Enikő Gergics: Violence and instead of it
Open-Air Stage of Városmajor, Szemle Plus
However, there is not any physical violence in The Suit, which has been made as a co-production of METTRIN and Maladype Theatre, there is not any lack of aggression neither in the cheated husband’s nor in the punished wife’s story, and especially in case of the musical composition by Adrián Kovács. Zoltán Balázs goes on with Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon’s stage adaptation, which has been put on stage in Europe by Peter Brook for the first time. The lead-in conversation enlightens mostly this original myth and the circumstances of its formation, and it cannot fulfil so well that function, to be able to lead the viewers into performance, which can be really seen, but maybe it is not so necessary.
The Suit is full of performing passion, inspired and exciting ideas and overwhelming energy, the distancing nature of the strange language and the musical surrounding of the “jazz-opera” support the hidden and underlying statements, but in spite of its qualities, sometimes it seems to be incomplete. It is a very original idea too, that the suit, which has been left behind by her lover, which as a punishment, the unfaithful Matilda has to treat as a live man and always hosts it, by the performance of Ferenc Fehér, dancer, becomes alive in reality too. It is twisted a little bit because Ferenc Fehér performs the suit and the lover as well, and the difference between the two I does not become obvious for the first time, the lover seems to be presented in the scene for long before Ferenc Fehér puts on balaclava and takes the role of the suit clearly. Maybe it is difficult because Matilda’s unfaithfulness is mostly because of the loneliness of the role of the wife, and of the missing shining and excitement of her previous career as a singer, and it is not because of the lover himself. The lover does not even tell anything, Ferenc Fehér just moves his mouth for the dialogue, which Csilla Radnay sings alone, and from the point of the movements on stage, the technical appearance of the suit is brilliant, however from the point of dramaturgical fixation it is less punctual.
Csilla Radnay’s fascinating performance as an actress and singer does not mean just the performance of Matilda, but almost the creation of the whole atmosphere of the performance. Philemon’s cheated nature, as Barna Kelemen Bányai performs him, is hurting, but his always intensively threatening presence is preceded by the act as the unaware, happy husband, with almost childish happiness of life, can be seen in the way as Philemon starts his day. Barna Kelemen Bányai on his own leads an entertaining dialogue with his friends, who are travelling together with him by bus.
The visual appearance is stylizer, but it is very thick and full of stimulus. In Daniella Sovány’s costume designs the African culture first appears as some referring spice, than Matilda’s headscarf is a little bit too much, they seem to change their clothes continuously in the ominous rib cage-like forest of the set, which was designed by Zoltán Balázs himself. At a point, Philemon tells by words, that there will not be any physical violence here, the suit as the tool of psychological warfare is there to stand in for the physical violence, so its deputy embodiment.
If we treat it that way, then we do not need to understand fully the cultural and social context of the story, which happens during the time of apartheid, in which for this woman and for this couple this humiliation means inevitably the destruction finally.
Enikő Gergics, Élet és Irodalom, 2026
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
However, there is not any physical violence in The Suit, which has been made as a co-production of METTRIN and Maladype Theatre, there is not any lack of aggression neither in the cheated husband’s nor in the punished wife’s story, and especially in case of the musical composition by Adrián Kovács. Zoltán Balázs goes on with Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon’s stage adaptation, which has been put on stage in Europe by Peter Brook for the first time. The lead-in conversation enlightens mostly this original myth and the circumstances of its formation, and it cannot fulfil so well that function, to be able to lead the viewers into performance, which can be really seen, but maybe it is not so necessary.
The Suit is full of performing passion, inspired and exciting ideas and overwhelming energy, the distancing nature of the strange language and the musical surrounding of the “jazz-opera” support the hidden and underlying statements, but in spite of its qualities, sometimes it seems to be incomplete. It is a very original idea too, that the suit, which has been left behind by her lover, which as a punishment, the unfaithful Matilda has to treat as a live man and always hosts it, by the performance of Ferenc Fehér, dancer, becomes alive in reality too. It is twisted a little bit because Ferenc Fehér performs the suit and the lover as well, and the difference between the two I does not become obvious for the first time, the lover seems to be presented in the scene for long before Ferenc Fehér puts on balaclava and takes the role of the suit clearly. Maybe it is difficult because Matilda’s unfaithfulness is mostly because of the loneliness of the role of the wife, and of the missing shining and excitement of her previous career as a singer, and it is not because of the lover himself. The lover does not even tell anything, Ferenc Fehér just moves his mouth for the dialogue, which Csilla Radnay sings alone, and from the point of the movements on stage, the technical appearance of the suit is brilliant, however from the point of dramaturgical fixation it is less punctual.
Csilla Radnay’s fascinating performance as an actress and singer does not mean just the performance of Matilda, but almost the creation of the whole atmosphere of the performance. Philemon’s cheated nature, as Barna Kelemen Bányai performs him, is hurting, but his always intensively threatening presence is preceded by the act as the unaware, happy husband, with almost childish happiness of life, can be seen in the way as Philemon starts his day. Barna Kelemen Bányai on his own leads an entertaining dialogue with his friends, who are travelling together with him by bus.
The visual appearance is stylizer, but it is very thick and full of stimulus. In Daniella Sovány’s costume designs the African culture first appears as some referring spice, than Matilda’s headscarf is a little bit too much, they seem to change their clothes continuously in the ominous rib cage-like forest of the set, which was designed by Zoltán Balázs himself. At a point, Philemon tells by words, that there will not be any physical violence here, the suit as the tool of psychological warfare is there to stand in for the physical violence, so its deputy embodiment.
If we treat it that way, then we do not need to understand fully the cultural and social context of the story, which happens during the time of apartheid, in which for this woman and for this couple this humiliation means inevitably the destruction finally.
Enikő Gergics, Élet és Irodalom, 2026
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)