Images are formed, worked out compositions are born with the background of the deep coloured opera foil, which reflects cosmic spaciousness.

The genre of puppet art gets out more and more boldly from the box of the theatre for children. The Puppet Theatre of Budapest extends again its repertoire, which aims the older generation, this time with Goethe’s Faust. Zoltán Balázs’ staging leaves as much the traditions of natural puppet art, that he puts at once the puppet-like elements into the stylized and overturned, but hard to encode world of the most contemporary theatre, and he builds around with surreal gestures. The Goethe-like poetic lines are flowing modestly and spare, while puppet creatures of over reality, gothic mutants from the hybridization of the hellish creatures of the Walpurgis-night and Hyeronimus Bosch are flying up onto the stage. Images are formed, worked out compositions are born with the background of the deep coloured opera foil, which reflects cosmic spaciousness.

But in spite of all its beauty the world of stage is so much constructed and organised, the story of the Faust-like mythology and the characters’ fates, their systems of relationships are so fragmented and re-choreographed that the logic of the happenings and the enjoyment of meeting up with them, are so much hidden. A vision is put on stage, which operates as some kind of sensual machine, and not as visions of human moods. When Faust meets the demented Margin in the jail, the emotional net, which is strained between them, appears in a stylized scale of movements. Faust on the page, which jumps out of the wall of the set, slides under the older Margit, who stays in a jail and their dialogue, can be listened to as parallel monologues. Their connection is limited to the image as Margit pushes dispassionately from above with her bare foot, Faust’s head and chest, who is wobbling for its rhythm. The feeling of some kind of vulnerability appears here, but this solution does not become multi-layered because of the stylization, above all something gets lost from the possibilities of their duo and of the moment. More punctually the interpretation of Goethe’s work. Sándor Zsótér this time works together with Zoltán Balázs as a dramaturg, and the most important change according to their dramaturgical structure compared to the original one is Helena’s figure, who appears earlier and more times, while the Margit-motif slides backward.

With is the remaining parts of the two parts of the tragedy are connected to one another more organically, and the desire of love is more emphasised (as it is strengthened by the playing of Umebayashi’s love motif between the low number of music), and the exposure of human longing becomes more balanced and complex. The whole performance is filled with similar doubling and reflection. According to Judit Gombár’s set, Faust is sitting on a place of our everyday surroundings, on the subway of the city. As in István Erdős reserved and enjoyable performance, the old Faust shows us his memories about his life – each scenes of the other world are also played in the subway car (or at least in its “remained parts”) – and in the fantasy appearing creature, Norbert Ács’ young Mephisto, is only the catalyst of it. The contract happens with the ceremonious eating of an apple, which is the symbol of Fall, but they do not begin the Margit-line, but Helena appears as old too, if I remember well Márta Szakály plays her. After it, they start the happenings of the first part of the original text, more exactly that way the so far young Mephisto becomes the young Faust. The two figures are connected to one another that way, and - in the troupe of the Puppet Theatre, which strongly has all the generations – together with Margit’s role, they go on from actors to actors. The performing and moving actors’ costumes can refer to this symbolic connection of the characters too: everybody wear that Margit-like suit, everybody is the faceless agent of Matrix.

The puppets, which show more and more distorted gene pool appear more stressed after Margit’s death, from it the stage shows its more surrealistic face, but the puppets are able to do less abstractions. While their disgusting worm-like nature is interesting, their worked-out nature is more concrete too, so less remains to the viewers’ fantasy. From it their scenes seem to be somehow boring and meaningless, there is less tension between them and their movers (for example in case of the black suited marionette pair, or at the appearance of puppet, which connects the devil-like creature from the space and mythical army helmet in itself). For a while, the only thing, which is interesting, as Margits, Fausts and Mephistos are changing one another. The scales of the scenes, which are long for nothing, visionary circling around, calm down finally with Philemon and Baucis’ episode, and it leads to a fantastic ending image, in which we can see the old Faust again, who would tell not only his own, but Mephisto’s monologue too, with the same light, slightly resigned, summary-like tone. The Human being finally reaches the end of his fate, all calms down, everything is ready to death. Just the pink ancient remaining creature, which is moved by Zsófia Vesztl, with its human legs, waggles its tail and watches the final end, as it does all through the performance: maybe it is the never ending Nature, as the symbolic figure of re-beginning.

László Deme Sz., szinhaz.net, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

“They come and ask: What kind of idea I would like to embody in Faust? As I would know it, as I would be able to tell it!” If we can believe in Eckermann’s notes, Goethe had these ideas about his masterpiece, which was sensational at his own time too. Zoltán Balázs, the director of the fantasy play, which can be watched in the Puppet Theatre of Budapest, does not deal a lot with the ideology of Faust.

There are books, which are important according to the common-knowledge, there are references on them many times, and many places, but only a few people have read these texts. Everybody has an opinion, idea about it, as some of its turns and quotes have built in everyday phrases. Many people have strict expectations in connection with their possible staging. Faust has the same kind of judgement too.

The two parts of Goethe’s play are separated not only by the 25 years, between their writing, but by the stylistic and poetic differences are also stressed between them. The calm classicism of the first part is totally opposite of the playful irony of the second part, which is rich in symbols and puzzles, with their reflective motifs and mythological references. The hardness and length of the text is the reason why we can rarely see the “whole” Faust on stage. The quotation mark needs because of course Zoltán Balázs’ staging cannot be characterized with the usage of the complete text.

