The trial cast is not strange in case of musical genres but it is not as common as the puppet and opera singer students perform Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, The Mikado on the University of Theatre and Film Art: the triad is on stage at the same time, all the roles of the operetta are performed simultaneously by an opera singer, a puppet artist and a puppet.

It is undeniable that the puppet art-like (which is slightly similar to the form language of children performances by Studio K) stylization can connect perfectly to the absurd turns of the text from a light genre: the main character of the corruption in the small Japanese town is the governor-main executioner himself, Ko-Ko. He has however, grabbed all tools to collect more power and money for himself, he has not got up to in concerto, the fulfilment of any sentences which are asked by the ruler. He obviously knows that according to the laws in force, he would need to start the execution with himself. The situation becomes exciting when the Japanese emperor, The Mikado has announced his arrival and a retaliation in case of the fact they do not execute at least one person in the guilty town. Meanwhile he wants the main executioner’s adopted daughter’s, Yum-Yum’s hand, however she has still been in love with Nanki-Poo, with the Japanese emperor’s son, who appears as a wandering musician in incognito, who arrives there while he is escaping from the bloodthirsty suitor. For Ko-Ko (obviously he does not know who he faces up with), the boy comes in a good time, and makes a deal with him; if he accepted the role of the executed one, then until the arrival of the emperor (for a month) he can live in a happy marriage with the girl, who then as a widow can finally become Ko-Ko’s wife. But suddenly The Mikado arrives, with princess Katisha between his companion, who chases the heir with her love. Ko-Ko and the allied noble people with him try to save the situation with the verbal and vocal demonstration of the unmade execution, but it goes the other way around, when it turns out that the sentenced one is not anybody else than the emperor’s son. The executions of the others are finally cancelled, the Gordian knot was finally cut by Ko-Ko as he baits Katisha to himself, and The Mikado orders a general wedding, where next to the couples of Katisha and Ko-Ko and Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum, the adopted daughter’s lady-companions give their hands to the noble people around the main executioner. The tale makes fun with death in a morbid way (“Without Yum-Yum the death cannot be life” – tells the lover Nanki-Poo, for example, thanks for the translation by József Romhányi, meanwhile for the nice, modern interferences I think Judit Góczán, the dramaturg is responsible), so that way the tale can reach its final solution without any death.

The music itself is a fabric too, besides its shocking technical hardness, it needs easy gracefulness from the vocalists. It is a virtuoso scales of etudes, it is a good training material for “more serious” comic operas (for example, for a Figaro, or Escaping – it cannot be an accident that this later one has moved Tim Caroll too in Debrecen, in a very similar way, moving together the puppet artists and the singers). Some dramatic weight is connected only to the role of princess Katisha that moves immediately the tip of the scales: for a moment the ghost of Donna Elvira is floating above us, not with a low bet, she shows us the possibility of real love in this light dark comedy, which is dressed in exotic costumes.

Zoltán Balázs’ direction uses all possibilities of the fact that we can see all through the performance the very flexible marionette puppets, the actors, who animated them, and the vocalists who are connected to them. The greatest “scenic” trick is that the singers are “pillars” of the play in their whole physical appearance not only vocally: with the lack of set their arms, legs and backs serve as seats, form a space in the performance, while of course, they must and can sing in the most impossible positions the voices, about which we have told how hard they are (in case of entrées for example while they are laying on their backs or crawling on their bellies). This movable, mobile space makes possible the really fast and colourful changing of the pictures, while makes us feel in a mini universe, which is growing freely and organic but shows perfectly that moral swamp in which, the town exists (It is not hard to see Ko-Ko and his helpers as the corrupt main leaders, god-fathers, the grey and black businessmen, and the text strengthens it too). Above all these: the constant presence of the characters can rise well the numbers of the possible interactions: as (sorry for it) the opera singer who is there as an “object of the space” can become anytime a character: it is enough if they react on themselves as superegos, but the most effective thing is when in a virtuoso circle, during the love aria by Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum everybody kisses everybody in a nice order – the puppet with the actor, the singer with the puppet artist and so on.

The ideas, which can come from the stylization of the puppets, can be listed for long, the situations can be served with the humour of commedia de’l arte, in the mood of the middle-aged tricks. Just to show some of them: that way the text of a letter can be written on some characters’ soles, while the envelope is nothing else than the socks which have been pulled of, from it before. The trick which has been thought for the singers, as the local dignities are singing the unreliable story of the fake executions standing on their hands, while the puppets which are connected to them, find their podium, leaning between their legs, on the place of that most noble organs. My favourite the wheel of fortune anyway, which is turned by the actors during the choir scene about the fortune (The Mikado has not become angry with the fool one, who tried to kill his son, just as a man/god, who respects his own laws, he must follow the rules: according to it they must be cooked in hot oil). As the result of the vocal and artistic common work by the members of the whole troupe, the puppets and the real actors become a real carousel, the turner is the emperor himself (so the actor, who plays him).

I do not have to tell that in this colourful mixture, the fact dissolves beneficially that who is the specialist of which art: who can distinguish which arm is for the puppet artist, and which is for the opera singer in the game, when an “operetta stairs” is formed from them for the arrival of The Mikado or during the overture of the second part, when the girl characters with movements like rustling reeds illustrate the dreamy musical moment about love. (Meanwhile the puppets are sleeping leaning forward, but the wires of marionettes, which can move them turn into strings, which the players can pluck in a bitter-sweet way like harps). But all these can work the other way around too: without the puppet artists’ voices the perfect musical movements cannot be measured as choirs.

It is a rare elevated moment: the world fame of Budapest (at least between the insiders) has picked up soon this easy and free result of this exam project – but not so much that they would spend too many letters on it, more concretely in the printed newspapers: not even one of them. Meanwhile I could see those kinds of future actors and singers in the evening of the stage of Ódry, who do not know any jokes in the noblest sense of the world, and they can work together outstandingly in the performance. I wish them: they would keep this good habit later on in their career too. We hope that all of them can become strong individuals on their own “field”, in a paradox way, that during this kind and similar mental and cooperative social way of life they can perform the elemental art of barnstorming for us and for themselves together.

