The moderator of the professional discussion:
Ilona Mélykuti journalist
Invited commenters:
György Karsai critic, theatre historian
Erzsébet Bogácsi critic

György Karsai critic, theatre historian:

Zoltán Balázs does the Greek style with Theomachia. It is a great pleasure to watch this performance for a philologist. We can see on stage analysis, punctual analysis and the conclusion of them. The first pleasure for me was, that the director – if I understand well – he simply looks for the meaning of the word “theatron”, that is all he does. That is a place where we can learn with the help of sights. The theatre is about the process, that we get information, and this information comes from the sight. The relationship is very important in this performance between the sight and the text, the sight and the music, the sight and the movement. Here we can see a scale of rites. The recall of a rite, which is on an exact language. According to Weöres’ definition of genre, it is an oratorio. Zoltán Balázs was stick to the original in that case too, so we could watch an oratorio-like performance, which was followed by music and movement, it means that he has to take into consideration some forma elements of the rite.

There is a choir, or if it is not a choir, than a crowd, the five Curates. They can be called as guards, or killers, or simply the choir of the Greek theatre. For we can immediately connect the text, which is told by them during the two-third of the performance, that text which is told backwards, from which we cannot understand, of course, even a word. It is wonderful again, because it refers to the importance of the archaic rite, which is happening in front of us is like a mystery, like an initiation. Something, which we have not known yet, but we will be the part of it. If once we get there to understand what it does, what is the text about.

I do not think that there would be anybody in the auditorium, who did not try to reconstruct the text when realised that, they were talking backward. Which is an exciting but of course a hopeless try of course, because when one has understood a word and got the experience of Eureka, they were with five words ahead. I would like to tell with it, that is can rise an incredible tension. We are learning. We cannot take a rest for a moment during this performance. We are sitting there two and quarter of an hour and leave the auditorium dead tired. There is not any rest. That is why I have told that we get back the original meaning of the word, “theatron”.

The story is very important here. Is which story told by Weöres and Zoltán Balázs? Well, this story is Hesiod: four lines from his eternal work, from The birth of Gods. What is happening there: Uranos, Kronos, and then Zeus is coming. That is all. Transition of power.

I do not want to talk about that it can be a political parabola. I have read that it is tyranny and the rebel against it, the end of the tyranny and the birth of the new power. I am not interested in it. If there is anything interesting in this story, so in the story of Uranos, Gaia, Kronos and after Kronos in the story of Zeus than it is the immobility of Kronos. That figure carved from a block, which Ilona Béres puts in front of us with a very scary intensity, about it I would like to tell some words later. This motionlessness on this stage in the performance by Zoltán Balázs, indicates for me, that we can see the time, the continuity of world history in front of us. Since people involuntarily associate to one of the basic tragedy of classical Greek culture, to the chained Prometheus, when we see this motionless and unmoveable figure, which is the next part of the story of the chained Prometheus, this is the story of the rebellion against Zeus, and it tells its consequences. When I think that this story becomes secondary behind the rite, then we suddenly get involved in the theatre. Into which can be made by theatre with what kind of effects.

There are so much humour in this performance. We can see well the humorous parts, when the five Curates are jumping around the baby. It is not shouting, we do not laugh aloud because of it, but it is there like another element. Here Zoltán Balázs dares to play with everything from the bravest and most horrific elements, from the tearing up of the child, up until the situational comedy. I can mention humour inside the oratorio too, when Gaia goes aside or runs through the stage and starts singing, suddenly we get three seconds of illusion of The Magic Flute, which makes people listen to, then the story is going on, this performance has no connection neither with Mozart nor with the opera of course, but they are in it too. If I understand well, this performance tries to salute to different genres, authors, great creators and styles. It always puts the theatre, the “theatron” in the middle.