The director together with Sándor Zsótér, who is the dramaturg, decide to use simultaneous staging. As the result of the suspension of the linear story telling of the performance, it requires much more intensive accepting behaviour from the viewers. We can watch alternately scenes from both parts of the dramatic poem. In the middle there is the life-long journey, which helps understanding and learning. It is a journey in space, in time, in culture and human soul. Faust and Mephisto in reality are two completing soul parts of a personality, its complementary segments. From the troupe, which is heterogeneous from the point of view of their ages, almost all of them play all main roles for shorter or longer time. So that way we can see all important figures young and very old too.

Judit Gombár’s fantasy creatures and space, which she has designed are important pillars of the performance. The visual world is put together from the statues of Aztec gods, figures, who are familiar from Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, and the antlered headed, insect-like people of the American sci-fi series. An important dramaturgical element is a pink creature, that walks on two legs, with fish-like tail, it is the pure version of Faust and Mephisto’s common personality. It reflects to the happening, sometimes seriously, sometimes counterpoints in a humorous way the happenings. The giant necklace, which Faust gives to Margit, is moving, which if it is needed seems to be a rosary, if needed it seems to be useful onion ring for the defence against the devil.

The stage is populated by giant, sometimes strictly standing, then flabby penises, and open, vulvas, which are waiting for intrusion, and creatures, which tusks can be taken out. The ordinary space counterpoints it. which shows the inside of a subway can and an office hall at the same time.

Zoltán Balázs’ ingenious staging is put together from the scales of sensual, beautifully composed images. It is theatre in theatre, it is shadow play and pantomime: these are just some characteristic examples form the cavalcade of the genre. The most successful parts are those, where the moving of the fantasy creatures, the performance of the actors and the story are organically connected to one another. Margit’s seduction is an example for it, which is completed by the play about Helena’s kidnapping in the background, or the scene of the figure, made of sticks.

The II. act is harder to follow – there are more reasons for it. The keeping of the unity of the action is not always successful, and the actors’ waving performances have a role in it too, more exactly the diction has. That type of method of performance, which Zoltán Balázs wants from his actors, is based on very punctual text telling. The troupe of the Puppet Theatre try to do their best, but we can feel well, that the actors feel themselves better when they move the fantasy creatures. Of course, there are some exceptions: Gyöngyi Blasek is suggestive in Margit’s role, who is preparing for death, as well as Norbert Ács’ Faust remains memorable.

The Puppet Theatre of Budapest advertises Faust as a performance for youngsters and adults, but because of its dramaturgical complexity of staging it can kindly offer only to the later ones.

Szabolcs Szekeres, Criticai Lapok, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The director multiplies Faust, Mephisto and Margit: an old, a young and a puppet Faust, five Margits and at least that many Mephistos come, one after another.

It is a journey under a city, in the eternal night. It is a subway. There is something else, somebody else over the window, in the darkness, there, beyond the world of here – there is, as you know it. Need, Guilt, Problem, Trouble: four materials of angel, some supernatural beings from here talk to Faust, to the one, who is travelling by subway, to the restless one, to the one, who desires the unknown. To Faust – and to us.

A knife flashes. It is a moment of death. An old Faust is sitting on the subway-stage, Mephisto is in front of him. Faust goes to live instead of death – from death – in front of the death. During his road, which reaches over life and mythology, the secrets of the everyday car are opened: from the seat a student, from the map, Margit comes out – and the car is opened, to show surreal fairy-tale pieces of Faust’s visions, madness, deadly dream behind it. Parallel worlds slide into one another: two parts of Goethe’s tragedy are connected – the pictures of the second part are shown at the repeating opening of the half-realistic subway-set, which is the frame-like place of the first part. Sándor Zsótér, the dramaturg, has made a hard work, when he put together the script of the performance from the two parts of Faust by Goethe (and from other texts, which have not been mentioned in the programme – for example from Faust by Werner Schwab). From the extensive lines of the second part of Faust (In Goethe’s play it is much longer than the first one) he emphasizes Helena (and those characters and texts that are strictly connected to her searching), so he creates a text, which can be compared to the Margit-story of the first part. The performance – as Faust himself too – commutes between the two women’s worlds: next to the mythical pictures, which can be connected to Helena, Margit’s world remains insignificantly ordinary. When Helena appears, Faust simply turns his back to Margit, who despite this appears not as the victim of Faust but as of Mephisto: before her death, she wears as a fetter, the giant jewellery, which is from Mephisto.

The performance is changing between the two worlds: the usage of the place puts all scenes obviously into its own world. To make the changing between the pictures – and that way the worlds too – fluent in all scenes missing the dynamic and the airiness: because of the ambitious handling of the text, those viewers, who do not know at least in a middle level both parts of the original play, can lose easily the line of the performance, and break under the tonne like weight of the speech, falling on them. Zoltán Balázs suppressing the action and diction and directs a totally static picture, and because of the directional intention, which creates human-puppets, behind the actors’ minimalised gestures, it is unrecognizable many times, but many times the told texts become meaningless. (The microphones, which are there to counterbalance the lack of the acoustic of the Puppet Theatre – maybe to prove the nature of Faust as a book-drama – many times strengthen better the prompter’s then the actors’ voices.) The director multiplies Faust, Mephisto and Margit: an old, a young and a puppet Faust, five Margits and at least the same amount of Mephisto are changing one another. The actors are all performing in suits, those who play the same roles do not wear any distinctive signs of costume, so we cannot follow all the time, that who play which role – for example Norbert Ács, who starts the performance as Mephisto, from one moment to the other appears as the young Faust; Anna Simándi for the time of a fast scene-interjection without any sign changes from a witch into Phorcys. The real characters’ marionette partners function sometimes as the characters’ souls, then as simple (if it is liked: puppet-theatre-like) source of humour. (The viewers are surprisingly less receptive towards the humour of the performance.)

The übermarionette-actors are in the place of the subway as human beings (some of them even one month after the premiere run up against the set sometimes, and they learn slowly their texts too) and cannot get used to properly to their small space. Their monotonous speech results in less enjoyable performances then the actors’, who move the puppets and many times follow them with entertaining voices. The movement at that time too, works against the words; they cannot tell completely the hard text. But it is a pleasure anyway to watch many times the host of really monumental puppets, which can be thanked for Judit Gombár’s fantasy ("So do not spare / Either the scenery or the machinery here today!” – Goethe: Faust, Prelude on the stage), which can be the real base of the performance for youngsters and adults – it is a shame, that after the disproportionately (it seems to be unjustified from the point of view of dramaturgy) long first part, many from the young viewers will not come back to the second part which is richer in puppets.

In spite of the difficulty of acceptance in the performance there are many effective moments. For example, the seemingly infinitive picture of Mothers – together with many Wilson- and Balázs-like visons which are in a line on the back stage – or the dwarfing of the same Mothers into choir next to Helena. The musical interludes are similar to it: the Björk song (It’s Oh So Quiet), which starts the evening as a carrot – which in its text gives not only the essence of the Faust-story, but it winks with the rebeginning of the performance after the break – or the returning love-remembering motif of the films by Wong Kar-wai. It is beautiful as the time of Euphorion’s death, Helena is about to leave Faust climbs out of the giant veil, which covers her, to be able to present for the first time there as a human being at the last common moments.

"I have but raced through the world; / Whatever I desired, I seized by the hair." – István Erdős’ old Faust tells goodbye twice; that part of the text, which Goethe wrote to the end of the tragedy, can be heard at the beginning and (about three hours later) at the closing scene too. The frame, which is formed that way, changed the performance into the frozen moment of death – The snail-like puppet monster with fish-like tail, that is performed persistently by Zsófia Vesztl holds all thorough the performance the floating of going away. At the ending scene Faust’s young and old egos appear at the same time as his own mirror, but from the background the set, which means the travelling of this world, disappears - Faust gets there: Helena changes the dark tunnel of the city into colourful colours of the other world.

András Sztrókay, szinhaz.net, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Travelling is one of the basic motifs of Faust by Goethe, however it becomes really emphasised in the second part of the drama, when we are wandering up until the Greek antiquity in place and time. It is true, that there are „journeys” in the first part too, after the desperate scientist sings his contract with Mephisto, and finally he leaves his study room. He goes to the students of Leipzig, then up to the rocks of Harz Mountains. And this is just the beginning of a real journey around the world, through which Faust and Mephisto together meet fairy-tale-like figures and strange creatures of a fantasy world too (the traditional theatre can hardly show all these).

The basic idea of the performance – the place of Faust’s journeys is the subway of New York – is an emphasized beginning; Zoltán Balázs convincingly uses many possibilities on the great stage of the Puppet Theatre of Budapest, while he reinterprets the travelling from station to station too. Before all these – which is a real surprise – Balázs’ performance mixes the most different forms of puppet theatre with the actors’ performances. This gesture shows up one moment of the creating history of Faust too: it is said that Goethe would have known the that time famous story of the man, who has signed a contract with the devil, at the age of four, with the help of the toy puppet theatre, which he had got as a gift from his grandmother. Goethe himself said later, that an “important puppet performance” inspired him to write the pair of the plays, on which he was working on for fifty years.

The theatrical performance, which is combined with puppets and actors, has thrown from itself at the beginning all the philosophical fetter, which is usually mentioned first in connection with Goethe’s Faust. For different Fausts, who appear in the performance – besides Mephisto and the five Margit-figures – the fairy-tale-like figures mean the real attraction. It is not easy to understand the montage of the strange creatures and parts of set which are inspired by both parts of the drama, but the lazy “station dramaturgy” is characteristic for the second part anyway.

The pink symbolic figure, that connects different periods of time – half fish, half arthropods, so some kind of evolutional hybrid – in most of the scenes it is there as an observer: he is moved by a stick as most of the puppets are too. But the incredible foam made penis monster is a human sized, moving structure: it shows that Balázs’ theatre with the help of humour and joy, which are hidden in the visual formation of phantasmagorias gets rid of the so called fetter of the basic material. The famous Homunculus is a similarly liberating experience, the staging of which many generations of directors and set designers have failed: it gets an infinitely simply stick-people solution which is captivatingly easy.

If we watch Balázs’ performance from the point of view of the traditional dramatic theatre, which today has the most different kind of technical possibilities to show Goethe’s creatures and Mephisto’s tricks, but we can be surprised by those many things which can be reached by this large format integrated puppet theatre. I have seen only once that kind of performance, which at least by its elements can be compared to Zoltán Balázs’ one: when in 1999 the Schauspiel in Frankfurt, that time really young directors, Tom Kühnel and Robert Schuster staged Faust together with actors and puppet theatre performers. Kühnel and Schuster who were anyway Thomas Ostermeier’s classmates, on the considerable Ernst Busch University of Theatre Art, during their course they partly studied together with the performers of puppet theatres, and later it had surprisingly flourishing results. They performed all magic, tricks and fairy-tale-like creatures with performers of puppet theatre, while Peter Stein in his own “uncut” Faust (2000) arriving to the second hard part, he used video tricks, to show up these figures – by Goethe’s words – in this incommensurate play. Balázs’ two and half hours long panorama picture emphasizes its fantastic side between the everyday fragments of the subway, without letting disappear the central story of the first part. At the same time the interaction between the actors and the puppets sometimes get thinner, which shows that on that version of integrated staging we have something to improve.

Thomas Irmer (Berlin), Revizoronline, 2010

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Judit Gombár puritan set has been made by the connection of the underground station and an underground car. The place of the subway indicates specifically the travelling motif: Faust, who desires to know the whole infinite creation at all costs (for nothing of course), here sings his contract with the Satan, from here, he leaves to his great journey, so that the fragmental structure would take him back to here at the end. The main character, Mephisto and Margit stand in front of us, performed by many actors, in changing showing. All the performers are wearing dark suits and ties – except for the “main” Faust, who is distinguished by his white shirt.

Faust-like desire to know something, sin and trial, about which we usually have some previous knowledge, these stand out of the calm and elegant flow of the performance. Even a well-prepared art student can hardly follow all these, and the details of the story, mythological aspects, fantasy probes. Even the figural changings too. The adult viewers of the premiere (who could sit only in the middle seats of the lines to be able to accept the whole visual world well) were watching it in respectful silence towards the play and the performance, the hidden humour, which can be found in the depth of Zoltán Balázs’ generous performance, is rarely honoured by laughing. After the two hours long first part, the performance unfortunately has lost the fifth or sixth of its viewers: the unusual length and the consciously chosen monotony of the tone have made many leave. Hopefully the planed youth performances would not be broken by the viewers’ impatience.

Faust in the puppet theatre is for the adults. It mostly shows the melancholy from Goethe’s monumental play. (Dramaturg: Sándor Zsótér, who has directed a Faust adaptation, himself too.) Some motifs have shown intensively – like the motif of motherhood and of death. The archaic translation (which was originally made by Zoltán Jékely and László Kálnoky) is hardly touched by modernisation, this compilation is told by such actors, whose professions are not mainly about the direct formation of characters, and during the night the thesis is emphasized: the representation of individuality is stuck at the iconic outlook and the punctual, cold articulation. The lines and rhyme-pairs are shown more than the longer parts. The play needs about twenty minutes to find its own volume. The quietness is an aesthetic aspect here, but the over lowered voice is annoying. Especially when, if the pathetic orchestrated lyrical aspect, “the saint fire of poetry” is so important, as the “theatre of word”, which was condemned many times at the area of post-dramatic theatre, at its reign.

Zoltán Balázs must have asked for silence and closeness from his actors in their movements too. Graceful postures, waiting positions, structured movements are next to each other, the “theatre of words” becomes “theatre of actions”, turns into symbolic structure of gestures and movement. The group is divided sharply into old and young faces, egos. To the question of “Is somebody here?” the answer of “Yes”, which organizes the episodes: the place of the question is filled by the individuality that continuously changes but unable to escape from its resignation. The scale of actions is ceremonial and artistic. Zsófia Vesztl takes silently for a walk all through the whole night, close to the actions, the bird-fish-monster-like “dog” of death.

The perfect puppets were made of compact, flexible, sensitive material, of painted, light plastic, in their characteristics airy, earthy and watery traits have been mixed together with human features. These creatures that have lost their anthropomorphic nature are the prisoner of their own broken physique. By the second part their number has grown, their size gets bigger. These strange body-ghosts are seen to be escaped from formalin jars of a laboratory, where they have kept freaks. Their movers share sadness with the puppets, the puppets in a slightly illustrative way – as a projection – characterise their movers. The human and non-human spheres work together and against each other.

Norber Ács, Eszter Bánky, Péter Bercsényi, Gyöngyi Blasek, István Erdős, Henrik Gyurkó, Ibolya Juhász, Borbála Karádi, Ildikó Kazinczy, István Kemény, Marianna Kovács, Gergő Pethő, Rita Radics, Judit Rusz, Anna Simándi, Márta Szakály, Zsolt Tatai, Csaba Teszárek: many members of the great troupe of the Puppet Theatre of Budapest and many young artist can show their talent in the harmonized performance.

Zoltán Balázs’ Faust fantasy play is not a classical puppet theatre interpretation, and cannot be told to be successful from any point of view. The silent closing and opening of the walls of the set, the frightening shadows which are reflected to the background, the monsters, which got three dimensioned from Bosch’s brush, the monumental human failure, which has decreasing hope instead of running life, and it is lived through in rushing travelling, makes sure that: we are watching Goethe. In a way as Balázs, Gombár, Zsótér and nineteen actors can see it in 2009, in Andrássy Street, they get humanism and gracefulness from Faust-like failure.

Tamás Tarján, Kultúra.hu, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Yes, there is a brave choice: to put on stage Faust by Goethe in any way, it is that – but courage has law aesthetic relevance. The situation is that Zoltán Balázs, the director, in the Puppet Theatre of Budapest with Goethe’s Faust kicks into a river with strong current, and he cannot be sure, that if he can get to the other side. So, the performance has a real bet.

Above all – together with the dramaturg, Sándor Zsótér – he puts the script together from both parts of the Faust; into the first one, which was created in the heat of the Sturm und Drang, into the “close looking” one of his young life, he works into many parts of the wide second one, which was made in the name of world harmony, that way they not just connected monumental and most inner human problems, which Goethe “secretly made into” (by Goethe’s own words) the Faust-legend, but they make their own work harder, then we have not talked about the actors’ tasks.

We have a hard work too – if we accepted to go along the road, which Zoltán Balázs cut in a hard way. The puppet-form is the natural surround of the Faust story, and however in the performance of the puppet theatre, Judit Gombár creates an imaginative and undefinable puppet-world, anyway the diction and the text should play the main role. These can bring in themselves the “modern people’s Iliad” (Pushkin told it about the play); the puppets can help show us another perspective of the travelling of life, of Faust’s happy story of suffering, who is chasing knowledge and passion in the shadow of the contract, which he has signed with the devil. Between Gombár’s undefinable but familiar puppets, there are monster with three eyes, a snail like creature, made from crab-fish-bird, a person of sticks and “puppet made of an actor” too: head and limbs. And of course almost all characters have their puppet counterparts – they move them in turns.

The actors are in dark suit, white shirt, and tie, they form many, seemingly similar figures, who are ready to change forms and roles: there are five Margit and there are more from Faust, Mephisto, Wagner but even from the Auerbach girl too. Above it: Norbert Ács, who performs Mephisto at the beginning make a deal with the old Faust – the contract is signed by apple eating, anyway the situation was the same in case of the first business, signed with the devil – then he will be the young Faust too.

The place is a subway car – moving and standing at the same time: everything happens with Faust in the subway car, which is running on its way meantime. The happening is mostly the text of course – mainly during the first part there are many problems with the diction, the followability of it, and its understandability. The actors tell with humility, in disciplined way, but mostly hardly understandably – and many times seems to be: they can hardly understand it – Zoltán Jékely and Zoltán Kálnoky wonderful lines, and while the director puts one another the different motives and turns, we are getting lost in the confusion of Faust. In the young Faust’s rush, the searching passion to find “Helen in each woman” and the Margit-love are stuck to one another. Margit’s giant pearl necklace and her misery; “you do not even have Christian belief” – Faust accused her that way, the sinful one (and who have seen, can remember the same scene from the performance of the Deutsches Theater, directed by Thalheimer). Meanwhile creatures with wings, giant shadows, curtains and clothes grab our attention, everything is another character and another turn. I have told, it is hard to follow, it is easy to get lost in it, but it is not allowed to give it up.

The director does not give it up – the second part is much more completed, pure. It is true, that time almost all actors move a puppet too – and it is interesting to see, that they are freed up by it: the performances are fuller, more self-confident and richer. And Faust does again a tour “in the world of dreams” towards Helen – “the reborn ancient past” – and they have a rest in Arcadia, but then he is enchanted immediately by Ikarus’ “must fly” obsession, and the wild waves of the sea catch his discursive imagination. But in this second part, Faust’s and the prisoned Margit’s scene is in the middle: the mother’s psyche, who killed her child, is almost broken, and she throws herself into her reappeared lover’s arms with desperate reluctance. Gyöngyi Blasek’s Margit and Norbert Ács’ Faust find each other once more – it is a film-like, slow, tragic and lyric scene at the same time, when the woman seems like to be born, it is hard for her to climb through the narrow window into the men’s arm, who hugs for herself, and with long and strong steps takes her out. They see Philemon and Baucist – Henrik Gyurkó and Márta Szakály are sitting on a bench and moving their own puppets, while they are telling the text – and Faust desires the small, idyllic cottage, and Mephisto fires the house on them...

And that time the old Faust – István Erdős – steps on stage again; he is sitting, but moving anyway, as the continuous movement was the importance and aim of the deal, they have signed with Mephisto. And this saves him – Goethe saves his exactly with it – from Mephisto: death catches him in movement. "I’ve rioted through all the world’s delight, I’ve seized whatever pleased me on the fly, What couldn't be held, I let go by, And what I lost, I put out of my sight." This saves and takes to the other side Zoltán Balázs’ performance in the Puppet Theatre: “Though ghosts beset him, let him onward stride, In marching find both bliss and pain, Contented not a moment to remain!”

Judit Csáki, Magyar Narancs, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The winger seats of the lines have been covered by careful hands, as from there we cannot see well the happenings. On behalf of their hearing nobody raised their voices, so the other stalls remained free. The first half hour of the performance was filled with hopeless struggle. Finally, we had a feeling, that this performance does even want to come down from above. It has remained up there, it nurses sullenly its found ideas, and for long, with a little bit of speaking disorder, mutters for itself. However, we can guess, that Zoltán Balázs really have something to do with Faust’s figure, in connection with Goethe’s work. We owe that much to the director’s talent to tell, that this performance is not only half ready, but it does not exist on its own. As he did not recognise, what he should have realised during the first rehearsals: different kinds of energy can be found in the actors, who get on stage, then those, which would be able to perform this kind of performance. It is true that there is something charming in it, when the representatives of two and three different generations, who grew up in very difference schools, with very different momentary powers, can break their soul to the exercise. It is about honest determination in cases of all of them. But it is not enough to leave this performance, which comes together with important lessons, touched.

The red program advertises Faust by Goethe, as a fantasy play in two acts. It covers reality that way, that fantasy begins for sure in connection with the very bare main topic, then wonderful visual ideas are performed in very different ways and with very different measure, but almost the fourth of the script of the more than three hours long performance do not come from the advertised play. The brought in texts are wonderful quotes, the problem is that neither the authors nor the translators are important. Nor the name of Zoltán Jékely and László Kálnoky, who are the main translators, are mentioned. How can we expect from the youngsters, from the university and secondary grammar school students to pay attention to the translators, or at least to accept them, if theatres handle this topic here in Hungary with such a puffy arrogance? These poets are not important. They are dead.

The performance defines itself as a performance for youngsters and adults. It is a secret, that why do they do it. Maybe because there are places where they have to read Faust, or at least some parts of it. It is a question, if it is worth doing experiment and offer this performance to schools too. If there were not hassle in the young heads, then they will take care for it here. The young viewers will step back forever, and they would not just beware of Faust but of everything which is theatre.

We are in the car of an underground HÉV or instead, in one of the under-time subway system. Everybody seems to arrive from a school leaving ceremony or a funeral, young and old people are sitting here in dresses, which are not elegant enough. A surprisingly easy, contemporary music is played, an English-speaking woman is whispering into the microphone. An honourable old man (István Erdős) tells on shaking voice beautiful Goethe lines. He is the old Faust. His young version is the energetic, well performing Norbert Ács. The puppet Faust, which they move, becomes more and more useless by time, it just bothers the actions. Later sometimes the side wall of the car is opened, and from the holes some figures press in, then out. The signing of the contract is made there too, Mephisto is one of the travellers. They eat apple to seal their contract.

From the point of view of the dramaturgy of the performance it is a constructed play. Many texts are brought out from their original place, and they are mixed together with the guest texts, in a new kind of order. One part of Faust is young, the other one is old, one of his side is human, the other one is the devil itself. The definition by the female beauty, the bowing in front of Helen, the desire for the unreachable one overwrite the Margit-line, which is loaded with moral burdens, then we have not talked about the only mentioned question of belief. The perfect confusion, which anyway could be perfect in the scale of actions, which is constructed perfectly in a musical way, is compounded by the fact, that some roles are performed by more actors – which is not too reasonable.

On the red line of the holding poles, sometimes blood seems to flow. If any other visual action was not come after it, this little moment would be able to sign that such a huge power it there in the personality of the visual designer, Judit Gombár. Zsófia Vesztl moves gracefully a frightening pink, waist high puppet, which nose is a bobble, which is characteristic to the one with pot hat, its body is a fossilized snail shell, its tail is a moving caudal fin of a fish, its stepping, thin legs end in hooves of an ostrich. This sniffer chimera stands in for the clingy black poodle of the original story, that comes together with Faust, it appears everywhere, where deterioration can be expected. It is frightening.

The visual effects give a relay unreasonable part of the evening. And the giant puppets, which pull shadows too, come for nothing, and Márta Szakály’s memorable beautiful matured face has become memorable for decades for nothing as she is enlightened behind the veil of the Helen’s scene, the Bosch and Dalí visions, Tanguy’s bio-structure. the puppet-monsters army of the constructor, who accepts well the vision of Magritte’s creatures of leg are for nothing if the director does not give any work for the movers of the puppets. It is very exciting to find the concrete elements of Goethe’s text in the forms of the giant water fleas and in the group of other arthropods. Here Judit Gombár is the one who assumes from Faust by Goethe. She is the one. who with the fertility of an ancient mother returns the classical, verbal inspirations. There is the base for the theatrical vision. There would be.

But many times we do not just miss the puppet-actors’ composed movements, the alive actors’ private walking, sometimes their shuffling arrival make harder the reorganisations, and aimless touches disturb the dialogues. The old Margit (Gyöngyi Blasek), comes out one of the capsules above, touches the young Faust’s forehead by her bare foot. It seems like we would put a Japanese phrase into a Hungarian or English sentence.

The crying violin of romantic films from the far east can be heard, a pouring sadness fills the corridors of damnation. Zoltán Balázs lets a kind of nice beauty to predominate in many of his performances, and when magic is about to pass away, the viewers look aside for help: can somebody tell them what it is about? Here the cooing can be similarly frightening. But the meaning of it is told accidentally, or the performance does not tell it with enough energy.

It is a pleasure to see when their foot feel ground, so the performers can find themselves by getting a puppet and a concrete exercise. For example, when the mocking Homunculus’ scene, which is drawn into a scene of a walking puppet, can be heard on Zsolt Tatai’s voice, which is not connected to any other thing, and that way it does not matter how genius it is, it remains memorable only as a closed cabaret scene. Bori Karádi, who appears as the first Margit, with high sparkling, is valid also as Mephisto. Besides Ildikó Kazinczy, who has a beautiful speech, the precise and strict Marianna Kovács there are younger and older ones – Eszter Bánky, Péter Bercsényi, Henrik Gyurkó, Ibolya Juhász, István Kemény, Gergő Pethő, Rita Radics, Judit Rusz, Anna Simándi, Csaba Teszárek – all work together with devotion.

So, there is a performance, which incredible intelligent and helpful performers got a fragmented script (dramaturg: Sándor Zsótér), in which frightening amount of mythological references harden the understanding, and which puppet-theatrical performance, in spite of the wonderful puppets and because of more reasons reach at about forty percent, from the actors’ point of view it is very uncountable and strongly wavering. Anyway, important things have happened here. We can take for sure, that as the old Goethe returned back to his work of his youth and finished it, that way, Zoltán Balázs would use again Faust’s story in some decades. And as the dark winged giant butterflies of the frame play, the Problem, the Trouble, the Need and the Burden will return, and the forcing power of the idea, which is not over thought, but which is brought on, would catch the performer.

It depends on the theatre leaders’ wisdom if they really want to entertain the young viewers with this performance.

Katalin Gabnai, Criticai Lapok, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

About that variety of the Goethe-like poem of humanity, which was put on stage by Zoltán Balázs, the director and Sándor Zsótér, the dramaturg I could write a praising critic, if I did not take into consideration its enjoy-ability. Of course it can be misunderstood easily, if I did not add to it, that I do not expect from the performance that kind of enjoyment, then from a comedy other times or a bag of snacks. I can expect “intellectual adventure”, philosophy of life, catharsis, and who know, what else. That can be enjoyable, if they show something totally different for me, something, which is totally different from my needs and expectations.

The performance is similar to a confused dream the most – as someone would fall asleep sitting on the underground and he is travelling back and forth between the terminals during the three hours, he would sign a contract with “its part of power”, he would travel through the world and history, his skull and that “ancient something”, which is called to be subconscious. In spite of the fact, that the performance – as it starts in an underground car – belongs to the category, which I like (in reality I found it out), to the “opuses of the public transport”, it is not very enjoyable, according to most of the meanings of this word. I feel that for this low level of enjoyment they can be blamed, but on the other hand according to the final meaning of the performance, this feeling has an important role.

The writer of these lines does not want to give an impression that he would criticise the performance, as did not get the depth of it. Instead of it, they try to enforce the youngsters’ point of views, who use naïve tools to interpret the performance, as the Puppet Theatre of Budapest advertised the performance as it is for youngsters and adults too.

Goethe’s play is a really complex one. As the director said in one of the interviews: “Goethe’s incredibly rich text is so complex and brave, as we should swim through the ocean without any life boats.” 1. Unfortunately, the ocean, as we know it well, is a deep water, and if somebody continuously pushes us down under water, while we are swimming it through (beginners and professional swimmers), we will definitely drown. Anyway it seems to be the director’s intention. The distraction of acceptance can strengthen many times, moves on the viewers’ intentions to interpret it, but here we seemingly lose all clues, and the few understanding moments can get the beginners’ “mood” to visit theatre.

The director changed Goethe’s play a lot. But all of it does not help the understanding. It is philosophical, has abstract content too, it talks about army of mythical people and sentences come one after another, which are built on complicated metaphors. The story would not be easy to follow by reading too, especially not when during a three hour long performance the words are continuously flowing from the actors’ mouth, who are changing their roles all the time.

I think that the aim of the performance is partly to confuse the viewers – and it works perfectly. The theatre goers can hardly find out, if the actor wants to put his words into the mouth of the puppet, which he moves, or we can hear by his voice the words of another’s puppet. (This confusing statement may help to illustrate the viewers’ confusion too.) The look mostly cannot help to understand who speaks to whom, and who is speaking anyway in reality.

The hardness of the text is counterpointed from one side by the extreme puppets and the creative set, from the other side, they emphasise it too. The way, how we see the formation and organisation of the puppets and the sets, dispossesses our attention, and distracts it from the sentences. Maybe we could enjoy the performance more, if the actors in it speak a forgotten language, in that way we would prepare not to understand anything, and the non-verbal elements can compensate us for all of it. The performance of the actors is like this, but mostly the visuality and the view of the stage.

The director and the dramaturg may have expected too much from many points of view, from the viewers (from the writer of these lines for sure). Most of all, the detailed knowledge of Faust by Goethe. It is not lucky, as many of us – exhausted by the fact, that the performance was also advertised as a performance for youngsters – would like to watch the performance instead of the (re)reading of Goethe’s work, and not besides it. I confess, that I relied on my many years old memories in the theatre.

However, the performance shook my trust in my ability of interpretation, and many time I felt some kind of existential boredom, above it I was waiting for its near ending, anyway I could leave the theatre with good experience. The particularity and speciality of the performance could raise this feeling from me.

“It is a unique play” this puts the viewers on probe, but it disturbs them too, the lovers of modern fine art can hardly have any complaints against the visual appearance (against the already mentioned view of stage and sets), if against the text they could have some. The grotesque figures, the surrealistic puppets evoke mostly Dalí’s visual world: while I was watching the performance I remembered the soft portraits from his paintings. The strange ancient snail, which is moved by Zsófia Vesztl, which continuous presence is hard to explain, it signed the people’s ancient desires according to me.

Finally, at the end of the performance, all the actors raise their eyes on an imagined point in the air, behind the auditorium, as they are studying their future, the history of human kind: can be any (imagined?) point, where anybody would tell together with Faust: “You are so beautiful, please stay, do not go!”. As he is looking for the same kind of pleasure, as the viewers, which they can find whether in the “intellectual pleasure” of the interpretation of a poem of humanity, or in the taste of the Isler, which they eat during the interval, it will put out their desire for ever, and they would be satisfied with it.

Tamás Paár, Kultúra&Kritika, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The Puppet Theatre of Budapest performs Faust in a subway carriage. They climb in and out of the windows. The metal poles reach up to the sky, sometimes people in black suits slide down on the holding poles. There are two maps on the wall, but the viewers get lost soon to know where are they.

First the viewers would be interested in: who is who on the stage in the crowd of the performers. It is not easy to answer to it: there are women and men in black uniforms. More of them play the same role. Next to them moving their puppet copies. Zoltán Balázs has worked hard to freshen up the Hungarian theatre art by introducing performing methods, which seem to be exotic in his performances. He tries to strengthen and renew our staging with the training of ancient type theatrical styles. On the university he directed with the puppet art students and the opera singers of the music academy the operetta, Mikado by Gilbert-Sullivan. The puppet, the actor, who gives life to the puppet and the opera singer, who sings the role were a logical tripling.

In case of the puppet-Faust the turned out meaning of the folk song is relevant: While I was going home, / Myself was opened in three directions...Everybody is broken in three. Judit Gombár got the puppets from the puppet performances of different cultures (wayang puppet- and shadow play, marionette) and from the traditions of fine arts. The puppet actors have sworn to move and give life to puppets, they adore them, if they do not have to hide behind the display panel, but they can stand in front of the audience with bare face, with their own personalities. Their desire to show themselves displace the puppets from the stage.

The name of the institute should be changed from Puppet Theatre of Budapest. The brand must get rid of the puppets.

Gombár’s imagination, which is nourished from ancient sources can give a fantastic flourishing magical world to the subway car, which can evoke Autant-Lara Yves Mondtand’s devil, the Margit of the Night, who travels on the luxury train. The opened wings of the creatures of the under world, the prehistoric reptiles with beaked mouth perform as guests in the contemporary surrounding. The playfully opening and closing structure on the stage works rationally. But it hosts irrational visitors. The separated togetherness of the technical and tale-like world, the view which can feed well the eyes, but from Mental and dramatic point of view they cannot spark together.

The disinformation-like program of the theatre does not mention Goethe’s name, and the guest texts, which were written in by the dramaturg, Sándor Zsótér. It does not talk about the names of the translator(s). We cannot learn who composed the used music. Who plays which roles.

The viewers would be interested in what they tell anyway on the stage. We are listening hard: for nothing. It is good that they do not rolling the poem, but the voiced consonants are ill, they sound on voices, which are corroded by sodium hydroxide, they talk without movements. I think that on the premiere not all of them knew: what and why they say.

