We spoke with Zoltán Balázs, director of Maladype Theater, about success, finances, theatrical "predators," and, of course, their latest production, Three Sisters.

You graduated from the University of Performing Arts with degrees in both acting and directing. When did you feel that you wanted more than just acting?

I didn't feel that way. Miklós Benedek, who was the head of my class in the acting department, asked us at the end of the first year what we did when we weren't rehearsing. I replied that, for my own pleasure, I was writing an imaginary play based on the works of Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet with multiple personalities. He asked me for the play and secretly gave it to Tamás Jordán, who was then the director of Merlin Theatre and a member of the board of the Portuguese-Hungarian Friendship Society. Tamás offered me the opportunity to stage it that summer with actors of my choice. "The Ancient Anxiety" was a success, and soon I found myself at the entrance exam of the directing department, where the teachers on the committee asked me why I wanted to be a director. I replied that I actually wanted to be an acrobatic clown, so we talked about the circus for forty minutes. Then they accepted me. In short, it is thanks to the "conspiracy" of Miklós Benedek and Tamás Jordán that I became a director. I never thought about founding a theatre company.

In the end, you became an actor and director, and you have been the artistic director of Maladype Theatre since 2001. What are some of the tasks you have to perform outside of your creative work?

As the director of Maladype, together with my colleagues, I have to ensure the conditions necessary for day-to-day operations—the right rehearsal conditions, financing and logistics for our performances, programs, and domestic and international guest performances—in other words, our survival, and that is no easy task. An important part of securing our annual budget of 50-55 million forints is the grant application for operational costs, which unfortunately has increasingly disappointing results every year.

Do you understand finance?

More and more. I've had to learn a lot of things over the past few years. Organization, communication, strategy development and re-planning. It's been very useful, but I only have this extra knowledge because we are constantly faced with the question of whether we will be able to start the next season.

How far ahead can you see?

Until the opening night of our production of Three Sisters. But that's only because we were just able to raise the necessary funds from private donors. Our operating budget ran out at the end of January. I think it's nonsense that we won't know until the end of spring what our budget will be for the 2017/2018 season.

How long can you keep working like that?

As long as my sense of humour doesn't fail me and my team stands by me. As long as our goals are shared causes. It's true that most of my mental capacity is focused on securing the financial resources necessary to survive and to continue producing high-quality artistic work, and that consumes a lot of energy.

However, these efforts pay off, as you have had tremendous success, not only at the company's base in Mikszáth Square – where, in addition to performances, a series of multidisciplinary arts programs also takes place – but also in other places from the Átrium Film-Theatre in Budapest to the United States. In addition to your directing work, you can be seen as an actor in Sándor Zsótér's production of Richard III, and before that you performed a one-person manifesto, "I Choose Freedom", based on Victor Kravchenko's life. You hold workshops and work with young students at the University of Theatre and Film Arts.

After the International Bartók Seminar and Festival, we took László Sáry's short opera "Great Sound in the Rush" on a national tour, then to Vienna for the Theatermusiktage Wien festival, and most recently to Geneva for the Théátré Saint-Gervais, where we performed it in co-production with the Qaartsiluni Ensemble.

“Great Sound in the Rush” also received the Artisjus Award for Classical Music Composition of the Year in 2016. Katalin Gabnai published a seven-page study on this performance in this spring's issue of GRAMOFON.

Indeed, László Sáry's "half-serious" opera brought about a fortunate encounter for the creators, the performers, the audience, and the critics alike. In addition, my 2016 Chicago production of Matei Visniec's “How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients” will be coming to Budapest in early June as part of an international tour. Fortunately, we are often invited abroad: Maladype Theatre is known and loved. We have also successfully completed the cross-border tour of Viktor Kravchenko's one-man manifesto, I Chose Freedom.

You returned to acting with this play after several years.

Tim Carroll's Hamlet at the Bárka Theatre brought me tremendous revelations. I could feel what it meant to be the driving force behind a performance based on truly free and courageous acting. I found this again in the Kravchenko material. Workshops have always been an integral part of my work. Most recently, I held a theatre workshop in Vienna entitled The Golden Bug-method for participants in an international festival, and I also took on a course in János Meczner's class at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. I also staged Sullivan's Mikado as a puppet opera with his former students. Now we are working on Ionesco's absurd play The Lesson every night.

Your production of the Three Sisters, which will have its premiere in April, is based on a very interesting concept.

It will be a special performance because my creative partners and I, together with the actors, will realize each scene of Chekhov's play in the style of a different painter from the Renaissance to the present day. We dedicate the performance to the memory of set and costume designer Judit Gombár, with whom I had a defining relationship for many years. Sadly, she passed away last year.

Why Chekhov? Why Three Sisters?

Few plays are suitable for this kind of play with metamorphosis, but Three Sisters is a story of great transformation. The first act is rebirth itself, the humanistic Renaissance. The second is the Baroque, Mannerism, the third is avant-garde art, and the fourth is a perfect reflection of contemporary visual art endeavours. We are preparing for another assault on theatrical traditions, which has already become our trademark.

At Maladype Theatre, even the read-through differs from theatrical traditions.

Indeed, at the read-through, the actors do not yet know which role they will play in the final performance. We read the play several times and everyone reads several roles, so that the actors eventually make the whole story their own and deal with the problems of several characters parallelly. Before I announce the cast I have decided on, they come up with their own. This is extremely interesting because it reveals how they see themselves and each other. There are usually many surprises at this stage.

When you invite guest artists from outside the company, such as Erzsébet Kútvölgyi in the recent production of Dada Cabaret, how do you choose them?

There are "predatory" actors, such as Ilona Béres, Mari Törőcsik, Andrea Ladányi, László Sinkó, and Zsolt László, and it is a privilege and a joy to be around them and work with them. We have wanted to work with Erzsébet for 15 years, since the premiere of "The School for Fools", but only now have I found an "exotic" role for her that I could invite her to play as a guest. She plays Lenin with elemental force in our performance of Dada Cabaret.

Who else would you like to work with?

Éva Almási.

Returning to the picturesque styles of Three Sisters: if you were a painting, who would paint you?

Perhaps Simon Hantai. His works are characterized by wonderful forms and layers of paint, which are both cosmic and deeply human.

Georgina Helyes, kozonseg.hu, 2017

Translated by Lena Megyeri

On April 8, Maladype Theatre presented Chekhov's drama, Three Sisters for the first time, which will next be performed on April 20 at Maladype Base. The premiere was an unprecedented undertaking in theatre history: director Zoltán Balázs staged each scene of the play in a different painter's style. We spoke with the director of Maladype before the unusual opening night about this exciting experiment, the timely issues raised by Three Sisters, and the revolutionary ideas that the theatre represents both in Hungary and abroad: humanity, kindness, and love.

When you played Tuzenbach in Three Sisters at the Bárka Theatre, did you already start thinking about how you would stage the drama, or did the idea for the performance you are currently working on come from a completely different source?

The question comes as a surprise, because I haven't thought about it until now. However, I clearly remember that when we were rehearsing the aforementioned production, directed by the world-famous Romanian director Catalina Buzoianu, I noticed some strange things in my surroundings. Several different acting and theatrical tastes collided in the cast, but the production was unable to muster enough integrative energy to forge this diversity of styles into a unified whole. A few years earlier, Catalina Buzoianu had staged Bulgakov's visionary work "Flight" with great success at the Bulandra Theatre in Bucharest, which she screened at the read-through for the cast of Three Sisters so that we could get a feel for and understand the essence of the bold, extreme acting style based on symbols, specific movements, and gestures that was evident in that performance. However, during the screening, my colleagues began to leave the room, and only a few of us watched the recording to the end. Evidently, there was very little interest in a production that was not based on Stanislavski's principles. I thought that I could learn a lot from this icon of Romanian theatre, so, taking the director's idea seriously, I set myself the task of playing Tuzenbach as a one-legged tin soldier, both literally and symbolically, whose "ballerina" (in allusion to Andersen's fairy tale) is Irina. I only put my foot down when Tuzenbach's last line was spoken: "I haven't had any coffee today." Gabriella Varga, who played Irina, was a great partner in this game, so we existed as completely separate islands within the performance. Our colleagues looked at us as if we were Martians, but this theatrical approach remains a defining and important experience for me, in contrast to everything that previous adaptations of Chekhov represented with their props and nostalgic, sentimental style of acting. However, the most joyful gift of the rehearsal process was the friendship I formed with László Sinkó, who played Tchebutikin. In the most noble and playful sense of the word, we saw each other as "scoundrels," and, trusting each other, we began to talk about many things and think together. Later, we had several opportunities to work together again: I invited him to collaborate with Maladype, and I also cast him as Bosola in “The Duchess of Malfi”, a performance for which, in my opinion, he should have received every professional award.

If not from the past, then where does the inspiration for the current Three Sisters production come from?

I think that everything Three Sisters is about—identity, the search for values, the redefinition of values, the dilemma of changing values—are very timely issues. Where do people come from and where are they going? What is genetically encoded in them, and what do they bring with them from home? What are they able to understand and incorporate into their own thinking from their immediate or wider environment? What influence can we exert on others, and what influences do we allow ourselves to be touched by? Starting from a clarification and rethinking of values, the genre of the performance became a "metamorphosis game", a visual play based on transformation. This is a truly extravagant experiment, the likes of which have never been seen on stage before: each scene is staged in a different painter's style, from the icon painters of the 1200s to the street art of today. The audience can thus observe the story and the actors not only in their processes but also in different phases, revealing unexpected, unusual emphases in the different roles—depending on whether we approach a scene in the style of Ghirlandaio, Jan van Eyck, Rubens, Chagall, or Magritte. It is particularly exciting to discover what the identity or difference between body and soul means in a certain pictorial composition; how perspective, the relationship between the individual and the crowd, and many other recurring motifs known from painting or theatre culture appear. In the visual arts, all creators have strived to further develop what is important and valuable to them from previous insights or endeavors, but only very few have succeeded in creating something radically new. When this did happen, another "dreadful dreamer" soon appeared who overrode it: overdid it, overplayed it, or minimized it. To me, in this way, Chekhov's play is also about the relationship between life and creation, where the Prozorov sisters are not saints and victims at all, but rather monsters who destroy everyone around them. If they do not fulfil the predetermined process, which is fuelled by their paternal heritage, the Prozorov spirit, the vast amount of superfluous knowledge referred to as the "sixth finger," and the tension that the age does not understand and accept them, they will never reach their true essence. Like Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka, Simon Hantai, or Lili Ország, every true creator can only reach some kind of inner light, the much-desired Moscow, by peeling away layers and breaking down walls.

Was it specifically Three Sisters that was so organically suited to this kind of "picturesque" staging, or could you have adapted another play in the same way?

