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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judit Beszterczey, Székely Citrom, 2023

translated by Zsuzsanna Juraszek