A school is a life-threatening institution. It is a miracle that we have survived it. If we have survived it after all, and did not leave something really important there – even if not our tooth but a similar important one, our unrepeatable possession: the unruly and incomparable individuality.

The final products of those „moulds” which are suited – forced – to us can appear as an individuality and above it: it seems to be that we would call this product as ourselves, the uniformed desolation of which can be seen when we have come up against something which we have given up, the given up of it would become the educational process itself – similar to freedom.

To the fools. To the artists. To the Gypsies. Maybe to children and the little genius too. Whose strength, fate or destiny is that they cannot do anything with these moulds, because they do not want to be poured into them as a hot and flexible something, and being stigmatized or a deviance that is cared with self-awareness, can become the last chance of something, which has been the rare privilege of human existence.

All of these cannot be known of course – knowledge is the work of schools – but we have to face up with it, and School for Fools in Maladype Encounters Theatre does this confrontation, it breaks through those barriers and gates with effortless force, which are about to form a riverbed for this strong, unconditional, mostly organic, sensually human flood. Which would be this performance itself: with its thick one and half an hour, with its incredible intensity and almost archaic strength: not a mysterious play, not the hiding Ghelderode and not even some background institution of the Spanish Escurial is shown but maybe the inarticulate, common and heavy experience which Dionysia meant.

The theatre. Before it was educated.

It is a moment of grace between the theatre evenings in Budapest, but as in the case of every grace, here severe conditions have to be fulfilled too. The first – and maybe the most important one – that a real community introduced itself, which was able to „celebrate” this aesthetic orgy. And they did it with that self-confidence, that its dynamism, strength, cohesion – but not exclusively, and because of this, it is even more fertilizing – come from mostly the artistic traditions of the Gypsies, from the wonderful treasury of it, charming sense of rhythm and form, which feature and virtue can be the fact that it has not got into any „common” or consensus-like ones.

And here – whether we want it or not – have to stay for a while: because a really important turn can be felt in the performance of Maladype, which points towards a social hope from art, however nowadays our discourses and social institutes are talking about to give it up. After all, here „Gypsy theatre” (of course Maladype is not about it) is not about how to make a ghetto into a cosy place, and it does not serve the absolution of the majority, with the fact that it can fulfil this „condition” too, it has not broadened the panoptic of the so called „decoration Gypsies” at all, and we have not daydreamt about the flavours of late romanticism, not even „those who make us to catch up” are improper, or the hopelessly likeable liberals polemise with the „huge” intuition – but here someone can see from inside simply with talent, understands and interprets the light and shadowy parts of this self-willed world –as the whole world. Finally, it is not about – mostly likeable – surface, but about the depth. Not the strange and isolated one, but that one which is connected to common existence and tradition with thousands of threads. Not the „human one” which is found in the „Gypsy”, but the anthropological illusion, which is valid and endangered, which existence can be felt not only thanks to them, but finally it can be hoped too. For one and half an hour.

It must be between the conditions that a young man from Máramarossziget can do it all, who had to see from out- and inside at the same time, that what could majority and minority mean, how could thousands of mental crossroads cross each other on its connection points, and that it could be not only the possibility of melancholy, but as its inverse, from it, it could become inspirational power which deepened up until desperation, from need to virtue, or even more: a theatrical performance.

From which the young director, Zoltán Balázs was locked during his growing, as much as many conditions of spiritual and financial freedom, but there must have been something, which could stand in for theatre for him, or even everything that theatre could become – adventure, dream, risk, trick and community -: the travelling circus. In that way his fate and ménage could save him to „grow into” the common ones easily, because of his experiences, to think about the conventions as the synonym of theatre, to get educated in the school of „normal” as the follower of the norms – and it could establish his decision that when he could finally decide, he chose School for Fools instead.

Finally it belonged to the grace that he could become an art apprentice of important – even brilliant – norm bakers: Wilson, Vasziljev, József Nagy, next to them he could go on to get to know something, that had already attracted him irresistibly in the ménage, but the attraction of which in theatre could not be as unconditional – at least on those stages, where the masters started to teach Balázs in the college. Maybe that is why he would like to direct and set School for Fools at first there in Vas Street, with their form teacher, Miklós Benedek in the role of knight Folial, just to tell the secret or die. And while the plan could not be fulfilled then and there, meanwhile the talented young man was „forced” into the course of directors too, and in that way the school itself provided (and back) the artistic legitimacy for him.

After all the school which was created by Maladype has become more than just one chapter of an artistic „improvement novel”, however it has still been wearing the mask of Ghelderode, but in front of wider and more important horizons.