I thought about this a lot. During rehearsals, I constantly had eureka moments and shouted with joy, because it was as if Chekhov had written the drama with this specific intention. The entire first act is about the Renaissance and humanism, the glorification of man. The second act is all about the Baroque, Mannerism, Romanticism, and Realism: Natasha walking around with a candle, Andrei withdrawing into himself, strange situations hiding strange secrets and generating increasingly complex relationships. The third act is about avant-garde art: fire engulfs the estate and the entire city, and everyone is also burning in a symbolic sense; futurism and other "-isms" also fit perfectly into the visions of the future that are outlined. The fourth act is the fragmented, crumbling, disintegrating, mosaic world of contemporary art, led by the surrealists, who placed our way of seeing on completely new foundations. Three Sisters fits perfectly into the game of "fine art as metamorphosis," and vice versa. When I played Hamlet at the Bárka Theatre, directed by Tim Carroll, Tim and I were often asked if another play could have been performed in the same improvisational way that we staged the now legendary performance. We both said no. Based on previous adaptations and my own reading, Three Sisters is perfectly suited to staging my specifically "picturesque" ideas in every flavour and segment, but I don't think the same content-form game could be done with another play. In connection with our previous production, Dada Cabaret, I stated that I felt the need to clear out the clutter. Sensing the troubled spirit of our age, I would add that there is also a kind of creative need to reorder values. We need to articulate where we come from, where we are going, and what intellectual and spiritual relics we carry with us. Different pictorial perspectives are also independent worldviews, whose interaction with each other is indisputable, making them the freest and most wide-ranging fields for associative play. And we, who look at them intertwined, say: there is something valid in each of these ideas, so today, for us, they are most authentic in their interrelationships or contexts. The story of the three sisters may be interesting in relation to Natasha, the role of men in relation to women, and the Prozorov legacy in relation to the Protopopov line, since nothing can transcend itself except in the interplay of relationships. Maladype has always been known for its demanding experimentation with variability, and this is no different in the case of Three Sisters.

How can all this be achieved in practice in the spaces of the Maladype Base? I ask this with particular regard to the fact that you also designed the set for this performance.

The performance pays tribute to the memory of set and costume designer Judit Gombár, with whom I had the good fortune to work for ten productive years. She was a tremendous artist of transformation. She taught me that nothing is impossible: if a valuable idea is formulated, sooner or later its form will reveal itself, even if this involves a great deal of sacrifice, redesign, or transformation. There is no wasted energy, only energy that inspires this transformation. Judit Gombár's intellectual legacy greatly influenced the form chosen for the performance and the way it was executed. The kind of "intellectual ping-pong" we engaged in while working together was so free, bold, and creative that after her death, I couldn't find a creative partner like her, even though I also searched among the younger generation. After a while, I realized that it was much easier to design the stage myself, especially since I can only direct if I can see exactly how the space, the actors, and the events are connected. Fortunately, I found a wonderful architect, Ágnes Czirják, with whom I had the opportunity to work on Dada Cabaret and now on Three Sisters. She understands my thinking perfectly and is able to translate everything I imagine into numbers, dimensions, proportions, and materials. Chekhov's Three Sisters is forced into increasingly confined spaces over the course of four acts, so we had to think carefully about what kind of very simple structure, or in other words, "spatial creature," would suit our financial conditions and possibilities, one that would not hinder the actors' performances, but would help the continuous transformation and the audience's revelations with small scenic tricks. This performance could not have been created without extensive and thorough knowledge of the visual arts. Is prior knowledge necessary to appreciate it? I don't think extra cultural knowledge is necessary, but it certainly doesn't hurt if someone has seen at least one Botticelli or Caravaggio painting in their life; it also helps if they recognize Leonardo's The Last Supper. But even if you don't have any of that, the situation, the power of the characters' presence, and the picturesque-dramatic context will create the truth of the situation. Of course, it matters where the author, the director and the actors place their emphasis during the performance. For example, Solyony's hand has a very different meaning in the world of Rubens or Picasso. Talking about what love is in the style of Veronese, Velázquez, or Vermeer also requires different solutions and acting presence. It is a sensual play in every respect: intellectually, emotionally, and physically. For this wide-ranging play, Mari Benedek's minimalist, imaginative, and multifunctional costumes are indispensable. Unfortunately, Maladype does not have the financial resources to allow the actors to change costumes at every twist and turn, yet new worlds must be created from scene to scene. It matters whether someone wears a Stuart collar or appears with a pouffe, as in Pál Szinyei Merse's painting Woman in Lilac, or walks in a hoop skirt like a lady intoxicated by lavender in a Gainsborough painting. These are serious challenges, but the creative team and the cast are so inventive and determined that they managed to achieve all this on time, with lots of ideas and imagination, as well as economically.

Chekhov himself gives some instructions in the play regarding the colours of the costumes and clothes. Did you stick to these colours?

Of course. For example, at Natasha's first appearance. Her character is deliberately the only odd one out in our production, as we thought through her transformations not in terms of painting styles, but in terms of fashion. She defines herself and her success through fashion. Her appearance sometimes contrasts with the scene's painterly style, sometimes blends in with it, reinforcing her chameleon-like nature.

At the beginning of rehearsals, you issued a press release stating that the performance was "an attack on theatrical traditions.". Does this refer to what we have discussed so far?

Yes. Neither the original nor the now somewhat deformed and worn-out Stanislavski method is present in this performance; none of our actors are "acting the Stanislavski way." On the contrary, the tempo is very tight, the different intentions have to be well modulated, and the rhythm and tone of the lines and scenes with different characters have to be precisely timed. One is sultry and full-bodied, the other agitated and staccato. Incidentally, we don't want to perform the play only at Maladype Base: the opening night will be there, but the goal is to move it to a larger theatre space where at least 150-200 people can see it each evening. It has already happened in the history of theatre that a certain painter, style, work, or way of thinking and seeing has determined the overall picture of a performance, but no one has ever been crazy enough to stage each scene of a play in the style of a different painter. Previously, I had only worked this way with the actors of Maladype during rehearsals for Platonov. Now I have matured in my desire, my knowledge, and everything else necessary for this daring and risky endeavour.

Apart from the upcoming premiere, there has been a lot of good news about Maladype lately: several of your performances, such as “Great Sound in the Rush”, have made it onto the international stage. How was the play received?

We recently visited Switzerland with our performance of Great Sound in the Rush, which we have already presented in numerous locations both at home and abroad. László Sáry's "semi-serious opera" has attracted enormous attention and recognition among audiences, regardless of age and cultural background. During our guest performance in Switzerland, I saw proof that nothing can replace the human factor. In front of the elitist Swiss audience, I was struck by the fact that they too are hungry for the most modern, revolutionary ideas, which are humanity, kindness, and love. These are the most progressive ideas today because they are missing from our world. When, thanks to a performance, the audience can rediscover these ideas, it reinforces my belief that the goal of art, culture, and theatre is to somehow abstract our everyday reality and place it in a new dimension. We experienced this from Ghent to Vienna, and everywhere else where Great Sound in the Rush or any of our other plays were performed. Ignoring the human factor turns the whole plan into a tragic waste.

How can the theatre's next season be planned now, before the results of the grant application for independent theatres are announced?

The uncertainty that comes with it is part of our lives. Every year, the period before and after the announcement of the results of the grant application for operational costs is a serious challenge. At this stage of the year, every theatre already knows what budget it will be working with, who it will invite, and what plays it will stage in the next season. We have no idea what and how we are able to plan. It's a completely impossible situation, even though we belong to the handful of groups within the independent scene that are still alive and working. This company has eighteen years of serious achievements behind it, both at home and abroad, so I have no idea what else we would need to prove in order to be able to offer our employees a more stable and predictable working environment. I would like to stay away from the milieu where decisions about our future are made, but I cannot and do not want to put down the responsibility for my company, because those who work at Maladype lend their nervous system, their time, and their energy every day to the creation of shared values. When it comes to evaluating our operating grant application, it seems that neither our successes, nor our development, nor the maintenance and operation of our permanent venue are given sufficient weight. Last year, we received 18 million forints for one year, and this year we can only hope that we will be awarded at least that much. To ensure our annual operation, we need to raise three times that amount, 55 million forints. Of course, I could close the theatre, generating some disaster tourism before we sink into oblivion, but I am convinced that there was, is, and still can be much more value and potential in everything we represent. Personally, I could come and go as I please in the world—as a director, I have accepted two invitations abroad for the next season: one to Washington D.C., and the other to Bucharest—but Maladype, the child we raised together with the actors, colleagues, and audience, still means a lot to many people. The audience knows us, loves us, and keeps coming back to see us. In a sense, Three Sisters is also about these questions of value, these shifting emphases. Sometimes I feel as if I have been swept away from the shore by the current. I am still swimming, keeping my head above the water and keeping pace, but my arms are getting harder and harder to move. I try not to lose my sense of humour and to remain true to myself and to the ideas that hold the company of Maladype together.

The company’s history so far shows that no matter how hopeless the situation seems, there is always a next season.

Yes, at this point we are spoiling things a little, because many people think that no matter how hopeless the situation is, we will solve it anyway. This is thanks to our perseverance, our sense of belonging, and our colleagues and private donors who love our theatre and provide the minimum necessary for our ongoing work, even from under the ground. But this is really only enough for survival; infrastructure development is out of the question under these circumstances. If I could devote all the tremendous energy that is consumed by ensuring the bare necessities for my creative colleagues to our professional development, we would be in a different place artistically. Instead, we have no idea what the future holds. Right now, Maladype's characteristic exploratory, daring, and creative play is our inspiration: so much creative energy and knowledge come together in the spirit of curiosity that it is still worth taking on the difficulties. It would be nice if others would notice and support this—even if we don't ask for it.

Verasztó Annamária, origo.hu, 2017

Translated by Lena Megyeri

He finds today's fast-paced, frantic world incredibly slow, and he strives to surprise audiences with something new and unpredictable every time. Despite all the difficulties, he tries to remain independent and, if necessary, constantly rethinks his plans. His latest production, Dada Cabaret, will be performed next on December 8 by Maladype Theatre in collaboration with Átrium Movie-Theatre. We spoke with actor-director Zoltán Balázs, artistic director of Maladype Theatre.

There was a video about the rehearsal process of Dada Cabaret, in which several artists shared their thoughts on what Dada means to them. However, your response was not included in the compilation. What does Dada mean to you?

While working with Dadaism during the rehearsal process, the question arose again and again: can art and creativity have a radical impact in the positive sense of the word? Can it bring about fundamental change, generate new impulses, and effectively stimulate blocked or unfulfilled processes? On the 100th anniversary of Dadaism, while staging the play written by Matei Visniec, I too was unable to escape the manifold validity of answers. I could best describe the essence of Dada with the title of Lajos Kassák's book, The Book of Purity: a process of purification and decluttering that has a comprehensive effect on my own life and on theatre as a whole, on the relationship between art and everyday life.

That sounds quite radical actually. So how do you see it now: can art have a radical impact?

I would like to believe so. We have a lot of unacknowledged, unspoken, distorted, and "musty" issues that we are somehow unable to clarify with ourselves and our environment in time; and when the time finally comes, it is too late. We have slipped out of space and time. That is why, as theatre makers, it is our job to be in sync with "spicy" topics such as sexuality, religion, politics, and the social processes taking place around us. Many people justify their exclusion by saying that the world has become too fast-paced, spinning along its path with incomprehensible energy and momentum. To me, it seems incredibly slow! This contradictory feeling about life—which may stem from my restless, sanguine nature—is certainly reflected in the performance.

In what form?