In connection with theatre of rites, we have to mention of course József Ruszt. For me Rhea’s first scene, when hanging, entangling and chaining to the net she gives birth to her child, makes me remember József Ruszt’s direction from the middle of the 70s, The Bacchae. I can tell another thing: the conscious and wonderful game with the lights. When on behalf of the moiras, of the moira herself is standing on the left side of the stage and behind her a thin beam of light cuts the scene, crosses it in front of Kronos...Robert Wilson has a performance, which he made together with Michel Piccoli: the “La Maladie de la Mort”, which plays simply with it, that a very thin beam of light goes through the back part of the stage and cuts up the life. Here it forms a border too. This shows the end, the border of Kronos’ power.

Or the time. The game with time. The time is unstoppable. Behind Ilona Béres, there is a giant wheel of time. This time will not get out, but it will shatter in this performance. It is very frightening. Otherwise, the colour dynamism of the whole performance is very important. The game of black and red, which are obviously: about a game with style, staging language of eastern-like theatres from the opera in Beijing until the quoting of the language of the Japanese theatre, which I do not think needs more explanation. Here is the rite again. The universality of which is touchable, so its crossing on cultures can be understood from the point of view of any culture, and with different movements, these cultures can be connected to each other.

For me the most captivating was that Zoltán Balázs understood, he has shown us, that we do not have to understand everything in theatre. The theatre needs to have effect on us. The effect again...You get it...I do not, I hope someone will explain it for me. It is not important anyway. It is so good and beautiful, that I do not need the explanation, because it is good. When Gaia appears with that stick. How does she get it? What is she doing with it? Why does she have this stick? It will become a samurai sword after a while. It helps the movements.

This view of time... What these heroes miss from their life is something, which can make it the most tragic one: this is the risk of death. Do not forget that it is about Theomachia so about fight of gods. It is a separate genre in the ancient Greek literature. Theomachia: the fights of gods until the formation of the world of gods on the Olympic, it is the fight between different generations of gods, which was finished by Zeus, but we are living in Zeus’ era, so Zeus’ power – if we understand it well – is always endangered. This is what we can see, I think, on the left side of the stage, in the back, that spiral staircase there, when a veiled figure is going up and down, which is a quote for me, of a Magritte picture, or by Endre Szász or by Dali. From another branch of art, but it is very appropriate, and it does not stop. He does not do anything, does not have contact with any on the stage, he is not in the text, in any situations, but he is there. And it gives me the creeps. Because when we are clapping, when it is over, he is still there. He is going on. This veiled figure is there in the background, with this cage on his head...so it is terrible but very very punctual.

Ilona Mélykuti, the moderator of the professional discussion:

Gyuri, you told that we do not need to understand everything in it. Is not it a kind of release for the director?

György Karsai:

No, it is not at all, because I think with which I have started, that it is a very philologist performance. That way the director convinces me, that he has watched everything. Here everything is really well measured. It is counted out not in centimetres but in hundredth of seconds. I have never seen such disciplined artistic movements and speech – when girls have to sing in choir – I was listening to it well, I would like to catch as they sign to each other, to know when they need to start, but there was nothing. Everything is worked out perfectly. Because of it, I think that if I do not understand anything from the performance, then that is my fault. It is not even a fault. That is what I would like to tell, that I do not need to understand it. It is good! Do not get it. A performance is good similarly to a good lesson in school, where they do not tell everything. We have to think it over. The child should go home and think about those things he has heard. Do not accept my explanations, but those things, which come up in him after it. It is much more important, than what I say, or what is on stage. Then tomorrow. By then we will find out what the performance becomes. It is similar to happiness. If people in it, he may not recognise that it is true. But when they sleep one after it, and remember it, the next day, then they realise, what was missing from it, but it has been so wonderful.

Ilona Mélykuti:

Was it so obvious to everybody that we do not need to understand everything of it?

