(Chamber Theatre of Budapest, Tivoli; Bárka Theatre)

The viewers from Budapest could watch two Hamlet premiere a few kilometres from one another within six weeks. (At least the determined members of it, who are ready for this kind of parallel theatrical experiencing).

One of them – the performance of the Chamber Theatre in Budapest, directed by János Sándor – tries to hold a mirror with the tragedy to the our present, which does not offer more attractive life circumstances than Denmark with its out of joint time, it expresses the hopelessness which reaches over centuries by the lonely one against the powerful political plays. The other one – the performance of Bárka Theatre, which was put on stage by Tim Carroll – plays with the theatrical situation itself, it treats the material not as a classical one, which needs explanation, but as a play, which suitable for spontaneous situation practices by actors. From the point of view of the performers’ aim the performances are similar to one another in only one thing: both of them use the translation by János Arany. According to the realization, there is one more parallel between the two performances: the act by the actors, who play Hamlet – for different reasons – but they are separated from the others.

The lonely hero

In Tivoli the performance starts with Claudius’ apotheosis as a politician and leader: while the king is coming on the stage together with his wife and followers, from outside speeches of a celebration can be heard. On Claudius’ (Levente Törköly) face there is satisfaction – the machine of the state runs well. The royal couple’s behaviour is pragmatic, they are similar to successful entrepreneurs, who handle their things with normal loyalty and their – well-selected – people. The people in the court are all grey, both their dresses and behaviour: they are all yuppies in graphite grey suits, ties, with back combed hair, who are always ready to form a lazy saving circle around the appearing king. If needs, they have another strong man with wilder appearance, in boots and leather clothes on standby. The royal couple get red brocade coats from the same material, as accessories to their grey elegant outlook from Márta Jánoskúti, the clothes designer, which suit only to someone with strict posture and confident behaviour. (When the king during the scene of praying pushes himself to the ground his red coat follows his movements without its wings.)

In this world, everything seems to be dependent on the question of organisation: the old Hamlet was in way. He had to be killed. Cannot they teach the younger one? The plan is ready how can they get rid of him. It is easy to find helpers for the implementation, however Rosencrantz (Attila Dolmány) and Guildenstern (Ferenc Kovács), mostly the later one from them, shows honest signs of hesitation, but it makes their voluntary and disciplined informing service more determined. On an emphasised point of the place (on one of the way above) they tell the dialogue about the total meaningless nature of the fights, at present, and about that political narrow-mindedness that has led there – but these powerful words have no results on the usual cringing, which is characteristic of the everyday life in the court.

Horatio (Soma Zámbori) with his appearance and outlook suits perfectly into the same kind of courtiers: however on the level of words he stands next to Hamlet, he serves him, he is always ready to get into the group of those, who are loyal to the power: when the king, with his followers, and the also Hamlet are on stage, he does not stand close to Hamlet, but he gets into the members of the followers. When the person of the future arrives with careless steps, in sunglasses, the flippant and conceited Fortinbras (Zoltán Dózsa), Horatio – after he has kicked away brutally the dead Hamlet – knows immediately, where he has to stand.

Lajos Bertók’s Hamlet has no connection to the world around it, for the first sight. His lighting eyes, sensitive face and characteristic appearance – white shirt, bright trousers, and millimetre long hair – all tell about his natural outstanding character. He misses all the characteristics that make the members of the court so similar to one another; but he has the need of questioning and the ability to accept exercises. According to the force of the situation, without any heroic posture, but he accepted the fight with belief against cynicism and adventure of time that is out of joint. His scenes with the actors show him to be freely witty, he might become an excellent artist and philosopher, if he escaped from Denmark to Wittenberg. And then he could get rid of the distortions of his personality, which are also emphasised in his performance: he steps into Ophelia’s soul with extreme cruelty (there is in it the feeling of better if it is worse, which he can experience); and then by accident he stabs Polonius, he does not show even the smallest regret – he becomes sinful from more points of view during his fight against the sin.

The significant element of Bertók’s Hamlet performance the unemotional natural behaviour: He tell János Arany’s lines self-evidently, which I have never heard before, that way we cannot feel the patinated expressions beautiful because of elevated nature and celebrated solemnity, but on the contrary because of the simple nature of statements, behind them there is the perfect organisation of the interpretation of text and expression. Bertók makes Shakespeare and János Arany our contemporary that he does not put nothing direct, modern from the outside world neither into the performance, nor into the telling of the text. His loneliness and intellectual sensitivity the acceptance of "those have to go to hell” through the very accurate opening of situations, naturally, becomes complete on its own.
The main value of the performance, directed by János Sándor, is Lajos Bertók’s acting, whose meeting up with the role is not the first one, but – as many told, who watched the performance in Zsámbék one and half years ago – he had the power to reform his earlier performance. His loneliness on stage does not just define the interpretation of the role, but at the fulfilment by an actor it is really characteristic to the performance, which main disability it is. Between the side characters only two remarkable performances were born: Levente Törköly has his own special personality – he does not show chiselled operation of soul, he quotes an ordinary boss’ behaviour – as Claudius and Zsolt Körtvélyessy’s Polonius, who shows enthusiasm and worry behind the compromising clownery. The other characters are really weightless, they are not even without any false sounds, and these can create very odd situations especially in case of the scenes by Horatio, Gertrud (Zsuzsa Szilágyi) and Ophelia (Linda Verebes) – who is similar to a giant kid, dressed in netted stockings by the costume designer. The set (János Mira’s work) tried to make advantages from the disadvantages of the place, when he works with the above and under, inside and outside places; but the grave, which is there from the first moment of the performance, if it is a symbol, then it is oversimplifying, if it is technique of stage (or the lack of it) then it is a depressing solution, which does not get its meaning even in the suitable scene during the gravediggers’ badly imitated digging work.

The whole world is a game

A funny board game is going on in Bárka Theatre. Except for Hamlet, they draw the roles before the performance from the enlisted possibilities of the programme; the drawn actors play in their own dresses, and when they are not on stage, they are waiting for their scene at some point of the stage. A draw helps decide the places of five scenes; in the place, which is designed by Judit Csanádi, and which is divided well with podiums and carpets, the viewers can put their chairs where they want – except for the place, which has been drawn to be the stage. The viewers get involved in the formation of stage personally, that excessively that they have to bring some kind of objects or music with themselves: from the earlier ones the actors, from the later ones the music designer Béla Faragó choose during the performance. Together with the useful tools – or without them – sometimes the viewers get involved in the actions too.