Mainly in the person of Tristan Tzara, the inventor of Dadaism, who, with his talent, is able to energize the events around him and draw like-minded, "crazy" playmates into his outspoken games, so that we all unwittingly become his accomplices. One of the special abilities of the Dadaists was that they were able to refine the horrors of the day into a different kind of reality through a new lens. I believe that theatre also needs a new reality: a new theatrical civilization that requires Tzara-type, rebellious figures who keep their era in a state of fever, with new ideas and a renewed set of tools, integrating new demands and experiences into their development. The work of Richard Huelsenbeck, Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber, and Emmy Hennings—all of whom were determined participants in the creation of Dada, which became an "-ism" since then —was characterized by astonishing faith, energy, and momentum: a personal commitment to redesigning the moment while constantly reflecting on the environment. I think that no artist today can avoid this if they take what they do seriously.

Are you doing something similar? If I understand correctly, you are not just staging the play, but trying to reproduce the Dadaist mentality as a whole.

I wouldn't call it reproduction, because no one knows how our Dadaist friends actually worked at the beginning of the last century. There are legends passed down by word of mouth, but whether they are true or not is unclear. Perhaps only certain motifs can be considered truly authentic, while the rest were created later by time, or those who cultivated the legends – such as the story of the supposed meeting between Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Tristan Tzara. In this regard, there are also few tangible records from contemporaries, from the pens and notes of James Joyce and other writers. There are also very few film clips that could reveal how Tristan Tzara and his group realized their Dadaist ideas on stage, or what cabaret—as a concept and genre—meant to them exactly. In any case, the intertwining of Voltaire's persona and the cabaret genre created a very interesting merger in the name and program of the Cabaret Voltaire, which opened its doors in 1916 at Spiegelgasse 1, operating as a café by day and an entertainment venue by night. Putting the emblematic figure of the Enlightenment on their banner, they examined things from a different perspective and in new contexts, presenting them in their provocative performances. Let us not forget that Voltaire himself was an exile who, at certain periods of his career, lived, worked, and thought about world affairs under turbulent circumstances, just like Tristan Tzara or Lenin. These magnetic forces instinctively attracted each other at that time and continue to do so today, based on some kind of unspoken shared values. This attraction is the guarantee that contemporary artists capable of thinking in a Dadaist way are able to override and reject their acquired experiences and make room for unexpected events.

The actors of Maladype are clearly open to this – the making-of video reveals, for example, that they even had to write Dadaist poems during rehearsals.

I am confident that our actors' Dadaist thinking will be able to connect with the authentic approach of the "rebels" (in today's slang: "crazy modernists") who started the movement 100 years ago. Although the creators of Dadaism wrote the Dada Manifesto a century ago, calling all artists to arms, as performers, musicians, sculptors, or painters—adapting to the ever-changing coordinates of the Dadaist imagination—everyone also wrote their own personal manifesto. That is why I believe that there is no such thing as "the" Dada; there is only "our" Dada. Just as Tristan Tzara had his own particular image of Dada, so did the other members of the group, regardless of whether they came to Switzerland from Romania, Germany, or America. Sooner or later, thinkers of every age feel the need to ruthlessly review and discard all the social and cultural excesses that have accumulated up to that point. Thus, all kinds of world-improving intentions and utopias are doomed to destruction, becoming distorted caricatures of their own promises over time. When a society reaches the end of its crusade of ideas, just as a revolution devours its own children, grandiose claims consume themselves. For me, therefore, Dada is also about finding a new moment in the destruction of the moment. This way of thinking is not foreign to Maladype either. This mentality can also be seen in our performances of King Ubu, Egg(s)hell, and Great Sound in the Rush, which the audience identified with the concept of "happy accident" during our American tour. The essence of this approach is that if something does not happen in the performance as planned during rehearsals, the actor does not panic, but reacts quickly and easily to the events of the moment in the spirit of rethinking, thus gaining the advantage of the situation.

Through your work with the members of Maladype Theatre company, you must have known that they were open to this. But how did you feel that this was also true of Erzsébet Kútvölgyi, who plays Lenin?

Erzsébet Kútvölgyi demands this kind of opportunity for reinvention. She is a wonderful, "predatory" actress who said in an interview with Origo that she is not satisfied with people only wanting to see her usual manners. For her, it is a challenge to try something new, a task based on risky and unusual acting choices that provoke her. Robert Wilson distinguishes between two types of actors: there are those who want to please the audience from 7 to 10 and do everything they can to be loved by the audience at all costs, while forgetting the reason that brought them to the stage as actors. Then there are those who go on stage because they have something to figure out about themselves and the issues raised by the play from 7 to 10. If they are applauded at the end of the performance, they are of course very grateful, but their main goal remains to publicly and authentically reflect on the issues raised by the role. I believe in the latter type of actor, and Erzsébet Kútvölgyi is exactly like that, as are Ilona Béres, Mari Törőcsik, Andrea Ladányi, László Sinkó, and Károly Kuna, with whom I have had the good fortune to work in my previous projects. In an artistic sense, they are all predators, because they thrive on bloodlust. I am fascinated by their atavistic energy and their ambivalent and unpredictable stage presence. The French call them "monstres sacrés," and as a director, I learn the most from them.

Dada, the musical nature of cabaret, Lenin, the Maladype Theatre, the guest performers... all of these can raise different expectations in the audience, who may sit down in the auditorium with a wide variety of motivations and expectations. What should they expect, what will happen to them during the performance?

I hope that by subtly and cleverly directing the audience's attention and timing our dramaturgical, visual, and acoustic effects well, we will achieve the goals that we formulated and built up together with the author, the actors, and the band during rehearsals. Of course, the collage and montage techniques characteristic of the Dadaists, the revelry in all styles, be it linguistic, musical, or theatrical, are indispensable to the performance. Many things must come together for the performance to form a coherent whole in the spirit of total art. In this performance, co-produced with Gábor Gábriel Farkas and his band, Gábriel participates not only as musical director, but also as an allegorical figure of Dadaism, as Monsieur Dada, singer, and actor. His investigative spirit brings to life the iconic figures of Dadaism: Tristan Tzara, Emmy Hennings, and Sophie Taeubert, as well as Lenin and Krupskaya, who lived in exile in Zurich during World War I. They are played by Erzsébet Kútvölgyi and the actors of Maladype—Zsigmond Bödők, Ágota Szilágyi, Erika Tankó, and Kata Huszárik—in a lively, dense, associative, and playful joint performance that stimulates the imagination. Although there are different images of Dada, various impressions and patterns, people and gestures living in our collective and individual consciousness, no one can decide which artistic influences and styles Dada draws on most: there is no canonized interpretation. This is why the "fashion show of -isms" is such an important scene in the performance, where every -ism we know (surrealism, impressionism, symbolism, rayonism, suprematism, pictorialism, nabism, etc.) is represented in an endless "artistic writhing."

The actors, who are primarily dramatic actors, also learned serious musical material.

The musical material is incredibly rich and diverse, ranging from the 1910s to the present day. Although not representatives of the musical genre, the actors sing brilliantly together in multiple parts and perform choreographies of various styles to a high standard. I don't like to talk enthusiastically about our actors, because when theatre directors praise their wonderful actors, it always seems suspicious, but I am really terribly proud of them and I am sure that those who come to see Dada Cabaret will feel the same way. The performance features 35 songs in different styles, almost all in different languages. This would be a daring undertaking even for a musical theatre.

Dada, as has been mentioned before, is also provocative. Does this also appear in some way in the performance?

We don't pour ketchup or a bucket of water on anyone; we didn't plan any provocations of that kind. However, we do plan to provoke intellectual and spiritual excitement. Before the performance, I always say to the actors, "Have a good trip!" I hope that this journey into the unique matrix of the play will be a real ADVENTURE, not only for the actors, but also for the playful audience.

Your biography mentions three theatre workshops—the Horváth Mihály Secondary School in Szentes, the Studio of the National Theatre, and the University of Theatre and Film Arts —any one of which could have a lifelong impact on an artist's career. Did you encounter slightly different ways of thinking about theatre at each of these places?

In the many different schools I attended, I was able to learn about the diversity of thinking and that only preparation and consistency can give validity to different creative ideas. Ultimately, of course, one must find and put together one's own self, as poet Attila József says, from one's own "pieces of God."

This is also a kind of Dadaist gesture. There are examples of people who adopt a certain way of thinking and then work according to it.

Of course, one can even create "eras." It is a Hungarian peculiarity that if a play is liked by audiences and critics, the creator quickly churns out a dozen more based on the same formula, so that when the audience returns for the umpteenth time, they know exactly what they are going to get. This is a safe and, above all, reassuring "alliance" for everyone, in which no innovation, unexpected choices, or theatrical effect requiring experimentation and research disturbs the peace of mind of creators, audiences, and experts. This is an existing "creative strategy," but it is very far from my own. I am inspired when, just like myself, I can always surprise the audience that comes to see us with something new; I honour them with a demand for unpredictability and variety.

Was this already the case when you were in high school, as a teenager, or did it take time to develop your own strategy and assert it in the world? Or is it so much a part of your nature that it has never been any different?

When I look back on my childhood, there are millions of stories that prove that I never liked arriving somewhere, but rather being on the road. I was always looking for situations where moving forward seemed almost impossible. When I was in high school, I hitchhiked a lot in the summer: I travelled with a sumo wrestler, an American Indian, and other strange characters. Adventures like these toughen up your nervous system and personality in an amazing way. Whether consciously or instinctively, I eventually became what I was probably meant to be; I represent this mentality in theatre as well. Running an independent theatre in Hungary today is not a safe bet. It is unpredictable both structurally and financially: we have to survive impossible situations over and over again. I have not joined any group; I try to remain independent. I think in terms of value-centered theatre, which is capable of integrating all kinds of quality ideas into its spirit. I am uncompromising in this regard.

We last spoke in May, in connection with the premiere of Richard III. Are there any developments regarding Maladype Theatre's new season that were not known at the time, but are now?

The number of premieres planned for the 2016/2017 season will definitely be reduced because we simply do not have the necessary financial resources. I don't even know how long we will be able to keep our permanent venue, the Maladype Base on Mikszáth Square, as property prices are rising and with them rises the rent. At the same time, there are also some positive developments: one of our sponsors has bought new chairs, which is a huge help for us. I just don't know, now that we have the new chairs, whether we will still have the Base in May. But what is this constant rethinking if not a Dadaist way of life in the 21st century? No one could have known beforehand how long Cabaret Voltaire would exist. God forbid that we too should end up becoming an "-ism"!

Annamária Verasztó, origo.hu, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri

"We must discard the excess and focus only on the essentials. In oversimplified terms, this was also the message of Dadaism, which emerged as a powerful protest against World War I. Dada, which took a position of total negation, became a side branch of Western bourgeois thinking. It was an expression of disgust, anxiety, and despair in the face of a world in which, in the words of German avant-garde writer Hugo Ball, "Everything is functioning; only man himself is not any longer”."

The movement was born in Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire, and its father was Tristan Tzara, who, according to one theory, came across the word "Dada" in February 1916 when he randomly opened a Larousse dictionary in a café and decided that the term perfectly described the new movement he represented.

To mark the centenary of Dadaism, Maladype Theatre recently presented Romanian author Matei Visniec's visionary absurd piece, Dada Cabaret, directed by Zoltán Balázs. In addition to the theatre company's regular members—Zsigmond Bödők, Kata Huszárik, Ágota Szilágyi, and Erika Tankó—Erzsébet Kútvölgyi and Gábor Gábriel Farkas also appear in the play staged at the Átrium Film-Theatre.