István Nánay, critic:

I have worked a lot with the understanding of this performance, because I have given it to many of my classes to watch it. That way the students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts were working with it, there were drama teachers too, so the scale is quite wide, and they could hardy do anything with this performance. People usually watch performances with that attitude, with which you asked now. With the attitude that they have to understand everything in the performance. We teach them it, when we teach them performance analysis, they have to take care to the method how the different aspects of the performance are put together.

In case of such a complicated text and such a complicated performance, where there are so many different styles and quotes – as Gyuri has said - , it is very difficult to put things together, because there is no relationship of cause-and-effect but a very complicated one. Well, if Gyuri has mentioned this woman, who is going up and down, then it is an element of fine arts, another projection of time, and it is a spatial counterpoint at the same time, so everything works with multiple meaning.

I think that these can be understood, but we have to accept, that a type of theatre – that type which we do not like in Hungary very much – where the text does not tell everything, so we cannot decode everything immediately from it, force people to reread and re-watch it. That way, when I made people watch it again, many things – they got some viewpoints of course, to know what they have to watch more or less – have become understandable. As Gyuri has mentioned, many things live on inside and get into the right place, or at least find their place according to his own values and knowledge. I think we cannot understand perfectly even Hamlet when we watch it; however, we think we have all the keys to it. A theatre, which is working mainly with pictures, and voice, where action, space and colours dominate together, cannot be understood at once, we have to think them over. It is not sure that we will get one and true, valid solution. The director, of course, - I can prove it, because we have talked a lot about it – is very well-prepared from it, so he knows it well, as the actors do too. It can be felt from the fact that here everything is very punctual.

Erzsébet Bogácsi, critic:

I try to add other ideas to it, to state those points, which make this performance good, and then try to put in order those which have been told somewhere as examples, then what we could exactly see and finally that what could make this performance even better.

I think too that it is a very consciously made, artistry cared and talented performance. Obviously, it is because of the director, but he forms unity together with his colleagues. Unfortunately, during these debates we never have enough time to analyse the artistic performances too, so because we would run out of time, I would state, that the troupe make such a devoting and punctual work for which there are only a few examples in Hungarian theatres. Both the member of the troupe, from the main characters to the members of the choir, and the guest stars too, from Ilona Béres to Erzsébet Soltész. I would love to emphasize that without them it could not happen that way.

In advance I would like to draw attention to the fact, that we very rarely can see theatrical example which bravely differ from the psychologically realistic staging which is usual in Hungary, which choose a different way, and I welcome it.

What did happen in this performance? It starts with the text. Zoltán Balázs chose a text by Sándor Weöres, with which he felt that Hungarian staging had a debt. I do not think so, I think that Theomachia has literary values, but I think evidently, that any literary text can be suitable to make a performance with which the director has aim, can do something with. This was the case there too.

To talk about dramaturgy too. Do not go wrong, they do not only change the order of letters from time to time, there is a system of it too. The first and greatest changing is that they foreshadow the story at the beginning, as a vision of a dream, or better to tell, as a vision of a nightmare. Then the story begins. I understand it. Some colleagues have believed that it is not a fortunate solution, because there is a monologue in the original one, which gives verbal information, about which we have to know, but here it is built in a shown system, so we have to make efforts to make the story complete. I think it can make hard to follow the performance for some, but that way the direction can give a stylistic key, according to which we have to interpret the others.

Another bigger change comes in the end, when he gets text from Weöres’ poetry. Meanwhile there are those words backwards, but besides it sometimes just consonants can be heard, then just vowels, replicas are repeated, some replicas are told simultaneously, they told texts in canon, so there is a very serious system, how it has been built up.

