I would not like to tell a hasty judgment, but while I was reading Acropolis by Wyspianski – and after it even more – I had the feeling that about this monumental drama cannot be said the phrase that „it is crying for a stage”: this drama has to be found. It is a really hard text – I could get the text which has not appeared earlier in Hungarian with Vince Hajba’s beautiful, old styled, mostly untheatrical translation, which for second reading thanks for the more accurate understanding can show us its „deeper” meanings too.

The lines like “...Swirling in a scented way, covers me in the dark / results of retaining walls of devil mist”, or “...the arms of smoke climbing onto the dark peak, / darkness of night swirling around legs of rocks, / up until the night get into full powers”, they are purely wonderful, reading them and especially rereading them can give high aesthetics pleasure. But you must be an experienced viewer on your foot – or instead (with some confusion): on your ears – who can accept and understand the meaning of the sentences which are sounding from the stage for the first hearing. And of course, further beautiful wonders are waiting for somebody who has been trained to be the expert of the genius drama writer, restorer of churches, and painter who lived at the turn of the XIX-XX. century. Unfortunately, the human life – as we can learn it also from Acropolis – is limited, so from most of the theatre goers we cannot expect to come to theatre with earlier studies. Sadly, I would risk to tell that this kind of high levelled preparedness cannot be required from critics who are professional theatre goers. However, Acropolis is a real drama of book, it is divided into four parts, it is monumental, it is an apocalyptic vision, it is a culture and religious historical overview which is over eras and genres. If we watch it as a moral tale of human history and if we would like to compare it with The tragedy of man, than from the point of view of genre differences can be sentenced that if Madách’s work is an outworked topic of a final exam then Wyspianski’s is a complete academic doctoral thesis.

The first scene of Acropolis is the only one which does not have any literary background which is accurately entitled and named: the second scene – the scene of Troy – gets its idea from Iliad by Homer, the third one – Jacob’s story – from the biblical Old Testament, while the fourth one – King David’s monologue – from the book of Psalms. This whole culture historical picture book is put in frame by the cathedral of Krakow which is evoked in the first and forth scene, the Wawel, which is a mental summary of all scenes, sometimes identifiable, sometimes playfully and/or the gloomily covered common location of a lifelike story and the focus of the beginning and the destruction of the world which ends everything.

The Maladype Theatre with Zoltán Balázs’ leading has been going on their own road since 2002 that is impossible to compare to any other theatrical formation, and they have performed so defining and significant performances as Blood Wedding, School for Fools, Theomachia, The Blacks or Empedocles. There are many who decline their art, those reluctant people who feel and measure their simplified movements, the interpreting musical dictions which are mostly composed on opera like statements, but mostly the overpowered visual experiences and their style which is built on pictures that are overworked into the smallest pieces and call them elitist affectation or monotonous deterrence of the viewers. On the other side there are the obsessed believers – according to the writer’s of this critic own experiences – whose group is growing, who are fond of this unique form language, the rare approach towards the viewers’ and theatre makers’ side in Hungary, where the immersion and the intensive listening are required form both sides of presence, from the performers and viewers too.

According to the ideas above it is even surprising that Sándor Zsótér and Zoltán Balázs have not found each other earlier. Meanwhile the “cooperative” direction is a brave experiment: the first two scenes are directed by Zsótér, the second ones are done by Balázs. It all depends on the fact if the two directors’, who are working with really strong worlds of images and visions of analysation and performance of text, common points of thinking about theatre can come together to form a unified performance which can give us all night long valid experience. After that I have seen the result I have to say yes and no. Who can get into the mood of Zsótér’s from the beginning – and his constant partners’: Mária Ambrus, set, Mari Benedek, costume and Júlia Ungár, dramaturg – distinctive on its own but together too, always high levelled work (as it has happened with the writer of these lines) those can enjoy not only the harmony of picture and text, and can understand and enjoy the beauty of the stories which are conjured in front of us, but in connection with Zsótér’s earlier works, we can say that they can free up their humour too. I have never laughed so much on any other performances by Zsótér (however Penthesileia in the National Theatre or earlier in the Kamra Theatre, Csongor and Tünde made me laugh strangely many times).