Because of all these the performance is similar to a students’ performance, it is an improvisational scale of pranks: a chain of situational practises, the collection of ideas, which were born in the place, it is all surprise, both the acting partners and the viewers too. “It was Hamlet, here and now that way” – as a side character, who is a master of ceremony at the same time, summarises it at the end of the performance, she refers to the one occasion like nature of their performance. The viewers – the average age can be between twenty and twenty-five – understand it; they appreciate that they are got involved into something form, which they stay out in an “ordinary” theatre. I cannot tell, that how much they can take care of the story of the tragedy; but we can believe that most of them – at least those viewers who are older than sixteen, most of them are at that age – have already known well (?) the play.

The director talked about the unexpected situations, which were natural in the theatre of Elizabethan era, on the day of the premiere in a radio interview, he told that then anything anytime could happen because of the openness of the buildings and the viewers’ reactions, who were standing close to the stage. He said that the performance of Bárka is based on this kind of artistic readiness, on spontaneity. After it I personally expected, that the impulses from the viewers and the answers to them from the stage would influence the flow of the performance. However, when in the hall we could hear the usual warning about the switching off the mobile phones, I had to realise that nothing like this would happen there. And in reality, one viewer did not react well-behaved to the involvement into the game, or on the contrary with his enthusiasm he even told something – all things stopped, as all these had not been taken into consideration. Seemingly, the director decided that the rehearsal period, which was built on some kind of improvising exercises, would be finished with a (mostly) similar performance, and he matched the theatrical historical explanation to it. If the material is Hamlet, and not any other play, it can be an accident, but there is a reason too: as an important aspect of Hamlet’s role, that he plays – he pretends madness – and other characters can connect to his play too.

Zoltán Balázs’ Hamlet in T-shirt and jeans is the only stable point of the performance – meaning the undoubled role and his performance’s drive too by it. The two are connected obviously: if for someone it is not a question who he will perform that evening - and he searches for spontaneous ideas from this position – he can obviously have more balanced performance than those who know before the beginning of the performance, that they will have only a scene with a few lines or an important role that evening. Balázs’ Hamlet has teenager-like appearance and habitus. He is de-fetishized. Sometimes he is over-moving and extravagant – his ideas of game are connected to it: the provocation of his opponents, the embarrassment of the viewers, who can be the people from the court; meanwhile anybody can expect that he will talk into his face, pushes something into his hands unexpectedly, or even jumps into his lap. His great monologue with silent words talks about the everyday fear of death.

The other characters’ performances – we talk about the best actors of Bárka, who have proved a lot – are sometimes forced into the background by the ideas, usually based on jokes. Gabi Varga’s Ophelia, without any tools does not need any louder jokes (her parallel partner, Kinga Mezei sat through resignedly both performances, I watched: she always got Fortinbras’ role). Kriszta Szorcsik’s Gertrud had the most wonderful scene together with Hamlet: here the actors left almost all outside tools, and that way they created the possibility of the intimate concentration to one another. Olga Varjú’s performance – showed a prouder and stronger Gertrud – was about the difficulties of the artistic loosening up. Zoltán Seress as Claudius seemed to be even more vulnerable than the others to the situation, that the performance is conceptually lack of interpretation of the play and the roles. (His alternative, Attila Egyed in both performances I watched, got the role of the Actor King.) Both to Polonius and the First gravedigger – József Czintos played one in one performance, than the other in the other one – the humour could be matched more easily, the actor used it creatively, however his performance made the characters, who would be very different from one another, really similar.

Between the properties in the performance the plus animal toys, the balls and globes in different size, the hats, the beer bottles and boxes and many snacks were over represented. So some parts of the ideas were many times similar to the other, which had been tried before; Gertrud’s poisonous glass was once a peeled banana, than an opened chocolate Santa Clause with broken head. The scull was a tennis ball, which could be thrown up to the cloths, stretched above the stage and opened in the middle, then it was a football and a pillow, which formed a turtle, which can be kicked and thrown on the ground. Gertrud, while she was waiting for Hamlet, once was eating scone or drinking mineral water.

When they could find an unexpected solution with multiple meaning, which enriched the situation well, those became memorable moments of the performance. (I wish there would have been more of them!) It was for example, when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stabbed Hamlet full with sticks; when Hamlet tided himself with a tape, than pushed Ophelia to himself, on the same way, or when Hamlet and Claudius without any words, made a dialogue with folk dance-like elements, with the expression of anger from one side, and of incomprehension from the other one.

I am sure that for the actors the rehearsal period was a useful training, the practice of the improvising technique of performance, the improvement of concentration. I believe anyway, that it would be the director’s responsibility to form a complete performance from these creative ideas finally. (My all-time favourite from this genre was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by János Csányi, as the opening performance of Bárka Theatre.) Of course, other performances on the repertoire would go towards this kind of solution; anyway, the time, which has spent since the premiere, proves the opposite of it. Now the viewers collectively get involved in the formation of the sound effects, into applauses together and there is a point, when we have to leave the theatre hall to go on with the performance on another place, between the prepared sets of the performance tomorrow.
After all these one I would like to watch with pleasure, what Tim Carroll – the director of Globe Theatre in London – thinks about Hamlet.

Adrienne Dömötör, Criticai Lapok, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

The theatre as genre has many risks in it, but to perform the first play by a contemporary writer, or a classical one from the student’s book – can result in an action with special level of danger. Bárka Theatre has made experiments with both of them, but up to now the “palm” is for the modern ones. The classical one can hardly sit in the boat.

Tim Carroll, the director to avoid the Hamlet trap made a drama play from it, at least tried to do it. Everybody knows the story, so the question is not about the “what” but about the “how”. The actors’ roles change from performance to performance: for example, they decide with a draw, that József Czintos would be Polonius or the gravedigger. Then the viewers have to take different noise maker tools with them, which the actors can use. Another performance is born every evening: we can never watch two similar ones. It is a brave experiment, it is a fresh realization of some classical texts “given meanings”, that we do not watch the performance, because we are interested in the heroes’ motivations, feelings and passions. Mostly we come to a Hamlet ceremony, and we do not take care of the quality of realization.

The troupe of Bárka Theatre tries to treat Hamlet as a text of a rite, which does need any explanation. They could choose any similarly emblematic text or they could change the plays too, if there were not some kind of annoying static thing in the performance. It is strange to talk about direction in case of a performance which is built on the actual dynamic between the actors and viewers, anyway: Tim Carroll put this performance on stage, however he would like to keep the appearance of improvisation. There are some accidental elements, but the structure is fixed, and the text is fixed too: the whole Hamlet has to be told word by word, and there is any joke in it.

