight the reader to pick up, flip through and browse through. There was also a series of large-scale events, several audience meetings and finally a gala evening at the Pesti Theater. Now the celebration is quiet, if there is any at all. The bottom line is that Maladype remains, again in Nánay's words, one of the best in Hungarian theater life". Its current members graduated from the Marosvásárhely University of Arts. We talked with Zoltán Balázs in the summer heat.

- How are you taking this heat?

- I'm used to it. When I work, nothing bothers me.

- It's as if you were socialized to stand your ground even in difficult circumstances. You were born in 1977 in Cluj, right in the middle of a dictatorship. You could obviously sense this even as a child.

- I grew up in an atmosphere of extreme situations. I was born in Cluj, but I spent my childhood in Sighetu Marmației. My ability to resist and tolerate is partly instinctive and partly the result of conscious development. My family helped a lot in this process. Primarily my grandparents, who lived through World War II., the establishment and consolidation of the Soviet dictatorship, and the daily operation of the Romanian spying system. Their attitude, courage and, not least, their sense of humor became determinative for me. As a Hungarian man and a leader in a responsible position – he managed a grocery store – my grandfather was often taken away by the black car. He was imprisoned on trumped-up charges and only received amnesty through the intercession of my grandmother. We also had regular house searches. I remember each occasion clearly. As well as when one of my family members puts their index finger in front of their mouth, indicating that they are eavesdropping on us. The instinct to keep our family together is also alive in me. I learned the skill of redesigning from them. When we moved to Hungary and I lost the safe place of my childhood, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I decided to hitchhike around Europe. A sumo wrestler, an Indian and a French housewife also helped me on my travels. That's when I realized what a well-thought-out moment means, how important it is to notice the impulses that are important to us in time and to plan the next step based on the carefully filtered information.

- You lived with your parents and grandparents, so three generations lived together?

- In Sighetu Marmației, yes. I am of noble origin on my grandfather's side, so my upbringing was also determined by the aristocratic attitude. Officially, I could write my name as Zoltán Visky Balázs.

- It would look good on a stage.

- I mean, it would be striking. My family never paraded with their noble titles and never demonstrated their Hungarianness, they simply lived it. My ancestors were Hungarians and citizens of the world at the same time. This is what I strive for.

- Even conversations at home are not easy in a dictatorship.

- A kind of specific code language connects family members. What can be talked about, and especially how, will quickly become obvious to everyone. I also learned to think in symbols, to write economically and to distinguish between the quality of human manifestations. But most of all, I learned not to define myself in relation to others.

- How much did the dictatorship you were born into affect your childhood?

- It was constantly present, but the tensions built up as a result of the prohibitions and silences gave me special childhood adventures. At school, for example, there were regular fights between the Romanian and Hungarian classes. We wrestled almost every break, it was like exercise for us. We made up and then started again. Over time, I made many Romanian friends. From them I learned the version of the Romanian language spoken on the street, and the literature at school. This knowledge is extremely valuable to me to this day, as a director I can easily thrive in Romania. Later, knowledge of the French language also helped me assert myself in French culture.

- Who in the family told you to move to Hungary?

- My mother. At the age of twelve, I did not understand at all why we had to leave North Transylvania. My family, my first love, my friends were there. Sighetu Marmației was a paradise for me, which I had to leave against my own will. My mother wanted to ensure a future with perspective, which is why she decided to leave. My passport photo from that time has all the emotions swirling inside me: despair, sadness, anger. My mother's decision was followed by a lot of train rides. We were constantly on the road due to the handling of official papers and the search for protection. My worst childhood experiences are connected to night train rides: dirty and crowded wagons, stench, unlit, dilapidated railway stations, never-ending waitings, early morning transfers and bone-chilling cold... But in retrospect, my mother's extraordinary endurance and determination put all of this into another dimension. It happened more than once that she somehow squeezed me onto the train, but she couldn't get on and was pulled in through the window of the already departing train. The screeching of the locomotive still affects me today, as if something were being eaten inside me.

- Is all this in your performances?

- For sure. Especially the violence that suddenly materializes out of nowhere.

- Will you be able to sort it out someday?

- I do this constantly, although my directions are not motivated by trauma processing intentions. For me, directing means another form of self-expression alongside acting, a consistent examination of connections. Both activities have a liberating effect on me, perhaps because I didn't have a convulsive desire for either. I can thank Miklós Benedek and Tamás Jordán that I became a director. I was a first-year student in the acting department of the University of Theater and Film Arts when Miklós asked us who was doing what after rehearsals. I was just getting acquainted with the works of the split-conscious Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, and for fun I tried to put together a four-part fantasy game for myself. Miklós asked me for the manuscript, and the next day I spoke on the phone with Tamás, who was the director of the Merlin Theater at the time, and also a member of the Portuguese-Hungarian friend group. He strongly encouraged me to stage the play I had put together at the Merlin Theatre. "But I'm not a director!" - I said. "Then it's time to try it out for yourself! Get the actors together, rehearse in the summer, show in the fall!" he answered. I took it as an adventure, so I went for it. The performance titled The ancient anxiety was premiered in 1999 and, to my surprise, was a great success. When I was in my second year, Mr. Lajos Tiszeker, the secretary of the study department at the time, ran into me one morning and mysteriously said that we would meet again in the afternoon. At two o'clock he knocked on the acting room and beckoned me to follow him. I looked at Miklós, who nodded affirmatively. I had no idea what kind of plan I was part of and where we were going. Tamás Ascher, László Babarczy, Imre Csiszár, Gábor Székely and Gábor Zsámbéki were waiting in the building in Vas Street, because they were supervising the admissionary exams to the post-graduate course in directing. They asked me why I wanted to be a director. I replied that I didn't want to, and I wasn't even interested in being a director. And what are you interested in? they asked. The circus - I answered - that's what interested me in my life. I was asked to tell about my experiences with circus arts. And I told stories with vigor and passion. Not long after the admission, Mr. Lajos knocked on the acting class again and told me in his humorous way that from now on I would sleep even less because I was accepted. I couldn't even imagine how I would be able to complete the two majors at the same time, but the course of things developed quickly. I rehearsed until midnight in the acting department, and from midnight to dawn in the directing department.

- When did you sleep? I'm asking seriously. The physical burden on the representatives of the theater profession seems to be greater than average, although this obviously also depends on who undertakes how much.

- I took on a lot and slept little. Unfortunately, that hasn't changed since then...

- Who became your class teacher?

- László Babarczy. Miklós and Tamás were right, it turned out that I really have directing skills. In the classes of Levente Osztovits and György Karsai, it soon became clear that I can analyze a play well, I can grasp the essence, but also that I look at the world from a very different perspective than is appropriate and customary as a director.

- Before we talk about that: how did acting itself come about?

- I had my first theater experience in Cluj, as there was no theater with a permanent company on Sighetu Marmației. However, the theatrical impulses I received there did not leave any traces in me. The traveling circus performance and the Catholic mass had a truly cathartic effect on me. Both events are based on fixed forms, yet the contents they unfold keep the attention of the participants in continuous motion. Of course, a lot also depends on who it is, and above all, how it interprets what is said at the given ceremony. Everything is pre-planned, yet unpredictable and risky.