Gábor Pap, Ellenfény, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The news comes fast on The VII. National Theatre Festival of Pécs. One of the main sources of news is the buffet for actors. In cases like this, it is open totally, the receptionist does not ask anybody where to go, so everybody can come in, they mingle with the actors, and the heavy chatting is going on until the dawn. We can learn that who, which performance has watched, what they think about it, they can be angry for some reason, and we can see people who are talking casually.

These kind of meetings are people spotting too. Someone can just come up to, we can watch someone in the auditorium, we can see whether they are in good or bad mood, but it can happen that we just run up with someone, then we sit in somewhere and talk for a long time.

On the POSZT the mood is a little bit more depressed than it used to be, there are too many talking about the lack of money of the meeting. And somehow we always talk about the fact that the fifty graduated actors from Budapest and Kapostvár only five has had a contract, of course, in some days more of them can get a job, but the tendency has never been so frightening than it is now.

It is a pleasure, that in spite of the uncertain future, there are many high-qualified exam performances. Puppet master students of the third grade form the University of Theatre and Film Art cooperated with the opera singer students of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, and they mixed their genres with witty creativity to make an exciting performance. With Zoltán Balázs’ direction they perform The Mikado operetta by Arthur Sullivan-W.S.Gilbert with sarcastic humour. Eighteen of them are on the stage at the same time, nine puppet master and nine singer. The puppet actors are not hidden, it is also interesting as the react to the action of the figures, who they are moving, as the opera singers sometimes identify with the marionette to whom they give their voices, but sometimes they keep ironic distance of them. But during the play, according to the different situations, the characters form the most extraordinary shapes, sometimes they play and sing while they are rolling on one another. It is the least that they have to sing arias while laying on their back or standing on their arms. But does not a confusion come from all it, in most of the cases the settings are punctual. Sometimes it happens after a longer physical stress that some singers’ legs are still shaking for a long time, and sometimes the prose actions are not lively enough.

Anyway, the harmony is perfect. Judit Gombár’s puppets are wonderful, they can do even more, but the marionettes are one of the most complicated techniques of puppets, so obviously there are many things to learn. Meanwhile it is for sure that The Mikado is one of the best performances of the meeting, including the performances of competition too.

Gábro Bóta, Magyar Hírlap, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The richness of the variations with which the performers show the classic English operetta amuse me. All roles are played by three actors (the puppet, the one who moves it and a singer), and nowadays it is not rare, many times it is self-serving, tiring idea, but here it gets renewing meaning in every moment. A puppet with a puppet, a puppet with an actor, a puppet with a singer, an actor with an actor, an actor with a singer, a singer with a singer: they are communicating, playing, arguing, flirting, kissing, and living. The marionette, which is moved by an actor, sits on the singer’s palm, head, shoulder; it is slipping down his thigh. One of the main characters is Ko-Ko, who is a tailor-executioner, he is crowing like a ridiculous tyranny snake, while he is carrying on his back his puppet version. The singers are singing while they are standing on their arms. The ideas, which would be enough for more performances, too are not about exhibitionism at all. The Mikado is a political satire, which is placed into an imagined, mocked Japan and a tale at the same time, and the usage of puppets can be connected to both quality, the multiplication, the revelry in the (nice) ideas.

To talk about the writers: in the Anglo-Saxon world, the order is the other way around. Here the composer is at the beginning in case of songs, and musicals, then the text writer comes: Szörényi – Bródy, Fényes – Szenes. It is different there. From the couple of The West Side Story, Sondheim – Bernstein, the text connects to the earlier one, the music to the later one. In theory it the same in case of Lennon – McCartney, in reality it is more complicated there. From the duo of Gilbert and Sullivan it is obvious anyway, that William Schwenk Gilbert wrote the text of songs, the librettos, Arthur Sullivan did the music. The Mikado is their most successful operetta, during their cooperation, between 1871 and 1896 (with some exception) they achieved one success after another. In Hungary, unfortunately their witty and creative plays are not played too often.

The Mikado, from 1885, is put into Japanese costumes, but it criticises the common, corrupt and oppressive British circumstances, but as in case of good satires, it is still valid today. “I have eaten most of the bread of the country.” – tell in it the master of corruption and power holding. For the performance the use Kálmán Kovách and József Romhányi’s translations, obviously the perfect games of words are the inventions of the later one. The marionette figures, which were designed by Judit Gombár and made by Pál Lellei are the excellent masterpieces of mocking characterization, for them the members in the IV. year of the course of puppet masters bring to life. The group is excellent, and because I would like to emphasize their performance, I write their names there: Zoltán Papp, Péter Jankovics, Péter Bercsényi, Antos Gémes, Zsófia Vesztl, Borbála Karádi, Viktória Éva Nagy, Mariann Fabók, András Gombai-Nagy. I do the same with their “singer partners”, with the students of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music: Gyula Orendt, András T. Borbély, Zsolt Tihanyszegi, Gábor Bálint, Viktória Denk, Haris Nadin, Renáta Németh, Ágnes Anna Kun, Pál Sebestyén.

As I have said, all the eighteen of them can introduce themselves from different point of views: the singers perform perfectly, the actors sing perfectly, and seemingly, all of them enjoy the performance very much. As well as the viewers. I have only one small excuse: in some cases the “over moving” makes the text hard to understand and unstressed the tune. With all of it, in the young director, Zoltán Balázs’ career, which has been remarkable so far, The Mikado is one of the best performances. It is filled with grace and soul.