I jump here, I try to go on with its musicality. What I have told there, what happens with the text, it leads to the musicality. It is partly based on the fact, that if there is a pure meter – I call it pure because it has lost its content – it gives alone the musical meaning of it, and the interpretation of the mood of words has a kind of mood too. Besides it there are whispers, cries, echoes and so on, these lead to musicality too. I think if I were László Sáry, I would be very happy to be able to compose music to this kind of performance, because it makes a perfect ground to his excellent music, which is built mostly on percussion instruments and singing. I think I would state most stressfully, that there is no speech neither in prose nor in singing, nether with music nor without it, which does not have any musicality in it, together with the mute signing too. Here this mute signing is a kind of movement too. The musicality of the movement is natural, as choreography is mostly built on music, why would it be differently here? That upright, square-shaped dance, which the Curates show at the beginning, that is as musical as when towards the end, at about the two-third of the performance, they do their choir dance too. Now I leave the nanny thing with purpose, I would like to mention it later from a different point of view.

The next one: the choreography is a sight too. The sight has a special feature too. The set and costume has value of fine arts too from the point of view that it does not just help to do situations and describe characters, but they always have a fine artistic value too as placed in the space. You have mentioned Rhea and Okeanos common act in that light corridor, but other examples can be mentioned there, maybe a very simple one too – which happens simultaneously inside Judit Gombár’s double action - , that she creates a space once then put red wigs into it as exclamation marks.

What can make it even better? Mysteriousness has been mentioned too. I would call it Hermeticism, as the aim is obvious too. It has even more elements, I do not think so mysterious the woman with the cage on her head, especially if I think of the baby-flame also in a cage on the other side of the stage, so they are not so hard to understand. The Boy has his small-dissociated personality, there are sound changings, who uses which sound, more of them play Rhea and so on. I think this last one has practical reasons too, as it is very interesting that somebody stops her speech here and then speak there the other side. Everything, which we appreciate so much and which can engage during the performance, that is its form, and this is the most important thing. I have doubts here. I do not get explanation why this performance has to be placed into this Eastern-like culture. I have an idea, but it has not turned out from the performance. I do not want to complain, of course, why the actors did not appear in Greek costume. I suppose that Zoltán Balázs looked for t a world, where he tried to perform the archaic with a far stranger. Then I would tell one thing, which breaks it a little bit. It is not useful to confuse us here in Europe, I feel a break there, when Typhon appears, and there are Japanese-like things there. This system breaks up there. I feel that it was peacefully functional until this part, so far the sight has brought those, which design is almost known from martial arts.

I have one more question, why do I say, that the form mostly affects me? I have watched this performance twice mostly with pure professional interest, in Budapest and here. Nobody has taken me emotionally. I was looking for it, I was waiting. Andrea Spolarics eyes were shining yesterday, I looked at her and turned out that it was just glitter on her eyelashes. Fortunately now I was sitting close to Ilona Béres and I managed to see that she did not have only glitter on her eyelashes, she did not have it on her lashes...so I would need to sit very near to see the little fallibility in her greatness; which could bring me close.

György Karsai has talked about similar things he has mentioned rhythm too. I would not examine them more, as it is not a rite built into a great system, but different things. If it is a rite, we may think about it because of its relation with stylization. Well, then use rite as a working hypothesis. I will finish in moments. How can a rite get closer to anybody? That they are the members of that community or they are in connection with its object. It must be solved somehow here, that I could become a part of it, and do not remain a viewer from outside. I suppose, I can become part of something when I recognise myself in them. Generally, we can recognise ourselves, when the form breaks up and I can see the human fragility and weakness.

I would like to repeat that it is a very talented performance, I would give it an award too. It is fantastic when somebody in his twenties put something like this on the table. That is all.

György Karsai:

I would give another context of the meaning of rite. The rite is theatre. I will be initiated, and I am waiting for it during any theatrical performance, that I would become somehow the part of those things, which are going on there. I used the word, rite with this meaning. From this point of view, I do not need to see the tears shining in the actor’s eyes. There are those types of performances where the actors’ immersion helps me to get closer, helps me get into the performance, but to be able to make me the part of this embodied rite is totally depend on the performance.

Erzsébet Bogácsi:

It is just a possibility to make tears shine. I can imagine very well, that I would identify with the characters.

