Here I would like to help all those who have not seen this performance not to get in trouble. It is a classical problem: I did not get what I expected. You should not have any expectations!

I know it sounds hard, but I will explain soon. In theatre we usually expect to show us a well-built, understandable story, which should have a moral lesson too, from which we can learn and we have it after the performance too. The actors should impress us with their performance, help us get into another dimension, so that we can concentrate on the happenings.

This performance we should watch differently! Enter the theatre as you are entering a world of dreams. Your eyes should be open of course and watch the details carefully. Every objects, movements and song have its own importance. But do not try to learn them! Let them have their effect on your mind and subconscious! Mélisande’ falling blue hair or always changing crone will mean something different for you than to the one who is sitting next to you.

Maurice Maeterlinck’s tale The Blue Bird was the favourite one in many of our childhood: the story of Pelléas and Mélisande can be too if we can watch it with eyes of a child, in an innocent way.

The story is as simple as a soap opera, it is a love triangle. If something is un-understandable somewhere than as in the case of operas, the music will help us open the story. Mélisande is the secret object of desire, Golaud found her in the forest and married her. Pelléas is Golaud’s half-brother and he falls in love with the strange girl, and Mélisande returns it. The performance begins and ends that Mélisande is killed because of jealousy. It is not clear who saves her, Golaud or Pelléas, and who has killed her before – as both of them love the fairy-like, unworldly girl. Both of them have done it: they save and kill her.

Mélisande communicates by snapping her tongue all through. Maybe she comes from so far, (from the bottom of the lake, or of the forest) where they do not need words any more. Her lovers understand her anyway and Gabriella Varga snaps so passionately that the viewers start understanding her. She speaks first when she confesses her love to Pelléas, to her husband’s half-brother and competitor. Her first human words are: - I love you.

Actors’ performances are not limited to strict movements, to repeated monologues. Actors act as if they do not know the concept of space. They move only in two dimensions, they are the icons of themselves. In this stripped-down play everything is real, the life-like movements have greater significance. The characters are talking to each other. They play for themselves, they are going on alone in one direction, into the arms of death.

The people would be dreaming, the director shows many symbols to solve. But not to get confused by it! If we do not understand anything, we should do as if we try to solve a dream... Let it effects, we should interpret it according to our memories, experiences and dare to get away the original play.

Warning: if we do not do it, and sit into the play as we are watching a play by Shakespeare we will get disappointed!

Antropos, Kulturális Online Magazin, 2006

(translated: Veronika Fülöp)