György Harmat, Tiara Magazin, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The class of puppet actors by Csizmadia – Meczner has an exam on the stage of the University of Theatre and Film Arts, from Andor Szilágyi’s drama, the Leander and Lenszirom – now without any puppets. The performance was directed by Róbert Alföldi, and as it usually happens the name attracts the viewers too. It is a lucky class: Zoltán Balázs directed their latest – still running – exam, The Mikado. We should not think about whether they would meet thanks for their fate, good directors like they after they have left the university. The crying would not be actual now: in case of the performance of Leander and Lenszirom we could not find only with magnifier any evidence of Alföldi’s characteristic features.

The mentioning of the perfect Mikado is really justified: the actors can be recognised not only by their face but by their gestures, techniques and dictions too. To sum it up: they play this modern fairy drama the same way as the old operettas. But that mannerism which becomes the tool of the expression of irony and fine sarcasm in case of Leander it becomes the easiest – the most stereotypical – one from the possible ways of performance.

We have no reason to think about irony: while we are watching and listening to the performance, we cannot feel any kind of contradiction, which would indicate sarcasm. Therefore, the other version remains: the actors are playing for children. There would not be any problem with it if it does not seem like Alföldi would direct for adults – the all black costumes, the animals, the similarity between the fairy tale and human creature, and the lack of set would be too monotonous for children (For whom anyway, some special but very important words of the performance cannot be understandable too). The older ones cannot be luckier too: the drama (or the dramaturg’s work?) is sometimes illogical and simplified even to a fairy tale. It is sad, that this performance was made neither for the children nor for the adults just for the “boards of examiners”.

Bálint Kovács, Magyar Narancs, 2008

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Ah West Side Story again in Budapest, I have thought because I like very much the so-called classical musical version, which musicalize the story of Romeo and Juliette and put it into a modern surrounding that way it could fulfil the impossible one, the music becomes almost equal with Shakespeare’s masterpiece.

Gerard Presgurvic whose musical, the Romeo and Juliette has been played again with outstanding success that keeps it on programme again and again, in the Operetta Theatre in Budapest, he has not even tried to live up to the great Renaissance master, it is effortless, nicely catchy, he composed an almost dance tune-like music to the archaic story, which cannot express the deepness of tragedy. However, Bernstein was a genius, so his play in its genre can face up with the great operas and dramas. So, it deserves that the troupe of the Operetta Theatre would perform it too, as there are songs in it which are really significant, hard and can show the whirling deepness of soul.

Of course, we can argue about the fact that the Hungarian National Opera House with important national support would prove that they can play twenty times a year the operas by Wagner or Richard Strauss, and does not become proud of the fact that they can do it with a musical, which is much easier with this genre. It would be a fall if the performance cannot go so many times. Meanwhile it is in connection with the traditions of the Erkel Theatre that besides operas and ballets, give home to other genres too, so however many people find it a devil idea that a musical was performed there, according to me it is ok, if there is a balance, as the differ from the usual ones can mean a kind of training to the actors.

For this, they have to believe that according to the complexity of the genre there are members in the troupe, who can sing, play and dance the roles of a musical. If the management thinks that there are not that kind of singers there, it is a shame to start it. Péter Novák the director chose that unusual method to give some roles to two actors – a singer and a dancer. The musicians usually stand like columns and sing honestly and the dancers try to tell with their movements what we can listen to. It remains an illustration. The two spheres melt rarely beneficially into each other as the singers and the dancers do their work mostly separately.

When The Magic Flute was put on stage by Iván Fischer as the director and conductor in the Palace of Arts, the prose was said by the actors, but the singers acted actively in the performance that time too, with the doubling of the figures schizophrenia can be expressed as well as harmonic agreement; this method motivates well the fantasy. When Zoltán Balázs put on stage a perfect exam performance from the operetta, called The Mikado with students from the courses of opera and puppet art, he doubled the roles too, meanwhile the singers could even do acrobatic tricks, and if they had to they sang their hard solos that way, enthusiastically and with talent they got important role in the performance too. Now there is not any words of it, and as the singers get rarely into situations, more reflector lights are put on the efforts they had when they told prose texts. Their words sound many times fake, false and in an amateur way.

But at least there is not any problems with the music. With István Dénes’ conducting it sounds well, and effects too, it is strong, heart-stopping or even soaringly romantic, it reaches all scales of feelings. And it is good, even more, it is very good. But we did not come to an oratorical concert, but to a musical performance, and it is less than that, and we can tell that in spite of its success it fell.

In contrary to the performance of The Ban on Love by the Hungarian Opera Theatre in Kolozsvár, which was made in an unpraiseworthy way in coproduction with the Hungarian National Opera Theatre, we could see it in the Erkel Theatre. It was announced for two nights but finally they played it only once, it is a shame if they could not sell the tickets - it must have been seen by viewers of twenty nights. Of course, only if they can stand trough the line in front of the cashier of Erkel, which has hardly the double amounts of seats as the Opera House, where there are two cashiers, while in Erkel there is only one for the double amounts of viewers, which is always a problem, but this is the Hungarian logic. However, the performance is excellent from many points of view. It is an early opera by Wagner, it is similar to an Italian opera, it is melodious, nice, loveable, but the claws of a lion can be seen from time to time. One of the most talented young Hungarian director Máte Szabó believes that he can make theatre with singers too. He makes them move a lot, they will dance if they need to. According to their roles they argue till blood, they lose their temper, they go crazy, they run up and down, they get sweaty, they play enthusiastically and the prose is bearable too not like many of their colleagues in Budapest. In this case Shakespeare is the base again, Wagner wrote the opera based on his play, the Measure for Measure.