But to turn both the play and the original association of the theatre backward, to the basic tone of the production the performance starts with a picture of a serious rite. The monastery which is indicated in the play, here is not only a set, but almost the community itself – twelve cowled, singing, strictly moving actors summon that something, which Ghelderode – not with a little irony – flashes in different types of „human waste”, which is the ingredient for the fools, and feels and hints the one and only God behind different types of images. The choir, the black and yellow tones, than the strange humming made by the cups create besides the rite, the atmosphere of the weird ceremony, which the number of the fools – fewer than in the original play – interpret perfectly: if two of them are deleted, twelve remain there, in that way the archaic reference of the Master and the pupils - the last supper – fleshes the „school” which can be felt at the origin of the rite.

Maybe its silly up until the blasphemy, brave paraphrase can be the fact, that from the bowl or under the bowl the thirteenth, who has been waited for, climbs up: the Teacher himself, who must die, as if the sacrifice is made the other way around – here the food and drink have become a body, and not backwards. The incorporation gets a new meaning, the archaically familiar, extremely strong rite of self – adaptation, which, after it, follows the performance up until its end, then on its peak, when they get the secret, when they grab and give it up, digest and vomit it, gives a punctual meaning to that, what the verbalism is about – as the tool of teaching, but as the text of play too – become visibly insufficient. Can the secret „be told”, and the „transfer” does not need a more drastic and unconditional form, meaning – not an explanation but appearance?

Since words are less suitable for that, they must be the most necessary ones – and when Ghelderode talks about „language”, he must refer to it. His pupils try to kill their master, Folial with „language”, because, he has made a promise which could not be held. May language have any work with words there? As the language of the performance is not about words for sure, not an occasion to understand it verbally, and it is not even about the play which opens on a traditional way – which is indicated punctually by the fact, that here three languages become the only one (and one becomes three): Latin, Gypsy and Hungarian. The importance is not about the language of speech because its meaning does not come from it. The performance summons the dead language of the rite as a chance of understanding, the Latin language, which is the „lingua franca” of the traditional European culture, but the Gypsy language which is composed organically, can counterpoint it, and it happily and continuously brakes the fixed rules of its usage. When the dialogues are Hungarian, finally the cognitive understanding can begin, so we can follow „what it is all about”, if the word itself does not make us to understand that it is not the tool of understanding and do not leave it to inform us.

Since neither the education, nor the secret, neither the silliness nor the theatre - so nothing which is important – can be told and (or) explained according to the performance, but it can be accepted, lived over and passed on. The fools’ wish to be understood, to have the secret stated is as pointless as the audience’s – always fulfilled – wish for verbal „clear”. It is not enough. If there is something to be studied, then its imperfection – or its limited nature at least – it has to be studied, and the other „language” can help it, and makes this recognition experimental. The music. László Sáry, with his inventions, which create the dramaturgy of the performance, can complete and counterpoint the acoustic features of the three manners of speech, and he creates the dramatic surrounding of the sounding with visual effects which seem to be improvisational. Then he stretches it all again and again to the last, and the musical instruments playing on the stage help him to ensure the authentic sounding. The spoons. And the tin pot of water.

Of course the virtuoso of these instruments is needed too, who becomes the main character and companion of this organism studying process both with the spoons from the table of the last supper and with the pot from the heaven. (Zoltán Oláh). First of all he helps the audience to understand and follow all of that start to happen besides the words.

The three lines of the performance become ritual, sacred and banal that way, which are melting into each other: the almost religious elevation blesses the banal things many time, while rite always becomes individualised, gets separated from the its basic form, in its personality there are beautiful faults – and because of this from time to time many humour and playfulness, stage invention and wonderful associative system interlace the progressing happenings. The human victim of it finally – as the pawn of the pupils’ rebellion – fixes the performance, which tries to stretch out the frames, into archetypal ones.

Its dynamism is captivating because of this, then it is increased and composed the whole whirling, manipulated by the servant, who almost became a victim: Galgüt (Erika Molnár), thanks to his working. Because with his virtuoso and tireless conducting he gives opportunity for whirling again and again – whether it is about dissatisfaction, disgust, carving, rebellion or its hopelessness – but he translates it into the language of the performance, and that’s why he becomes the orientation point, energy source and weird interpreter of the whole whirling. Above it: thanks to an astonishing poetical intermezzo we can see, that he gives the birth to the Master, Folial too – since who else can be the Instructor than a creature by a pupil? This reason and possibility are enough to kill, whom he gave birth to: the strings of Folial’s marionette have to be cut, to fulfil the fools – pupils’ wish and fear as the discharge of the incomparable tension. And his dark purposes too.