The audience fills the whole Fencing Hall: we are sitting on podiums, and the actors are performing between the lines, on the earlier formed corridors. In the huge, diversely formed area some smaller and bigger frontal auditoriums are formed, where the scenes can go on without any greater complications. From time to time, when they ask we have to show those objects, which we have carried with us, but it can activate the viewers nicely, it can build the community feeling. There is not any assault, they might watch well into the eyes of those, who sit in the first line. There is not any fault in the actors’ machine, but in the fixed parts of the direction. It is improvisational, but it is not, it lets them play then do not do it. The troupe “pass” it wonderfully: they are natural all over it, they can form a nice feeling of home, it is a pleasure to watch them concentrating. It is an experience, that we can watch from so close their work. (The experience can be thanked for the good choice of place too...) They do their job coordinated, they form the actions, they cannot do anything else, they cannot leave the conventions of the play. They have freedom to sit in some viewers’ laps or they can grab an interesting object (red vine, lemon, apple, children toy) and they can take their partners to the play.

Zoltán Balázs lives mostly with this freedom: maybe he is the most unpredictable element. His eyes move, always watches, reacts, turns around, searches the accidental things, the strange situations. He starts games causes tingle. As a main character he can do it, as others ensure the operation. His artistic virtue and technique are impressive. Hamlet is convincing: he is playful and masculine anyway. He gives a strange mixture of power and softness, while he seems to be a “simply boy from the square in jeans and trainers”. He brings the performance on his shoulders, he accepts many and gives a lot. He really plays. The whole performance can be more playful, if Tim Carroll left more freedom for his actors, if he trusted them more. This troupe is now similar to a sleeping volcano: their energies are about to erupt. Only some names: Kinga Mezei, Kriszta Szorcsik, Gábor Nagypál, József Czintos, Erik Ollé, and all the others.

The Bárka Theatre is before changes: we are waiting for it curiously, and hope that the spirit of experiments can remain – more bravely, more individually, and we are waiting for the possibility for the members of the troupe to be able to shown finally their power, their still dormant, fresh energy.

Melinda Sőregi, Kontextus.hu, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

Thanks God nobody brought a skull, so prince Hamlet on Saturday assessed the poor worm-eaten Yorick’s – and all people’s together with him – fate with a bellows in his hand. Anyway, the viewers of Weöres chamber season tickets from Szombathely, passionately and witty fulfilled the advance appeal, according to which everybody tried to take a CD and some properties for the Hamlet guest performance of Bárka Theatre from Budapest, which is said to be a theatrical experiment on the programme. However, it is a real performance of flesh and blood.

The story is that the actors go on stage, which – with some free ways – is formed also by the viewers from evening to evening, in their civil dresses, without any properties. Then with draws and rock-paper-scissors game the viewers decide, who plays which role – one actor has learnt more – then finally they show up the objects, they bring, which would get into the performance in a successful way. Tim Carroll the main director of Shakespeare Globe Theatre in London, did not leave everything to chance: there is only one Hamlet – he is always the extraordinary suggestive Zoltán Balázs, who states the importance of the convoluted tragedy with his hyperactive personality. The total failure. The Danish prince always tries to do something, while he cannot do anything. If he does, then he does it accidentally. (To be or not to be. To do or not to do. What is the difference?)

Anyway, the fate is unpredictable: it cannot be known that from the premiere in December 2005 has the troupe had a statistic, about the fact, that how many times does one person get a role, anyway on Saturday József Czintos did not even get a chance to be the silly innocent Polonius with his wide eyes. It was said that during the last two month the draw gave this role to him, so it was time to his partner, to Béla Gados to come his turn. Nóra Parti could not come, so Kinga Mezei had to play Ophelia. The lack of the other possible Ophelia was good for those, who has seen the performance – with another cast. For example, in Pula, in the Bárka-harbour of the Valley of Arts in summer, where the local church and its surroundings gave an interesting and effective place for the development of the tragedy. (Where Gabi Varga played one of the Ophelia, but since then she has gone from Bárka Theatre.)

Who knows why, but for second watching, the drawing of characters and the game (no matter who interesting they are) with the spontaneously chosen tools seemed to be fancy decoration on the performance which was very direct and from many points of view, bare, which anyway could give a (re)new meaning to János Arany’s wonderful translation. (Of course, the aim of the game is the joy itself. If you like that way, the game is self-serving. The good thing in it, that it has not got any aim.) Meanwhile: on Saturday it happened twice that objects got meaning – besides that they illustrated well the important topic, as on stage “everything can be everything”, it just has to be used well, as that time we experience the time of suspension of our unbelief (as we could see, instead of the scull it could be anything else).

The Viking helmet with horn first got on the Actor King’s head – when Attila Egyed appeared in the role of the old Hamlet’s ghost – indicated with it the reason of the king’s death and the base situation of the tragedy. Then the helmet got to the young Hamlet: as it (would) be his task to put the dislocated time back into its place. Maybe it was not an accident that Kinga Mezei, in the role of Ophelia returned back to the same tools in her madness, with which she playfully said goodbye to her leaving brother – in that evening to Tibor Mészáros – at the beginning of the performance: at the end the slipper in the role of flowers and the hat of the Santa Clause quoted back wonderfully Laertes’ – and with him, their poorly ended father’s, Polonius’ – “good advices”, about Hamlet’s courtship, which could not be taken seriously.

Claudius was played by the blade, Zoltán Seress (would be good to see Attila Egyed too), Gertrud was Kriszta Szorcsik (it must be exciting with the harsher Olga Varjú too), Laertes was Erik Ollé in Szombathely. Guildenstern-Rosenkrantz – they can be mixed up – they were played by Róbert Kardos and Gábor Nagypál. It was special that during the performance we could examine one another too. That how someone gave or did not himself to the play. At the end, the audience celebrated the troupe for long: actors came to bow at least five times. Varga Anikó, who was also the master of the performance, invited next to her that little boy, who became a character of the performance. It is for sure, that it remained a memorable evening for him. He fell in love with theatre.

Lívia Ölbei, Vas Népe, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

I have seen so much in Gyula. The performance of Bárka Theatre, the guest performance of the Georgian Rustaveli National Theatre, and the exam performance by the graduating students of the University of Theatre Art. In this later one twelve Hamlets were on the stage at the same time. The performances cannot be compared with one another from any point of views, I hardly have the chance to watch such a colourful selection.

Tim Carroll, who was the art director of Globe Theatre in London until 2005, he composed the performance in Bárka with the idea of “here and now”. They drew the cast on stage, the actors build in the performance those tools and music, which the viewers have brought, so they even involve the viewers into some really embarrassing moments. Those who are playful and enthusiastic are in favour! It sounds very exciting so far. The question is, that what kind of effect does the director want to bring up with the performance. If his aim is to introduce a specific interpretation of Hamlet and a pedagogical method, then it is a very exciting experiment. If he wants to entertain, he can do it. But if his aim is to make Hamlet “happen”, then the final result is still far away.