- What is the risk in a Mass?

- Reflexes arising in us from the interplay of conscious and unconscious stimuli. Of decisive importance is the right ratio of the instinctive mixing of concrete and abstract events, the personal reflection of direct impressions and the authenticity of our responses. The importance hidden in the details of the content to be processed also largely determines how we can identify with everything that someone conveys to us as a speaker or a priest. As a spectator, the atmosphere of the circus tent, and as a minister, the atmosphere of the church captivated me. Live music played an important role in both places. I was amazed by the shapes, colors, gestures, iconic action patterns and the ability to identify, the creative power of the collective imagination.

- You could have been a priest, or even worked in the circus...

- If it hadn't happened... At the age of six, I ran away with a traveling circus troupe because I wanted to be an acrobat clown. However, my grandfather noticed my disappearance in time, came after me with the police and took me home. Then I felt that I had been robbed of the meaning of my life. As compensation, I gathered together the guys living on our street and we created theater performances. I read a lot because books allowed me to travel far. Even today, I can see my grandmother, who was a very well-read woman, as she finishes her tasks for the day, takes out a book, lights a cigarette and starts reading at the kitchen table. As a child, I watched her and wondered where she might be now, who she might meet... In order to get answers to my questions, I started reading the same books she did,I searched for my grandmother's secret life. In this way, we were forever connected by confidential contact through books. When I hitchhiked around Europe and visited exhibitions, I often thought about how happy it would have been for her to have been able to see certain works of art in their original form. On these trips, I also realized that everything in the world is connected to everything else. Once, in a small gallery in Paris, I discovered a painting of an Indian grandmother bathing in a tub with her grandson. I shuddered because I remembered my first drawing, which also had the same theme: bathing with my granny as a child. At that time, we saved money by having the whole family bathe in the same water, and we two were the last ones. It was a huge realization and joy for me when I understood that common themes viscerally connect people living in different parts of the world.

- So how did the theater come about?

- We changed countries and I was in a vacuum. My mother's vitality and cheerfulness helped a lot, but the lack of a new community left a strong mark on my everyday life. We lived in Hernád, where one evening I saw an announcement on TV that the Budapest Children's Dance Theater was announcing a recruitment. I applied and was hired. I traveled from Hernád to Budapest every two days after school to be with my dance theater playmates. When I was in the eighth grade, I heard from my Hungarian teacher, László Karai, about the drama department of the Horváth Mihály High School in Szentes, where I submitted my application form on the advice of my mother. I was accepted, and four wonderful years began in Szentes...

- We turned from there because it quickly became clear at college that you see the world and directing differently than usual. Has this already shown itself in Szentes?

- Already in my childhood. Guests only came to us if they asked my family beforehand: "Is Zoltán at home?" When I was at home, most of the time they turned back. I constantly provoked my surroundings. I wondered where the boundaries were, what people would tolerate and how they would react to my challenging behavior. Excitement was my essence. I primarily irritated my immediate environment, but I didn't spare myself either. I was a bit of a public danger.

- Certain theater performances can also be perceived as provocation.

- Mine are mostly intellectual provocations, manifestos of creativity. I'm not a fan of throwing bananas at spectators or dousing them with ketchup. The thought and mental energy that connects the audience with us is effective when it blends organically into our being.

- This is enough of a provocation, not to mention the chosen forms. Can you summarize what you think about the theater?

- I hope that my ideas about the theater are very malleable. In my dictionary, theater is neither a concept nor an object. I see the art branch that nurtures the most intimate relationship with the audience as a whimsical and passionate creature with a particularly complex nervous system, sometimes angry, sometimes forgiving, sometimes mysterious and unpredictable, other times raw or poetic. Every day I have to rebuild my relationship with him, gain his trust and win him over to my creative intentions. If I use it, it will take revenge, if I look down on it, it will eat me up. As a mobilizing force that generates change, it urges me to always redesign myself, to never think of my person as authoritative or indispensable. It teaches me to interpret my human and professional insights as part of the entire theater culture, and to consider myself only as a mediating medium between a visible and an invisible world. I consider the director's greatest virtue to be the ability to focus on the essentials and the sophisticated professional knowledge that can imperceptibly connect the attention of those sitting in the audience with what is happening on stage, childlike curiosity with mature self-disclosure. At the age of forty-five, I know exactly that I don't define the organism of the theater, it's the other way around, it defines me. We haven't gotten bored of each other and we haven't fallen out of love with each other yet.

- In an interview you call Robert Wilson and Anatoly Vasiliev your masters. Were you in direct contact with them?

- They both taught me. They shaped my approach to theater as both masters and mentors. I learned from them that artistic creativity is not only a blessing, but also a responsibility.

- Did the provocative tendency in you cause difficulties?

- Many times for those around me. In Hamlet, for example, I provoked the dislike of my colleagues many times. Not everyone appreciated my acting based on surprises and quick changes. My presence was considered too personal and embarrassing by some. There were people with whom we could tune in to each other, but most of my partners did not like my acting boundaries...

- Does it hurt if someone doesn't understand you?

- Not today, but there was a period when the papers wrote about Zoltán Balázs beating the spectators. During the performance, I took the reticule of a spectator so that she wouldn't poke around in it, she got another tock from me and I ordered her to continue watching the performance... so, I really behaved terribly. I couldn't understand how someone could be looking for their handkerchief when the actors were performing a public vivisection. Can't they see that there is a lot of work in the performance, and the main character just managed to formulate a complicated thought?! In retrospect, I think it's ridiculous, but I gained important insights through my whimsical actions. Today, both as an actor and a director, I represent the opposite of everything. If the spectator wants to dance during the show, do it, if you want to go out, go. You're right to want to be somewhere else because we're not doing something right. It took time for me to understand that everyone has a different capacity for acceptance and tolerance, cultural background, childhood and adulthood, and a completely different way of thinking about the world than the artists sitting next to them or creating the performance.

- And it could also be that the person who gets up and goes out is simply tired. I sat through performances without any idea what was happening on stage. So you've changed.

- Radically. Each production added something to this process, but the greatest change was induced by the performances of Hamlet and Leonce and Lena. One shaped my vision as an actor, the other as a director. Many people are afraid of change, even though it is natural and necessary. During foreign productions and tours, I get a million new impulses, I have to quickly adapt to different situations, since in Hanoi I can achieve my goals as a director in a completely different way than in Tehran or Chicago. The pillars of change: the desire to renew, creative flexibility, a stable nervous system and the right mental condition. I learned this from Ilona Béres in Theomachia, Mari Törőcsik in The Marriage of Figaro, László Sinkó in The Duchess of Malfi, Andrea Ladányi in Inferno and Erzsébet Kútvölgyi in Dada Cabaret.

- If you mention them: were the "big ones" easy to handle?

- Absolute. They are predatory artists who, when they smell blood, are unstoppable.

- Does the so-called entertainment theater annoy you?

