Visible oratorio

"We can blame for many things our theatres and the directors or care takers of theatres, but not for the fact that they have not tried more to put on stage Theomachia." Who can think that this statement was not told by a compromise seeker politician of culture, but by the author, Sándor Weöres. However, the drama, which has been deprived from the staging possibilities and probes for a long time, would have all the reason for offense, to save its hurts. Since the cunning fear has built a strong barrier against the staging of the work which was written and matured to stage for centuries. Because they did not understand it, or the opposite can be true and they understood too well those national and universal secrets which the poet’s heroes in costume are talking about.

Theomachia is an oratorio drama - as it is written in its subtitle according to the genre, which is given by the author – which is written to the stage, it uses Hungarian poems, similarly to the Greek dramas. For its presentation, the tools of performance-art can be used obviously. In contrast to it, the author has not been satisfied with any staging of his works as much as with the only amateur theatrical performance of Theomachia. From an interview, which was made by Zsuzsa Radnóti we can learn, that according to Weöres, István Keleti’s sensitive performance in Szkéné Theatre was the closest to his own aims and intention. as an author he was more satisfied with the achievement of the amateur actors than the only – enthusiastic but strict – critic, Péter Gál Molnár was, whose worth is that while he was against the performers’ romantic recitative style, some dilettantes’ feeling, at least he took this performance into consideration. In his article which was about more samples of amateur theatres, he realised not only the choir Grotowski-like performing style, the players’ behaviour which commented the happenings and the beauty of the movements, but the fact too, that the performance which was far from perfection, had the formation of a new type of theatre in it (Színház, 9. 1970.). This hope was not fulfilled neither in 1970 nor later on. Besides the writer, Weöres’ monographer, Attila Tamás absolved theatres of leaving this drama, and he said that Theomachia is a radio play, which is full of values and it is a poetic, dramatic achievement, but everything is told there by words, and the actions happen on the poles of inner vision.

I have to admit, that while I am reading the play I would connect easily the miserable fate of it to its political meanings. That in 1938 in Hungary nobody dared to perform a play, which highlights the nature of tyrannical power and the ruler’s cruelty, because the actuality of it could be too obvious. When I reached sentences like “Who is the ruler in this world? Whether the fate is or I am?” it would be evident that at the time of its birth the Hitler-like, than from 1945 the dictatorship of Stalin can be hurt by the “apolitical” poet’s clear statements.

I would not put aside the whole explanation later. It can be read on the program of the theatre, that here is a “situation of the modern times, with actual characters: Mao, Stalin, Castro, Hitler... Kronos’ cult in Theomachia cites the dreadful dictators’ dark and limited era...”

Then the performance convinced me that in case of Weöres – despite of the director’s comment, or beyond that – everything is about other and more. That the drama has an attribute, which is equivalent with its actuality and universality. The writer can validate the political part of the play with psychological motives – in connection with the Greek dramas but with their leaving too. To make the mythical drama of the fight between god suitable to stage, the tolerance of the audience, who saves the experiences of tyranny inside, is not enough, but a director is needed too, who is not prevented by the respect towards the author to use the texts of Theomachia as a libretto, which can support his own visions. In whose mind the theatre of words appears as a vision theatre too. And the young one, who has roots in Transylvania, Zoltán Balázs, between the masters of whom we can find Wilson and Vasziljev, who is Hungarian but has directed in Latin and Gypsy language too, and during the summer tries to get ready for his exercises in Budapest, in Paris, would have such an open-minded art personality. He said that Weöres’ plays attracted him because “they are over the well-known living in theatrical traditions and the intensive tools of actors and directors. The oratorio-like Theomachia, which construction seems to be with static topic, can be put on stage only with the help of rich phantasy and the usage of new and brave elements of content and form."

It is easier to make promises of course than create and fulfil a theatrical structure, which is different from the conventional one. Zoltán Balázs not just presumably but visually believes that the fight of gods – which is quoted by Weöres – is a fight above, on and under the earth. Kronos, who is afraid of the fulfilment of a terrible, heavenly prediction, eats his own children but he is just “a single part of the chain”. As a tyrant, he is exposed to the fate too, to the tellers of the ancient curse. He is the ruler of life and death, but when they show him a swaddled rock as a sacrifice instead of the child, he is unable to keep his indifference saved by power, and suffers of the feared try. He is a tyrant without any real conditions and barriers, maybe he would not tell that “it would be better if I were not”. Although Kronos knows, that who is sentenced to life, he cannot leave his marked way. There is someone who enjoys the bloodshed, Kronos suffers from it. “He has just become an axe, and the fate cut with it.” He is the owner and the prisoner of the devastating power that cannot be stopped for a while. Then, the rebellious Boy, who he tries to kill, is unbeatable too. Kronos has to realise in the end that the world falls out from his hand.

