Gyula Hegyi: Come on, Maladype!
The most well-known theatre critic of the country told that the performance of the Maladype Encounters Theatre, School for Fools, is the greatest achievement of the national theatre art nowadays.
I have not written theatre reviews for many years, so I do not want to give a professional rating. I can only tell modestly, that the dynamism, the movement, the music and the specific, original rite of the human voice in the performance had a great effect on me too. For the Hungarian theatregoers Michel de Ghelderode’s play is mostly unknown. According to Zoltán Balázs’s direction it melts into one rhythm and vision with the usage of the Latin, Hungarian and Gypsy languages, and people can hardly get away from its effect. In autumn I watched Ionesco’s Jack or The Submission, performed by this troupe, which they played mostly in Gypsy language in the theatre hall of the Gypsy Parliament, which has really limited sources. (School for Fools is played in the Szkéné of the BME) I felt that time too that this troupe speaks a different language in the full and figurative sense of the words, than most of the national theatres, and it deserves the attention of the audience, who got enough of mass manipulation.
Normally nobody cares about the actors’ origin in a theatrical group. Maladype Encounters Theatre usually plays their performances in Gypsy language, for a long time they had performed in the building of the Gypsy Parliament, so it cannot be accidental that most or the players are Gypsies too. Women and men who bravely accept not their origin but their ethnical affiliations. More notable that others of them are Hungarian. Known about the conditions of the national theatre life it is not secondary that in this troupe professional actors, educated dancers and amateurs perform together. The secret of the original and successful theatrical language is that Maladype is really the theatre of encounters. Gypsies and non-Gypsies, professionals, half-professionals and amateurs meet in the performances which composed liturgically.
Even the roughest nationalist usually tolerate the minorities’ folk-performances. The members of the groups are strictly come from the given minority group, their programme consists of traditional songs and dances. The audience of the given majority group can see calmly, that nobody hurts the minorities, as in their traditional costumes they can bravely care about their folk art. The protection of folk traditions has its importance, but in connection with these performances I have a ghetto-like feeling. People sit down with different expectations in case of a national ruten folk night and for example in case of a Hamlet performance. Maladype breaks up with this sheme. They bravely undertake its possibility to from a production in Gypsy and Hungarian language, with Gypsy and non-Gypsy actors’ common work. Which does not want to become a simply good Gypsy performance.
Besides self-expression, its aim is to show a new voice and to renew the universal Hungarian Theatre Art. It is possible that Páter Gál Molnár exaggerates good-natured, and there can be better alternative or theatrical performances in Hungary. But Maladype is truly one of the best, on its own right and not because it is good to be tolerated with the Gypsies of the troupe.
In Hungary, the Gypsy public figures in public life or in media appear mostly because of their Gypsy origin, in typical Gypsy roles. Besides the traditional musicians, nowadays mostly as minority politics, who care only about Gypsy cases and report in connection with minority questions. Of course, their job is very necessary. Great that the greatest opposition has three Gypsy politics, who got into the legislation office. Thanks for their oppositional roles they have great possibility to ask their voters professional questions and besides this the interests of those Gypsies who vote for the right with their active work in the parliament and in the committee. Unfortunately, the most well-known Gypsy politics of FIDESZ has not appeared so far in the work of the Parliament, with all his efforts he tries to get back the leading position of the minority council. Good to hear that the earlier Gypsy political woman of the Horn government is a deputy state secretary now and does not deal with minority cases but with the social conditions of the old ones in the ministry. It is a modest beginning, which hopefully will have an impressive continuation. When more and more Gypsy politics care about usual political and professional questions instead of minority ones, we will get closer to the normality.
After all we should reach that the presence of Gypsy public figures would become natural on the field of culture and other aspects of public life too. On the level of everyday gossips it is whispered about from singers, winners of the Olympic Games, up to high levelled politics and so on that they have Gypsy origin. According to the free choice of identity everybody has the right to accept or not any of their ancestors’ ethnicity. There can be thousands of reasons why somebody would like to fit into the majority nation, and no outsiders have the right to questioned it or argue about it in public
For the collective emancipation of the national Gypsies it is necessary that more and more professional and successful public figures accept their own Gypsy roots. Even more important to see the public success of those communities in which Gypsies and non-Gypsies work and play together naturally. After the win of the National French Football team even the silliest rassistic French people thought about to exile the black top scorer from the national eleven. There is still a long route in front of us to become natural the presence of the well-trained, successful Gypsies on the fields of Hungarian political system, culture and economy. Those fulfil the greatest part of it, who try to create equal opportunities in the educational system of nursery and primary schools for Gypsy children. We have to be happy if others in case of high-levelled art, now with the renewal of the theatrical language, create real equality for Gypsy artists. To use the phrase of the modern public language of our political system: Come on, Maladype!