I do not state that each sounds were strong. But for example, Apollónia Egyed’s were, besides it she performs genuinely the nun who has just left the monastery, who can save her sibling, who has been sentenced to death with her steady determination between tyrannical circumstances too. Sándor Balla shows vividly the overbearing dictator who preaches water and drinks alcohol, he lets himself for what he sentences to death the others. But as it is a comic opera, the order of the world is set, the cunning wins, the common sense, the adoration of love and life. The orchestra, conducted by György Selmeczi sounds perfectly. Belief, proactivity, fantasy and playful joy come from the performance, in which I can find many mistakes. But why I should as the whole has a swing, it is flowing by energy, it is beautiful, it has mood to experiment, it is a brave work. It is not so set in an old fashioned way and unthoughtful as unfortunately The West Side Story was.

Gábor Bóta, Népszava, 2015

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The Tempest performance by Maladype and Bárka Theatre is passionate and above it, it is emotional. It uses despised – „bombastic” – theatrical effects, which have been exiled into storage room to construct a grandiose prose opera. It does not ironize, does not use counterpoints: it gives wild-romantic melodrama, in which real dramatic heroes show flooding feelings with great-opera-like performance, in front of the painted sets, while Leoš Janacek’s later-romantic opera can be heard from the loudspeakers. Is it playful formalism, game of style, sarcasm? No, not at all! In Ostrovsky’s drama vision-like pictures, imagined language, unbearably tensed situations and extreme actions show the overwhelming, devastating tempest of soul. Zoltán Balázs creates the credibility of deepness that gives tragic elevation and perspective, so with one word he gives the credibility of university.

Ostrovsky’s enchanted heroin, Katerina is a real dramatic hero, whose tragedy comes from her personality. She necessarily rebels against her jealous mother-in-law, against Kabanova’s depressing terror. She falls in love with Boris, with the melancholically fallen young man, who had to come to that dusty little town from Moscow, whose life is crippled by his guardian – who handles his heritage -, by Dikov who has terrifying anger sometimes. Varvara, Kabanova’ clever daughter helps the hopeless lovers, to be able to meet by the River Volga, when Katerina’s well-intentioned but powerless husband travels to Moscow, to let himself live there. Pilgrims and hypocritical people can be found in the town by the River Volga in the Kabanovas’ house. The picture of a hypocritical and cruel, superstitious and liar world is formed there, the emblematic figure of it is the silly old woman, who has frozen the sensitive Katerina to death with her terrible predictions and made her confess her “sin” to her mother-in-law. The love was born during the ominous silence before the tempest, during the tempest Katerina knees down in front of Kabanova, finally during the stormy night she jumps into the deep from the rock. Boris is sent to Siberia by his uncle. Varvara escaped with Kudriash, with whom she has met secretly. Kuligin the eccentric inventor, the scorned humanist finds the dead body. Kabanov who remains alone for ever is crying for his unfaithful partner, then goes against his mother who he treats as the killer of his wife. In The Tempest we can find basic motives of romanticism (fatal love, demonic madness, tempest of soul and nature, flying and falling, a superstitious religiosity that ruins the soul and the opposition of God everywhere and in everything, the fight of the degenerated and empty tradition and freedom, which fulfils personality. From all its elements the real dramatic poetry is coming: expressive theatrical effects, captivating atmosphere, and high tension characterises it all the time. The performance creates a theatrical poetry which is respectable for it.

Judit Gombár’s widened set of play cites the wild-like world of great operas: in the background there are gigantic painted mountain peaks, in front of it there is an irregularly shaped ramp that runs upside (bridge, path, river side, rock), which is painted red, deep blue, dark purple by the picturesque lighting which serves the mood of each scenes. In the expressionist painting of space black dressed lighting technicians are pushing the camera cars on rails, there is a crane of camera too, there are spotlights on them. The points of lights follow the actors during the scenes, they change from one to another, they widen and get narrower: they guide the viewers’ attentions. The light becomes a kind of silent character, when the reflector goes contrary to the character who crosses in the deep at the stage lights, or when it is fixed on the scaffold to cite the sun. The continuous metamorphosis of area is magical. This space is the space of soul, as the tempest is the tempest of soul. The half circle can emphasise, border and connect – as a camera in a film.

They mix under the performance the overflowing music of Janacek’s opera, Katya Kabanova, which must paint the characters’ feelings, moods, angers. To use this solution on the stage is crucial. If actors live through and show up the inner happenings, an over-decorated tautology can be formed. If they cannot live it through, this undertone will be a faulty illustration. Anyway, it destroys the magic of presence. In the performance of Bárka-Maladype Theatre, in this wonderfully fabricated prose opera the musical showing of emotional waving is obvious.

The women seem to be the ancient pictures of each characters in Judit Gombár’s heavy, trailed, nicely stylised, emphasising costume-like dresses, with their bunned, braided hair buildings – they are portraits that have got into life, they are typical figures of the XIX. century mythology of Russia, who are painted with wide brushstrokes. Kátya Tompos’ really nice, fragile Slavic beauty can reflect Katerina’s nobility of soul. Olga Varjú – Kabanova – with the stuffed weasel in her arm, in her layered red dress, with her tight hair she is the wild eroticism closed into the queen-like strictness. The men’s costumes are suitable for a great (open air) stage: they are essential like the dresses of figures on cards. Dikov – Róbert Kardos – is the man with boots and gun, wild master. Kudriash – Ádám Tompa – is a freedom-loving Cossack boy. Kabanov – Balázs Dévai – in his long pastel Russian shirt is like a tall, eternal teenager. Boris – Zalán Makranczi – in his “Germanic” coat, silly little hat, he is like Buster Keaton with his wondering face who gets lost in the Russian steppe. What is the actors’ work, if the figures are so ready, if so many things are shown by their inner sound, the opera, if the lights can shade so punctually?

