In the Puppet Theatre of Budapest the Swan Lake has been performed by Zoltán Balázs, according to his ideas, it becomes a gracefully composed, far-eastern-like illustration, mostly based on story-telling, with its colours and materials, using the ideas of feng shui. It is not especially for children.

While the success-machine of Hollywood has discovered (again) Tchaikovsky’s classical play for themselves and – however very didactically, but – can turn it convincingly into an award winning film adaptation, parallel to it, in Hungary, this world wide famous ballet play becomes actual in a theatre for children. After the Modern Ballet dance performance in Szeged in 2007, Zoltán Balázs, who has not been avers to the puppets before, has thought over the musical play again, which is based on a Russian folk tale, without any ballet and dancers. The puppet theatre performance of the Swan Lake can prove Zoltán Balázs, the director attraction towards puppets and his mood to do experiments. He does it all with a pure, elegant on its own simplicity, but many times spectacular view of stage.

Péter Polgár, who was chosen to the be the set designer of the year in 2010, and who got the award of the best set and costume in July on the festival of Nyitra, for the performance of The Kitchen, which was put on stage by Zoltán Balázs. He has designed for the Swan Lake a gloomy, dark toned, desolate landscape, which is free of any decoration and figurative reference, which attracts captivatingly our attention. Seemingly the blurred, grey shadows of a Whistler-landscape, which has been enlarged to be huge, its varied horizon can be tensed in the background, which is completed with a rhomb shaped stage, with one of its peak, hanging over the viewers. There are short, bar-chairs-like seats, covered by black leather, in a shape of a fan, in the holes of the parts of the set by the sides, which are divided into layers. Polgár’s set, which is minimalist and refers to the far-eastern world of pictures, can be strengthened by Júlia Horányi’s costumes, which makes the eastern line clear with their Japanese aesthetic nature. The characters are wearing uniformly black costumes down to the ground, which function as background too, which consist of tight-fitting tops and long, buggy, skirt-like trousers of samurais.

In the middle of the stage, the storyteller, Gyöngyi Blasek is sitting, between elevated, expressionist styled rocks, which are from metal sheets, her black dress and long white hair reach the ground. She narrates the tale, which has been written on stage by Judit Góczán and its dialogues, in a cold, steady style, which is connected well to the set, sometimes she does it in very monotonous, uninterested rhythm. In the group of the puppet performers, there are professionals and students of the puppet course, they can show variedly their juggler skills, together with the fans and swords, which are central organising elements of the performance. These properties are not just fulfilled the role of extended limb/wing/weapon, but they mean the characters too or sometimes a whole mosaic, which form a composition of swans. They perform the characters, the objects and the places of the story with the help of these breath-taking “puppets”: the fans appear in different sizes and colours according to the characters. The women have ones with white feathers, the men have with elegant silk material, in the scene of the ball they impress the viewers with every colours of the rainbow.

The interchangeability on the base of parts and the whole, of the fans, which are made of light white feathers and downs and of the swans, the transformation back and forth of this two (from a fan a swan, from a swan a fan), their precisely over-thought play, their shapes, their graceful airy movements are the greatest virtue of the performance. The usage and function of this properly over-thought element, can connect the Zoltán Balázs-like Swan Lake some way to dance, to its ease, to the cruel punctuality and calmness of the ballet, and many times, thanks for the overall picture of the sets and properties, to the fine arts too. At the same time, the choreography which celebrates András Szöllősi, seemingly means a great task for the puppet actors, which is mostly signed by the fact, that at the harder tricks, when the characters in fast, very precise combinations of movements, throw in line into each other’s hands the opened fans, unfortunately they let them fall down annoyingly many times. During the solo and “dances of couples” these is not any clue of this uncertainty, the movements of their fans can show many times individual characteristics: Gergő Pethő performs Red Bearded, István Kemény performs the Master of the Court, Károly Hoffer, the puppet master student, is Siegfried, between the swan girls, Odette is performed by another student, by Viktória Makra and Rita Radics in turn, Odilia is moved by Borbála Karádi and Judit Rusz.

Anyway, one basic question remains, as we are talking about a performance, which is a children performance for most school children: may the six years old ones, who are sitting in the auditorium – as it would be the age, which the Puppet Theatre offers – can understand, feel, enjoy this philosophical elevation from the point of view of the connection between the vision and the folk tale, which is the base of the ballet. Or, as it is more possible according to the reactions, to the reflections of the rhythm changes of the performance, the children can connect to the performance, which they watch, only with the help of the well-known sounds of the canonical musical. Neither the dance, nor the narrative dialogues help them decode the performance. Meanwhile the children, as they can understand it after the first scenes, cannot see anything else besides the dance of the fans, which can raises reaction from them, they start a strong and definite boredom. Well sensible evidence of it, not only the whispering, but what cannot be connected anyway to such a well-composed performance with conception, that the children are usually connected again to the performance, when a melody starts, which is familiar to them. Similarly, to the style of comedies, they start clapping together with the music, until a change of scene comes. The fans and together with it, the performance become uninteresting to them. This holds responsible the whole staging for it, in spite of its aesthetic and kinetic virtues.

Zsófia Krupa, Fidelio, 2012

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)