The monumental cemetery like solemnity of the Cathedral of Krakow, which is kept in grey is made embarrassingly grotesque by the junks and exhibition of small nothings. We are moving in a maze surrounded by flashing plastic hearts, where the lovers who find each other sometimes use the seats of the church as school benches or kneelers. In the scene of Troy everybody, who seemingly are on a holiday on an island of the South Sea and who are just from the beach live through some episodes of a story of a sweet soap-opera: it is really tasteless, Hecuba, Priam, Hector, Helene and the others tell the beautiful lines which are rewritten according to Homer while they are rolled in vivid coloured (with lions and palms) beach towels. In both scenes, there is the lift, which roughly, uncomfortably divides the place, which goes somewhere upstairs – obviously into the world of gods – or takes down characters from there, who sometimes use the roughly noisy machine as a food lift or a crane truck of constructions.

The second part (the third and the forth scenes) is Zoltán Balázs’ work, and I have to emphasize that the refers to the continuation of the previous stories are obvious. The connection of couples, the continuation of men-women duets, the rhyme of the characters. For example, Artúr Kálid previously as Tempus and Priam, is now Isaak the obviously wise-powerful man, the old one who has the most experiences of the world; Nóra Parti is earlier the girl from the tomb, then Helene – her partner in both cases is Ádám Tompa -, in Balázs’ part they play Laban’s wife. I can continue the characters’ interpretations that are working all through the performance. The aim is obvious: the two parts are not built according to two totally different conceptions, but they are shades, approaches inside the similar (theatrical) view of world to form one, unified performance. Balázs also in his earlier works has tried to make musical the visions of stage and Wyspianski’s drama is a perfect material for it, which the director treats – as it is written in the programme – not as a drama but as an opera without music. This emphasized musicality (in King David’s monologue) becomes clear reality in the fourth scene, when Szabolcs Hámori performs László Sáry’s opera, he forms it into a wonderful vision of stage: he is standing in the middle of a huge veil which is coming from above and surrounding him from waist and emphasized vulnerability of his bare upper body, around him there are black figures – the characters of the earlier, biblical Isaak’s story – who rhythm and follow him on hand drums, they hail the performance with their devoted attention, without any words.

Besides the similarities of the directors’ conceptions it would be useful if we thought about their differences too, here I would emphasize one point: Balázs’ direction is lack of humour. After the performance I thought a lot, that why did I feel lighter, and what is more important: easier to accept that part which was directed by Zsótér. Then I realised, from those parts which were directed by Balázs, the visions of stage, the turns of Isaac’s story, the lyrical and tragic characteristics of relationships of siblings and lovers, the visions of beautiful bodies, the beauties of Sáry’s opera and Szabolcs Hámori’s performance and the others’ disciplined team work would remain with me for sure, but I never smiled – mostly because there was nothing which could make me smile. Of course, it is not for sure that it is a mistake (however according to my strong belief a really good tragedy cannot be imagined without any humour and it is true the other way around), but obviously it is not easy to follow with the same interest level the second part of the three hours long performance, which is performed on the same heavy, ceremonial style.

The performance is a very important stage on the road of Maladype to become a troupe, especially from the point of view of the same professional level, where the actors have been trying to rise up. Of course, still not everybody can stand in for those requirements, which this intensive and high-levelled director’s work means. Nóra Parti and Éva Bakos know evidently all, which they should in Zsótér and Balázs’ theatre: their performances are characterised by perfect speaking, moving, mimics and concentration all through the performance; they should be the standard. The others have waving performance, Balázs Dévai, Artúr Kálid, Kamilla Fátyol and Ádám Tompa have the most of beautiful moments.

This try, to perform Whypianski by Maladype, can be called brave or even bold. They have tried to connect genres and styles, to show them next to each other and to harmonise them.

Opera, Bible, the epic heroic poem and the tale form a real, exciting theatrical multidisciplinarity. This trial is risky too, but I am sure that it is worth it. This approach, that treat the viewers as partners and co-operators, is very important, from which we would need more to our theatrical life today.

György Karsai, Színház, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)