- When they do it right, I love it. The "bien fait" performances require a complex score, precise coordinates and proportional editing, the actors' cooperation manifested in rhythm, dynamics and style. This kind of complexity is close to me, it is the basic criteria of my directing method. I worked at the Budapest Operetta Theater no differently than at the Bárka Theater or the National Theatre. Nine's audition process presented me with the same challenges as any major drama I've directed at home or abroad. The musical work evoking the creative world of Federico Fellini demanded directorial precision, acting discipline, flawless stylistic sensitivity and carefully executed interplay from all actors. With the troupe of the Operetta Theater, we unfolded the layers of the multi-threaded monumental story, rich in transformations, as carefully and meticulously as the dimensions of any dramatic work I have adapted for the stage. I can thank Nine's rehearsal process for meeting Ildiko Bánsági, Zsuzsa Kalocsai, Enikő Szilágyi, Andrea Szulák, and I could list the names of the artists with whom I made lifelong friendships. These relationships are as defining for me as previous encounters with Maia Morgenstern or Mark Rylance. From time to time, it is important to immerse ourselves in the personality of a new playmate and surrender to the moments we experience together. Pessoa calls it one of the greatest privileges to experience with others how life flows through us.

- Pessoa did not multiply himself by accident.

- He had eighty-three alter egos.

- That's a lot...

- We all have a lot of personalities.

- Robert Wilson said that everyone directs the same basic theme that had the greatest impact on him as a child. For you, this is what dictatorship is.

- I am really only interested in the relationship between the individual and the power, as you say in an interview that can also be read on your website, adding "The determinism and the issue of free will"? At all, isn't it a simplification to bring the performances of the past decades to a common denominator in terms of content? Similar to, for example, a climate researcher who looks for a location where he can collect the necessary basic data and take an air sample that is representative of the entire continent, I also look for an area that is essential for my theatrical summaries. My point is true both figuratively and concretely. In order to obtain jointly valid connections, I have to thoroughly comb through the given area - from now on we will understand it as: topic - and I need to examine the related information extensively. As part of the process, it is essential to compare my latest discoveries with previous data. The credibility of my results depends to a large extent on the exact detection of changes relative to the lowest common denominator and the way of implementing the plan for new awareness arising from the already evaluated and analyzed facts...

- In your last show, in Tancred Dorst's play, Merlin, how is the relationship between the individual and power present?

- By prescription. Dorst also sees that all ideas believed to be inaudible sooner or later fall to ashes. They cool and freeze like revolutions. The seething crowd seeks a new savior, and then rejects him as well. This phenomenon is uncovered by Weöres in Theomachia, Genet in The Blacks, Hölderlin in Empedocles, and presented by Ostrovsky in The Tempest, Jarry in King Ubu. Having had the opportunity to stage these works, I know that they are far from didactic messages and tongue-in-cheek moralizing. Dorst's greatness can also be measured in this. In the epic drama written forty years ago, he encourages us to think about ourselves and the world in which we live. This is dangerous, and not everyone wants to face it, but we theater makers must inspire these processes of awareness.

- Doesn't it bother you that few people will see Merlin - let's stick to this show? Especially since you play in Eötvös10...

- We knew that Merlin would be a layered performance, but we still thought it was important to present it. It is no coincidence that it has only been performed four times in Hungary: in 1984 at the Víg Theater, in 1995 at the Új Theater, in 2012 at the Örkény Theater and in 2021 at the Maladype Theatre. Our performance represents a unique stage universe and a video clip-like rhythm that the 16-25 age group can identify with, but unfortunately many of them do not have the basic knowledge necessary to understand the voluminous work. They don't know Yoko Ono or the Pendragon legend. What really bothers me is that, as a twenty-year-old troupe, we still don't have a permanent place to play. We quickly outgrew the Maladype Base on Mikszáth Kálmán square, which we owned from 2009 to 2019. In the evening, only fifty spectators could take seats in the "big hall", so the room theater space, although it lent an atmosphere incomparable to any other playground to our performances created in a minimalist way, turned out to be very narrow after a while. Then came the soaking and we became "cross-country runners" again. We temporarily found a home in Eötvös10, and we play our repertoire performances in the Chamber Hall.

- Internal cultural migration.

- We can call it that. Maladype finally deserves to have its own playground worthy of its professional recognition and achievements, where it can practice its profession under suitable conditions. Our theater workshop is a cultural export whose value is known to everyone at home and abroad. In a more caring theater society, they would not only welcome our successes, but also build on our international reputation and years of experience. Forward-looking creative plans and value-based collaborations could neutralize professionally unfavorable priorities in the long term. At the moment of its establishment, Maladype committed itself to a consistent examination of theater art, never following fashions or conforming to expectations. Since the beginning, we have followed our own path, which, although we play a lot abroad, brings us back to Hungary again and again. It is a paradoxical situation that they are considered ambassadors of Hungarian culture all over the world, and we still don't have a permanent playground here. Although we would like to play more in Budapest, the opportunities and conditions offered by the hosting institutions are limited, and the conditions are complicated. Our ability to adapt is strong, but the key to our company's survival is that we are different from other companies, not that we are similar to them. The dependency relationship established with the receiving institutions also does not help the completion of the "small-scale lifestyle" realized in its own rhythm. Primarily we belong to ourselves. We are a sovereign creative community that believes that theater does not belong to some, but to everyone. The spectators do not expect abstract "literary" theater from us, but a social experience and interaction. Our relationship cannot be pursued. Each of our theatrical experiments is rooted in the collective's theatrical desires, which is why our performances include open rehearsals, introductory and processing sessions, and audience meetings. In 2009, for the first time in Hungary, we opened the entire rehearsal process of King of Ubu to spectators curious about the anatomy of the work, where they were with us from the reading rehearsal to the premiere. They could see up close the fragility of acting, the plasticity of talent, and the interplay of factors needed to turn a less than successful moment into a success. The participants in the open rehearsals understood that high-quality theater production is the combined result of sensitive and meticulous processes, but the professional aspects should not be overmystified, and the professional aspects should not be underestimated. They felt the importance of balancing everyday and festive impulses, the importance of the silent and the spoken word. They rediscovered the great possibility of "painting" with words, describing external and internal events, and made their own experiences tangible for others. A few years ago, when someone traveled abroad, they sent a postcard to their loved ones, which featured a local landmark on the front and a few lines of greetings on the back. When the person returned home from his trip abroad, he sat down his family or friends and told them step by step what an experience it was for him to see the particular attraction for the first time. In other words, he had to put his impressions into words, accurately and sensitively paint every detail that defined him. Today, people send a selfie in which they can be seen the most, and with that, the entire procedure is dismissed. Our verbal abilities no longer have any function in this field. But then, how can an actor use the words of Aeschylus or Shakespeare to make the message of the messenger in a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean drama understandable?

- Compared to your childhood, and compared to mine, the world has changed a lot. You also write in the ars poetica that can be read on your website that we are living in a new era of human civilization, in which creativity and all abilities that a machine lacks are valued, and these abilities could be acquired most effectively with the help of art and theater.