“Matei Visniec sent me the initial version of the play two years ago. At first glance, I didn't really know what to make of the fragmentary material, but a brilliantly written scene in which Lenin gives a speech on the aging and obsolescence of European civilization kept nagging at me. I think that's why I finally decided to stage it. Some of the characteristics of Dadaism are playfulness, the mixing of languages, the strange combination of verbal and nonverbal signs, so in the performance, baroque falsettos, movement songs, German cabarets, and French chansons are mixed with the world of music halls and variety shows. Apart from the allegorical figure of Monsieur Dada, all the characters were real people: the "Dada-sopher" Emmy Hennings, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and Tristan Tzara on the one hand, and Lenin and Krupskaya on the other. But Stalin and a black cat also appear in the performance”, reveals actor and director Zoltán Balázs.

“In my interpretation, a very powerful gesture of Dadaism is clearing out the clutter. Humanity has accumulated so much over the centuries, in artistic, cultural, and political terms, that from time to time it is necessary to throw it all on the fire. At the beginning of the last century, the Dadaists, in their harsh and restless way, ruthlessly threw everything that stood in the way of understanding the essential things onto the fire. Perhaps the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams, which plays at the end of the performance, contains the essence. Every "-ism", every human endeavour ends up here", says the director, who believes that the Dadaists were troubled and complex personalities, but capable of acceptance. “This integrative attitude is truly lacking in today's world, which tends to exclude, appropriate, and provoke "tribal wars”."

"There is a lack of bold and generous gestures, of authentic (creative) communities independent of party affiliation, taste, and ideology", explains Zoltán Balázs.

This spring, the director staged another play by Matei Visniec, “How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients”, at the Trap Door Theatre in Chicago. "Although the play was presented by a widely recognized avant-garde theater, which has considered it its mission since its inception to introduce contemporary European plays, authors, and innovative theater makers to American audiences open to unconventional themes and performances, it was still a possibility that not all aspects of the Stalinist story would be accurately understood and decoded. However, during post-show talks, it always became clear that viewers were able to draw perfect parallels between the injustices and absurdities of the Soviet system and the manipulative nature of the presidential election campaign in their own country and some of its participants", the director recalls.

The one-man play “I Chose Freedom”, based on a work by Viktor Kravchenko, which has been running with great success since last year, deals with the real mechanisms of Soviet terror.

Kravchenko was an active participant in the establishment of the Stalinist regime, but at the height of the war, he turned against the system and emigrated to America, where some believe he was killed by the KGB. In his 1946 work I Chose Freedom, Kravchenko was the first to report on the true mechanisms of Soviet terror. Zoltán Balázs is touring with the play in Transylvania and Upper Hungary, and a documentary film is also being made about his journey.

Last spring, the Maladype theatre company presented “It’s Not the Time of my Life” (Ernelláék Farkaséknál), a chamber play written by director Szabolcs Hajdu. That same year, Hajdu shot the movie version with the company on a shoestring budget, guerrilla-style, and it won the grand prize at Karlovy Vary, Eastern Europe's only prestigious film festival. It had been planned that the play would be shown again in the fall season at Maladype's Budapest base, but it is not programmed anymore. "Unfortunately, despite the film's success in Karlovy Vary, our structural and financial circumstances have not changed. As a result, we were unable to undertake the production in line with the increased new requirements," explains Zoltán Balázs.

Sonja Makrai, mno, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri

To mark the 100th anniversary of Dadaism, Maladype Theatre is presenting Matei Vișniec's play Dada Cabaret in co-production with Gábor Gábriel Farkas's band. The premiere will take place on October 20, 2016, at the Átrium Film-Theatre as part of the CAFe Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival. We spoke with dramaturg Daniela Magiaru and director Zoltán Balázs, artistic director of Maladype Theatre, about the upcoming performance.

Why did you choose Vișniec's play, and what challenges does it pose for you?

Zoltán Balázs: Actually, it was Vișniec's play that chose me—more precisely, the author, who sent me a working copy of Dada Cabaret two years ago, and after reading it, I couldn't get a couple of cleverly and brilliantly written scenes out of my head. It is largely thanks to this "authorial strategy" that the play will finally be premiered on October 20, which – in the spirit of Dadaism – has been significantly rewritten based on the director's concept and the ideas formulated by the actors during rehearsals. The challenge lies in capturing Vișniec's language, the plastic coordination of the diverse text, music, and movement, and the valid and contemporary interpretation of the Dadaists' legacy.

Daniela Magiaru: For me, Dada Cabaret is not a literal adaptation, but rather a search for context, an investigation of realities and time periods. It is a keen observation of the phenomena of then and now and a fruitful dialogue arising from this. My dramaturgical task consisted mainly of searching for signs and reading between the lines.

The essence of the avant-garde art movement of the early 20th century, as Daniela said, is the strange combination of verbal and nonverbal signs, as well as playfulness and the mixing of languages. Staging a play built on such elements is a good fit for Maladype, isn't it?

Z.B.: From time to time, we must revisit the questions that define different areas of our lives. Taking possession of new gardens and lands can be a very inspiring task for a thinking, creative artist who wants to create. Today's world is chaotic, unkempt, and increasingly disordered in terms of social, political, and religious issues, as well as conflicts between peoples and nations. That is why it is extremely motivating, timely, and necessary—in the spirit of cleansing and creating order—to clarify basic concepts and processes that have only been partially realized or implemented. Due to the many factors of uncertainty, the goals of small communities organized around shared values, provocative in a good sense, become much more significant. Projecting Dadaism onto the present day gives us an opportunity to rethink the technique of questioning itself. For me, Dada represents the energy of life, since theatre, together with the audience, creators, and actors, is a medium capable of destroying and recreating itself night after night, provided that the audience and actors strive together to create a common denominator.

As far as I know, it was SIBFEST, the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, that brought you together professionally in 2008. Daniela, what do you like about Zoltán Balázs's theatre?

D. M.: Yes, it started with SIBFEST, where Zoli's company performed their play Leonce and Lena as part of the festival. Zoltán Balázs' theatre is one of those where I feel privileged as a spectator, where I feel the unity of visions and a path that is essential to follow. I have always felt that Maladype is a theatre that is sincere in its intentions, where the creators do not use tricks: the instruments are public, if you like, they play with their cards on the table. You feel enchanted during and after the performance. At first glance, Zoltán's productions always bring the word "authentic" to mind. This is what I immediately associate with whenever I think of the performances I have seen or the philosophy behind them. Zoltán is one of those tireless theatre makers for whom the search for meaning is the essence of life. I believe that in the Dada Cabaret performance, Gábor Gábriel Farkas and his band can be an essential and organic foundation for the work of Zoltán Balázs's team—they bring every step, word, and thought to the audience with openness and attention.

Z.B.: Dana, seeing Maladype's way of thinking and its ideas about art, said at SIEBFEST that she thought it was important for Matei Vișniec and me to meet at some point. This happened the following year, when we were participating in the Sibiu Festival once again. From there, it was only a short step to directing Vișniec's plays. In 2013, Maladype held Matei Vișniec Days, during which we presented a reading of his play "The story of the panda bears told by a saxophonist who has a girlfriend in Frankfurt". In the spring of 2016, I directed "How to explain the history of communism to mental patients" at the Trap Door Theatre in Chicago, and now I am directing the history of Dadaism – which is interesting because although neither Matei nor I are storytellers, I have now been directing Vișniec stories for three years. Dada Cabaret is not really a story-centered text or performance either. It's like Ionesco's The Bald Soprano, which features a fireman and a nurse, but no bald soprano. For Dana, these little absurdities are precisely codable realities, which is why working with her is so liberating.

How do you explore the implications of Dadaism, this avant-garde art movement—I mean, what theatrical devices do you use to make the performance exciting?

Z.B.: First and foremost, music—the premiere is being produced in collaboration with Gábor Gábriel Farkas and his band. Focusing on the total art nature of Dadaism, visuality, exciting dramaturgy, and hopefully good casting also play an important role. Apart from Monsieur Dada, all the characters in the play were real people who, with their turbulent and passionate (creative) lives, constantly shaped the Dadaist image: Lenin, Krupskaya on one side, Emmy Hennings, Sophie Taeuber, and Tristan Tzara on the other, but Stalin and a black cat also make an appearance.

D. M.: Dadaism crumbles into pieces, disintegrates and scatters across the dimensions of the performance. The nuances of the almost violent contrasts between worlds full of glamour are well constructed, where problems seem suspended, time steps out of its groove, the world is turned upside down, and violence dictates. Cabaret and battlefield, glitz and horror go hand in hand, leading us step by step into a universe that sometimes closely resembles the one we live in. In terms of music and movement, we witness controlled explosions. As viewers, we will meet fascinating people in surprising situations, collect clues, and let our imagination discover pockets full of surprises. This performance is best viewed with wide-open eyes. The spirit of mischief will be sharp, and emotions will spin on an eternal merry-go-round.

How much did you change the original text?

D. M.: Every change to the text was made in keeping with the spirit of the text. Matei Vișniec gives complete freedom when working with the text; changes can be made in line with the “Dadaist imagination of the director.” This is what happened this time as well: Zoltán's Dadaist imagination was activated impeccably, and the text became shorter and denser. The director as well as the actors and the actresses, also wrote scenes. The songs in Vișniec's text served as springboards for the director's imagination, allowing him to recreate a musical line. Once you enter the Dada Cabaret, you can only think in the spirit of Vișniec.

Z.B.: The author's and director's concepts are two different things. Although the author's intentions guide the director, in order for the performance to be valid, the director must create his own world from the texture that the writer suggests on paper. This is especially true in my case, because I am a conceptual director, or at least I always strive to make visible an invisible world that presents itself as a surface hidden between the lines. The performance currently in production also makes heavy use of the collage and montage techniques characteristic of the Dadaists. For Maladype Theatre, as well as Gábor Gábriel Farkas and his band—who are also a well-established team—the interplay between text, music, movement, and the use of different artistic languages creates a very strong cohesive force. This requires playful, imaginative creators who are personally committed to their own path, to theatre, to the performance they are creating, and who are able to focus on the essentials. All kinds of opposites play a very important role in the performance, as we do not focus on didactic conclusions. It is a risky game because, although the actor is present with his or her entire personality, it is not his or her task to think through the conclusions derived from the previously formulated insights and get from point A to point B, or to the "great common insight." It is a somewhat schizophrenic game because the actor can express several selves at once.

One of the key figures in the performance is Monsieur Dada, played on stage by Gábor Gábriel Farkas. What kind of person is Monsieur Dada, and what is his relationship with the other characters?

D. M.: Monsieur Dada is a highly mystical character. If we were playing cards, he would be the joker, but also the ace up our sleeve. He is a chameleon-like character who knows everything, sees everything, laughs and cries at the same time. He is our guide through the times and spaces we travel through.