First of all it can happen that there are actors, who can fulfil this conception, but the troupe of Bárka cannot now. There are only a few good improvisers, for Tim Carroll’s idea needs the high-level possession of this ability – otherwise there would not be a tragedy but a market place-like comedy. I have watched the performance twice, in Bárka – mostly because of the advantages of the smaller place and home stage – it was much more convincing than the one in Gyula, which fell into apart by the castle walls as the result of the creative director’s idea. It took the actors into dangerous, the viewers into very uncomfortable situation, while it became clear that only a well-known stage could hold together the performance. After these two performances I would not dare to draw a far-reaching conclusion about Tim Carroll’s “genius” pedagogical method, I recognised nothing else just the hidden possibilities in Zoltán Balázs. It was not an accident that his performance was awarded by Miklós Gábor Award. The improvisation remained primitive in almost ninety-eight percent of the ideas – for example, I eat the cake, I answer the phone, I destroy bread in my visible agony – it does not worth basing a performance on the remaining two percent. Of course it is not the actors’ shame or their dissatisfaction, for this kind of exercises they have been trained neither by the university nor by Hungarian theatrical traditions. The performance is a good example for the fact, that we should not underrate improvisation, and we should not do it just for improvisation itself. It has meaning only if it gets its ideas from the material. On the festival closing, master course, which was led also by Tim Carroll we could find out precisely that its learning needs much longer time and another way of thinking and attention. We can understand why the performance by Bárka cannot work properly. The actors do not have enough energy for the content.

The question comes up: if the director trusts the troupe so much, why does not he handle the cast more generously? Of course, it is just the advertisement, that everybody plays every role. Hamlet can be only Zoltán Balázs. Kriszta Szorcsik and Olga Varjú share the roles of Gertrud and the Actor Queen, Kinga Mezei and Gabi Varga the roles of Ophelia and Fortinbras, while Zoltán Seres of Attila Egyed can be Claudius. Polonius can be played by József Czintos and Béla Gabos. The other roles are pulled out of the hat by the participants according to smaller rules. Who may be interested in Hamlet by Róbert Kardos, or in Ophelia by Kamilla Fátyol, is waiting for nothing, so the game is ruined that way – the bets are too small.

Carroll’s uncourageous half solution was enlightened insolently in the same evening by the performance, directed by Andor Lukáts. He agreed to do twelve Hamlets, and even that in each scene someone else plays each role. He would like to form the unified whole from the different parts, which is a nice idea, but it remained that way. None of them dare to mix the genders. Lukáts’ performance is an exam performance, without the fulfilment of a conception it remains a group of situation practices, it is more interesting than “possible to compete”. Some things come up from it anyway. For example, that Péter Nagy can be an exciting Hamlet in few years – his fight with his mother is the hardest scene of the performance, in this formation it was the strongest one too. The prince’s ungracefulness and shyness by László Barnák can be imagined as a base of a whole performance, the story could get a special interpretation with it. Lehel Kovács, who was hired freshly to the József Katona Theatre, is a much better Rosencrantz than Hamlet or Claudius, Balázs Mózes is a little bit hectic, János Mercs is weak in all roles now. Csaba Krisztik is the secret of future, he is remarkable from any points of view, but he is not stunning in anything. It can be experienced in the performance of the whole class well, that for Andor Lukáts the annoying speech disorders – I would say in some cases unsolvable ones – do not mean any drawback. Now after the graduation many boys still lisp or they are lisping. Only two things are worrying in it: the tendency, and if they have not been able to improve their disorder (as they are actors, this expression can be used) so far, can they have the will and patient to do it now. For example, one of the greatest actor of all time, Lajos Őze, overcame well before his university years his serious stuttering. That way he was tend to do it even afterwards outside the stage.

All that sense of lack, which have come up in connection with Hamlets of the term, can be replaced by Robert Sturua and the performance by the Georgian National Theatre. Everything has been done against it what could be: it started late, it was hot in the theatre, the air was steady, during the first scene broke down and remained that way the translation machine. But those who could leave the disturbing circumstances behind, could watch a really serious theatre. Sturua’s performance is perfect, the whole of it, it is like a brave, wild, expressive painting, which people can watch with open mouth while they have not been thrown out of the museum.

The actors are well-prepared, professionals, excellent. The choreography is composed till the last step, the lights go there and then when they have to. There are not any empty places, the whole stage is playing. There are not any useless tools, words or movements. It is punctual, over-thought and composed. The actors move together with the music, with the text, the rhythm, which is given by the play and the director is there all through the performance. This chamber-like performance, which is performed in a rather small place, gives the feeling of a monumental opera. Sturua does not explain Hamlet, he does not pack together the lesson or actual things of it into a three hours long performance. He is not interested in its moral and political darkness, not even in the Danish prince’s spiritual shades. He grabs the importance of it with the help of humour and poetry of the play. He elevates it. He knows well, why does he perform it. He does not fall on knees in front of the invulnerability of the text or of its structure. He bravely changes and cuts scenes. He shows Hamlet with an older actor than usual, and Gertrud with a much younger, than usually do. We cannot hear “to be or not to be”, and the killed Polonius comes back as a gravedigger.

There is not only one role, that is played around by everybody, but he derives Hamlet from his surroundings. In this prominent company nobody is more exalted than our hero is.

The curiosity of the performance is Gertrud’s character and Nino Kasradze’s play. The director puts a great emphasis on the queen, almost as big as on Hamlet, he interprets accurately her feelings, the motivations of her behaviour. Her personality is not obvious at all, she is rehabilitated from a certain point of view. Kasradze is that kind of actress, about whom Hungarian theatres can only dream nowadays. We cannot find words for the delight, which a couple of us could experience.

Robert Sturua’s success is not surprising. He has performed successfully Shakespeare and Brecht all over Europe. In 1992 he put on stage Hamlet in London, and the British Hamlet Society chose it into the ten best performances of fifty years. Another of his famous Hamlet performances was the one, which he directed in Satyricon in Moscow in 1998.

All of these are just short preview from the II. Shakespeare Festival, where the Hungarian viewers could also watch Hamlet directed by another great master of European theatre, by Eimuntas Nekrosius, which has been living its eleventh season. There was a Twelfth Night (István Örkény Theatre), Macbeth (Ballet from Győr), Introduction to III. Richard – in mode of Vladislav Trotsky. As a release the funs of movie could enrich their theatrical experiences with film showing, the lovers of fine arts, could watch János Kass’ graphic exhibition.