- I am interested in the harmony of thought, word and action, their combinations manifested in movement, gesture and music. Maybe that's why my performances are often called all-art works. The theater profession likes to quickly pigeonhole any new, as-yet-unknown phenomenon, so my performances already belonged to the category of ritual theater and physical theater. I hate labeling and find it unnecessary. It is especially meaningless in relation to defining the creative activity of a sovereign creative or theater community that is constantly looking for renewal. Both Maladype and myself have done a lot to enrich Hungarian theater culture with new, modern and exotic impressions of form and content. It is enough to mention only the 2003 School for Fools, the 2004 Pelléas and Mélisande, the 2009 Faust and the Duchess of Malfi, the 2011 Inferno, the 2015 Great Sound in the Rush, or 2016's Dada Cabaret, or 2017's Three Sisters and Csongor and Tünde.

- Is there any point in distinguishing stone theater and independent companies?

- Nothing on earth. The only differentiating factor should be quality. Although Maladype's spirit is really independent from everything, structurally it belongs to the group of independent theaters, where unfortunately we all depend on various tenders and operational support. I would rather call ourselves an avant-garde theater, an artistic community fighting for dynamic traditions and methodically searching for new ways and forms of expression. Our company is made up of free and independent people who are not afraid of the possibility of making mistakes. We do not strive to conserve our successes and build eras from a style typical of our emblematic performances. I decided quite early on that I didn't want to repeat myself, and although critics prefer already labeled, predictable products, I will structure all my arrangements along new content-form relationships. That is why I have consciously changed creative styles since I started. Our performances Jacques, The Blacks, Leonce and Lena, Don Carlos or Egg(s)Hell represent a completely different universe... I won't even mention my foreign productions. I was always interested in being able to surprise myself, my playmates and the spectators. It feels good that the audience of Maladype is growing old with us, and also that there is some kind of spiritual continuity between the artists who defined the different periods of our theater.

- Speaking of the 2004 The Blacks, Péter Molnár Gál wrote: "Even if no one can understand the show, it's a theatrical beauty." Do you still remember how this provocative and seemingly mild wording affected you at the time?

- I consider every sentence of Péter Gál Molnár about us a gift. He was the only critic who continuously monitored our development since our establishment. Not only did he watch all our performances and analyze them in his usual way, but until his death in 2011, he considered it important to act as an interpreter between our theater and the critics. Nothing shows his commitment to my work as a director and his consistency as a professional writer better than a few sentences he made in connection with the presentation of Inferno, our jubilee performance in 2011: "Balázs's productions go head-to-head with the scooter theater trend. Not even the University of Omniscience's Dante course. Not a literary quickie.” Today's career starters are no longer given such an opportunity. Actors and directors just starting out don't know what it means to be the focus of the attention of an unquestionable professional chronicler. MGP's education and sarcastic humor also helped the audience a lot to adjust between the authentic actors and charlatans of theater life. During the break of my performance of Faust I.-II., I accidentally heard this phrase from one of our famous judges: "Damn, I have to read the second part!" I was shocked because I thought that the critics would arrive prepared for the premiere of Goethe's work. In connection with this case, I became aware that in certain critic training courses, students are explicitly encouraged not to read the basic work that inspired the performance to be seen, but to let the event freely affect them. How?! Imagine the consequences if, as a director and teacher, I were to give the same advice to my actors or my students: as you feel... In my opinion, the greatest virtue of a director is not to illustrate the given work, but to make visible the invisible world hiding between the lines. Unveil. Shows up. Art is a kind of presentation ceremony. That is why it is a sacred event. A good theater performance is like an angel's welcome, it brings good news to people, they feel chosen and addressed. Thus, the actor, and through him, indirectly the director, is an angel bringing news...

- Has it ever been said that you expect a lot from the spectator?

- Yes. But I only require from them as much as from myself. True, that's a lot. I expect no less from the actors. But why would I?

- In any case, you have to acknowledge that few people are interested in what you do.

- We see this differently. I don't dispute that my persona and my directions are divisive, but my performances are at the center of many different interests. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be constantly directing abroad and our troupe wouldn't be present at various festivals around the world, from Algeria to Vietnam. It is a fact that Maladype is not a theater popular with the culture snob audience, there are no scandals surrounding our company, activist artists do not upset the moods at our performances, we do not write open letters on a daily basis, we do not whine and we do not demand donations. I am not a member of any dinner parties or clubs. As I said before, I don't conform to anyone, I follow my own path.

- You are obviously a maximalist as a private person as well. You have friends?

- Yes, I have a close circle of friends made up of extraordinary people. And yes, I am also a maximalist. If I wasn't, I would never have experienced such human and professional adventures as I fortunately had during my forty-five years. Take, for example, the highlight of my acting career so far, the 2003 Hamlet directed by Tim Carroll at the Bárka Theater. In the performance realized in a special concept, situations arose countless times when, thanks to my perfectionism, I was able to experience extreme acting situations that could not have tempted me professionally in any other form of theater. At the show, for example, when I started the To Be or Not To Be monologue, I heard that I was fake. "I'm lying and reciting," I thought. Then, for the first time in my life, an unknown inner voice spoke and advised me to be silent. "I'm an actor, I'm playing Hamlet, I can't keep quiet!" "Of course! You can hear that you are lying too! Start again!” - He told. And he kept saying it until I finally gave in and stopped: "Sorry, I'll start again!" After the audacious and civil gesture, amid the stunned silence, there was no going back. "And now? Can I really tell you in person?” I asked myself the desperate question. In the end, I reconstructed the monologue word by word out of the difficult situation and the audience rewarded my authentic acting action with applause. The lesson learned from the incident was that as performers we have to take risks at every moment and if something doesn't go as planned, don't pretend everything is fine.

- How did Tim Carroll react? In addition to the fact that he obviously got a freak...

- I think that when he asked me to play the role of Hamlet, he secretly hoped that I would be a generator of such and similar situations. I learned a lot from him and from each performance, which were also amazing self-knowledge courses. In my productions following that experience, the actor's identity, the everyday tone and the risk factor gained more and more space. In every consciously planned acting moment, there was an unexpectedly exploding bomb hidden, which tested the players' ability to react and adapt.

- While you also have to judge what is happening, is it so significant that you adapt to it... And when you leave the role, you adapt or stay in the role.

- If our attention fades or our brain capacity expires, we need to sharpen it again. We should not pretend that nothing happened. If we are honest with ourselves, we can turn our vulnerable moments to our advantage. Around 2008, I became interested in this kind of integrative creative approach, and it was in this context that I directed our now legendary performances. I was looking for the person hiding behind the actor's role.

- You even provoke me with your choice of pieces! Or let's say: you're taking a risk.

- I'm so. Before the public rehearsal of Theomachia, János Csányi, the director of the Bárka Theater at the time, called me to his office to tell me what a fantastic performance is in the making, what special creative energies are unleashed in this unusual theatrical undertaking, but I have to prepare for failure. We will be able to play it three or four times at most. He even asked us to translate the original title of Sándor Weöres' oratorical work into Hungarian as Battle of Gods, because the audience will not buy tickets for such a difficult-to-pronounce performance. In the end, we played the performance, which became famous as Theomachia, fifty times, and the theater was forced to cancel it only because Ilona Béres and I agreed that we would not watch our creation become the prey of snobs. I learned from Ilona and Klári Tolnay that you have to be able to stop very popular events in time.

- It is almost time to tell how Maladype was formed.