Here is the tragic and educational outline of transition... But if the chronicler had turned just this pure mythological history into a drama, the story of broken dialogues would be just the exam performance of a modest, amateur group. Which could be made more interesting and original by the poetic trick that the author put hard and crackle Alexandrines on the Greek outline. The miracle happens when the text in speech and away from that – starts to resound and buzz at once. The text of the oratorio – as the rhythmical play of children poems – enriched to be a concert of words. The dramaturgical crescendo, which is getting higher through the apotheosis of destruction, turns to be its own opposition thanks to the moments of withdraw and absolution without any breaking of style, while the poet contrasts the gods’ revenge with the vision and hope of the possible survival. By the time the flood stopped, Kronos has lost the world from his hand, and the life is going on – if it is anyway.

The story – to avoid the validity of any possible interference – is an uprising poetic metaphor but not a real drama. To get it, besides the poetic flow and pulsation of the text, the hectic pulsation of the mythological history is needed and the fact that the swelling of the lines takes and sometimes leaves on the side, the personal dramas of the characters. The curse of the father who accepts it and unable to be against it, Rhea’s earthy pain, the goddess’ who is crying because of the conception. We feel it today that for the changing of era, a sacrifice is needed both from the god and from people.

The message and the experience of the performance cannot be reduced to its verbal meaning. The director with double soul – who works professionally as an actor too – seems to get with milk the nectar of any art forms which are not always sedation, but which are mixed precisely like in a laboratory, as on three or four levels too – with text, vision, movement and music – tries to get closer to the audience. The vision is not about painted sets, or aesthetic compositions of projected backgrounds, but the Fencing hall itself, which is widened and divided into a stage. People sometimes cannot follow, because they cannot see just hear that the characters who appear on stage suddenly are talking from different sides, from above and under. From the side stages which are about to widen the dimension of the play, the waving one is the most spectacular, which is a slanted surface, similar to the sea, and the net with its big holes to cover it, which can be used well only by the acrobatic actors of the Bárka Theatre.

The designer, Judit Gombár has always been able to build on the suggestions of colours with gorgeous courage. Now the red draperies rule and divide the place coming down from above, like disproportionately long flags, which are much bigger than necessary. But these flying veils as they reach the ground (the stage) are not similar to decorative indicators of power, neither flags, but they harden into plastic, textile columns to illustrate stability. Kronos’ enormous, slow and black wheel-clock is a strange counterpoint: in timelessness it refers to the passing of time. But what does the mysterious spiral staircase on the side of the stage stand for? With the presence of the mysterious character without face, who is going up and down, I think that the director shows us the unbreakable and unsolvable continuity of life. We may not need to or should not analyse all visual and acoustic elements of the composed view. Gombár gives again, which we have got used to from her as the designer of the sights for ballets: she fills the space (and the play) with colours and forms where the actors in original costumes, who stylize their own bodies into statues, freely. But the picture which is presented in the Bárka Theatre by the director and designer, does not stop for any moment, with the help of the changing and dynamic choreography it can preserve the impressive initial speed of the performance.

An independent and large team formed the sounding of the Theomachia too. Besides the composer, László Sáry, singers, players together with the actors with the help of wonderful and magical child rhythms, drum solos, heart-breaking opera-like cries and child-cry, which is similar too in its stylisation can tear up and fill the silence. Especially when we listen to the choir’s rhythmical text, who is working properly and moving aesthetically, can be felt that this acoustic abundance is confusing. Later on when for a few moment we are afraid of confusion and sounding anarchy it can be realised that there is only some temporal disproportion and the over holding of some beats. An overthought and composed rhythm is more typical for the composed dramaturgy of each scenes. The young director with the awareness of more matured masters, can hold in hand and control the enormous instruments of this big group. The balance between the inspiration and organisation is convincing enough to accept as virtue the accidental faults of composition. Some characters have nicely choreographed, effectively performed, monologues, which are repeated and filled up until the audience’s tolerance, and they can ease off the loose dramaturgical structure of the play and give us the experience of strange concerts of words, which are coherent in themselves too.

Theomachia on the stage of the Bárka Theatre is the poet and director’s common performance. It could not exist obviously if the actors have not been formed into a troupe in time. At the head of it, there is Ilona Béres with her special performance, who as Kronos is the engine and base of the performance. In connection with her we cannot speak about the injury the sign on “man specialised” role, but it is another interesting exercise again. How can an actress solve her exercise on stage, who has to resign of the importance of her identity – of her womanhood – for the sake of the role. Ilona Béres who got a similarly honourable challenge in the performance of Borisz Godunov, nowadays, now turns towards the figure of the tyrant from different point of view. As Kronos, she is not beautiful at all, but terrifyingly ugly: her white mask deforms not only the plasticity of the actress’ face but her mimic too. Kronos’ forehead is up until the top of his head, his pale, black wig with ponytail is terrifying. Béres plays god however, the director stole her humanity until the end of the performance: she is forced to be motionlessly rigid, exist as an idol, and to rhythmical but hardly mechanical speech. It makes Kronos even more frightening than his cruelty would be shown in opened brutality and continuous yelling. It is interesting in the performance that Ilona Béres does not get the experience of suffering form the hated tyrant, and she uses on high level her only conquering tool, which she can use without any restriction, her strong organ, which can fly repressed too.

If Ilona Béres can fill alone the widen area of the Fencing Hall the hardly faceless choir of the five Curates try to do it together. The directors’ most hardly solved challenge nowadays in connection with famous and authentic Greek dramas is the showing of the choir who comment and interpret everything. Zoltán Balázs in Wilson’s theatre has learnt about or “may” have dreamt about the ceremonial movements of the Curates, the special musicality of their well understandable speech. I think that the order to each other of the Choir that is made of individual faces, personalities, the accepted adaptation and the creation of harmony can be as hard as the performance by Gaia (Gabriella Varga), who is artistic during her fury too and performs dynamic her acrobatic self-scene. The shameless conflict of the suffer and passion, the tearing and pain are good examples for how each holders of fate can fulfil artificial whole with the acceptance and refusal of their own end which is widened to the battle of gods.

That can be the reason why the director and the choreographer expand (in time and space too) Typhon’s eastern-like dragon scene. The dancer-actor or the actor-dancer, Erzsébet Soltész spectacular, sometimes surprising, expanded bravura, which is filled with acrobatic elements, remains a successful element inside the performance, the professional dancer’s self-scene, who is capable to grotesque play too. Whether I try to compare the production to a Balinese dancer or a monkey king of an opera in Beijing – as others have done it – I cannot get closer to Puck’s cousin with Greek origin, who is able to do eastern magic. We can see as the director’s generosity, who broke the rules, put the performer in risk: the applause is because of the bravura and not of the performance: the less would be more and even more effective.

Finally, according to the program we can talk about the performance of each performer: Andrea Spolarics because of Rhea’s tragic emotional outburst, who is afraid of her child, Rémusz Szikszai (Okeanos) and Kristóf Horváth (the Boy), can be applauded for their uncontrolled dynamism, with which they can move and fill the enormous place, and gradually warm up the atmosphere of the fight.

Now I am sorry not to have seen Zoltán Balázs as Romeo. Who with visible joy emerged into Greek surrounding as an actor leader, in the multiple sounding of the Hungarian language, he could tell Shakespeare beautifully. Together with his actors he admire the dance of vowels, and lengthen the text – almost secretly with humility towards the poet – with the chasing of the lines, as he (the member of the generation that was grown up on the rhythms of Bóbita) has got used to the rhythm orgy of the sounds to the musicality of the poetry.

The performance had great success in front of the young audience of the first night, and hopefully it will continue for a while. But whether this way it becomes possible to put the visual, poetic oratorio into the repertoire of the Hungarian theatres or not, I do not dare to predict. I hope that sometimes one, outstanding attempt can fill its function in the history of drama: Zoltán Balázs with the performance of Theomachia, which was born under lucky stars, with his sounding, visual theatre, which was composed by many kind of theatrical elements, can rise finally the interest of the generation, who was grown up on Bóbita, to the drama writer, Sándor Weöres’ theatrical life work too.

Anna Földes, Criticai Lapok, 2004

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)