There is nothing new under the sun. Zoltán Balázs and Zsótér directed together in the Bárka Theatre with the troupe of Maladype, Acropolis by Stanislaw Wyspianski (1869-1907). Zsótér the I. and the II. Balázs the III. and the IV. scenes. Zsuzsa Barta, who was born in Moskow and Gábor Margitta, who was born in Spain directed with four hands in Győr Jarova by Ljubov (1964). They changed roles in every fifteen minutes at the post of the director to direct with the help of Russian like guttural voice or Spanish accent.

Acropolis was not directed by four hands. It is a double handed direction. Two directors’ works next to each other, who denies the same way and states differently. They are two sovereign directors of the same play, which consists of four different plays in reality. There is not a common story. The eras are different. The characters are different. The place is the same: the polish Visegrád: the castle of Wawel, the seat of the king from the middle age. It is a world built on tombs. A reality which was built on the stone-dead memories of the once great ones. The time is the same; the breaking night of Easter Sunday, the time of resurrection. Four statues of angels are thinking about the meaning of the hero’s fall. A female figure gets into life from Ankwicz’s tomb, the vivid statue of Amor joins her than, a lady from Skotnicki’s tomb.

Spiró wrote a love letter to Wyspianski in his study. He charged with conspiracy the theatre history because of the ignoring of the writer. Spiró has done a lot to make Wyspianski well known in Hungary too. He gave his writer blood to translate his dramas. As a theatre manager he made Zsóter in Szolnok direct the November night. Wyspianski is not an ill-fated writer. For non-Polish people he is hardly understandable because of his deep Polish nature. In the middle-aged castle of Krakow, the decorations come into live. The Gothic statues speak. The tapestries have comments to the everyday world, it is really Polish. I cannot even imagine a Hungarian writer, who is so similar to a magic island of the past, since Vörösmarty nobody has shown up so disillusioned the national illusions.

The viewers enter a Gothic enchanted castle. It is slowly getting lighter in the place. (They can create wonderful black places because they can light well). As the shadows of the stage get forms, it is getting lighter, Wawel, the place of actions, is not a compact papier mache. The vision is losing gradually its Gothic effect. The elements get enlightened.

Into the middle of Mária Ambrus’ place, in the blinding light, and motorized goods lift brings the characters from the deep dark sky. From the passing darkness we would be able to see that which carved figures are standing in dark tombs or laying in Gothic tombs and whether they are statues or vivid humans. The bases of the statues are telephone books, about the real plans of the castle, which is surrounded by zigzag lines, in reality we can learn that they are foldout books of tales. In the glass hearts neon flames are flashing, as the fire of a patriot’s heart. The mythological ghosts of the antique times are in beach sandals, and walking around covered with crass terry towels. Zsótér’s visual and auditive theatrical idiom uses bravely the kitsch which reaches over historical eras. Next to great feelings matches well the low and bazaar like taste. To his ghost like atmosphere matches well the decoration on the opened back side of Mari Benedek’s costumes from the chain of mental rollers, they ring during movements as wind harps hanging on the doors.

From the modern structure that is lifting up and down between the columns of the shadowed hall a floating frightening figure is singing to us. On his side there are well readable old letters – Genie. It is not announcing the ingenuity of the poet. It shows the name of the company. Zsótér’s stubborn directorial rhythm that returns in his performances, the simultaneity of the historical and modern time, the goods lift which is working in the 13th century surrounding, played well its role in Penthesilea well too. He can connect without any smartassery the illustrated historical past time with the modern everyday life. Ambrus and Zsóter do not make base for the illusion but they widen the area of imagination.

The director’s bitter humour shows the historical things which we carry with ourselves, and the present which is becoming the historical past. The action movies of the last quarter of the century changed the gothic cobwebby hunted house with its hidden doors which has been working for two hundred years to the industrial surrounding. In the finals of horror movies bad people get into glowing furnace, between the cylinders of meat grinder and industrial hooks. In our tale mythology the secret frightening world of horror as the location of the final statement was changed by the mythical structures of the frightening factor industry which is sung by the futurists. The II. scene, the dream play of Wawel happens during the Trojan wars. Its antique characters go into death for their dreamed interests. They imagine the past to present and future. They live with half attention, half-awake. Only their dead mates are alive.

At the end of the first scene as a cold shower we can hear András Bágya and György G. Dénes’ song: The time stops, on the sky there are silent standing stars / On the Earth there are only you and I... (From Paris’ mouth we can hear the text of Zsüti’s famous song: The time stops. Then during the antique scene Zsuzsa Mátray sings it: You can see this is love I never need any bigger experience...) The hits of the 60s has a lower poetic effect than Wyspianski, but they have interpretive gesture, and a powerful shock effect of its collage like nature.

During the interwall the staff takes down Mária Ambrus’ set. They built on its place Judit Gombár’s set. One does not come from the other. They are isolated, sovereign. The Fencing hall is clear. The floor of the scene of Bible is decorated with dynamic lines. (Probably it is a wall to wall carpet). Above an orange drapery is the dome.

Those instructions of the writer are the best which are written in poems. On the actors there are long, slimming, with long arm tale goth-like and Arabic dresses. Jacob’s biblical story gets into live from the Flemish wall carpet.

It is a naïve folk game, they sing and dance it with sacral aestheticism. The VI. scene – the second part of the second half of the performance in Bárka Theatre – are the psalms of King David. The drama becomes an opera. The harp player is singing coral to praise the antique and modern god. At the point of apotheosis the Wawel collapses, the Polish past and every past tense, which the Polish has carried. Here a lamp of a church comes down from the black infinity. It lights until black covers everything.

The Gombár-like drapery that comes down from the dome is Dadaist. Like a Venus from Milano, the orange sky is rolled up around the spindle like moving bass-baritone King David – around Szabolcs Hámori. He is standing there like Venus’ husband form the end of the 19th century, like an alive Dadaist parody of sculpture. He is singing endlessly. Ten people are sitting around him. They are following him discreetly on drums. They are watching more carefully than the viewers who are over tested in the 4th hour of the performance. The acoustic and spatial relations of Bárka Theatre would make it even more suitable to the Fencing Hall of Ludovika, however theatre is played there from time to time.

If János Arany – in case of whom we cannot talk about legal protection – had translated any Shakespeare so similarly to Imre Vahot as Vince Hajba had done with the I. scene, they would have made Vince Hajba work it over. Every parts, scenes would be sound in different metre and in different relations (if the actors had been able to tell these poems). In the rhythm of dance there are crunchy ripostes. There is growing dynamism. The poems are more and more dance like from scene to scene. Their ordered rhythm makes harder the composer, László Sáry’s work. It is hard to musicalize the music.

Artúr Kálid is the most understandable as “elderly” Isaac. Ádám Tompa have power and shining for it. Kamilla Fátyol can articulate more safely than Hermina Fátyol. As Kristóf Horváth tells the text, he gloomy excludes the viewers from the performance. Nóra Parti, Balázs Dévai, Éva Bakos are wavering between the readiness of their characters and the half-ready solutions. Kornér Mogyoró the musician with his concentration melts into the performance. Zoltán Oláh speech can be better, but his ethereal, oneiric walking, his enchanted presence on the stage can over pay well his articulatory dept.
Acropolis lasted until eleven o’clock on the dress rehearsal. Since then it has become half an hour shorter.

Péter Gál Molnár, szinhaz.hu, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)