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