In confessional situations they put their hands on their heart. They mostly walk leaning forward, as they would balance with the headwind, or they would flow on tiptoed like ballet dancers. They open their arms and push their backs to the wall if they are frightened or they curl up in the corners holding their knees. Many times, they move at the end of a musical phrase, at the beginning of a sound they froze into a picture. Many opera-like poses, conventional gestures and forms of great stages. Meanwhile they are not funny, over-thought this performance which is composed till the smallest details. The actors concentrate well their passion into the formation of gestures. The century old theatrical tropes are ennobled into meanings. The elegantly plastic motions, movements show only a part of the inner happenings – we can feel how many ideas by actors remain hidden. Zoltán Balázs matches the “patent” solutions to concrete things to help expressions. Katerina and Boris must be torn from one another, they cannot leave each other. From the pathetic but arrogantly formed action the power of their love cries. Katerina balances on the edge of the upper floor, while she is talking about the freedom of flying. It is a heroic picture – a light dressed woman up in front of the dark sky -: it is similar to Tosca. Finally, the left young woman opens her hair, leaves her upper dress, before she jumps into the deep, or motionlessly stretches up to the upside climbing wall, between the sky and the earth.

It a real performance: the actors do not reproduce things – they become signs. The truth of heroic gestures come from deep analyzation, and relentless sophistication of formation. Zoltán Balázs and Judit Góczán dramaturg, solve the drama by Ostrovsky and do not match the idea to the drama. Kabanova and Dikov’s relationship tells us about the hypocrisy of the families’ powerful members and confesses about the depravity of tradition that ruins natural feelings. The drunken master who is pointing with his gun and the strict great woman jump on one another, the wild man hides himself under the royal train. The cruelty is a revenge for their dissatisfaction. Does Katerina have to die for these? The mixture of the old mad woman and the pilgrim figure is an excellent invention. It emphasises and makes a symbolic character the frightening figure. It tells about the maniac madness of rigid conventions, about the terrible sins behind the superstitious belief, and about the deformed eroticism which is hidden behind the fanaticism. Éva Bakos’s old woman, who is dishevelled-grey, in her dirty-lacy nightclothes is a frightening phenomenon. The wild obsessed one of moral issues and moderation is not characterised by great-opera-like ceremonialism. It is like she is rushing from a cruel theatrical performance into the world of ritualised passions. The “difference” of actors’ speech is a really intensive element of effect. Éva Bakos’ extremely powerful performance, the courage of her play one of the most lighting value of the performance. She cries her ominous cures by cracking her whip, the handle of the whip stretches between her legs like a phallus, its line winds onto her neck like a snake. During the dark afternoon of confession, she is the overwhelming tempest herself, and with her open legs she gives birth to the decline.

The performance is getting more and more silent. After that the strong form makes us accept the tragic passions, they play fewer and fewer music, the theatrical gestures become rare, the play becomes more and more lack of tools. Olga Varjú, as Kabanova shows evidently the power which is essential to the tension of drama. During the perfect decline something irritating can remain in her, while her greatness is captivating. Artúr Kálid as Kuligin does not bring the cliché of the eccentric freak one. The blaming that comes from his sentences and views shows us that morality that loves and understands humanity, and that makes him a real outstanding figure in this cruel town. The drama would give possibility to show us how coward and selfish Boris is, how wimpish and indefinite, narrow-minded Kabanov is. In this performance both of them are victims who would deserve better fate. Zalán Makranczi’s Boris is not a man, as he cannot decide on his own life. Balázs Dévai’s Kabanov is sad, a weak husband, who would be able to love Katerina if they do not always feel on themselves the mother’s piercing look. Balázs Dévai’s play has a beautiful arc, as from the indifference, through the cheating and drunken anger, he gets till the understanding that he has loved his wife and with her death he lost everything. Kátya Tompos is singing wonderfully a Russian folk song while she is saying goodbye to life. It is a shockingly wonderful theatrical moment. Everything is shown in it which dies with the final fall. Just a performance which is formed with so demanding thoughts, graceful culture of forms, punctual acting can be so purely and quietly without any tools, can be so sensitive.

Balázs Perényi, Színház, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Some can whistle, others cannot. In the performance of the Bárka Theatre (Maladype) who can (a woman) just touches her finger shortly and gives on the whistle to that person’s mouth, (a man character) who has just failed to do it.

The airy movement, the playful kiss to the hand can be seen symbolically too. The Tempest is about those who can give sharp, decorated and beautiful signs to the universe; and about those who can be powerful, noisy, rich but will disappear without any sign. There are free souls, and those who desire freedom on one side, and tyrants – who gut and ruin themselves too – are on the other side.

Zoltán Balázs’ mature performance shows the viewers first of all the mostly well-known – but typical for sure – drama of love-jealousy, Katerina’s suicidal tragic ending who tries to choose her lover (Boris) instead of her husband (Tihon), but the eternal tempest of any human life too which shakes us. “The” tempest. One of the greatest natural phenomenon and parallel to it one of the most saturated metaphors. The crest of great romanticism, the Sturm is shown by the performance that partly hides it too. It opens opera-like sets, uses many drama-musical undertones, lights with passionate lights – but it lets hear and see in their pure nature too, in their theatrical machinery, the building-fine-artistic, acoustic and visual effects. By Zoltán Balázs’ hand an art work was born, and the place of bringing to life is an art studio.

A studio of film making. It is really old-styled. On the rail, built in the set. reflectors are moving instead of cameras. The set technicians, who are dressed in black, and they are almost unnoticeable, handle the sources of light. Mostly that face is get into the frame of lighting on which we should focus our attention too. The light scenic of musical theatre is mixed with the dramaturgy of emphasised beam of lights of the outdoor theatres. From the crane, which is moved by a technician, a lamp of studio raises the circle of an orb to the painted sky. The five scenes (two parts) go on in a clearly defined period of time, but under the blueish glimmering it seems to be an eternal evening or night.