- At the end of 2000, a Serbian producer, Dragan Ristić, asked me to stage Ionesco's play Jack or the submission in the hall of the Gipsy Parliament in Tavaszmező Street together with Gypsy and Hungarian actors. I asked him if he was aware that this work had failed everywhere in the world. He answered: yes, but not now. I was so impressed by his confidence and belief in the plan that I took it on. Dragan was right, because the performance, which was played in Hungarian and Gypsy languages, was a huge success. Critics raved about our occasional troupe, and spectators lined up to get into the show. A great group of actors came together, and we felt that our meeting was special. Gypsy actors came up with the word maladype, which means encounter in the Lovári language.

- Is there a company member who has been like that since the beginning?

- There is none, but there are those who, as founding members, were key actors of our troupe for ten years: Hermina Fátyol and Kamilla Fátyol. They symbolize everything that the concept of "maladype actor" means. It would take a long time to list all their virtues, but the most important of all is humility. Selfless devotion to the common cause. The actors of Maladype develop a lot professionally, they tour many places in the world, but if they want a family and an existence, they have to move on.

- Either way: you represent continuity.

- That's true. Maladype will cease to exist when I no longer see any perspective in it. Fortunately, four years ago we found each other perfectly with an acting class graduating from the Marosvásárhely University of Arts, who immediately said yes to my contract offer. Since then, they have been the permanent company of Maladype.

- It is not easy to maintain the theater.

- It's a wonder we still exist. Now it is vital that we finally find our own playground. Otherwise, our energies will be chipped away.

- The possibility of termination must also be taken into account.

- Definitely because of the unpredictable financial situation. For the time being, however, I still feel responsible for the members of my troupe and for the objectives set out earlier in my artistic strategy.

- Do you go to the theater?

- I do, whenever I have the chance.

- Are you interested in anything outside the theater?

- Lots of things! Now, for example, the latest discoveries about outer space.

- Are there days when you don't even think about the theater?

- Hmmm... not really.

Imre D. Magyari, Criticai Lapok, 2023

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

It wasn't our first meeting, and I hope it won't be the last either: talking to Zoltán Balázs is like getting a lesson on what true freedom and independence are like. The actor-director who has led the Maladype Theatre for more than twenty years is perhaps the most unique creator of Hungarian theater life. Their latest performance, Merlin, tells the story of the greatness and horror of man in the company's usual bold style.

- Tankred Dorst's drama Merlin or the Waste Land is a rarely performed play, what interested you so much in it?

- The dual nature of man of all times, which emerges in Dorst's visionary work from the monumental summation of the historical and metaphysical experiences of the 20th century. The epic drama, written forty years ago, has only been presented four times in Hungary: in 1984 at the Comedy Theatre, in 1995 at the Új Theatre, in 2012 at the Örkény Theatre and in 2021 at the Maladype Theatre. It is no coincidence, since the structure, based on a specific dramaturgy, consists of ninety-six scenes that are extremely diverse in terms of genre. The staging of the multi-actor play, running on a thousand threads, requires an exceptional creative vision and a decisive and complex directorial concept in terms of content and form. I don't have a troupe as big as the mentioned theaters, but I have a nine-person ensemble in great shape, whose members are actor individuals who are capable of virtuosic transformations and kaleidoscopic, focused teamwork. The defining element of this ever-changing game is also the minimalist set, in which there is a house that can be used in many ways - it can even be turned into a round table - and can be folded in and out. The attention of the actors of the show, which is based on complicated artistic and technical solutions, with a whirlwind momentum, cannot wane for a minute...

- Neither does the spectator. I can say from experience that the Maladype performances work the audience thoroughly.

- The cathartic moments of recognition require devoted and in-depth attention, the process cannot be rushed. Otherwise, the theater experience remains just an affected version of an excellently written speech. The audience fulfills its role when it organically merges into the events on stage and becomes an active part of the given story without being noticed. Instead of contrived messages, the Maladype troupe wants to present spectators who are open to special adventures with the experience of initiation. We try to create this mostly by consciously avoiding theatrical clichés and direct statements for our fellow players in the auditorium. It is not the job of any creator to tell anyone what to think and how to feel. I abhor any stage message that lacks empathy. It is worth paying attention to the fact that people from different religious, linguistic, cultural and social backgrounds are sitting in the auditorium every evening, who may be more sensitive to certain topics due to their age, upbringing and personal experiences. Our encounter will be truly lasting if the story or the personal impulses expressed by the characters evoke different associations in everyone.

- However, there is always a main point that can be decoded by everyone, just as there is always a reason when a director selects a play. What was the reason for Merlin?

- A few basic themes have determined my choices of plays since the beginning, their presentation on stage in new aspects accompanies my career as a director. For me the interest in the relationship between individual and the community, the individual and the power is almost monomaniacal. Recently, I'm mainly interested in people thrashing around in the trap of civilization, the procedure, how we are engulfed by modern conditions. We have provided our planet with knowledge and information, we are connected, so we need a new kind of awareness - and not only in the field of climate change. It all depends on how we relate to the change itself. The world we knew is disappearing, our certainties are losing shape at lightning speed. In this mad chase, the man who is constantly scratching his head longs to be able to hold on to something. In God, in ordinary happiness, or in an idea that leads him to the right path and gradually reveals his dual nature. In Merlin, as in Mickiewicz's verse drama, The Ancestors, which I am currently directing in Poland, I am trying to interpret the paradigm of the pagan-Christian relationship system using theatrical tools. It is an extremely exciting question whether in the 21st century it is still possible to talk about an identity based on common cultural references and values ​​between people living in different parts of the world...

- And is it possible?

- My experiences abroad show that the majority of artists are in despair due to the large-scale "secularization" of their craft and are showing signs of "artistic sclerosis". This is especially the case with those who have been deprived of their resilience by the compulsory process of assimilation into the consumer society and turned their talents into mediocre ones.

- Why?

- Because before, their position and behavior were determined by the traits that spontaneously arose from their guts, which separated them from the materialistic society, and from which autonomous forms of stage action were born. Many people feel that their profession has lost its dynamism and avant-garde character, that the theater has become an institution and the actor has become a clerk. Artists consider performances less and less as an event and the mental-spiritual connection with the audience as an unrepeatable flow of energy. There are those who experience the interpretation of stage texts as a public humiliation caused by words. There is a lack of real reflections, demanding, direct discourses between creators and receivers. In Romania and Poland, the standing ovation after the performances has become a reflex, in Hungary the standing ovation. The state of creation, the organic cycle of creation has broken down, so the majority of theater makers are forced to represent an artificial model of artistic attitude based on extreme pragmatism, efficiency and automatism.

- Why was this close relationship with the audience lost?

- This is strongly related to the fact that the creators, with respect to the exception, exchanged their long-term relationship with the theater for a casual relationship: they are looking for an easy and superficial adventure. They no longer respect and love with the same passion as at the beginning of their relationship, they use it according to their own interests. They see a career, money, fame in it. They forgot that theater art is not a concept or an object, but a person. A mysterious and capricious creature with a complex nervous system, who has to be conquered step by step and can only be approached again with caution. Unpredictable, cruel and vindictive, at other times generous and noble. Certain creators are just as detached from the audience and the truth of everyday life as they are from more complex forms of theatre-making, and their human-artistic expressions lack curiosity, dignity and generosity.