Z.B.: He is a metaphorical, allegorical figure of Dadaism. He is curious about his own origins, asking Tristan Tzara, the father of Dadaism. He searches for where he comes from, where he is going, what he was born from, whether there was “more” behind him when they gave him a body, soul, and mind, or whether they simply opened a German-French dictionary and found the word dada, which means wooden horse in French. Various answers arise, including the idea that Lenin, during his stay in Zurich at the Voltaire Cabaret, “sensing” the revolutionary spirit of the young deserters, began a belly dance and shouted, “Da-da!” Whether this is legend or truth, we do not know. Of course, as a Dadaist gesture, there are other variations that repeatedly distract the viewer from the certainty of a single answer.

Zsigmond Bödők, Kata Huszárik, Ágota Szilágyi, Erika Tankó, and Erzsébet Kútvölgyi also appear in the play. Which characters do they play, and how do they advance the plot?

Z.B..: They are all restless characters driven by the energy of change, who, in the name of "improvement," clash with their own ideas and intentions, with each other, and with the world in which they live and create. Tzara and Lenin want to burn away the excess and canonized debris accumulated throughout art history and history itself, based on the same principles. The main supporters of their utopian endeavours are Sophie Taeuber, Emmy Hennings, and Nadezhda K. Krupskaya, who become active partners in this movement through their own creativity and idealism. The elementary need to set things right is expressed by the desire to turn the world, which has already been turned upside down, upside down again. As their common intention, this also sets the goal of "putting things in order."

Daniela, you are not only a theatre critic and translator, but also a researcher of Vișniec's works. What exactly attracts you to Vișniec's writing, and what do you think makes his world so special?

D. M.: I am attracted to texts that allow you to explore their depths and that are capable of bringing together a universe filled with countless details using seemingly simple language. Matei Vișniec allows the grotesque and humour, irony and poetry to grow in the same vein, and he constructs the text you read or see on stage in such a way that it shocks you and fills you with joy with its beauty. His works are skilfully constructed and offer a sea of interpretations to navigate—sometimes you are dazzled by the beauty you see, other times you stare at the icebergs for a long time, barely recognizing them. These are not comfortable texts; they are provocative and encourage dialogue. His writings burn into your retina, provoking you to understand, then rewarding you abundantly.

Nowadays, there is a lot of suppressed anger in the world, and there are incredible tensions within individuals, groups, and social classes. What surrounds us now—even if it is not explicitly Dadaist—is absurd, grotesque, and full of misunderstandings, at least in my view. Do you think it is possible to convey any message through Dadaism today?

D. M.: Unfortunately, we live in a deeply Dadaist world. While Dadaism looks very good on paper, as you said, it manifests itself as terrifying realities that are difficult or even impossible to understand. Irrationality, the absence of rules and logic, and the fury of war mixed with the lines of the Dadaists are still very much present today. The appetite for destruction has reached unsustainable levels, and language filled with hatred and a lack of tolerance, humanity, and understanding have become the foundation of our world, so much so that we feel it in our guts. Absurd? Yes, definitely. The Dadaists' rebellion against lies and the dead turned into mirages should still make us think today.

Z.B.: It would be contrary to the original ideas and goals of the Dadaists if we were to formulate direct messages in connection with the centenary. The gesture of questioning everything is what can drive our present, and thus also our performance staged today, in 2016. The subversive game, which has by now become an "-ism", would be quite outraged if we took it more seriously than it took itself at the time – so it is enough to stick a big question mark in the middle of things that are still considered taboo.

Zoli, could you name three things that really annoy you in Hungary today?

Z.B.: I would mention semi-literacy, arrogance, and irresponsibility above all else.

Ágnes Jónás, Kortárs Online, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri

He acts, directs, and his 15-year-old theatre company, Maladype Theatre, works with guest artists such as Mari Törőcsik and Sándor Zsótér. At barely 30 years of age, he has already won the Jászai Mari Award and the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, yet he is slowly becoming better known abroad than at home. An interview with Zoltán Balázs.

You had a strong career start, winning a Jászai Award and several other prestigious awards at a very young age. Compared to this, your name is not so well-known. Why is that?

Perhaps because I didn't accept offers that could have given me greater exposure. My work abroad also took me out of the public eye a little, and I wasn't a guest at certain dinner parties where all kinds of "professional" matters are decided. The most important reason, however, is that over time I began to focus more on developing my own company. I learned that in order to ensure stable operation and the effectiveness of in-depth work, as the leader of the company I always have to be several steps ahead of the ensemble, whether I like it or not. If a leader focuses all their energy on these tasks, they inevitably give up on themselves, regardless of whether they are the person who most strongly defines the spirit of the theatre.

So, if I understand correctly, you don't want to be like Ervin Nagy or Sándor Csányi.

Why would I want to be? I am Zoltán Balázs. In professional circles, people know exactly who I am and what I am worth. Those who like me and those who don't alike recognize my talent and my achievements. They all know what values I follow and that in my choices and decisions I always strive for freedom, with all the risks that entails. Since the beginning of my career as a director, I have tackled topics and sought theatrical solutions that did not test the attention of the actors and the audience in the usual way; risk has always been present in my undertakings. Suffice it to mention our productions of Michel de Ghelderode's “The School for Fools”, Sándor Weöres's “Theomachia”, and Hölderlin's “Empedocles”; but I could continue the list with Wyspianski's “Acropolis”, which we co-directed with Sándor Zsótér for the first time in Hungary for Maladype. I know now that in the early 2000s, the Hungarian "theatrical nervous system" was not yet prepared for such extreme adventures, as there were no earlier productions of these works on Hungarian stages in 1962 or 1984, but I am convinced that they were important milestones in the development of Maladype and in Hungarian theatrical thinking.

Even after Acropolis, you did not follow the usual paths with Maladype.

Indeed not. In 2009, for example, for the first time in Hungary, we opened the entire rehearsal process of King Ubu, from the read-through to the premiere, to the public at our venue on Mikszáth Square, the Maladype Base, so that they could participate as co-creators in the rehearsals. Since we didn't hold "showcase rehearsals," the audience quickly understood their role and took advantage of the opportunity to actively participate. I felt it was important to make the audience understand that, as recipients, they can not only relate to the performances intuitively, but also have the opportunity—and the right—to understand, analyse, and evaluate their own relationship to the given creative proposal or work.

Did you want to build up your own audience?

Yes. I want to build our theatre's operation on an understanding audience. I count on spectators who do not base their opinions solely on one-off impulses and raw impressions, but who are able to interpret and convey their thoughts on the context of the creative work at a high level. The stimulus they experience during the play does not remain merely their own experience, but becomes precisely formulable and communicable to others; they are able to think in symbols, allegories, and metaphors. I trust that, as informed and discerning viewers, they will not be fooled in other theatres either, because they already possess the knowledge that helps them distinguish between false, "pretend" acting and directing solutions and genuine, authentic, and personal creative energies. I believe in direct and unadorned relationships and communication.

How would you describe Maladype's goal?

As before, change and redesign continue to organize our lives. The actors who perform here want to learn and develop, not just live off their existing talent and knowledge; they demand the attention of quality writers and directors. By becoming part of the global circulation, Maladype has made our actors freer and more confident, and their acting has become lighter and more direct in the spirit of "human acting." An important goal is to give them even more new impulses in the future. Creative and intellectual freedom is our path, advancing in our own value system, the intention to seek and explore – unfortunately under the forced conditions of financial dependence.

Since you brought up money: beyond fundraising, what are the difficulties in the alternative theatre scene today?

Professional inconsistency, insularity and lack of solidarity and morale. But the constant headache is how to secure the additional resources needed to supplement the pitifully low operating budget allocated to us each year in order to keep the company going. In Maladype's case, this amounts to fifty-five million forints per year. We received the same amount as last year's grant, eighteen million forints, despite the fact that last summer we protested in a statement against the unprofessional decision that ignored all our achievements. Meanwhile, less than six years ago, we were granted thirty-four million forints. Grant opportunities have been reduced, various support platforms have narrowed, and private sponsors and companies are harder to mobilize. These nerve-wracking tasks make Maladype's staff multifunctional, but they also rob them of immeasurable energy and distract them from their essential tasks.

The main reason for this conversation is that you haven't been on stage for a very long time, but recently you have "returned" as an actor. Why haven't you performed for so long, and why are you doing so now?

After Hamlet, I didn't miss it. The rehearsal process led by Tim Caroll was so perfect, with the many different performances every evening, the audience's reactions, the taming of János Arany's language, the cleverly constructed improvisations, the liberated acting. I experienced a kind of happiness that actors very rarely get to experience on stage. Mari Törőcsik often says that she's had five beautiful evenings during her career. Hamlet made my acting career complete in every respect; after that, there were few similar impulses.

But you did continue to act after Hamlet for a while.

Yes, but none of those roles represented a step forward. Hamlet was decisive because Tim said that as Zoli Balázs, I would have the opportunity and the director's permission to deal with the problems of the role in front of the audience, in public. The in-depth exploration of Hamlet's problems and the first-person singular narrative style allowed the audience to join me in transforming Zoli Balázs, the medium, into Hamlet. I have never experienced anything like this since. The changes in Maladype's life also required 24-hour shifts, and the processes taking place around me reinforced my belief that I didn't have to perform at all costs; let the actors in the company do so. Then I came across the story of Viktor Kravchenko, and I knew immediately that this was what interested me.

I chose freedom – with that title, you could have written the book yourself.

Absolutely. What's more, Ariane Mnouchkine recommended the work in an interview as one of her five favourite books. We started our research in Russia, but it soon became clear that we were touching on a sensitive subject and that no one wanted to hear about Viktor, because he and the content of his book are still taboo. Then it turned out that we had to look for Viktor's legal successor, his only living son, Andrew Kravchenko, in Los Angeles, USA. The recording of the last Hamlet performance convinced him that his father's story would be authentically conveyed in my interpretation: "This is my father!" he said, and we got the rights. Preparing the theatrical performance required the translation and publication of the work in Hungarian, so after several years of preparation, we finally managed to publish this wonderful book, translated by Péter Konok and with graphics by István Orosz. We premiered the stage adaptation in November 2015, and it is always an amazing experience for me that today, when performances are enlivened by various effects, with all kinds of technical wonders flying and spinning around, the audience listens intently to Viktor Kravchenko's story for nearly two and a half hours. I don't stick on a moustache or wave a paper flag – yet people sit motionless and travel with the story and with me. It's quite astonishing.

The most important thing in theatre is still the human word. During the performances of Hamlet, I discovered the power of an actor who knows exactly what he wants to communicate, and now I am experiencing the same thing with the Kravchenko text. Then Sándor Zsótér came along, Richard III came up in our discussion, and I came up as a possible candidate. I thought, as an actor, who else could I trust after all these years but Sándor Zsótér? It was a fantastic rehearsal process. I felt the same way I did during Tim's rehearsals for Hamlet. They both gave me space to explore the essence and to communicate my inner changes to my partners and the audience without any mannerisms. Our Richard III does not wear a hump or use medical aids; he prioritizes intellectual pleasure and seeks ways to gradually infiltrate his environment.

Both you and Sándor Zsótér stated that you did not want to model Richard on any existing dictator. If this was not part of the performance's train of thought—what was the guiding thread, the "concept"?

Although our narrow and broad world produces plenty of examples that show Richard III's manipulative behavior, almost everyone falls into the trap of thinking that this cannot happen to them. Richard recognizes this vanity factor and quickly prepares the ground for advancement. Behind his intentions lies a concrete plan that those "at risk" cannot see through because they are all preoccupied with their own petty affairs.