Gyula Hegyi, Népszava, 2003
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
I have not written theatre reviews for many years, so I do not want to give a professional rating. I can only tell modestly, that the dynamism, the movement, the music and the specific, original rite of the human voice in the performance had a great effect on me too. For the Hungarian theatregoers Michel de Ghelderode’s play is mostly unknown. According to Zoltán Balázs’s direction it melts into one rhythm and vision with the usage of the Latin, Hungarian and Gypsy languages, and people can hardly get away from its effect. In autumn I watched Ionesco’s Jack or The Submission, performed by this troupe, which they played mostly in Gypsy language in the theatre hall of the Gypsy Parliament, which has really limited sources. (School for Fools is played in the Szkéné of the BME) I felt that time too that this troupe speaks a different language in the full and figurative sense of the words, than most of the national theatres, and it deserves the attention of the audience, who got enough of mass manipulation.
Normally nobody cares about the actors’ origin in a theatrical group. Maladype Encounters Theatre usually plays their performances in Gypsy language, for a long time they had performed in the building of the Gypsy Parliament, so it cannot be accidental that most or the players are Gypsies too. Women and men who bravely accept not their origin but their ethnical affiliations. More notable that others of them are Hungarian. Known about the conditions of the national theatre life it is not secondary that in this troupe professional actors, educated dancers and amateurs perform together. The secret of the original and successful theatrical language is that Maladype is really the theatre of encounters. Gypsies and non-Gypsies, professionals, half-professionals and amateurs meet in the performances which composed liturgically.
Even the roughest nationalist usually tolerate the minorities’ folk-performances. The members of the groups are strictly come from the given minority group, their programme consists of traditional songs and dances. The audience of the given majority group can see calmly, that nobody hurts the minorities, as in their traditional costumes they can bravely care about their folk art. The protection of folk traditions has its importance, but in connection with these performances I have a ghetto-like feeling. People sit down with different expectations in case of a national ruten folk night and for example in case of a Hamlet performance. Maladype breaks up with this sheme. They bravely undertake its possibility to from a production in Gypsy and Hungarian language, with Gypsy and non-Gypsy actors’ common work. Which does not want to become a simply good Gypsy performance.
Besides self-expression, its aim is to show a new voice and to renew the universal Hungarian Theatre Art. It is possible that Páter Gál Molnár exaggerates good-natured, and there can be better alternative or theatrical performances in Hungary. But Maladype is truly one of the best, on its own right and not because it is good to be tolerated with the Gypsies of the troupe.
In Hungary, the Gypsy public figures in public life or in media appear mostly because of their Gypsy origin, in typical Gypsy roles. Besides the traditional musicians, nowadays mostly as minority politics, who care only about Gypsy cases and report in connection with minority questions. Of course, their job is very necessary. Great that the greatest opposition has three Gypsy politics, who got into the legislation office. Thanks for their oppositional roles they have great possibility to ask their voters professional questions and besides this the interests of those Gypsies who vote for the right with their active work in the parliament and in the committee. Unfortunately, the most well-known Gypsy politics of FIDESZ has not appeared so far in the work of the Parliament, with all his efforts he tries to get back the leading position of the minority council. Good to hear that the earlier Gypsy political woman of the Horn government is a deputy state secretary now and does not deal with minority cases but with the social conditions of the old ones in the ministry. It is a modest beginning, which hopefully will have an impressive continuation. When more and more Gypsy politics care about usual political and professional questions instead of minority ones, we will get closer to the normality.
After all we should reach that the presence of Gypsy public figures would become natural on the field of culture and other aspects of public life too. On the level of everyday gossips it is whispered about from singers, winners of the Olympic Games, up to high levelled politics and so on that they have Gypsy origin. According to the free choice of identity everybody has the right to accept or not any of their ancestors’ ethnicity. There can be thousands of reasons why somebody would like to fit into the majority nation, and no outsiders have the right to questioned it or argue about it in public
For the collective emancipation of the national Gypsies it is necessary that more and more professional and successful public figures accept their own Gypsy roots. Even more important to see the public success of those communities in which Gypsies and non-Gypsies work and play together naturally. After the win of the National French Football team even the silliest rassistic French people thought about to exile the black top scorer from the national eleven. There is still a long route in front of us to become natural the presence of the well-trained, successful Gypsies on the fields of Hungarian political system, culture and economy. Those fulfil the greatest part of it, who try to create equal opportunities in the educational system of nursery and primary schools for Gypsy children. We have to be happy if others in case of high-levelled art, now with the renewal of the theatrical language, create real equality for Gypsy artists. To use the phrase of the modern public language of our political system: Come on, Maladype!
Gyula Hegyi, Népszava, 2003
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)