“Once there was a mister, / Because the law needs him - / Now there is a law, as he needs it / The mister needs it.” Today in Hungary all theatres should shout about it. If not everybody, but many of them do it – the Maladype has wrapped their shout into two performance with extreme power.

Schiller’s Don Carlos and Goethe’s Egmont have been performed almost at the same time: both of them area about II. King Philip’s country. Schiller made report from the king’s country, from Spain, while Goethe found the ideal topic in The Low Countries, which is oppressed by a tyrant. However, the Duke of Alva is the main character of both stories, the controversial, opportunist right hand of the king, an idea, which is reborn again and again, is the connection between the two plays, it has two figures: in Don Carlos it is Marquis de Posa, who criticizes the absolutism openly and with silly courage. In Egmont the main character, who leads a revolt against the Spanish, and stands in for the religious piece, he states the necessity of the freedom, equality, constitutionalism, justice and the abolition of tyranny, and even the democracy, which is above all.

This is the idea, which cannot be said enough time and loud enough in a democracy, which is built on thinner and more and more overused columns. There is no theatre, which can forget about it, when it can survive only if the mister needs the law about it, and this is the idea, which can connect the two performances of Maladype – which are played together and one by one too.

Zoltán Balázs, director very elegantly solve the question of “actualisation” in connection with the plays: he believes that the texts can speak on their own, and the actors tell them well interpreted, besides it he signs the contemporary nature of them only with some smaller and bigger signs. For example with Marquis de Posa’s (who refers to himself as the “civilian of the future) more modern, ordinary costume, the presence of an orange tree, as natural surrounding but it can be a political reference too, or the grotesque, radio reporters of Egmont, who always broadcast the happening – punctually only between the songs.

The two performances are as much different from one another as their surroundings too: in the royal court, Don Carlos, who is wandering with his rucksack in the chinaware shop of protocol. His performance is more ordered, text centralised, than in case of Egmont, on the other side of the barricade, he goes between the simple sons of the society, this performance is a wild, endlessly full of ideas element of a chain on the halfway between the prosaic and post-dramatic theatres. In the two performances not only the high level of the actors’ performances but their qualities are permanent: we can tell, that it is not about the performances, or even about the deep transformations, but it is about the extension of the actors’ own personalities. The viewers can have the feeling, that if they stood up from their chairs, and they would ask a relevant question from Ákos Orosz, who is ageing intensely as Marquis de Posa or Egmont, the actor remained in his role, but he could answer with arguments, which are not in the text. Or as it was not Erika Tankó, or the naïve lover of Egmont, Clara, but a third one, who has been formed of the two of them, who would stand for half an hour in her desperation, leaning to the frame of the window, without any movements. It is good that in the Base of Maladype, only a room is the place of the performance, and we are sitting only a metre or two away from the central circular bench (first, in the middle of it an orange tree is growing, then a studio of a radio): that way the sparks, which appear sometimes between the actors, can be caught discreetly. Erika Tankó (Queen Elizabeth) and Károly Kuna, the king have some pair fights to settle the power relations, during them, for example, when Tankó hits the tree, Kuna involuntarily jumps back. Or in case of Ákos Orosz’s Marquis de Posa and Tankó’s madam, whose mouth, which are full of the questions of existence, hardly reach each other, and from that point, when finally their hands reach each other (because in this performance Elizabeth seems to be in love with Posa and not with Carlos).

Zoltán Balázs also plays with the narrowness of the place of Don Carlos: during all scenes, everybody is – except for the Grand Inquisitor, who appears in the end – sitting around the tree, and who is in the scene in reality, according to the play, those stand up or at least change their positions. That way we can never be sure, that those, who should not, may be able to hear the happenings, what they are talking about: this uncertainty gives some excitement to the performance, the idea makes it elevate and makes it theatrical, that way, that it does not want to pretend the illusion, but trust in the viewers to create it.