I think I detect some parallels.

This is true in everything, whether we are talking about theatre or politics. People are so preoccupied with their daily livelihoods that they do not perceive the greater picture. By the time these processes affect their small lives, they have become completely incapable of fighting them. Although Richard III powerfully touches on certain issues that characterize our lives, and after the performance the audience has plenty to think about, talk about, and argue about, it is still, as Sándor says, just a fairy tale compared to real life.

It happens that the company leader plays alongside their actors, but it has not happened to you before. What is the experience like?

It is reassuring that I did not catch myself watching the Maladype actors from the inside during rehearsals. I was a little afraid of this because I had never been in a similar situation, but the feedback confirmed that they didn't notice anything like that. In fact, the members of the company said that they were shocked by how humble I was as an actor towards the director's instructions. This is valuable feedback for me because it confirms that I have not been deformed over the years and that I still think of myself as an actor today in the same way I did six years ago.

Are you planning to continue acting?

I have so many commitments at home and abroad for the next season that these two tasks are enough for now, but a director I have worked with before is coming to us, and I hear that he is considering me as an actor, so I will have to decide whether I can handle it and whether I am really indispensable to the production. As a director, I will be working on Matei Visniec's play Dada Cabaret, which is being produced in collaboration with Gábor Gábriel Farkas and his band, and will be performed at the Átrium Film-Theatre on October 20. And to my great delight, after Platonov, I will be directing Chekhov again; Three Sisters will premiere in March at the Maladype Base.

Is there a theatre artist you would really like to work with, but haven't had the chance to yet?

Erzsébet Kútvölgyi and I have been planning to work together for a long time, and now I've managed to get her to join Dada Cabaret in the role of Lenin. Erzsébet, like Ilona Béres, László Sinkó, Andrea Ladányi, Károly Kuna, and Mari Törőcsik, is a wonderful "predator." They are not vegetarian actors; when they smell blood, their hunting instincts are awakened.

You have travelled a lot, and recently you directed in the United States. What could be brought back from there in terms of theatre culture?

Above all, the fundamental need for theatre production. That criticism carries serious weight, that what is written has an impact on the life of the performance and the company. If the seven-member team of critics who watch the premiere does not recommend the production the next morning, then that's the end of that performance. But if they do recommend it, the number of planned performances increases, it gets nominated for awards, and so on. Of course, there can be a trap in this, because who knows what the tastes of that group of critics are, or how credible and reliable they are, but the fact is that the rules of the game are clear.

Now there's Richard, which is about dictatorship, before that there was Kravchenko, which was also about that, and you had a production in America that was about that too. I see a kind of trend here.

In fact, Lenin and Stalin will also appear in Dada Cabaret. I think that coming to terms with the past, the distorted utopias that grew out of revolutions, and the question of our collective and personal responsibility are dangerously relevant to theatre-making as well; but the most important thing is that human destinies are at the centre of these stories. The protagonist of my American premiere is Yuri Petrovsky, a writer who arrives among the patients of a mental hospital with the impossible mission of making them understand the history of communism. Later, when the radio announces that Stalin is dead, he is forced to change his plans because, at the request of the hospital administrators, he must tell the patients that Stalin is not dead in order to calm them down. At this point, according to the author's intention and the director's instructions, the actor playing the writer had to express himself in such a way that his partners and the audience could hear the danger inherent in denying Stalin's death, namely that Stalin's spirit and "legacy" were still alive. The Americans understood perfectly well that this Stalinist absurdity is still with us today, waving from the podium. Only now it's called Donald Trump, or something else.

Is there a danger of dictatorship?

Always. Systems have eaten themselves up.

Judit Lola Bodnár, 24.hu, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri

On May 18, Maladype Theatre premiered Richard III, starring company leader Zoltán Balázs and directed by Sándor Zsótér. After a long hiatus, Zoltán Balázs returned to acting last year: since November, he has been performing Viktor Kravchenko's manifesto, which candidly reveals the true face of the Stalinist regime and the world of Soviet labour camps, under the title I Chose Freedom. We spoke with the actor-director during the final week of rehearsals before the premiere of Richard III about his latest role: what makes it interesting and how he will appear before audiences as the Duke of Gloucester - in 2016, in an apartment theatre, without a hump, a cane, or a limp.

In Maladype Theatre's latest production, I Chose Freedom, you stepped into Viktor Kravchenko's shoes: you directed yourself and stood alone on stage. In contrast, you are now preparing for the new premiere with your fellow actors, directed by Sándor Zsótér, in the role of Richard III. What is the rehearsal process like?

Just as I experienced the joy of paying attention to others, merging into events, and spontaneously dissolving into the moment as Hamlet under the direction of Tim Caroll years ago, I am now able to experience it again as Richard under the direction of Sándor Zsótér. In this directorial concept, intellectual modulation is light, playful, but requires a very precisely constructed and interpreted, well-timed "ensemble play", so that I can react calmly and openly to the impulses coming from my environment; I can reflect the intentions of the various characters in such a way that my attention, interest, and generosity are disconcerting to them. It is an incredibly exciting and complex game, and Sándor Zsótér is a great master of the game. During rehearsals, we focused primarily on the content of the text and the relationships between the characters, and only finalized the final coordinates of the performance in the last period.

Was this also the case when Sándor Zsótér previously directed at Maladype?

Not quite. Although Sándor always trusted the personal truth of the actors' imagination and playfulness, he already had a finished concept and score at the read-through, and he set the actors in motion with a system that he and his creative team had established in advance. The current rehearsal process is almost the complete opposite of this. Alongside the strong contours and directorial intentions, the actors' personal responsibility was also given a lot of space. I first worked with Sándor Zsótér as a third-year acting student at college in Hans Henny Jahn's The Coronation of Richard III. Then, as an apprentice actor, I appeared in his direction of Shakespeare's tragedy Timon of Athens at the Radnóti Theatre, and then as a member of the company in Schiller's play Mary Stuart at the Bárka Theatre, but I never performed in his productions at Maladype. I used to think it was important not to participate as an actor in my own company's productions, because I didn't think it was right. But so much has happened to us over the past 15 years, and so much has been reevaluated, that today it no longer causes me any concern.

One of the first Hungarian Shakespeare translations was made from Richard III, titled “Tongor, or The State of Komárom in the 8th Century”. Of course, there is a literary-historical explanation for the emergence of such adaptations, but we can consider this symbolic for a moment: Richard III is a source material that every age deems relevant regardless of time and place, and that transcends itself. How can an actor find Richard's human side?

According to literary historian István Géher: "The hero reflects the age. Richard is a scoundrel through and through, which means he is the only truly modern person in his environment. The world belongs to him..." Our performance tells the story of Richard III through Ede Szigligeti's 138-year-old translation. The company is taking an incredible risk by presenting Shakespeare "à la Szigligeti" today, as even István Vas's poetic translation from 1943 is enough to set off alarm bells for many theatre creators and audiences. The trend today is to stage contemporary texts or quickly retranslate all the classics so that young people who wander into theatres are not distracted by the abstraction of language when they try to immerse themselves in the flow of events or the "who's who." And Richard III is indeed a great and intricate Who's Who! Who is whose mother, grandmother, husband, bastard son or lover...! Sándor Zsótér and Júlia Ungár, dramaturg and translator, go against these canonized expectations and tendencies with their bold, firm, and "unmodern" decision to choose Ede Szigligeti's translation as the linguistic basis for acting and self-expression relevant to today's audience. Thanks to this, Szigligeti's translation has compelled us all to formulate our thoughts and intentions concretely and precisely, and to represent our goals flexibly and effortlessly, beyond the grammatical and articulatory complexity of convoluted sentences. It is a very concentrated and complex task, but it perfectly organizes and directs our thoughts and the shared attention of the actors and the audience. Philosophers, aestheticians, and literary historians have repeatedly written about Richard that the enjoyment of thinking is one of his most important—if not the most important! —characteristics. This intellectual game motivates me too; it is my most powerful task as an actor. Our Richard has no external or internal hump, and we do not use any medical aids to convince the audience that Richard's wickedness stems from his physical and mental defects caused by his premature birth or his disadvantageous situation resulting from his physical defects. His focus on others, his sharp mind, and his chameleon-like nature are his truly essential characteristics, and these are where the acting challenge lies. I have to exist as a parasite who, as part of Richard's pre-announced program, focuses on the current situation, task, and character, because he feeds on the previous mistakes and errors of his environment. In my interpretation, Richard functions as a kind of "solar panel" who only needs to illuminate the facts. Everyone in his environment has something to hide, and not just a little. None of them are saints. Exposing these petty games and characters is more than enough to justify a more modern, new way of thinking, on which Richard will stand or be placed as the new king.

Another recurring theme in Richard III performances is that his opponent, the seemingly positive hero Richmond, could become just another Richard if he comes to power. Sándor Zsótér solved the Richmond problem: in our performance, he does not appear in concrete physical reality.

There is no "mandatory" Fortinbras and Macduff: potentially good or bad rulers who will follow on the throne and, possibly, restore the time that is "out of joint." According to Sándor, there is no greater quality than Richard. He is a charismatic predator. The way he plans and executes his program is impressive. As an actor, it is not my job or my goal to make Richard likable, but the fact is that Shakespeare exposes the role in such a way that the audience is immediately privy to his plans through his opening monologue and immediately becomes his accomplice. Sándor has not burdened me with the general wickedness and scheming associated with the role, so I can induce different channels of communication and points of contact during the play. My ability to persuade and convince is the main safeguard for advancing through the character of Richard. I don't have to practice the art of deception in a flattering, hypocritical, or Tartuffe-like way: in fact, in our performance, I sometimes take a poetic approach.

Will the audience be close to the actors, as is usually the case at Maladype? What effect can be achieved by having Richard deliver his first monologue in such an environment?

In this small space, it is impossible and pointless to lie. Every millimetre counts, as does the directness, conciseness, and clarity of the wording. It depends on who you are talking to and how you are talking to them, as well as what exactly you want to achieve with your words. Direct and indirect dialogue carries great weight in such a small space. To stick with my solar panel example, it matters a great deal which way the panel is facing.

Am I right in thinking that preparing for this role is a joy?

Absolutely. I love rehearsing and working with the material provided by the author and director so much that it doesn't really matter whether it's on a normal rehearsal day, at the premiere, or at the next performance that I make a new discovery. Every occasion is an opportunity to rehearse. I am interested in what makes it possible to express more "essentially" what Sándor and I have defined together during rehearsals in relation to Richard's role. Entire scenes can be determined by such small details as where I "start" or "jump from" in a given situation. I mustn't push myself too hard, but I mustn't fall behind either! Economical acting – I think.

The performance features actors outside of Maladype Theatre. What is it like working with your partners?