György Karsai:

I identified with. I was Kronos. I was as beautiful as he was, yes I was. If we arrive there to the using of eastern theatre. I did not want to tell before, that what people thought about while watching Zoltán Balázs’ direction. I saw it first sometimes in the 80s in Ariane Mnouchkin’s direction in Agamemnon, where the choir did the same. In case of the Greek tragedies, it is always hard to do something with the choir, especially in case of Agamemnon, which needed a complex choir from one block. He made in his theatre twelve men in eastern-like dresses run around, jump up and down the walls, everywhere, and this eastern style could give something extra to make me live through the Greek things better too. For me the connection of different cultures to one another meant that, no more, I did not want to see an opera from Beijing in it, I did not miss the Greek side of the story, and it was made to be Greek as it was Hungarian, Chinese and Japanese and everything too. It was universal. The eternal reality of the story, that is universal.

Adrienne Csengery, the curator of the competition schedule:

In this performance, we can live through the birth of the Greek culture, as the whole European culture starts with this rite and story – as it is. Here we can experience the birth of art, which Zoltán Balázs emphasized by the solution, that he finished the performance with Sándor Weöres’ The drum and dance poem, which is a fantastic choice and fits perfectly to the whole play.

Erzsébet Sándor, journalist:

I would like to add, that if I thought myself to be a professional theatregoer, and something wanted to talk about the universe, it would not matter whether it was Indian, Chinese, Japanese or Greek. It does not matter, it simply about the universe. If Ilona Béres’ swirl does not get anybody from the auditorium, and could measure this performance from outside, through its tools, from the point of view of its form, and look at it coldly, then I am very sorry for you, Erzsi. I suppose I am heterosexual but after days, I have been still in love with Ilona Béres and I would recommend her the award of the best male performance. (Laugh and claps...)

Erzsébet Bogácsi:

Here one thing missed which I have signed before, that there was a part which touched me emotionally too. First, I would react on Ilona Béres. I said that I was happy to have sat closer yesterday, that way I could see, which touched me. This is one of them. I have foreshadowed that the Curates’ scene where they nurse the baby, was also close to people, of course. It is about the example when we can see human fallibility and weakness too.

Ilona Mélykuti:

Let us give the opportunity to Erzsi Bogács to feel that it did not get her that it left her or at least she remained far. Adrienne told that we are the moment of birth of European culture. It is worth a question that why would the birth of the European culture is carried out by the using of eastern culture and eastern rites, which are stranger to us. It is universal, it is true, but it can make viewers think that it breaks up in them or starts breaking up.

Gyula Sipos (France):

I would like to add three points to the question of Far East. First: I totally agree with György Karsai, that the metaphor of Far East can work well with that example he has mentioned, the example of Mnouchkine so the far-eastern alienation sometimes can highlight our situation, the Greek situation or the European or the Hungarian one. That would be one of them.

Second: in connection with the Far East again. I watched the performance as a theatre of world, as universal theatre, because the story is universal too: from the fall of the myth, from Uranos to Kronos, through Zeus to mankind (so mankind falls) and it points until the worldwide realization of mankind nowadays. I see it as a theatre of world, because there are different genres next to each other, they are mentioned as quotes, and a far-eastern quote fits there too. The third one is a pure reminder, a literary and biographical one, Sándor Weöres is between those Hungarian poets, who had personal experiences with the Far East, he translated many poems form the Far East, and he tried to suit his mentality to his own Zen Buddhist, Taoist ideas. We can find it weaker from philosophical point of view, but the Far East was an important part of his poetry and worldview, so it would be cheating if into this world drama this Far Eastern viewpoint can fix in.

Ilona Mélykuti:

Pista Nánay told right that it was not Greek, it was by Weöres. We have forgotten – I think all of us – that here we are talking about a play by Sándor Weöres. With it, he did not want to show the birth of the European culture only.