The not to super-modern technic which serves – follows and drives – the theatrical work is interesting and little bit funny too. The small camera cars make circles of an amusement park, as they come from the shadow, other time they go towards the gates of dark, invisible rooms. It’s a storm train in The Tempest. A train of cave. Of course these small cars with wheels do not run so fast as the ones in Városliget. There is a shaking irony under the pathos in the fact that from time to time parts of Leoš Janácek’s opera (Katya Kabanova), that was shown first in 1921, get the (singing) words from Alexander Ostrovsky’s play of 1960. The graceful music dubs the glowing drama.

Different kinds of effects are reflected on one another. Judit Gombár’s set could have been made by an early (from the end of the XIX. century) Csontváry’s drawing too. The viewers can see some expressively tensed, late romantically rampant maybe theatrical thing in the convex half bridge which is running up, in the vault under it, in the shocking purple-blue painted background. In its immovability the whole is moving. For some scenes it is not easy to get a more suitable platform or corner. Its vertical division and horizontal half circle help the simultaneous settings, the not easy chasing of different episodes, the connection of the elements of actions. The set does not imitate the real sites of the drama, but in its abstraction becomes concrete, set makes continuously the director and his actors stylize. Judit Gombár’s costumes that are not individual consciously do the same. On the men’s and women’s dresses we can see the same kind of military-like lines. The scissors have to cut only straight lines, and the needles march it. At least this is the pretence in this rigid, cool, rules follower world of orders. The colours come in the foreground with their meanings. A flash of light, a ruffle, a melody of wave on the women’s dresses can be seen as a rebellion against Marfa Ivanovna Kabanova’s (rich merchant woman, widow) despotic maternal authority. A red umbrella which is waved by a young boy can become a weapon against Savel Prokofievitch Dikov’s (merchant, considerable civil in the town) scrounger bossy behaviour.

The composition of the performance interprets as dramatic poetry the master piece of Russian dramatic works, which is before Chekov (it was written in Chekov’s birth year). However, Zoltán Balázs does not let fall the importance of real situations in the middle of the vibrant over poetic quality too. The formal language, which has formed in earlier interpretations, becomes tighter, there is not an actor friendly system of signs. It objectifies the actors, forces them to become tools, it melts them into the distinctive group of set, costume, light and sound more intensively than usual. Of course this road is usable, however sometimes we have the same feeling as when we are listening to our friend who is speaking a non-existent language: sometimes the direction makes only E-s to pronounce rigidly (ok well, sometimes É-s too). Maybe it cannot step over its own shadow, the artistic form, the undoubtedly actuality of solutions that are put in vitrines of a studio.

Fortunately, the Maladype (or more widely the Bárka Theatre) is mostly merged, community-minded studio so that the picture formed by the community comes over the details. Róbert Kardos cannot find a matching point with his role now, but the blankly thundering and staggering Dikov becomes more meaningful next to Olga Varjú’s empress like Kabanova who is cheated with patient evilness. (The sexual couple of the prudish old woman and the man with weak character is not prepaid or interpreted really.) Balázs Dévai (Tihon) and Zalán Makranczi’s (Boris) performance can be measured together: the earlier one’s sad-helpless character, childish whitening the later one’s homeless searching for love tell us how unworthy are both of them to Katerina’s subject of graceful, brave, honest storming. Kátya Tompos (we can think that she is determined by her name too) feels herself totally at home in the soul of the young wife. Her pretty physical reality dematerializes in case of the exam situations and tortures. She is ethereal like the tempest. When she sings a Russian folk song (in Russian language) before her abstract death, when she dies hanging on a vertical wall, she uncovers that unmeasurable distance by vocal sounds which separates her self-conscious, free desire for happiness, her self-acceptance from the others some kind of petty ways of life and not the clever manipulation of the text.

The actors’ performances – as we can see it – can be appreciated in character couples too. Olga Varjú, who is implacable and places her role perfectly and Kátya Tompos who is winner with her gentle purposefulness can die and live against each other. The couple of Marfa and Katya is the biggest artistic carrying power of the performance. Whether they want it or not Artúr Kálid’s sleepy-restless inventor, who makes experiments with perpetuum mobile and the young office worker by Ádám Tompa (Vania), who struggles with square movements, and always stamps from a duo too. Varvara (Tihon’s sister) and Glasha (servant in Kabanov’s house) becomes twins not only because of the actresses’ names (Kamilla Fátyol, Hermina Fátyol). Their outlook and function bring close the female characters (starts from pastel), the “helpers”. (It is not well understandable why Varvara works so hard against her brother and on behalf of her sister-in-law.) Éva Bakos shows sexual desire with a jumping rope, with the turning of the whip, her grey and old Feklusha as a pilgrim woman is a unique figure, she is the demon of vengeful prophecy and prejudice. Her choreographed mad rituals and speech are not equivalent. She can tell her fate better with her body, then wondering and losing herself in Dezső Mészöly and Pál Mészöly’s translation.

The original drama is much richer, and more captivating than The Tempest by Maladype. Anyway, Zoltán Balázs’ more abstract, poetic, artistically technical re-formation is valid, and beautiful interpretation of Ostrovsky’s ideas. It is a reason by someone’s rightness who lives her feelings authentically, with fighting and consistently – who finally dies because of her only life.

Tamás Tarján, Népszava, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Bright reflectors are lighting into the actors’ faces. The light follows them many times, gets into their eyes, even into their wrinkles, does not leave them alone, it emphasises and highlights their reactions. It enlarges the lies and the honesty too. Let us see their inside. The actors’ and their characters’ small gestures are shown to us. However basically they are playing realistically but they will have demonstrative effect. The light alienates us from them but brings us closer to them too. To some parts of the stage rails are put, the technicians who handle the reflectors are pushed on them to be able to give the light from the most appropriate point. The lighting technicians and those who move the cars are not just background workers now, but they are parts of the performance, their coming and leaving become the parts of sight, maybe it is less important from that one of them even eats a chewing gum.