In addition to Maladype's permanent actors—Kata Huszárik, Ágota Szilágyi, Erika Tankó, and Zsigmond Bödők—six wonderful guest artists also perform in the production: József Kádas and Márton Pallag from the Forte Company, Zoltán Friedenthal from the Pintér Béla Company, Balázs Fila from the József Attila Theatre, as well as Sándor Márkus and Péter Pál Szűcs, freelance actors. They have all worked with Sándor Zsótér before. I believe that the actors working together in this performance understand the "Zsótér way of thinking," that there is no need to go through unnecessary formalities with them, that they are willing to take risks and overcome all kinds of obstacles, and that it is possible to talk about the essentials with them. I find it fascinating how powerful and personal these guys, who have already proven themselves in countless leading roles, can be in these rapidly changing and difficult scenes. It is also very liberating that we don't have to take ourselves too seriously. Irony, playfulness, and humour were not absent from the rehearsals or the performance. As the audience has come to expect, Sándor Zsótér's regular creative team, dramaturg and translator Júlia Ungár, set designer Mária Ambrus, and costume designer Mari Benedek have once again created a special and unique world.

You recently staged a play in America that was a huge success: critics recommended seeing your production. What memories did you bring home with you?

I really enjoyed my time in America. I was in Chicago for two months and ten days. I directed Matei Visniec's play “How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients”, and its success was due not only to the fact that the cast was highly motivated and we understood each other perfectly with the entire creative team: the set and costume designers, and the composer, but Donald Trump and his current scandals also contributed greatly. Through his "operations," many things became clear to American audiences when they had to decode the Stalinist absurdity that we already know so well. I think the play was presented at the right time and in the right place. The Trap Door Theatre, where I directed the play, is highly regarded in professional circles and is a meeting place for contemporary, avant-garde works, authors, and directors. It is a huge deal for an actor to be invited to participate in a production at this theatre with a 20-year history. This is especially understandable and appreciable to us when we realize that in Chicago and across America, there is no guarantee that an actor who has been cast in one production will be cast in the next. Even if they do, they cannot know how successful the production will be and what consequences it will have for their own career and development as an actor. There are very few permanent companies there; in Chicago there are perhaps three. Actors are mostly hired for specific projects and productions, which are preceded by very serious casting calls. They compete with hundreds of others for each role, and if they get it, they focus all their energy on it, even if they have to work in a restaurant or an office during the day. There are very few places where acting is a salaried job!

Hungarian actors can be happy because, regardless of whether they are part of a company or not, they usually know their season in advance: who they will be working with, how much they will be earning, and they can focus all their energy on rehearsals and performances! In the US, an actor can devote a maximum of six hours a day to diving into their current task after work. Perhaps the strangest custom of the theatre system there—which I previously thought only existed in movies—is that everything depends on the opinion of a seven-member team of critics who watch the performance and decide together by 9 a.m. the next morning whether or not to recommend it. There are 270 theatres in Chicago: this seven-member committee attends every performance, and the fate of every production depends on their opinion. If they do not recommend the performance, the theatre will perform it a maximum of two times for friends and relatives, and then it will be shelved. If they do recommend it, the number of planned performances increases, everyone who matters sees it, and it is nominated for awards. Thank God, in our case, the latter happened, and in light of this, I am very happy that the work we put in has brought such results and success. The American theatre market has very special rules. There is a lot at stake.

But even so, would you be able to imagine living there?

Yes, because not only in the theatre, but all over America, the answer to everything is: No problem! Meaning: it's okay, we'll figure it out, we'll solve it, we'll do it, we'll think about it, and we'll find the solution! In restaurants, they always check to see if my glass is empty and are happy to refill it. Not because they have to, but because it's natural for them, an organic part of hospitality. I could go on and on listing everyday gestures and small attentions that promote people's well-being. I could live in America.

You also presented your one-man-show, I Chose Freedom, which could be considered an indictment of Stalinism, in Washington. What was the response like?

Performing Viktor Kravchenko's story in Washington to a large number of Hungarian dissidents was very moving. The silence, the attention, the dense, intense energy with which the audience followed and experienced the performance was amazing. I had a similar experience recently at the National Theatre in Miskolc. I am impressed that audiences in 2016 come to see this "something," because I don't know exactly what genre it is, and they listen to the political and private life of a Soviet official in my presentation for nearly 140 minutes. If I had to classify it in terms of genre, I would call it a manifesto, because I think that when an actor talks about a topic that deals with the past, especially when he does so with the motivation and personal attitude that I have in the performance "I chose freedom," it would be a bit like walking through quiet streets at night with a megaphone, waking people from their peaceful sleep in their homes and rousing them from their dreams so that they can hear about the dangers of history repeating itself and, if possible, never again commit the same tragic mistakes that have already been made. At the Kravchenko performance, people sit and listen attentively to another person talking about a third person, with whom the performer identifies, guiding the audience step by step. There are no special effects! There are no sets, I don't change clothes every minute, I don't stick on a moustache, yet it captivates people. Then, after two and a half hours, they ask, "Is that all? We could have listened to it longer!" Isn't that crazy today, when most theatregoers expect to be dazzled with all kinds of effects and tricks? The human word still has value after all! This is why Richard is so interesting too: he knows exactly how to speak, to whom and what to say.

Are the plans for the next season already in place?

After the premiere of Richard III, rehearsals will begin for Dada Cabaret, also written by Matei Visniec. This production will be presented in the fall at the Átrium Film Theatre in a co-production with Gábor Farkas and his band. After the Budapest premiere, it will be staged in collaboration with international partners at various renowned theatres, integrating local actors into the production; for example, in early November at the Odeon Theatre in Bucharest. Next year, we would like to continue working with guest directors, whom we will try to pay from the reduced budget that is "graciously" allocated to us each year. Since it is impossible to cover our daily operations and artistic plans from this amount of funding, the usual annual strategic game follows: where and from whom can we obtain additional income and support? In the summer we perform at festivals, followed by co-productions later on. There can be no talk of expansion this year either; the goal is to stay alive.

But the main thing is...

...that we're still here. (laughs)

...that you have enthusiasm and determination.

I have always had enthusiasm. I will not become bitter and hateful, nor will I become cynical. That does not mean I am blind; I can see exactly what is going on around us and how. That said, I think people can best fall back on what is inside them: a sense of belonging, good company, and a sense of humour. If you have these three things, they are a powerful driving force. Richard III also has the ability to make me sensitive to things that I was not previously sensitive or open to, or only partially so. It reawakens areas of my attention that had become dulled over time or that I had forgotten about. For example, that you don't have to want to lead; you have to let things "lead" themselves.

Annamária Verasztó, origo.hu, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri

As soon as he sits down, he immediately orders a “Zoli coffee”, of which only the attentive barista of Caffe Zappa knows the exact ingredients. Actor and director Zoltán Balázs has been running the Maladype Theatre, highly regarded by critics and audiences alike, for a decade and a half. He has already achieved a great deal, but he has never stopped experimenting and searching for new paths. Among many other things, this is perhaps Maladype's greatest attraction to this day. The interview reveals the difference between Hungarian and American actors and how the rehearsal process is more important than the performance itself. Zoltán Balázs plays the title role in Shakespeare's Richard III, directed by Sándor Zsótér, at the Maladype Base on Mikszáth Kálmán Square from May 18.

Maladype Theatre celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Was it harder to run an independent theatre company in 2001 than it is today?

It has never been easy to operate in the independent sector. If someone decides to establish a theatre company, their most important task is to always be several steps ahead of the daily tasks and events. This is more difficult today than it was a decade and a half ago, as those who should support our work on the basis of its value underfund us and do not stand by us in the spirit of predictability or reliability. If I didn't have good company around me, a strong sense of belonging and a sense of humour, I would have given up long ago. Somehow, I always believed that the growing intellectual value of independence and the profound relationship with creation would, over time, represent great capital for the entire Hungarian theatre culture, and perhaps we would have greater support behind us, but the opposite is happening. Funding opportunities are more limited than ever, and the amounts needed for annual operations are decreasing dramatically year by year.

How did the history of Maladype start?

In the summer of 2001, Serbian producer Dragan Ristic approached several Hungarian directors with the idea of creating a bilingual (Roma and Hungarian) performance integrating both Roma and non-Roma actors. Many found the idea interesting, but also too exotic and risky. Although they did not take him up on his offer, they pointed out to Ristic that there was a "hell-bent" guy at the University of Theatre and Film Arts who would certainly be interested. That was me. I asked Dragan which play he had in mind, and he mentioned Eugene Ionesco's Jack, or the Submission, which I knew was a flop in many places around the world. When it turned out that the venue for the premiere would be the Roma Parliament building on Tavaszmező Street, I was completely sold on the idea. In addition to the Gypsy actors, I was able to invite a few white (Hungarian) actors, whom they called "gadjos," as guests. The performance, which premiered on November 13, 2001, was a huge success, and encouraged by this, the following year we presented the Flemish author Michel de Ghelderode's play School for Buffoons at the Szkéné Theatre in Romani, Hungarian, and Latin. Apart from its popularity with audiences, it was also given a Critic’s Award. Then came The Blacks by Jean Genet, after which we felt that we should definitely continue together as a company. We wanted to express this experience, this special encounter that brought us together, in a symbolic word: at the suggestion of our Gypsy colleagues, we chose the word "maladype," which means "encounter" in the Lovari language. That is why and how we became Maladype Theatre.

What was the hardest thing to learn about leading a company?

The hardest thing is to continuously secure the capital and other conditions necessary for day-to-day operations, without which, unfortunately, artistic freedom can never be complete. It is important to choose the right people who want to and are able to work for Maladype. I always have to think ahead and make sure we avoid becoming a cult, becoming inward-looking. Overall, it's a very lonely task.

If you had to name the most significant performances of the past decade and a half, which ones would you choose?

Apart from the performances mentioned earlier (Jack, or the Submission, School for Buffoons, The Blacks), I would also mention our 2003 production of Theomachia, based on Sándor Weöres's oratorical work, as well as 2008's Leonce and Lena, Georg Büchner's masterpiece; King Ubu by Alfred Jarry and our non-verbal performance Tojáséj (Egg(s)Hell), also inspired by Sándor Weöres's one-line poem, all of which were hugely successful. These performances that gained international recognition were possible because, even after all these years, we have not lost our desire to experiment and explore. Personally, I don't like premieres because I'm more interested in the rehearsal and creative process, and where we are on each day when the audience is watching our work.

Your former teacher, Miklós Benedek, recently received the Kossuth Prize. What are the most important things you learned from him?

I am very happy that Miklós's work has finally been recognized with the Kossuth Prize. I clearly owe it to him and Tamás Jordán that I became a director. Miklós is a transparent, poetic being with a wealth of human and acting experience, which he passed on to us with great attention and love. I remember how much we rehearsed Edmond Rostand's play The Two Pierrots, or, The Supper in White as first-year acting students, in which a sad and a cheerful clown compete for the favours of Colombine, the eternal woman. The entire language of the play, its poetic form, and the way in which, under Miklós's direction, the characters in this tragically comic love triangle became increasingly vivid in our minds, revealed a great deal about us in the end-of-year acting exam; although it seemed very distant at first, it ultimately touched us deeply. This is precisely what we learned from Miklós: that imagination and practical knowledge can open up a wealth of possibilities if the creator takes both dimensions seriously. If we boldly combine the two, we can encounter a much more liberated and expressive theatrical experience. Miklós always inspired in us a desire for courage and freedom, as well as a sensitivity to stage symbols, allegories, and metaphors.

Maladype often puts on plays that aren't staged very often. How much of a conscious choice is that?