- Simply put: humility?

- Yes. From time to time, it does not hurt to remind ourselves that we are part of a centuries-old theater evolution, and that many people invented Spanish wax before us. We also need to be aware that theater revolutions naturally freeze and become parodies of themselves over time. Our fear that during our artistic development the creative act sinks into a conventional practice can only be overcome by deliberately undertaken risk, adventure and rebellion. Constantly updated knowledge, analytical thinking and openness to the unknown help in this. We should not back down even if we sometimes feel that we are neutralizing the old with the new knowledge. Knowledge that has been used many times becomes the foundation of conformity, indifference and apathy. It is enough to think only of those actors who, at the beginning of their career, represent something very original and exciting in their acting, then less so, then terribly, and finally so irritatingly that the audience tenses up awkwardly. If artists are not encouraged by their own environment to develop and find extreme truths, they must take care of it themselves, otherwise their personality will fade, their talent and knowledge will wear out...

- Who did you learn this from?

- Mainly from my family. Later, from my teachers and professional role models. My grandparents always said: if we want to remember who we are, we should remind ourselves of who our role models are. They were right. Ilona Béres and László Sinkó shaped my vision as much as Robert Wilson, Tim Carrol or Anatoly Vasiljev. I learned from them that I can only remain authentic if I follow my own path consistently and persistently, follow my inner voice and do not conform to any fashion or trend. Their teaching seems to last a lifetime, my curiosity remaind unbroken and I am still passionately interested in man. The "monstre sacré", who fascinates me with his humor, his talent, his love of life, and who horrifies me with his desire to destroy, his nature incapable of lasting peace and harmony.

- Four years ago, you brought almost an entire class with you from the University of Arts Targu Mures, and since then, starting a new era, they have formed the company of Maladype. Do you feel that you’ve succeeded in conveying this kind of open thinking in the best sense of the word to them?

- I think yes. We invested a lot of energy in joint work, in the theoretical mapping and practical implementation of the methodological program called the Five Gates. Our performances require not only a complex acting presence, but also a personality receptive to improvisation and interaction from the members of the company. Everyday creative work is based on the continuous reconstruction of childhood memories and their verbal and non-verbal stage processing. The actors of Maladype do not only play for a Hungarian-speaking audience, so it is important that their thinking is integrative, their expression is diverse, and their adaptability and reaction time are fast. As a trupp touring around the world, they always have to give their best form, whether it's a performance in Montenegro, Tunisia or Vietnam. The local audience does not know them, they are not forgiving with them, so the given performance is worth only one shot, it must be a maximum score. One of the trademarks of the Maladype ensemble is the liberated acting and the relaxed attention ready for change, which is ensured by the disciplined and precise teamwork of the actors.

- Not only Maladype is at home in the world, but also you as a director: from Poland to Chicago you are invited if they want something surprising that shakes up the local actors and audience. In the light of your many experiences abroad, how do you see acting in Hungary?

- With us, with the exception of a few forward-looking significant exceptions, the art of acting out is still authoritative. This is understandable, since our theater culture is rooted in itinerant theater and fair performances. The artistry of figurations, the spread of naturalistic and realistic theater style does not leave much room for more minimalist, abstract or poetic theatrical thinking. We should learn the kind of desire for renewal and flexibility from our greatest school-creating masters, with which they were able to rise above their own methods. Paradoxically, it was Stanislavsky who carried out the most reforms in his own method, but this is not usually mentioned in relation to the father of "psychological realism". Yet this could be one of the most important lessons and legacies of their work. We somehow do not want to learn this form of mental plasticity from them. A more caring theater society would also pay attention to this...

- You said that it is mainly foreign invitations that keep Maladype alive, but of course you have to get to the point where you are given from hand to hand. What kept the faith in you not to give up? Not even when your permanent rehearsal and performing venue in Mikszáth Square got soaked in 2019, which has not been stably replaced since then.

- I am a positive person and I have a strong sense of inner belonging. A sense of humor also helps a lot, as does the circle of civil and professional friends who have supported our journey in the theater since the beginning. Also, there's Fran Lebowitz's life advice: Think first, talk later! Read first, then think! Then you can think about things that didn't pop out of your head... I learned to appreciate, enjoy and respect life. I strive for the same with the theater. I will never know what the recipe for theater making is, but I feel the need to move towards more and more perfect content and form from performance to performance.

- Can there be a perfect theater at all?

- Perhaps the mass is the closest to it. Or a circus production. As a child, I had my most lasting theater experience in the church. The liturgy is enchanted as much as the universe of the circus. The two worlds are not as far apart as we might think at first: both have their own iconography, where hand and head postures, colors and shapes have meaning. They are the teaching tools. If we look at them for a long time, the impact of complex messages will be unavoidable for us.

Anita Farkas, Mandiner, 2022

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek

They are colleagues, and both were born in Transylvania. One heads a doctoral school in theatre arts in Târgu Mureș, the other leads a theatre company in Budapest. But both are actors as well. And both can speak passionately about acting. In Telephone Conversation, we invite artists to ask a colleague living far away from them to join them for a professional exchange.

Conversation conducted and edited by Lilla Proics.

Erzsébet B. Fülöp: I would like to talk to you about presence, and about putting it at risk—the kind of madness in the best sense of the word that is also so characteristic of you. How can an actor’s presence be stimulated?

Zoltán Balázs: Through personal discoveries. Through the momentary risk inherent in the dual experience of flying and falling. This is why I find the courage and sense of responsibility of circus performers so inspiring. They cannot be at the mercy of their mood on a given day, because an inaccurately executed sequence of movements could cost their partner their life.

Actors, on the other hand, have countless opportunities to bluff. A sea of instinct, a drop of consciousness. The acting profession, if it is not deliberately maintained, can very quickly become schematic, mannered, and devoid of character. Expressions without individuality or intention cannot create the conditions for that particular spark to emerge every time. If the energy of communication lacks personal motivation, there is no discharge.

Ideally, a kind of give-and-take should emerge in which the actor-medium embodying the character is equally capable of representing the author’s intentions, the director’s concept, and their own ideas. It is important to attempt to assert independent thoughts and consciously embraced emotions at every moment of both the rehearsal and the performance. This effort most authentically validates the immediacy of impulses arising in the present and the possibility of making the most of the moments of awareness contained within the present moment.

If this process lacks personal motives and content, if it is not built on one’s own experiences and avoids conflict, then it cannot elicit unexpected, impulsive, and provocative stimuli from one’s partner. Sovereign stage presence based on extreme forms of expression holds enormous possibilities, but only a few people dare to make use of them, because the risk factor inherent in it greatly threatens the “artistic self-awareness” built up through hard work.

EBF: What bothers me about current definitions is that they are formulated from the perspective of the recipient rather than the actor. Although there are numerous definitions, according to Erika Fischer-Lichte’s categorisation there are three types of presence. The first corresponds to the weak concept of presence, when the actor is simply there. The second level is the strong concept of presence, when the actor is present intensely, dominating the space. And the third is radical presence, when the energy circulates with such intensity that it draws in the spectator; actor and spectator become one within this extremely powerful presence. According to the system above, this is the highest level of presence.

As a director, do you perceive this, and how can you stimulate it? And I am returning to the concept of risk because, in my work, I do not experience every director as leaving the actor that opening in which they can take risks.

ZB: What exactly is missing for you as an actor that would allow you to be present more riskily in a rehearsal process?

EBF: Freedom. I am missing the freedom of the actor, which I continue to look for even when certain directors send me from A to B and then from B to C. But there is a type of director—and now I am talking about my favourite kind of director—who sends me from A to B with a good instruction, leaving me the possibility of getting to B without specifying how I should get there, thereby leaving the execution entirely up to me. They trust me not to play beneath the score and to deliver the expected standard.

ZB: That works when the foundations are strong and there is a common vocabulary. If the director devotes time and energy to familiarising the actors with the rules of the game for the particular rehearsal process, with the conceptual and practical toolkit associated with the production in preparation, then a common denominator can be established effectively and economically. The artists’ talent and creativity can be focused in the same direction during rehearsals, and within the performance created along the mutually established coordinates, they can experience enormous freedom.

If, however, the framework is not sufficiently precise, the actors become uncertain and are forced to shape it themselves from one evening to the next. Their attention is no longer focused on what really matters, and therefore they cannot fully unfold.

Actors can fly when, as part of their development, the conditions necessary for flight are provided during the rehearsal process. This is why it is more difficult for me to create performances that emerge from one-off encounters: I simply do not have enough time to establish the preliminary points of reference.

In order, as a concept-driven director, to make visible those invisible dimensions hidden within a more complex playwright’s work, I have to dismantle a great many ingrained acting habits and replace them with valid points of reference that offer different approaches and new challenges. This requires an extraordinary nervous system, patience, and a sense of humour.

When actors cannot find anything to hold on to at all and are therefore at their most vulnerable, the director has to step back intelligently and sensitively, redesigning the process and integrating new tools into it. If, in such a situation, the director is capable of behaving empathetically, letting go of the pressure to conform and perform that comes with the leadership role, and activating a relaxed form of all-encompassing attention, then the actors will give space to the fragile, creative part of their artistic personality.

EBF: You call it a relaxed form of attention; I call it soft focus, following Strasberg or David Singer. How many different zones of attention do you distinguish among your actors?

ZB: Countless ones. Let us start with the suspicious actor, who always receives the words of the person directing them with reservations. The director has to gradually tame the bristling sense of self-importance in such an artist.

I must never forget that I am dealing with a sovereign creator who has to satisfy a great many of my colleagues simultaneously: the dramaturg, the composer, the choreographer, the set and costume designers. And ultimately, the audience of the moment. And they are right to expect me to win their trust with personalised instructions that are useful in practice.

It is up to me how I capture their attention, then retain it and inspire their work. What kind of communication strategy I use to establish our creative dialogue, built on loyalty.

Throughout theatre history, numerous theatre-makers have tried to synchronise this delicate process, but none of them has found the one universally valid solution. You have also mentioned several theatre scholars who categorise actors’ attention according to individual criteria, but they cannot offer guidance that applies to everyone either.

The director has to assess for themselves what level of experience their actors have reached and how complex their interests and education are. Once this map has been drawn, the director can tailor their instructions to individual personalities.

“Boundary-crossing gestures” formulated in the spirit of mutual trust can be particularly liberating, because at such moments the actor can be entrusted not only with solutions concerning content, but also with suggestions concerning form.

EBF: Many actors talk about how the rehearsal process, the exploratory phase, is more important to them than the finished product...

ZB: Forgive me for interrupting, but for me the term “finished product” is meaningless in a theatrical context. The premiere is just as much an opportunity for artists to encounter themselves as any day of the rehearsal period or any subsequent performance. Something does not come to an end—it begins.

It is precisely the pressure of the “finished product” that makes most rehearsal processes tense and rigid, which is why actors focus their entire nervous system on a single red-letter event. The ability to redesign—I use this term for the quality that is also closely connected to stimulation—provides a renewed opportunity for the actor not to panic when something does not turn out as planned.

But for that, they need to know precisely what tools are available for turning a changed situation to their advantage.

EBF: It must be easy to be an actor with you and, say, to receive a risky task every time while performing in Yvonne. I only read about it, because unfortunately I did not see the production, but I thought the idea of involving the audience in this way was brilliant, because it stimulates the actor’s presence.

It really is risky: what answers will the audience give, how will the actor react, while still having to perform the score from one evening to the next? I start from the premise that simply being there is not yet the kind of presence we are talking about, just as an athlete cannot maintain their attentional apparatus constantly, because what they have to pay attention to is constantly and unpredictably changing.

That is why I assume that presence can be categorised. Sometimes it is stronger, more intense; sometimes it diminishes. And obviously it can be generated and stimulated—which means that presence can also be restored during a performance, and it can be taught.

In my book I wrote about four categories, but I have continued to think about whether I was right to establish them. For example, whether weak presence requires repeated activation of the attentional apparatus—the actor has to return to the inner theme and the external stimulus.

ZB: You mean it has to become a reflex, or a routine, like having your morning coffee?

EBF: No. If, during a performance, for example as Arkadina, I feel that I am at a weak level of presence, I try continuously to analyse both the external and internal stimuli selectively. So, for instance, in Act III, I recall my greatest fear: that Trigorin is going to leave me. At the same time, I take into account the external reactions coming from Trigorin, and immediately I am back in the presence: He is going to leave me soon. I can see it on him. He isn’t looking at me, and so on.

I repeat this thought to myself and try to find feelings and movements that correspond to it, so my external and internal attention are constantly oscillating. This self-generated focus can strengthen presence.

Then there is a third category—which I think has occurred to me only about five times in my entire acting life—which I call integrated presence, because of the integrated attentional apparatus. This is the highest attentional zone, when I enter some kind of trance, or cease to exist as the external and internal attentional apparatuses merge.

Fischer-Lichte says that in this state you become embodied. You do not transform your body into the character, because there is no effort involved. You simply are the presence, the character, and the spectator also enters into it through you. Fischer-Lichte says that this generates a state of happiness both in you and in the audience.

ZB: Robert Wilson truly enjoys actors’ presence on stage when they are able to pay attention like a cat preparing to pounce, or like a dog pricking up its ears in response to stimuli from its surroundings—ready to move, ready for action.

An actor is not only a person endowed with instincts, but also with consciousness and spirit, someone capable of operating themselves in a complex way. The only question is: what kind of personality are they putting into motion when they lend their entire being to the creation of a role?

Until I met Tim Carroll and encountered the kind of stage interpretation of Hamlet that Tim revealed to me during the rehearsals for the Bárka production, I too regarded acting as something like a striking costume that I could parade around in during the performance and then hang on a peg in the dressing room afterwards.

This was also partly due to the great actors of the past, who often spoke about the sanctity of transformation and about “getting under the skin of the character” every evening. I never found myself in that approach as an actor, but at the beginning of my career it floated before me as an achievement to admire and imitate, because thousands of artists in Hungarian theatre had previously practised this form of representational acting with great success.

Fortunately, I met Tim Carroll after I had already been influenced in Paris by the thinking of several masters who did not represent realist or naturalist acting.