István Erdős is an old Faust with tremulous-voice. He is similar to a GP from Soroksár. I wrote they he is from Soroksár, as in the history of puppet theatre of Hungary there was the social entertainment during the time of the market, which as written on the program of the market. It was carried out by Czech and Moravian wondering comedians. Schorokscharer is the descendant of the puppet family of Faust. Károly Hientz noted its text in their wondering book.

The Faust by the Puppet Theatre of Budapest is more graceful than its predecessor on the market.

Márta Szakály as Helen of Troy throws the poetic lines on the viewers like a sacred hapax. She prays to the viewers more than tells them something. Anna Simándi is a rival supporter with her stage-like diction. Between the youngsters Péter Bercsényi and Zsolt Tatai has an understandable diction. They perform their monologue by puppets of sticks. The performance always becomes more vivid if the puppets get bigger role than the saving of the text. Gyöngyi Blaskó performs bare foot the old Margit, while sitting on Norbert Ács’ neck. The actors’ air seems to get thicker during the second half of the three hours long performance. The concentration is stronger. The prison scene can be the example of the whole conception of the director, where the artistic connection, concentration bring up sub-textual powers and make the performance captivating.

Which is felt to be mannered minimalist staging during the two hours long first part, it becomes tensed sub-textual and sub-picturesque during the second part of the performance. It reports abundantly without telling anything.

Péter Gál Molnár, NOL.hu, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

It is secret. It is ancient. It is old styled. It is childishly innocent. It is cleverly crafty. It is obviously easy. It is complicated, as a Chinese puzzle. It cannot be understood, however it is clear, as the raising daybreak by the side of the river.

They are playing in it. Four women: Éva Bakos started to get beautiful from inside to outside, her eyes are shining up and lighting, they are filled with happiness, she becomes a happy, shameless female creature. The Fátyol girls are playing too: Hermina and Kamilla. They are always wonderful. Anyway, they are not porcelain puppets. They are vivid. There is madness of love in her eyes at the same time. While their smile faces are orderly closed, but through their eyes, we can see into their mixed wildness. And Katalin Simkó, she is virginal, playful, she has not become a woman yet from the teenager girl, but there is vibrating appetite in her, the excitement and the desire to excite.

There are four women and four men (and there are thirty-two artificial flamingos between them). It is the enchanted tale mysticism of the swans’ lake. The virgins with white wings serve to the human love. Sometimes they intervene, as in theatre the artificial and mounted objects can be alive too, as well as the incompetence, it can think about itself anything: they are just wooden puppets, wires and paint. There are four men in suits, with ties and bare foot. We have to call Zoltán Papp as Zoltán Lendváczky from now on.

Too many people are around the sets with the name of Zoltán Papp. Poor he has to change it into Lendváczky, so that we can make a difference between them, as their personality would depend on it. But I can watch as Lendváczky the one, who I can see as Papp, even if I mustn’t do it. Like I would have to believe Pierre Bezuhov to be Kaucsiánó Félix from now on. I cannot do it. As to be Lendváczky I have to ask: who is he? Oh, Zoli Papp, then I have known! Zsolt Páll is the oldest one. He is a well-built woodsman, he has saved his childish ability to play up until his adulthood. The hardest one is Ákos Orosz, he jumps up against the other ones, he runs, searches for places, he is skilful, alert, he is ready to compete, he is moving like a line, if he finds an empty chair on the other side: he is there and gets it. Ádám Tompa’s eyes are in fire. As well as his partners’ eyes too. But Tompa has the most glowing ones. These are two pieces of coal, which are glowing because of passion. His eyes push him on his tireless road. While he is fighting seriously his fight of life, there is a naughty half smile at the edge of his mouth.

The Maladype Theatre can use the empty place of the New Studio of Thália Theatre, as György Katus has designed it. There are eight neo-Thonet chairs. They are fake. They are commercial copies of today. The eight of them are playing old child-game. Nobody leaves without a place, anyway they try to get into calming sitting, as the safety of their life would depend on it: whether they get a seat or not.

A stone comes up from a pocket. They give skilfully to one another above the girls’ heads; they are getting faster. Just when it falls down, and splats around, comes out that they were throwing an egg. They are playing with fertility. Tompa brings a blue and a yellow basket from aside. He cleans up the slimy puddle. The place is free again for the game. The flying eggs have got multiplied. They escape with them, getting into their mouth. They sit on them, and save them that way. They fly cigarettes. They blow it into the girls’ hair. Their hair is smoking. The performers are burning too with raising flame of love. Meanwhile they are circling around and searching for new places. These are growing games of concentration. The secret of their gracefulness, the never-ending concentration, the counting, where they will remain an empty chair behind them, which they can get. We can hear Ravel from good records, Spanish-like, Hungarian-like, Gypsy-like songs, and smaller piece covers with their graceful diversity the movements. They are musical leaders of lines. Finally comes the well-known Ravel’s music: the Bolero.

They kiss the egg into one another’s mouth. One of them got a hole on it. The liquid of life flows into their palm. They have become naked and half-naked. The women and men change their clothes. Besides the men’s black suits, János Brekl has dressed up the women into flowers of the field. As the nature would mate in the raising passionate madness. Ákos Orosz and Katalin Simkó are waltzing around the whole place without any stopping. They are cursedly together. As it would be a dance of death, however it is the dance of life. It is the celebration of the joy of life.

The performers do it with honourable stamina and incredible inner concentration for seventy minutes.

Zoltán Balázs directs this performance, which speaks a special language of movements, he choreographs it and makes the eight actors perform it.

Péter Gál Molnár, Népszabadság, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)