Ghelderode characterize the fools with names, masks and determined features too – according to the categories of teratology, the subject of freaky ones -, but the performance is more resigned and braver than him in case of description. Here a creature can be seen, who becomes barer and barer, an individualised soul as it gets away from the common, uniformed black-yellow, gets bare, takes off his clothes (however he is a little bit awkward in his pants and bikini), and shows us that if the plain personality takes off everything which is conventional and uniform, it can become the place of silliness, which can have as many kinds as many people there are. That’s how the dark skinned and the pretty one, the one who speaks sign language and the similar siblings, the one with big ear and the other one with oily look are formed – all of us – the pupils of this school.

The school introduce itself as growing out of case studies, and with the help of virtuoso etudes, as the place of the extremes of the individuality, in action series, which are built on one another, in episodes, which flash up and paraphrase dramatic happenings. Between these, there is the fatal seriousness of the play: the strict and wide playing with the invisible ball of the „secret” – but there is the fatal narcosis of the sensuality, as it gets away from a woman’s (Galgüt) lap, than flashes up the crying which gets into blindness: the drama of the red eyes, than the archaic cure of it too, as Galgüt licks over the pupils’ eyes: in that way she shows us what we have to know, that with the help of the tongue we can see.

Although all happenings belong to the community, the only case for the appearance of the individuality is: the community, in its cohesion and absolutism, in its grabbing and warmth. This archaic absolutism of the coexistence somehow keeps the „natural warmth” of the Gypsies, which has mostly slipped away from the structures of the modernised and common society. The ingenuity of it evokes that in this world there are no meaningless moments, so anything can become a tool, equipment, metaphor: in that way moss, pot, cramp iron can get filled with soul – as the world once populated with souls, can become memory and archaeology. In which people are presented in a different way with their own bodies, and between other bodies too, the space, place, closeness and different meanings of which is also looking for the edges of the individuality: in a holding, hugging, rolling together, going head-to-head.

The thickening air of sweating, panting and closeness, the energy which is hardly tactile, the appearing Dionysia show relatively, that – normally – the theatre has meant for us so far, the hiding and styling of it all. The school. The individuality.

The schoolmaster appears as the expressive metaphor of it, the main character in black, the stitched elf with Ghelderode’s words, the owner of the secret – Folial.

He opens the horizontally filled place of the performance vertically randomly: as he arrives into the actions from the deep (under the table), and then leaves the room to look down from upstairs – somewhere between the iron traverses beyond the stage. With his unexpected – and virtuous – backflip gives meaning to this vertical division – our world can be completed only with its depth and height – banal things can frame sacral ones.

The play tells us that the art of silliness is raised up to the level of science by Folial, and this pale gnome with his deformed, longed forehead is seemed more to be the elf of the theory than an artist, however both his flip and his whole movement indicate that, once he has been pushed off the art. His power is absolute and embarrassing, which appears here only reflexively: mainly the waiting, starving for the secret and desire flash up something in the performance, which is followed by Folial’s never-ending monologues – which are there to cover the information, to put something off, to avoid it, as speech does it too.

Galgüt does it differently; he has the strongest identity both on stage and in school, who is ready to take his master’s place. In the play he foresees that they would like to kill him – while in the performance they show it by cutting the strings of his collapsing marionette figure. At the same time he turns it into the drama of the past: this was Galgüt’s original sin, his servant killed the Master to take his place. In Ghelderode’s text Folial gets another life, however he hardly dies because of the memory quoted in the drama: because of the lively pain of heartbreak, but after, he has come to, he tells what he thinks to be the secret of art: the cruelty. The marionette of Maladype will not move again – not like the elf, who lives and moves, and tells us the secret: who we are watching as Folial is his daughter in reality: Veneranda. She took the place of her father as becoming the Master, and lives on because of it to tell and express what the importance of art according to her is: the suffering.

All of these cannot be anything else than the replacement of one type of melodrama with another one, the exchange of an always risky one-word conclusion with a more useful one - if the performance itself does not make a stunningly rich sense to this banality which is over of all these verbal statements, „secret”, conclusion. Then come the „deconstruction” of the elf immediately, followed by the claimed release of the secret and with the shock, after Folial’s death – first the longed forehead can be seen as a mask, then the charmingly thick and female hair unravel under it, then the black magic robe loosens, unbuttons, and as the gentle commander „Master” is getting back to his home height, from the gnome becomes a girl, from the elf comes a woman (Erzsébet Soltész). As she is hardly stretching with her back into the iron traverse on the wall of the Szkéné, and evokes the modern Christ with his fear of heights by Dali – meanwhile the fragile, strong body of a girl flashes and the darkness of the stage answers suddenly to the light coming from her skin.

At the same time the drapes fall down, and at the end of the magic the reality can get in through the large windows: the river Danube, the bridge and the illuminated building of the Economic School across the river, during the late night of Pest. There is not any secret. There is not any Master either. There is School, orphancy and danger. There is loneliness – and there is holding on to each other, once again, during the applause.

There is Maladype.

András Nagy, Színház, 2003

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)