It's mostly because of my personality: I'm an irregular person. I come from far away, from Sighetu Marmației, the northernmost point of Northern Transylvania. After I was forced to leave my homeland at the age of 12 due to my parents' decision, I had nothing left to lose, so I made friends with the new, the unknown, and the risky. This flexibility, born of forced change, is also reflected in my choice of plays. I have often taken on texts that the audience would not have been familiar with from previous theatre seasons. One such example is Hölderlin's poetic masterpiece, Empedocles, which survives in fragments and was performed for the first time in Hungary by us.

You recently returned from the US, where you staged Matei Visniec's play How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients. Can you describe the difference between American and Hungarian actors?

Of course. The stakes are much higher for an American actor. There are many actors to choose from, so they have to seize the opportunities that come their way. There are 270 theatres in Chicago. What you have right now is all you have. They always strive for the maximum, because if they don't take full advantage of the opportunity at hand, they may find themselves out of the loop in a short time. They perform in an en suite system, meaning that a play stays in the repertoire for two to two and a half months, and if the premiere doesn't go as planned, there's no telling when the next opportunity will come along.

Do you think this experience would be useful for Hungarian actors as well?

Definitely yes. Most actors here are members of a theatre company, or at least know their season well in advance, and there is less unpredictability in their lives. In America, you can only be part of a performance after a casting process. That's why they are extremely motivated and put incredible energy into achieving success.

What exactly does the casting process consist of?

Applicants bring a photo of themselves with information about the candidate on the back: roles they have played so far and any extras or special skills. They are not shy: they write everything down. If someone can flip a pizza, they mention that too. During the casting, they recite a monologue, etc. I often stopped them, instructed them, and had them repeat certain parts of the text because I was curious to see how flexible and sensitive they were, how well they could look me in the eye, for example.

You mentioned that you were successful, as the run of your show was extended. What does that depend on?

For a long time, I thought that this only happened in movies, but no: the premiere is watched by a team of seven critics. By 9 a.m. the next morning, this group decides whether or not to recommend the production they have seen. If this jury does not consider your performance worthy of recommendation, then you're done. You simply have no audience, and you won't be nominated for any awards. Fortunately, the opposite happened to me, to us, so the theatre is now playing a series that exceeds the originally planned number of performances.

You've already directed it, but you'd gladly take on Macbeth again. Why?

Because it's the kind of play that even if it was the only one you directed throughout your whole life, you'd always find something new and exciting in it. Of course, this is true of all of Shakespeare's plays. Incidentally, William Shakespeare has been very interestingly intertwined with my life. At the beginning of my career, I wouldn’t have thought that I would deal with the English bard's texts and defining characters so thoroughly and in such detail. Sometimes it seems that you have understood, grasped something, but as you walk home from rehearsal, you already know: there is (at least!) one more possibility. So, you can't wait to try again.

Last summer, Ákos Orosz, who was the leading actor of the company, signed on to Víg Theatre. How was he able to be such a key figure in your performances for so long?

He is a curious and motivated person who likes to deconstruct himself so that he can put himself back together in a different way. He is sensitive to possible mistakes and changes in the best sense of the word. He likes to introduce the risk factor into the game, which takes place in the spirit of re-designability. The truth is that we met at a very lucky time.

By Szekeres Szabolcs, Dionüszosz Magazin, 2016.

Translated by Lena Megyeri

Three important adjectives to describe you...

Adventurous, passionate, stubborn.

Three important adjectives to describe Maladype...

Integrative, experimental, authentic.

Who has described you best in your life so far, and what did they say about you?

Tim Caroll (director of the Hamlet performance I played in), who explained stage situations and relationships to us using the example of football. Once, in connection with the role of Hamlet, he said that I was the Ronaldinho of his soccer team, whose main task was not to score goals at all costs, but to pass the ball to his teammates so that they could score.

What is your earliest memory?

My mother's long hair.

Where do you most feel at home?

Anywhere in the world, but mostly in my own imagination.

What is something that probably no one would think about you?

That I am loyal.

Tell me about the most defining moment of your career on stage!

Then I have to talk about Hamlet, which was one of the highlights of my acting career. Hungarian acting tends to be very conservative. Tim Caroll, on the other hand, encouraged risk-taking. If it weren't for him, if he hadn't phrased things the way he did during rehearsals, I wouldn't have been able to experience that moment that radically changed my thinking about theatre. Due to its improvisational nature, this Hamlet was truly different every time. On that pivotal evening—we were probably around the fiftieth performance—I suddenly felt terribly tired during the monologue beginning with "How stand I then." So tired that I wanted to say to the audience: I'm sorry, but I need a little time because my head is about to explode. The actor's voice inside me said, "You can't do that, Zoli, you're an actor, the show must go on, the audience paid for their tickets to see Hamlet, and you are Hamlet." Another voice said, "Even if you can do it routinely, you're actually lying. What if you admitted, 'I'm tired'?" "You can." "No, you can't." "You're an actor..." "You're a human being..." And then, unexpectedly (even to myself), I said, "I need two minutes of silence so I can be alone with myself." I had never heard such silence in a theatre before; the audience didn't dare to move. I don't think they believed this could happen in the middle of a performance. It didn't even take two minutes, and I began to speak: "How. Stan I. Then..." – and I built the monologue out of silence, out of nothing. I received grateful applause; the audience felt that they had witnessed some kind of "new authenticity." On the way home, I wondered how I dared to behave so "unprofessionally." And then I realized that Zoli Balázs was not tired as Zoli Balázs, but as Hamlet, because Hamlet had overworked his brain. The character was preoccupied with his problem: he was thinking, arguing with himself. And although the pleasure of thinking determines how the brain works, its capacity is finite. That's when I realized that there is such a thing as a human actor. That's when I grew up as an actor, and incidentally, I directed Leonce and Lena, which marked the beginning of a new era in the life of Maladype.

What are you most proud of about your company?

The successes we have achieved at home and abroad, and the fact that audiences anywhere in the world immediately welcome our performances and our actors.

How do you choose your actors, what is most important to you as a director?

The most important thing is to find an actor who is malleable, who allows and demands to be constantly shaped. As a director, besides curiosity, openness, and childlike playfulness, I am most attracted to a "predatory" attitude, an actor's "hunger" and "alertness."

If I say one-man show, you say...

Viktor Kravchenko: I Chose Freedom

If I say Maladype Base, you say...

Homeliness, humanity, directness.

If I say travel, you say...

Sándor Kányádi's poem "Előhang" (Prelude)

Directed by Sándor Zsótér, Maladype is staging Richard III, in which we can once again see you as an actor. What was the most memorable moment of the rehearsal process and how do you feel about the premiere?

Every moment was important, therefore I experienced an enlightening moment during rehearsals, that is, the joy of a unique and unrepeatable realization.

I consider the premiere to be just another rehearsal opportunity, like any other rehearsal, where I can always learn something new about Richard III.

LeCool, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri

"How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients" by Matei Visniec - The performance at Chicago's Trap Door Theatre was held in the spirit of the legendary Polish-Hungarian friendship and also bears the mark of internationalism – a Polish theatre in Chicago, a Hungarian director, a work by a Romanian writer living abroad – in the spirit of experimental modernity.

I have long been aware of one of the most influential figures in contemporary drama internationally - says Budapest-based director Zoltán Balázs during our conversation - but we only met in person in the summer of 2011 at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, where my company, Maladype Theatre, successfully performed Georg Büchner's play Leonce and Lena. Our first conversation was followed by others, and in December 2014, we hosted Matei in Budapest, where we presented his work "The story of the panda bears told by a saxophonist who has a girlfriend in Frankfurt". The performance, in which almost every scene was staged in the style of a different painter, was a hit with audiences and professionals alike. The performance was followed by an intimate conversation, during which the author shared his thoughts on the world, literature, and theatre. It was then that he first mentioned the name of Beata Pilch, artistic director of the Trap Door Theatre in Chicago, whose personality and ideas about theatre production showed many similarities to what Maladype Theatre, which I founded, represents. From there, it was only a few steps to a personal meeting with Beata in Krakow, and preparations began for the guest production in Chicago. When choosing the play, we both preferred Matei Visniec's “How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients”.

What is the message of the play: to forget or to warn against the dangers of communism?

I believe it is important to maintain the collective memory of humanity and the individual responsibility of people belonging to different regions, ethnic groups, and cultures in relation to what they can represent and do in their immediate environment or in the world as a whole. That is why I believe that evaluating and analysing the lessons learned from past experiences can greatly help us avoid repeating the same mistakes. The ambiguous statement at the end of the play, uttered by Yuri Petrovsky, carries an important message: "Stalin is not dead...", meaning that his "spirit" and "legacy" still live on and haunt us...

Communist mistakes, abuses? You only lived through the regime for a short time, as a young child.

Only for a short time, but long enough to witness black cars stopping in front of our house; strangers searching our home and take my grandfather away on trumped-up charges - says the director, who is originally from Cluj-Napoca - During the final period of communism, in my childhood, I thoroughly absorbed the atmosphere of fear and anxiety that permeated everyday life, burdened by informants and denunciations, and I became aware early on of the blocked processes that stood in the way of a young person thirsting for freedom.

Where did your passion for theatre come from?

As a small child, I wanted to be a dedicated circus performer, an acrobatic clown, which my aristocratic family was not particularly happy about. At the age of six, I ran away with a traveling troupe, but they noticed my disappearance in time and stopped the caravan. So, after my circus plans were thwarted, I looked for new love and new adventure, and the path led me to the world of theatre.

Do you mind if I use the expression "holy madman" in relation to you? Hungarian poet Csokonai already said that anyone who becomes a poet in Hungary is a fool, but nowadays it is not easy anywhere in the world to create a theatre from nothing. As far as I know, you are using the proceeds from this American tour to maintain your theatre in Budapest...

Unfortunately, what Csokonai said was right then and is still right now; running an independent theatre in Hungary today, which is supported exclusively by grants, corporate and private donations, and donations from theatregoers who love and support our theatre, is like being stranded on a desert island where you can only survive on coconuts and seafood...

What are your plans for the near future?

As an actor, I am currently rehearsing the role of Richard III in Shakespeare's play. After that, I will once again stage a Matei Visniec play in the frame of an international co-production, titled Dada Cabaret, written by the Romanian-born author living in France to mark the centenary of the Dadaist art movement. The play is based on the collage technique typical of the Dadaists and uses the language of the total arts to address current issues and phenomena in the world. The play is based on collage techniques, typical of the Dadaists, and uses the language of different art forms to address current issues and phenomena in the world.

Do you intend to return to Chicago? When and why?

The performance at the Trap Door Theatre – thank God! – was well received by both audiences and critics, and every performance was sold out, which fills me with great joy. The widespread positive feedback is particularly valuable to me because it confirms the talent and work of the actors and other members of the crew, who invested a great deal of energy during the nearly two-month rehearsal process in developing and representing the common theatrical language that was part of my concept for the future performances. I met wonderful actors who demonstrated openness and humility towards new theatrical impulses during our work together. Beata Pilch's many years of avant-garde theatre work, based on process thinking and bringing verbal and non-verbal stage signals to life with unexpected and bold acting solutions, plays a major role in this integrative working method, which is also evident on the part of the actors. I am always happy to return to Beata Pilch's theatre workshop, which has a strong character.

Etelka Tatár, Hungary, Kultúra Chicago, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri