Hédi Helmeczi: The seven veils dance of the soul
Who watches the performance, The Blacks can get into the most complicated and most mysterious maze of the theatrical season. We can take place in the ceremonial remembering of the killing of a white woman together with the troupe, the purification that happens there is grandiose experience even if we get lost in the layers of the chaotical role-identities of the actors.
The premiere of The Blacks by Genet in Hungary was directed by Zoltán Balázs, and he asked László Sáry to compose an opera from it. He left the college two years ago, where he was called as Little-Zsótér, and he has got the award of the best European young director. He is a suggestive man, he is crouching all through the performance at the edge of the circular stage which is surrounded by the auditorium and he commands from there this complex ceremony.
„Black mass” is written on the program but what does it mean? Is it a parody of mass or an orgy? There will be both of them and even more: it is a ceremonial theatre which comes from a trivial rite, philosophical, extraordinary artistic, and sensual too and it is a modern opera. I have not got enough place to write down all the turns, layers of the performance, so I just try to follow the layers of the role-identities which are acted by the characters. Zoltán Balázs forms the identities of the characters with the help of a complicated costume putting on them, which has many layers. As we are trying to peal these layers of them we are getting more and more uncertain: who is that one, who is standing in front of us finally.
Genet, the writer of the play got inspiration from a rite of Ghanaian sect, who mocked the white imperialists, and they imitated one of their ceremony, then on the peak of it they killed a dog. In Genet’s play everybody is black, only some of them play the white conquerors: the Queen, the Judge, the Valet, the Missionary and the Governor. On the stage the blacks and the blacks who imitate the whites are standing against each other. Their ceremony is based on the tale in which the blacks kill a white woman, and because of it the whites kill a black one. The Village (Balázs Dévai) acts the killer again and again, and with his act he tries to connect the community and distracts the attention of an executed black revolutionist in the background.
They are standing opposite to one another: the blacks and the blacks who act the whites. Meanwhile only the blacks’ dresses are black, those blacks who are painted white, in their white wigs, in white dresses are Gypsies in reality or (under the white painting) they are masked to them. Even their voices are not real, they mouth silently. Opera singers give their voices, who are sitting around them in black monk’s robes. That makes the actors’ mimics and gestures grandiose, affected and overstressed, it comes from the forced situation of their silence and they have to live up to the full performances by the opera singers.
Follow me on reader, the road is still long. The opera singers always give their voices not to one but two actors. To a „white” and a „black” one: to connect those two, which have been separated by the world. The ritual killer of the „blacks” the Village (Balázs Dévai) has a tenor voice which belongs to László Böröcz to the Judge of the „whites” (Rodrigó Balog) too. The Virtue (Nóra Parti) is a „black” prostitute, she uses Apollónia Szolnoki’s alto as the „white” Missionary (János Balog) does too. A man and a woman use the same voice. The costumes of the „blacks” are Spanish flamenco dresses, the dresses of the „whites” are different only because of their colour, while the two actors who play the killed white woman the Town of Saint Nazare (Artúr Kálid) and the gentle Diuf (Hermina Fátyol) are in grey.
In the whirl of roles Artúr Kálid’s strong male body turns into the killed white woman with the help of many layers of red scarves. His seven veils dance on the glorious zenith of the performance is graceful and concentrated, lush, wild and noble, impressive and fragile. In his Flamenco-shoes, he demonstrates ecstatically, that the soul cannot be defined by colours, it is not a man or a woman, but it is limitless and blindingly colourful.
Hédi Helmeczi, Kontextus.hu, 2004
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
The premiere of The Blacks by Genet in Hungary was directed by Zoltán Balázs, and he asked László Sáry to compose an opera from it. He left the college two years ago, where he was called as Little-Zsótér, and he has got the award of the best European young director. He is a suggestive man, he is crouching all through the performance at the edge of the circular stage which is surrounded by the auditorium and he commands from there this complex ceremony.
„Black mass” is written on the program but what does it mean? Is it a parody of mass or an orgy? There will be both of them and even more: it is a ceremonial theatre which comes from a trivial rite, philosophical, extraordinary artistic, and sensual too and it is a modern opera. I have not got enough place to write down all the turns, layers of the performance, so I just try to follow the layers of the role-identities which are acted by the characters. Zoltán Balázs forms the identities of the characters with the help of a complicated costume putting on them, which has many layers. As we are trying to peal these layers of them we are getting more and more uncertain: who is that one, who is standing in front of us finally.
Genet, the writer of the play got inspiration from a rite of Ghanaian sect, who mocked the white imperialists, and they imitated one of their ceremony, then on the peak of it they killed a dog. In Genet’s play everybody is black, only some of them play the white conquerors: the Queen, the Judge, the Valet, the Missionary and the Governor. On the stage the blacks and the blacks who imitate the whites are standing against each other. Their ceremony is based on the tale in which the blacks kill a white woman, and because of it the whites kill a black one. The Village (Balázs Dévai) acts the killer again and again, and with his act he tries to connect the community and distracts the attention of an executed black revolutionist in the background.
They are standing opposite to one another: the blacks and the blacks who act the whites. Meanwhile only the blacks’ dresses are black, those blacks who are painted white, in their white wigs, in white dresses are Gypsies in reality or (under the white painting) they are masked to them. Even their voices are not real, they mouth silently. Opera singers give their voices, who are sitting around them in black monk’s robes. That makes the actors’ mimics and gestures grandiose, affected and overstressed, it comes from the forced situation of their silence and they have to live up to the full performances by the opera singers.
Follow me on reader, the road is still long. The opera singers always give their voices not to one but two actors. To a „white” and a „black” one: to connect those two, which have been separated by the world. The ritual killer of the „blacks” the Village (Balázs Dévai) has a tenor voice which belongs to László Böröcz to the Judge of the „whites” (Rodrigó Balog) too. The Virtue (Nóra Parti) is a „black” prostitute, she uses Apollónia Szolnoki’s alto as the „white” Missionary (János Balog) does too. A man and a woman use the same voice. The costumes of the „blacks” are Spanish flamenco dresses, the dresses of the „whites” are different only because of their colour, while the two actors who play the killed white woman the Town of Saint Nazare (Artúr Kálid) and the gentle Diuf (Hermina Fátyol) are in grey.
In the whirl of roles Artúr Kálid’s strong male body turns into the killed white woman with the help of many layers of red scarves. His seven veils dance on the glorious zenith of the performance is graceful and concentrated, lush, wild and noble, impressive and fragile. In his Flamenco-shoes, he demonstrates ecstatically, that the soul cannot be defined by colours, it is not a man or a woman, but it is limitless and blindingly colourful.
Hédi Helmeczi, Kontextus.hu, 2004
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)