In case of Zoltán Balázs’ Don Carlos, the focus it neither the love struggle, of the princes, who is in love with his stepmother, nor the tension between the king, who rightfully suspicious, and his close family, but Posa and Philip’s long argument. That picture is extremely strong and allows many interpretations, when the king tries to fill the marquis’ mouth with more and more oranges, while he predicts a new world order, and criticizes the present one. Posa and Carlos has a friendship, or something even deeper than it, and it becomes important from this point of view: to open the king’s eyes anyway, the important thing is to lead him toward the good way. Impressive, as Ákos Orosz so enthusiastically, meanwhile clearly and with punctual interpretation tells his text during the four and half an hour of the two performances: he gives the message that we can hardly recognise, when he is executed, as his idea has already been there permanently, everywhere.

Erika Tankó forms a very strong woman from Elizabeth; someone, who can rules the place without any words, if she wants to. That way, it is even more exciting, when she is deliberately weak, and pretends herself to be a fragile one, and she is, when even if not because of her aura but in a natural way, but from the royal status or position she can get about it. Károly Kuna’s Philip is an interesting figure: narrow-mindedness is far from him. He sees the things clearly, he is looking for the new effects, but – and it is frightening in connection with him, and those type of people with power, who he stands in for – he consciously chooses the “more tyrannical” solutions, and not in a predetermined way, because of the force of his royal position. Zoltán Lendváczky’s Carlos is empty-headed at the beginning, he seems to be a teenager, who risks everything – in his case the improvement of his identity is the most interesting one, as in front of us, this almost-man, who at the beginning of the performance, in the pose of a new-born baby, does not care about anything, becomes harder and a potential political man. Gabriella Varga, who performs the Princess of Eboli, who is in love with him, gives a woman, who is moving between extremities: from her naïve, enthusiastic lover, after the refusal, she becomes a petty, spiteful fury, who does not think about the result of her acts. László Keszég’s Alva here and in the Egmont too, is the eternal watcher, who moves only, when he has a punctual plan, he is hard to be influenced, and he is not led at all by his feelings. In case of Gyöngyi Blasek’s many smaller roles, the transformations are wonderful: she is equally authentic as a foolish child, an inquisitor, who has frightening authority, as a worrying mother and as a real retired one.

The lightness of Egmont after the weight of Don Carlos is almost refreshing – only almost, as the idea is the same in this case too, and the announcer of it is executed here too finally. Egmont is the inverted version of Don Carlos, but it show the two sides of the tyrannical measures and not of the coin, there they show the forming of decisions, here the endurance of the decisions. There the secretiveness of those, who are in the darkness, between great dangers, and the two of them can hardly stay together, here – by the broadcasting of the radio – the full and perfect openness without any secrets is what is characteristic. There the inner opponents, here they are from the outside. There the rigid strictness, here the joyfulness of the rebellious ones, their cocaine-filled parties, the chasing of the skirts. There everybody has still known accurately, that all pronounced words have their own results – here even during the execution, in the radio they are talking about the process of making squash stew.

All these laziness, civilian nature, weightlessness can be expressed perfectly by Gábor Jászberényi and Gabriella Varga’s duo in the radio, with their live performed Hungarian and international hits, and continuous gossiping. Of course, it gives a very special atmosphere to the performance, as there is not any so important monologue, during which we cannot listen to the FM of the Low Countries – the fizzing on the stage is unusual and exhilarating. However, they can work on the more important sentences, to make them hearable all the time, and they cannot get lost in the live-music.

The great amount of humour of course cannot make us forget, but finally even more emphasize the tragic side of the things: that a lazy cut of the power, can get the head of the rebellious one, while the resistance was the most important thing in his life, on which countries would be able to be built. We can only hope that the idea is similar to the manuscript in case of Bulgakov: if it is said once, it cannot be burnt of executed.

Bálint Kovács, Ellenfény, 2012

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)