I agreed to play Hamlet when I understood the essence of Tim’s concept, which could not be compared to any previous interpretation of Hamlet. As Zoltán Balázs, I was entrusted with thinking through the problems of the character of Hamlet in front of the audience at every performance. I was to examine, with arguments and counterarguments, the questions with which Shakespeare had been confronting his character Hamlet for four hundred years.

During rehearsals, we sought to gain an overview and understanding of the complex set of problems occupying the Danish prince. In this way, I was able to arrive at countless valid interpretations of Hamlet and—with the right to change my mind—could participate in the story sometimes as a boy, sometimes as an adult, sometimes as an angry and arrogant heir to the throne, and at other times as a weak and vulnerable young man.

Of the insights I gained during rehearsals and performances, two defining encounters radically changed my previous relationship to stage presence.

During the first performance, before the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, I thought I would look up through the hole in the centre of the canvas stretched above the playing area and discuss my situation with God: whether there was any point in living or not.

I began the soliloquy, but I felt that I was horribly off target, speaking theatrically and falsely. I knew what I wanted to express and whom I was addressing, but I could hear myself from the outside, and I quickly became conscious of the second-rate quality of my presence.

I knew I should stop because it was getting worse and worse, but the voice of my professional actor-self advised me to continue: The audience has paid for their tickets, the show must go on.

But my personal self whispered: You know you are lying. You are speaking falsely. Your intentions are not clear, and you have failed to establish a connection with the person you are addressing.

And then, Bözse, I don’t know why, but it burst out of me:

“Excuse me, I’ll start again!”

You can imagine how enormous the silence was.

And immediately there was another problem. Fine, I’ll start again—but what if I am even worse the second time than I was before? What if I am less able to concentrate, and I cannot focus my nervous system in such a way that I am truly personal, sincere, purposeful, and free of theatrical devices?

EBF: May I guess?

ZB: Of course.

EBF: You succeeded the second time.

ZB: I did. But there was no guarantee.

EBF: You know what the guarantee is? That you surprise yourself. You surprise your mind, and at such a moment you are capable of surprising the mental comfort zone that constantly wants to monitor you and channel you into a particular course. You can stimulate yourself with something unexpected. You see? You discovered it.

ZB: And yet the risk is enormous. It is easy to think of something, but it is not necessarily possible—or necessary—to carry it out. Some people like the fact that I try again, but others are outraged and object to the idea that I am using their money to refine the sound of my authentic voice.

The spectator is perfectly justified in thinking: The gentleman actor should kindly play Hamlet, and that’s it!

My experiment was, incidentally, a great success; the audience appreciated the special moment. I think I was so desperate that I would fail again that my hopelessness activated a previously unknown part of myself. I lent Hamlet my own desperation; my helplessness gave him credibility.

During another performance, before the armies of Fortinbras passed through, I asked the audience for two minutes of silence because I was terribly exhausted. After that, I built the soliloquy up from nothing, word by word:

“Every... occasion... accuses... me...”

It was difficult to reconstruct myself, but eventually an extraordinarily personal train of thought emerged from me. I, Zoli Balázs, publicly rearranged my intentions. The audience greatly appreciated it.

Certain colleagues were less enthusiastic, because they felt that, as an unreliable, rebellious, anarchistic actor, I had taken over the performance... And they were justified in resenting me.

After the performance, I went home ashamed, thinking that I would resign the next day because you simply cannot do such a thing—it is amateurish.

Then I began to understand something: I had become exhausted because I had seriously engaged with Hamlet’s problems and completely surrendered myself to him. The obsessive investigation into real and imagined events had consumed my entire being.

Naturally, my mental capacity became depleted, and I ran myself down like children do after they have cried themselves to sleep. Hamlet’s exhaustion was validated by my own fatigue.

This experience later gave birth to the production Leonce and Lena, which, through my actors, demonstrated the enormous power of the symbiotic duality of the personal self and the creative self. That was when I began consciously exploring the actor’s dual nature.

EBF: But you see, to return once again to the possibility of stimulating presence, the director gave you free rein, so you were able to take risks. You did not always have to get from A to B in exactly the same way; your freedom remained intact. And presumably you understood each other extremely well for him to entrust the role to you to such an extent.

And you also discovered within yourself that you can indeed be stimulated by stepping outside the score—whether through a sudden movement or simply by saying, “I’m sorry, I’m exhausted.” Look: it is possible to stop in the middle of a role and say that you need to pull yourself together.

I have been thinking about this since the pandemic began—how theatre should be made. And then it turned out: there is no special answer. The same way as always.

ZB: Just don’t tell me we need to make quarantine theatre...

EBF: I’m saying that it has to be done in exactly the same way: with the same faith, dedication, and embodiment.

ZB: Only those who carry these fundamental qualities by nature, instinctively, are capable of that. If someone doesn’t have them, you can tell them all you like about passion and faith...

How do you stimulate people who think differently from you about the creative processes of theatre?

EBF: The actor is responsible for their own awareness, their self-censorship, and their own ability to be stimulated—for being aware of their own energy level before every performance.

Breathing exercises can help with this. I admit that there are performances... Especially when I have had a busy day and arrive at the theatre extremely tired. Then I have to help myself, perhaps with a breathing exercise or another method, a physical conditioning exercise that raises my energy level.

So far, there have been only five performances in which I have experienced that kind of integrated attentional zone—what László F. Földényi describes in relation to literature as a vertical attentional apparatus—in which the external and internal merge.

I had a powerful experience with Lilla Proics during one of those five performances, and I also wrote about it in my book. At the Thealter Festival, we performed Bread in the Pocket, and I had to begin the performance with silence. I was supposed to speak when I felt that I had the audience’s maximum attention.

And for some reason, I thought I would try Master Zeami’s advice: to sense the audience with the voice of the heart.

And something incredible happened. Lilla’s review captured it perfectly—I have never experienced a critic joining me so completely in an experiment. She wrote about a state of theatrical zazen.

I was terribly frightened, by the way, because the moment expanded and I lost my sense of theatrical time. After the performance, I could hardly wait to ask Éva Patkó how many minutes later than usual I had begun. I thought it must have been at least twenty, but it turned out to have been only two or three minutes.

I experienced something like a newly constituted sense of time that had never happened to me on stage before. Afterwards, I thought a great deal about the fact that an actor works with two kinds of attentional apparatus.

Have you ever experienced this?

ZB: Yes, I have come close to a similar kind of subjective-objective awareness. When Tim Carroll invited me to play Hamlet, he told me that, beyond my acting instincts, he would also need my director’s brain. He needed me always to be ten steps ahead of the situation and the other actors.

As Hamlet, I had to be an organising force within a constantly changing, fluid performance that was not based on fixed scenes and precisely defined coordinates.

This conscious and unconscious duality organised and shaped my identification processes at the time, and it is something I still strive for as a director today.

It is extraordinarily exciting to think through all of this together with an artist like you: someone who not only experiences and puts into words the insights gained through theatre, but also continues to investigate them as an ever-renewing artist and passes them on as a teacher.

Lilla Proics, szinhaz.net, 2022

translated by Zsuzsanna Juraszek