It does not fit into that picturesque composition which Zoltán Balázs, the director has formed to the performance of The Tempest by Ostrovsky. In case of Balázs, lighting always has an emphasised role, during The Blacks, Empedocles and Theomachia he would have liked to celebrate a mass with its help. Meanwhile during these undoubtedly talented performances by him I felt some kind of contrivance, and that the actors are not independent creators for sure but they just carried out the director’s conception.

As in case of The Tempest the natural balance has been found, the determined idea is hardly touchable, and the characters are not dancing tied up. Kátya Tompos, for example is excellent as Katerina. She is a clean, clever woman who does not want to follow any social conventions which are forced on her, she stands against her mother-in-law tyranny, she can hardly handle her husband’s uncertainty that turns into over shy nature, she goes confidently towards suicide instead of goes on living like this. And how dramatic it is, and even – have to be said – how beautiful this suicide is. Katerina starts climbing down slowly from the top of the set which is designed by Judit Gombár and forms a half-broken bridge which is going upside. She does not jump or fall into the deep, just climbs down and meanwhile she is singing with tormenting pain from the opera, Katja Kabanova by Janácek. The motives of this opera can be heard other times too, and they form a harmonic unity with the prose.

The view, the acoustic effect and the play come together in a rare way. However, the play is not always elemental, its overall effect is powerful. Katerina shows her husband, Balázs Dévai, as this man is unable to get independent from the effect of his mother, he knows how unfair this strictly strong woman with his wife, but he does not dare to stand against her. Olga Varjú gives, with straight waist, strutting walking and with hypocritical audacity which sometimes turns into infamy, the mother who sticks to old moralities. Zalán Makranczi’s Boris is however in love with Katerina, cannot rebel against the conventions. Artúr Kálid’s inventor shows himself little bit narrow-minded, but many times he can see clearly. As the whole performance has enlightening power. The moving reflectors lighten a hypocritical society where lie and cruel hypocrisy are the rulers.

Gábor Bóta, Magyar Hírlap, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

During the performance of The Tempest by Ostrovsky a panorama set lays in the Bárka Theatre. It fills the long wall. The set has a set-like feeling, it is made of painted wings, the background shows a landscape, the terrain and the sky, to the front side of it they have connected a diagonally rising upside slope as a dominant walking area, under its upside part three “doors” have been cut in it for the moving underside. Judit Gombár has designed a stage, which had been made for operas once, but while in the huge palace of music we can watch the sight, which no matter how stylised it is, wants to reach (fake)realistic effect, from a discrete distance, here we are sitting in it, like in an art studio. It is exactly about it. It is about a set of an art studio. To make undoubtable the crying intentionality, the director, Zoltán Balázs brings in the camera cars, running on rails, which are used during film shooting, on them they have prepared not cameras but lighting machines this time, and not cameramen are travelling on them, but the lighting technicians. The scene-shifters are pushing them on back and forward during the scenes, then they follow the characters with the circles of lights of their lamps, or cross their way, depends on how the director wants it. Sometimes he makes the characters stand on the car, for example they push in Kabanova and pull out Kabanov on it; the first one’s make-up is decorated on it, while the second one goes to trade with silk on it. There is a crane too, which goes around and raise, the reflector on the crane projects a moon to the background horizon.

It is a pure pseudo shooting in any film studio.

And it is a pure opera. They seem to be shooting an opera film. From time to time we can hear the opera, Katya Kabanova which was written from The Tempest by Leoą Janáček, who is the Czech composer genius. Sometimes we can hear it parallel with the played scene. The Czech singers are singing in Czech language those things which are said in Hungarian language by the Hungarian actors. At the same time or almost at the same time. (Do not have to get afraid: there is not any playback “dubbing”.) The postponed dubbing is composed beautifully, musically, in a good tempo-rhythm. Some short prosaic sentences are usually said during the intervals of vocal parts, for example in the final of the first part, they use the momentary break of the vocal part to say “good night”. They do not have to speak during the “quartet”. To complete the musical representation of the dramatic situation it is enough if Varvara and Kudriash, the lovers who do not care about the prohibitions, try to separate the tragic lovers, Katerina and Tihon, who hug each other in the euphoria of their coming together.

Oh, I have hardly forgotten: the drama is about the fact that Katerina and Tihon fell in love with each other, but the young woman’s mother-in-law, the tyrant Kabanova, who keeps her own son under her power, finds out the affair, and as there is not any way out, Katerina will commit suicide.

Ostrovsky’s play is one of the emblematic masterpieces of drama literature. I say it only because may not be known by everybody. Meanwhile we are in Hungary. In the encyclopedic article of our theatre history, according to Andor Pünkösti and Aurél Kárpáti Ostrovsky could not write good dramas. It is undecided whether they thought it this way, or they would have liked to hit on the “right sided” Antal Németh when he put it on program in the National Theatre. Any version can be true, it is even worse for them. As I have said, we are in Hungary. If the drama is strong on its own, whether the showing of the artistic side of theatre serves any more besides the emphasising of the director’s artistic nature? When I ask it, I remember the fashionable clown of my childhood, who cried the narcissistic phrase before his big trick “Akrobat, óh!”. Is there only a cry or a trick too?

I think that The Tempest is a progress in Zoltán Balázs’ career. Instead of a pattern it is a dramatic composition. Instead of a style embroidery it is an experiment to grab human fates. The picturesque and artistic stylization is there to avoid conventions. There is not any place for naturalistic “drama playing”, the psychological playing is overwritten by the gesture language and the choreography, however according to the signs it does not become part of actors. Ádám Tompa, who plays Kudriash parallel to his verbal sayings he jumps and stamps: it is unknown who he is really, but without any questions he is a “figure”. Róbert Kardos is shouting as Dikov, and points his gun on everybody, it almost forms his character. Artúr Kálid is the handyman, as the odd Kuligin with his red umbrella (maybe because he is doing experiments with a lighting rod?) he is similar to a samurai in Mao-coat and an intellectual raisonneur. Once Balázs Dévai who is hanging upside down from his neck, as Kabanov he tells his resume this way: the goodbye from his wife which includes the sarcastic rebellion is even stronger from it, when he repeats it watching his mother and turns back her tyrannical instructions. Olga Varjú’s Kabanova who is peacocking with filled mink instead of a mink collar, can show like an icon and at the same time with inner shading the female great woman – she is not an iron-nosed witch, but a despot who enjoys her life, who does not apply her scruples on herself.

Tihon, Zalán Makranczi from the performance does not live through the love from inside, instead of it he is like a bon vivant, elegant, fine and a nice stranger, but we can have uncertain ideas about his feelings and his honesty. Mostly because suddenly he meets in a kiss with Katerina’s younger sister, with Varvara, played by Kamilla Fátyol. This moment is undue psychologically is not surprising because it does not have any understandable reasons, it comes mostly from the tactile relationship, that the characters get in connection not in a psychological way but with physical touches, they grab, hug and raise the other one, hide under each other’s dresses, for example once Tihon goes down the slope while he is holding Katerina who is standing on his shoes. The kiss is this kind of chance, the result of touch without any consequences. Éva Bakos brings these physical things to the top, who creates from Feklusha, the pilgrim woman an old goblin, a wizened medicine woman with dishevelled, grey hair, she is like an omniscient of love, who dances with a jump rope and whip the mystery of sexuality; she is an effective figure, it is a shame that with her speech she ruins the power of her presence. Katya Tompos uses the psychological tools – gently hidden – in the role of Katerina, simply and in an inspired way, without any melodramatic connotation, she dematerializes from inside. As in case of her final good bye – after the insensitive leaving of her lover – she watches in the distance, into the nothing, her left hand remains upside in the air, then she has already been on the other side, before following the director’s instructions, she climbs down on the cramp irons on the wall, after it she would die standing on her way. It is an important artistic achievement. Katya Tompos would have been known to be a great promise only by those who has not minded going to the Attila József Theatre, so it is a miracle that she has been found.

The performance has much virtue, it must be the result of artistic imagination. I have a sense of lack because of the fading of dramatic thought. It is a characteristic moment when Olga Varjú as Kabanova shouts at the moment of finding out the forbidden love: “That is where freedom can lead!” For this moment the audience should start laughing, the drama is about the killing of freedom, for which Kabanova can be the emblem -, but the audience remains silent, do not feel to be accepted. Dobrolyubov said that Katerina is sunlight in the empire of darkness. The later one is around us, just theatre does not want to recognise it. There are many artificial lights during the performance, there is flaming in it too, but the drama is a protest against the demolition of human’s natural rights – the most important thing in the drama – which die out on the altar elevated for beauty.

Tamás Koltai, Élet és Irodalom, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The greatest surprise is the news itself, Zoltán Balázs, who as the leader of the troupe Maladype, then in Bárka Theatre has had success with mythical, ceremony-like productions which mix opera, dance, prose and brought up later pouting from his funs, and now he puts on stage a regular realistic drama, The Tempest by Ostrovsky.

The rebellious woman’s drama is of course, the eternal symbol of individuality who fights with social restrictions too, Katya Kabanova’s story is deeply built into the Russian society of the XIX. century that tries to get out of the feudalism. The director tells the tragic story in spectacular, suggestive pictures, and lights sharply the humiliating vulnerability and the suicidal rebellion. The sharp lightening is there in its reality too: as we were on a film shooting, reflectors are moving on rails, as indiscreet cameras are watching the intimate moments of the middle-age-like world. Zoltán Balázs does not work as a brave formal rebellion, as the determined researcher of strange solutions on stage, but he elevates from ground the play that paints the reality, with the really punctual and calculated usage of fine tools. It can be taken by words too: Judit Gombár’s set is a half bridge that goes up, the symbol of broken, struck decisions and jumps. The scenes happen on and under it too, on its ending, vertical wall they can climb up and down on handrails. The lover Boris climbs up on it and Katya climbs down from it to die. During the scenes we can sometimes hear the appropriate part of the Moravian composer’s - Leos Janácek – opera, which was named by the title role. It is more than background music, it is a sensual and emotional interpretation many times, but it never wants to come before the text or the story.

Besides the vision of the director which is well formed, the interpretation is decided by the choice of the main character. Katya Tompos’ fragile appearance, her fine beauty and not at least vibrant play which can always show the always shaking soul inside makes clear all her actions, words are led by the aim of suicide. She rebels and cheats her far existing husband, and mainly that is why she admits her act to get rid of her unbearable life. According to Olga Varjú’s performance the old Kabanova with solid inner belief, strongly but hypocritically ceremonially believes that the keeping of the ancient forms means the saving of the ancient lifestyle too. Balázs Dévai excellently puts together her son’s, Tihon’s character who is indecisive and helpless: in all his gestures we can find the resistance of mind but he does not dare to rebel. He knows that his mother’s claims are meaningless but he does them, however just formally in an emphasised way, without any inner belief, to be able to escape to the pub soon from all of the conflicts. Zalán Makranczi shows the intellectual Boris, Katya’s lover, as someone who is pushed by the circumstances, who does not dare to rebel in a real way. Éva Bakos, in the role of the pilgrim woman shows the mad woman of the village from the middle age, the believer of superstitions, the ghost-like figure of her. Kamilla Fátyol, who is in the role of Katya’s sister-in-law and tempter, gives the practical user of the circumstances. Róbert Kardos as Dikov with confident stupidity, Artúr Kálid the inventor of the village with familiar silly rationality shadows the picture of society. Ádám Tompa characterises Kudriash with crying laugh, while Hermina Fátyol shows with closed attitude the Kabanovs’ servant.

The performance is double faced. It is really photogenic – mainly from above, from where the set rules wonderfully. From the lower lines of the auditorium we can see the drama better.

László Zappe, Népszabadság, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)