Adrienne Csengery:

Weöres is a universal poet, he brings the world onto our table with his poems and translations, however he did not speak any foreign languages. He spoke only German very bad. That way he translated everything from rough translations. It is good to know it. With his dramas, he was far ahead of his age. A lot more ahead, that is why he can be mysterious to us, who has got used to the psychological realist dramas and straight-lined stories. It is not that one. It is a rite. This –we can tell – takes us far from the topic, it does not illustrate, but demonstrates.

György Karsai:

Before we would go on, a philological data comes into my mind, which I would like to tell. Weöres wrote this play in 1938. In Hungary it was performed once, in 1971 in Szkéné Theatre, István Keleti directed it, and one of the performer of it is sitting there with us, she is Adrienne Csengery. (Silent giggle)

Ilona Mélykuti:

I would add one more sentence to that Erzsi told, she was in love with Ilona Béres for days. We would understand it. For me the fact that Kronos is played by a woman meant the asexuality in a way.

György Karsai:

I think we do not need to explain it. One critic told that the direction is Zsótér-like because of it. I do not think so. We do not need to explain it. Yes, Ilona Béres would be the best male performer this year.

Géza Hizsnyan, critic:

I go back a little bit to Erzsébet Bogácsi’s sense of lack. I think we agree that we could watch a perfect and very exciting performance. If somebody misses something I can accept it. I have missed a little bit too, maybe because not only those things made me think after it and the next day which you (Erzsébet Bogácsi) has mentioned, but there were two questions – one of them would be a key question according to me - , which caused some kind of problem for me. It is a brilliant idea, that they tell backwards a part of the text. It has incredible atmospheric power. Then it raised a question for me, if they had to tell the other texts understandably, and where would be the limit? It is a great question, where is the limit between the situations when I have to understand the text and where and when I do not have to, then why it has not been important? If this limit exists, and it is important, then the articulation have not been that understandable to make it clear to me too. Now if I divide it so well, that whether the audience understands it or not, that it leaves a question mark in me.

The other one is that I am not a musician, but I have a question, which I do not know. I felt Rhea’s first monologue, which she sang on pentatonic scale, a little bit forces, and then it has never returned in musicality. Than it is a big question that why is it so striking, but not hurtful, for my non-musician ears?

Zoltán Balázs, the director of the performance:

There is a Chinese proverb: “Do not touch the idols, the gilding remains on your hand!” I suppose, that if a performance – it can be anyone’s direction, with any actors - , needs to be explained, than I am not interested in it. I think that our work together with this troupe is continuous, we start it all over again after each performance, we always have rehearsals before them, but it will be always the same in front of you. I can place signs, I can place piles inside a performance, but the shipping-lane is filled by the audience – I believe in it.

It is not an accident, that I have started working with Sándor Weöres’ this work. I think it is that kind of challenge – for me, for the young director - , which I would wish for all of my mates. I simply think that young students on the university would need to work with plays like this. Sándor Weöres does not give any instruction. Neither furiously nor angrily, or even nicely, neither out, nor in, or up...- the play does not have these kind of instructions. All words need to be solved, this text shows us the whole story. From this point of view we can say, that it does not need to be put on stage. Why? Lilla Mikes can stand up on the Korona Pódium with a candle and tells it, and then it appears in front of me. Meanwhile I think that it is our task in connection with Sándor Weöres to connect words to this world, to give language to it. It cannot be done without a form. I think that form is not the enemy of content, and the content is not the enemy of form. I think we can miss the glittering in the actors’ play if they are disbelieving. I suppose that the most important thing is to create the belief of the direction inside the performance. It is a long process. It does not happen over one performance, over neither two nor three. It is a long-term journey, which I could obviously show in this phase. I hope that I still have some year to work and then we can move on.

It is a starting point for me I think to formulate that kind of language, to undertake it, which is based on meta-communicative signs. Not only on verbal things. I feel many times, that they cheat me in theatre, when they say angrily “I hate you”, or they say sensitively “I love you”. It is rare in life that people feel and tell the same thing. Many times they hide, deny, want to give other forms to it, and cannot stand it, it overflows, over floods them. For example in connection with Ilona Bares’ Kronos I was interested in this overflow. That a fragile, 63 years old woman plays a masculine ancient god with man-power, and the weakening of his power means effeminacy for me, and the same time everything else get stronger around him in the figure of a new order.

There is not any story. The story can be similar to everybody. It is not like a big family with many problems between them, conflict, they hate the neighbour, so they poison their dog...these things are not there. There is an old god simply, and there is a new one too. Then what will happen between the two characters, between the two idols, that is the serious exercise.

I am sorry. I have not thought that I would tell it, because...because, what I can see, that is there. If it exists, than this is there. If it is not there then we do not need to talk about it. Meanwhile for me it is very important that here is a phase, and I am happy that I could try it out, and I could meet Sándor Weöres.

There was one of Sándor Weöres’ relative, maybe his nephew, I am not sure, on one of our performance, and after it, he came to me and said: - Well, if Sándor had watched it, he would have been very happy, because it is he. We can believe it or not. I think that for Hungarian theatre it is very important to try to combine the diversity of arts. It is not sure that it will be successful, but we must think the other way around too. Not only those things can happen which we tell, step, put on us, but all these always have extra meaning involuntarily.

The Eastern world is a basic question in connection with Sándor Weöres. It is about the effort towards completeness – whether people can reach it or not – it is in it. It is there in each speechlessness and silence. To answer to your question (Géze Hizsnyan’s) that why the folk song is there? It is a mourning based on a “csángó” folk song. I suppose that our culture, the Hungarian culture, the European and the Easter one – they are all of us. From the cradle to the grave, we simply create the myth of birth through a mourning. Gaia’ folk dance is a Hungarian element. For me, it can be organic part of a Greek story, in which there are Eastern motifs too. I do not know how the Greeks played. I can imagine it, there are many information of it, but I do not know, I did not see it. I do not know, I just have some fantasy. This is the only treasure in theatre that is why it is worth making performances that fantasy can work when meet some creative people. I have great creative partners, I have to mention it. Thanks God I have the possibility to work with the same people for a while, hopefully for a long time – Judit Gombár, László Sáry. I must tell some words about Judit Góczán, because there is a huge dramatic work in this performance. Many times we do not get it, because who watch it for the first time, maybe cannot pay attention on it, but for example the meeting of Rhea and Okeanos, which happens on two beams of light, that is three following scenes in the original play. It becomes one here. Okeanos talks to Kronos and Rhea at the same time. It is an incredibly hard task to solve. We have to keep its truth, the personality has to be kept too, that three scenes have to happen at the same time, however they are one another in time. There are very hard things, and it is for example Judit Góczán’s merit.

There is another crazy man next to me, András Szöllősi, who made these movements with actors, who were not born to be dancers, they did not have any dancing training before. I suppose it can be very hard to make them that beside stepping from left to right, they can express themselves in some more complex, more grotesque, more complicated system of movements, and they find their belief and joy in it. I think it is a mosaic of my life, hopefully it is a mosaic in your lives too. Thank you for being there, that you have watched this thing – also in Sándor Weöres’ name. (Claps)

Adrienne Csengery:

Thank you, Zoltán Balázs, very much for this performance, for this experience. We understood it very differently then, but that was also watched by Sándor Weöres. I did not want to tell it, but I would like to finish this discussion with a joke, because we got very sad. The joke is: when priests still celebrated masses on Latin language, a woman in village left the church, clapped her hand and told, “we had a blessed priest, we did not understand even a word”.

Ilona Mélykuti:

A line came into my mind in the end: “Then deep silence floats, like a cold sound” – to stay by Sándor Weöres.

Ilona Mélykuti, POSZT.hu, 2004

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)