Unfortunately the Festival in Gyula is small for an international one. For the present. If József Gedeon and the selectors of the programmes of the festival can keep this standard from years to years, the Shakespeare Festival would become one of the most prestigious theatrical event in Hungary. Because for example, a Georgian guest performance like this would require on its on to organise, finance and support a festival for it.

Orsolya Kővári, Kritika, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

- Gyula: II. Shakespeare Festival –

There is not any motorway towards Gyula, it takes at least three hours to get there - Nekrosius, Korsunovas, Purcarete and/or Szturua need to make at least a part of the professionals to get into car or board a train. Then if people are there, the town is a nice host: there is one of the biggest beaches of the country, there are excellent restaurants, even if their opening time does not fit to the festival.

In Gyula they organised the second Shakespeare festival last summer, it was the „theme song” of the forty-third term of the Castle Theatre of Gyula. The almost two longs week series of events served enough sights to enlist believers and viewers – two foreign, outstanding men of the mainstream international theatre world are not enough to make József Gedeon, the director of summer theatre, wait for the next summer with more safety than his pure hope. Last year they offered Korsunovas and Purcárete, this year Nekrosius and Szturua to the professional inquirers, who were not many and the greater amount of viewers: with the foreign guest performances something really important, generous and European phenomenon appeared in Gyula.

Next to the two foreign great people in the latest term they invited one more guest: the director of the Csongor and Tünde, which was performed for the renovation of the theatre in Székesfehérvár, so they invited Vladiszlav Trockij, who performed with the DAKH Theatre of Kiev a mystery play, the Introduction to III. Richard (see it in our separate article). There was the SÖR too, in English language (The complete work of Shakespeare in shorter version), the performance, which was directed by Lázsló Mogács was witty, fast summary of Shakespeare, it can be seen here and there for many years.

The King’s Singers originally would have performed on the stage of the Castle Theatre; the six men with wonderful voices and perfect humour, performed their program finally in the church of the centre. In it, they put on stage stylistically some Renaissance madrigal too and we could listen to of course, the most grateful play of the turn Timepiece by Patterson.

There was a professional conference too, summer-like and short; with the moderation by Adrienne Nagy Darvay (whose book: Hamlet in the turn of the century appeared nowadays) there were not boring and unclear lectures one after another, but there were interesting reports. Gábor Máté, for example, talked about his wide-ranging experiences, as he had played both Hamlet and Polonius, and above it, in the set of the later one (about which Csörsz Khell made a presentation, encouraged by projection by computer) he directed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead by Tom Stoppard. András Demeter nowadays in Budapest, in one of the waiting rooms of the Western train station, talked about his adventurous journey of Hamlet, which can be seen in Temesvár too. Tim Carroll talked about his own Shakespeare-career, Robert Szturua in connection with Shakespeare, talked about his global theatrical experiences, in a witty and catchy way. All of it could happen during a morning, and people did not have to feel that they could not hear anything again...

The newly graduated students’ exam performance, the12 Hamlet, from the first Jordán-Lukáts class was also connected to the side events of the festival. For the performance, which was directed by Andor Lukáts first, they cut the play up, and then all young actors were given a great scene from it. That way, all of them were Hamlet, in the other scenes they were Polonius, Horatio, Laertes and the others. The performance was mostly about pedagogy and equal opportunities – so about all those things, which the profession does not take care of – and less about the play, Hamlet. About the result, must be told, that too many students graduated from this class – I do not remember if I have ever seen any art classes with so many members – and most of them would have many things to study. We saw so many Hamlet clichés, formed by superficial and formal gestures – those, who could watch through the too tiring long performance late in the evening.

In the last evening the festival hosted Macbeth by the Ballet from Győr, then the workshop-like production, which was led by Tim Carroll; in the last one, everybody could take place, who were around there, the enthusiastic reports were about many games and interesting work.

HAMLET 1.

Hamlet from Bárka Theatre was an interesting aspect of the last term: Tim Carroll interactive production thrilled up not only the actors, but the audience too. This later one – as forums on the internet report about it faithfully – treated their own participation as a real challenge, they talked excitedly about the tools and music they brought to the previous performance, and what would they take to the next one. Many of them can’t have been attracted by the so far unknown layers of the “To be or not to be” monologue by Zoltán Balázs, but mostly by the challenging new tools, which can raise the well-known risk-lover actor’s interest. It was true not only in case of Zoltán Balázs, but of the others too: the practises with the tools got over the role many times. Together with all these in Tim Carroll’s performance we could see Hamlet – that kind of Hamlet, which main character was not hesitating and indefinite at all, but really active. Anyway, he made many mistakes, at least as Hamlet. As a team leader – to continue the director’s football metaphor – he kept the controlling of the game in his hand, he told his will decisively to his partners, he improvised mostly well and he chose from the tools well (however in connection with this later one, Attila Egyed and Zoltán Seress were better from him, who played in turn Claudius and the Actor King).

I do not state that there is not a hidden, over thought Hamlet interpretation and the representation of diverse relationships in the performance by Bárka, but more elementally works in it a theatrical language, a playful form. As the performances are going on this seems to be stronger.

Next to the choosing of the tools and the drawing of the roles, the performance has one more characteristic: the choice of places, so the place of the play. In Gyula, the performance was thought out into the castle – this play did not let many variations (which are there, Attila Vidnyánszky used completely in Shakespeare-wreath last year). From the stage of the castle (apart from the offered corridors and stairs) was very difficult and hard to play the whole auditorium, both the play and the audience were hard to concentrate outside and the attention too.

The actors of Hamlet in the performance in Gyula tried to be more reserved from the point of view of the tools, they sacrificed the third act to the need of place changing. Most of the scenes, which were played on the side of the castle, fell simply apart, the pure technical formation (running over the moat, climbing on the wall and so on) used the actors more. The scene by Hamlet and Ophelia could not be heard or watched, Claudius’ prayer was out of the context, Hamlet’s great monologue disappeared into nothing while the frightened audience could watch only how Zoltán Balázs balanced on the top of wall of the castle, the most strictly way between the “to be or not to be” by words – at that moment, theatre disappeared. The fourth act we could watch again almost comfortably on the stage of the castle: it was an easy release, great relief. Hamlet died standing.

HAMLET 2.

Hamlet died standing also in the performance from the Lithuanian Meno Fortas Theatre, which was directed by Eimuntas Nekrosius – he fell on a stick, deadly. We could watch this performance six years ago in Theatre Víg – now it started its tenth term, in perfect condition – but many people came to Gyula to see it second time too.

They did it well: new characteristics, solutions by actors and directors could be seen, which were unrecognisable for the first time, which was sensational that time – that a rock star, Andrius Mamontovas played Hamlet – we do not even recognise today, it is playful – at least for this performance, for this role – he matured to be an actor. Yes, today it is more recognisable that how many perfect actors are around him; for example Vytautas Rumsas, who plays a strong, young Claudius, or Viktorija Kuodyte, who plays Ophelia.

The circus-like music together with the “Flea Waltz”, the ice-cold objective world, in the surrounding of shoes with metal fronts, there is surprisingly rich base of humour, there are many laughs and comedy. Ophelia is a really fresh and happy phenomenon in the “empire of ice”, who teases her brother, Laertes with joy, then rolls on the ground with Hamlet too, their playful silent scene forms from the artificial respiration to a kiss. Everyone gets involved in the comedy by the wondering actors, even Hamlet’s father’s ghost, in his thick fur coat.

The really strong theatrical jokes work beautifully: the glass broke up, when they need it, at the end of Claudius’ prayer; Polonius also suffocates well, after that Hamlet pushes into water that pipe, through which he would get air from his hiding place, the sword, which is pulled out of the melting ice-berg is really effective, as well as the white shirt, which melts, falls down from the hero during the great monologue.

I realised only now how important role is played by the dead father in Hamlet by Nekrosius: Hamlet never interiorises the ambition of revenge. No: this Hamlet during his strong father life, must have had a good time in his shadow, he lived his life without any problems, so the duty of justice by revenge, which his father’s ghost put on himself, pushed him away elementally. This ghost is very active and alive: he appears many times (only to Hamlet) to remind his weak son to his exercise. (The narrowing of the circles of characters can be explained by prioritizing the relationship between the father and son, as well as the leaving of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern too: they do not need any intrigue against Hamlet, he has bigger problems too...)

According to this interpretation, not only Hamlet’s struggle gets darker shade, but all of his acts, until his death, as all of them hard to do for him, they are against him. His father is the part of his tragedy, and Nekrosius with a fantastically effective, both in sound and picture strong, last scene, with some kind of epilogue puts the father against in the forefront, who looks at the army of dead people that way he knows: he is the fate himself. His last moment is about the tragic understanding: he does not want it that way. He robust actor throws this desperately into the infinite place of the darkening stage.

HAMLET 3.

The Georgian Hamlet pushes the tragedy from itself – at least its traditionally heavy, gloomy and irrevocable version. In the back part of the stage, between two curtains there are cabins, in them figures of shadow play appear at the begging of the performance, then actors step forward, only one figure remains inside, as it is floating over the ground with airy lightness, and another figure, a puppet is sitting in front of the curtain, and reading newspaper. He can be the doorman, who is waiting for the end of the performance, he would go home. From some point of view, he is.

Robert Szturua’s Hamlet is not the first one in the line, in his case, anyway: it is the seventh one. The third one at home, in Tbilisi, in Rusztavel Theatre. He had had four abroad – so far. One of them was chosen to be the best of all Halmets.

I think that Szturua’s Hamlets have told almost everything about the play, and the relationship between the play and the director too. This performance proves, that not all of them, it makes people wonder: there are ammunitions here for an eighth and even ninth Hamlet too.

It is true, that there are not any new possibilities on the field of interpretation. Szturua’s performance supposes the knowledge of the play – the great amount of stylistic changes indicate it, that many striking, virtuoso solutions, which do not strengthen each other, they do not even form a complex or one type of world, but they emphasize their formation elements, their theatrical nature, the mosaic nature of the play. It is similar to a carpet that covers the whole playground: it is stained. (The set and the costumes, which are from the same style are made by Mirian Shvelidze.) All elements have an important connection with the texture of drama, they can effect in connection with it.

For example: Gertrud is a real great lady, a mincer queen, in the values of whom the playing of roles is much more important than the persistence, the steady personality and other not trendy characteristics. Nino Kasradze’s performance a colour-changing, sparkling phenomenon comes to life, who is interested only in her appearance and performance. Who can tell that this interpretation is strange from Gertrud?

Claudius (Beso Zanguri) is her worthy partner. He is an alpha male, who does not kill for some great aims, for example for power, but because that way he can be the first in the line. He enjoys the set of reign, its spectacular surrounding, and he does not have any moral scruples. His prayer is an inventory mostly: let’s see what I have done to get here?

Hamlet (Zaza Papuashvili) is not a fiery youngster. He is not a youngster – he has jovial outlook, a little bit overweight and a little bit not too young man, who is not well in this royal court, however he tries to find his place in it in many forms. He starts the great monologue many times – than for the third time he fires the text up instead, as there is no mean to tell it (those can understand this scene for sure, who know, what is that Hamlet does not tell).

The performance is similar to the one, which would be performed by a troupe of wondering actors. Obviously that is why, that with their performance they play the real examples of the roles – so Gertrud and Claudius as well – so the actors follow them like shadow players. There is not any shock or cataclysm: even Hamlet does not play that the recognition and realisation would have any real steaks. The royal couple play their sinful action with professional activity and playful smile. Then Claudius starts immediately to pray.

Ophelia (Iamze Sukhitashvili) is an airy prima ballerina – she jumps and flutters, she does not really understand, what to the intriguers want from her, but then she obeys playfully. Anyway, in her love towards Hamlet there is not any joke, not even any funny lightness – the suddenly appearing gloominess covers the area of play. Ophelia dies and rises – or she does not die really, just in it...As Polonius does not do it too, later he is the gravedigger, and it does seem to be the result of thrift with the actors: Polonius philosophizes in the grave.

Polonius is similar to Shylock the most: his stooped figure, his hat and mentality cannot be accidental quote, according to me. As there are not anything by accident in the precisely – not only from the point of view of movement – choreographed performance: the changes are there to make us turn our eyes somewhere else.

Meanwhile, we look at the enervated puppet obviously in the back of the stage many times. Everyone can understand in his or her own tempo that Fortinbras is the one, who is reading newspaper in a bored way. But maybe the most experienced theatre habitats would be surprised, when – after their beautifully worked out, unpleasantly prolonged collective death – Hamlet comes back with springy steps, in Fortinbras-puppet’s costume, and without the smallest sing of emotional shock he ends the performance. Szturua is insolently easy-going, he is a great theatrical magician – he has extraordinary actors. I must remember: this Hamlet does (not) also die standing.

Judit Csáki, Színház, 2006

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

It is about the script of Hamlet in Bárka Theatre also about the Ghost, of course

The final performance of Hamlet in Bárka was on 4th June 2007, during one and half year there were sixty-eight performances of it. Tim Carroll, the English director’s work has been respected: critics have appreciated it, as “they usually do it with strangers”. Zoltán Balázs for the role of Hamlet got the Miklós Gábor Award in 2006 for the best Shakespeare performance.

However, between the nice acceptances there were voices, according to which they just fool around Hamlet, the properties move on the performance, the director has no conception, the performance is nothing more than game of forms and actor training. Judit Berki says for example: “the performance frees in a way Hamlet from Hamlet himself (not only from the accumulated clichés). The focus is on the properties, on the interactions between the viewers and actors, and between the actors, on the recognition of situation, on the next step and choice of the performers so much, that the text, the performance of the actors even in case of monologues are in the background. We can say that the choice of the play is accidental, almost any play can be useful for this kind of workshop practice.”

In Carroll’s direction anyway, both the actors’ performance and the text is very important. The actors’ play, which is based on improvisation, was so important in the performance that critics have mostly tried to write down and interpret it. The convention of improvisation, which was based on the fixed text and ruled by certain rules, has the aim to make the viewers and actors experience the birth of theatrical situation. The improvisation emphasises the plurality of the interpretation of the text, as it has given possibility from performance to performance to work out different situations. The central position of the text is shown by the formation of the script, which refers to detailed philological and theatrical historian readiness. The director emphasises strongly besides the careful formation of text, the understanding and telling of it, during the rehearsal period. It is result is that the actors of Bárka Theatre could understand their texts (which is a fresh experience in case of modern, Hungarian Shakespeare performing), as improvisational performance can be based only on detailed knowledge of the text. I do not argue with Judit Berki’s statement, that Carroll chose randomly the iconic play of European theatre history. For meta theatrical play needs a meta drama, to think over the traditional interpretation needs such a basic play, has (at least according to the clichés) wide cultural resonance.

Hamlet of Bárka Theatre both from the point of view of theatre history and theatre theory is an important performance. Carroll rethink the conventions of theatres from Shakespeare’s time and forms that kind of theatre, which interpret in a new way the relationship of auditorium and stage, and that way frees the performance from the most elements of peeking box-like theatre. The director did not make a difference between the auditorium and the stage, there was not a “fourth wall” in the performance, the actors performed between and with the viewers, without costumes, we cannot make difference between the viewers and the actors and the lights of room enlightened everybody.

Tim Carroll treated his direction of Hamlet in Budapest as a theatrical experiment. Carroll tried to raise the colourfulness, endless nature of the rehearsal period into the performances. He took theatre into its elements, and then put it together combinatorically again, that way that randomness would be resulted in more and more versions, and they could not fix one of them. In the performance, there were not choreographies of movements and dialogues, which could work from evening to evening: during the series of performances, the actors improvised varied situations to the same dialogue. The combinatory nature of it was supported by more elements. A draw helped to decide from scene to scene the formation of stage. Except for the role of Hamlet, the cast was chosen by a draw too. The actors learned their roles according to doubled or more casts: the viewers drew at the beginning of the performance, who played which role. The diversity and suddenness was strengthened by the fact that the viewers brought the properties and the music. The active participation of the viewers and viewers’ reactions towards the actors formed definitely the evenings.

As the result of concept, the actors took care mostly of the speech situations, as with the lack of orders, they worked out the happenings on stage reacting to one another. Instead of the approach of psychology and character interpretation they emphasised the speech and the actions, the viewers’ and their partners’ reactions. The idea of working with variables, of the concentration on the dramaturgy of each scenes from performances to performances, and inside a performance too can result in controversial solutions. According to the actors’ intention, for example the relationship between Hamlet and Polonius changing from scenes to scenes, could be the relationship of father and son, observer and observed, two silly people, two simulators and so on. The conception of direction can be connected with some readings of the play, for example with Géza Fodor’s or Árpád Kun Kékesi’s, who have emphasised the lack of unified story and causality, the counterpointing dramaturgy because of it, the thematic rhythms and changings of viewpoints.

Besides so many changing elements which are the constant ones in Carroll’s performance? Besides the director and the actor’s personality, who performs Hamlet, the most important cohesion power is the text, which is said in the theatre. However, the critics (and the viewers too, who are talking on the forum of Hungarian Theatrical Portal) usually emphasised the improvisation in connection with the performance and talked only a little about the text, Zoltán Balázs emphasised the central role of this later one: “Of course it is not that way, that you can leave everything and put into the others anything that comes into your mind, but it is about the fact that the text, its texture, Shakespeare’s text can be listened to here in the Bárka Theatre with János Arany’s translation, it is the most important part of the performance”. Kristóf Bíró, from the critics, was the only one, who pointed out the central role of the text: “Tim Carroll’s performance with all of its freshness can just strengthen the traditional concept of theatre. He states, that the deep structure of the performance is given by the play itself. According to Bíró, that kind of dialectic could be seen, according to which, on the one side the freshness (experimenting, innovation) on the other side the traditional theatre (dramatic or lyrical) were standing. Carroll’s performance was supported by the experiments with the traditions. He was interested in that how he could make the theatre of director that way, we were standing on its borderlines. As a director he put many of his works (cast, orders, properties) on the actors and the viewers, as he deleted the traditional elements of theatre of director, but he did it all in an ordered way, according to the viewpoints of the conception of the theatre of director. Carroll took some of the characteristics of lyrical theatre too: the performance was play oriented; the script followed the published version in a conservative way. Anyway, the illustration of text without any conception could not be seen in his theatre. The opposite of it could be there. During the watching of Hamlet in Bárka Theatre, we could come up with the radical questioning of our fixed reading memories and theatrical experiences. The director admitted, that what he had found out, could work only with a canonical translation of a canonical play, as the performance worked with the viewers’ expectations.

Hamlet in Bárka was a disappointment to everybody, who came to theatre for the director’s interpretation of Hamlet. After the September meeting with viewers, one of them told, that in contrast to Fortinbras’ words, we did not learn from the performance that Hamlet would have become a great king. This viewer could feel well that the director had no aim to make a decision. Carroll told, that he thought about Hamlet something different every day. The director’s interpretation of the play was there anyway. His spirit was in the script. Similarly to the ghost of Hamlet’s father, he did not tell what would happen on stage, but similarly to the ghost he ordered, gave an exercise. It is not an accident that there is an additional theatre historical story, that Shakespeare himself played the role of the ghost.

The script of the Ghost is not the same of Hamlet’s, as the script and the performance are not the same too. The dramatic text can be written down as many possible performances, anyway as Árpád Kun Kékesi writes it, on the stage not the text but its interpretation gains an expression on theatrical language. The text of the performance in theatre is the verbal and non-verbal signs together, where there are possibly the production and reception, the actor and the viewer. The script is between them, which is the interpretation of the dramatic text, but it is not still the text of the performance.

The script of Bárka Theatre is the director’s interpretation of the dramatic text of Hamlet, which gives the guiding points of interpretation after the intervention of the editor (leavings and keepings). The script gets its newer interpretation in the text of the performance by the dialogical acceptance of the performance by the actors and viewers. Tim Carroll and László Bérczes, the dramaturg of Bárka Theatre made a script, which gave the biggest place for the formation of different kinds of texts of performance. As the dramatic text itself, is counterpointing, it uses the dramaturgy of the changing of viewpoint, they have tried to save this characteristic for the script and the performances too.

The result of the strict following of the dramatic text is the formation of conservative script. Its conservative nature does not mean that in Bárka Theatre we can listen to Arany’s whole translation. The idea of the performance of the whole text appears on the stage sometimes, for example in case of Peter Hall’s Hamlet in Old Vic in 1975, or in Kenneth Branagh film in 1996. Anyway, the theatrical tradition is about the changing of the text, and as a result of it, the director (who knows Hungarian well) and the dramaturg (who speaks English well) sometimes cut and over-wrote Arany’s translation together. The fact that on one hand knowing the problems of the traditional usage of Shakespeare’s plays Carroll dares to change the dramatic text (does not afraid of loss, as so many elements could have lost till the first publishing of the whole text), so it indicates that Carroll is conscious and well-prepared. On the other hand, his conservative text editing indicates that he trusts the dramaturgy of the Shakespeare’s text, which we have, and those theatrical conventions, which they have saved.

The formation of the script of Hamlet makes the director make many decisions, as he can choose between many possible Hamlets. Its plurality can be found not only in the history of the interpretation of the performance and play, but on the level of the text too. On English language the edition, on Hungarian language the choice of translation means a task. The choice determines greatly the possible interpretations, as both in the case of the editions and translations the director would get a different tradition of interpretation. In case of Hamlet three versions of the text exist: the first quarto (1603), the second quarto (1604-05) and the first folio (1623). The short text of the first quarto is mostly a publishing and theatre historical interest, it is published and performed just as a curiosity. Since the 18th century the performances to Hamlet can be connected to the second quarto or the first folio (just quarto and folio since then) or to the mixture of the two. The quarto is the longer text (3800 lines), the folio is shorter with 230 lines, but it contains 70 lines that cannot be found in the quarto. The differences between the quarto and the folio are not just about the lines, but there are hundreds of differences of words, which cannot be explained by any kind of ideas.

However, there are many explaining ides. The philologists have tried to find the connection between the unknown Shakespeare manuscript, the unknown changings (because of copying, theatrical, publishing changes) and the printed texts. The representatives of the New Bibliography in the first half of the 20th century thought that the first quarto was reconstructed by memories, the second quarto was by Shakespeare’s manuscript and the first folio was published according to the theatrical script. Paul Werstine reminds us, that the editors of the revolutionary, from many point of view, Oxford Shakespeare in 1986, believe in the second quarto, which is based on the author’s manuscript and Shakespeare (folio) dichotomy, which over works the text based on theatrical point of views. These ideas that go back to the origin of the texts, most of the textology doubted (anyway did not put them aside at all). The attention was on their publishing and formation, the new textology concentrates on the product not on the ides, which study the quality of Shakespeare’s manuscript.

The hierarchy of the remaining texts thanks for the uncertainty and the relationships between the versions, the publishing practice since the 18th century has tried to save what it could from both versions, that way came to life the tradition of the conflate edition, which is the combination of the two versions. Harold Jenkins’s Arden publishing in 1982, for example was based on the text of the second quarto, and he completed it with those texts, which remained only in the folio. Anyway, those editors, who took the folio as a base, completed it with the texts of the second quarto. The editors of Oxford Shakespeare left this tradition, when they based their work only on the text of the folio. They could not avoid anyway the conflate tradition, which has a long history, and in the final notes after the play, they published, the collected parts, which are in the second quarto. The newest published Hamlet version (2006) of Arden Shakespeare, gave all the three versions of the text, they emphasized the historical part of the editions and tried to leave the hierarchy of the texts. They could not avoid the conflate tradition at all too, as in the edition of the second quarto they put in the appendix the parts, which are only in the folio.

What is the importance of this philological turnout for theatre? The editions, which can become the basis of the script give suitable material for different ideas of directions. Paul Werstine’s study shows, that we can get a different picture of Hamlet by analysing independently the quarto and the folio, he points out that those inconsistencies and contradictions of Hamlet and Hamlet, which are mentioned many times can be many times in connection with the mixture of the texts of the quarto and the folio. From the point of view of the performance it is not unimportant, if the director knows about the theatrical tradition, which is followed by the chosen edition. In connection with the script of the performance in Bárka Theatre, the question of the traditions has risen up, which Tim Carroll inherited with the translation, what kind of possibilities has it offered to the performance, and why did he choose exactly this translation.

Carroll could choose a translation, which reflects the modern Hungarian state of language (Dezső Mészöly, István Eörsi or Ádám Nádasdy’s translations between 1980-90s). Meanwhile he chose a classical translation of 1867. As a director he must have had the same kind of dilemma, about which Ádám Nádasdy wrote in connection with the translators: “Shakespeare lived in 16th and 17th centuries so it is natural that his language compared to the English of today is really old fashioned (similarly to Zrínyi or Pázmány’s language for the readers of today).” Then he goes on that way: “The translator arrives to the crossroads: should he show in the translation that the text was written centuries ago, (as the English viewers of today can feel it), so uses a language, which is old-fashioned for Hungarian ears too, or choose the other way, according to which, Shakespeare’s text was not old-fashioned in its time, for those viewers so he has to represent the play for the Hungarian viewers on their language of today, as it was the writer’s original aim too (...) I chose this later one, so I wrote it on the modern Hungarian language, as theatres have expected it too from me.”

The director has to choose to whether shows Shakespeare’s old-fashioned nature on the stage on an older Hungarian language, or emphasis its modernity with a modern Hungarian translation. According to the common thinking, the classical translations are old-fashioned for theatre. Carroll chose Arany anyway, as other directors of Hamlet in the term of the 2005/06. Andrea Tompa critic points out too the popularity of Arany’s text on the Hungarian stages of today. “In this term I can hear Járon Arany’s poetry from the stage for the third time. When they offered it first time in Bárka Theatre, it seems to be surprisingly modern, its humour is modern, its turns can come from the modern poetry too, many linguistic fireworks.”

As there is not any ideal edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it does not even have any ideal translation too. In a lucky situation all generation forms their own translations of Shakespeare, which takes history with themselves from the moment of their births. Ádám Nádasdy for example, translates in the spirit of “lowering poetry”, which expression must be a chapter title of history of translation later on. The new translations cannot push the older ones from stages. Hamlet, with Arany’s translation, can keep itself on stage, and between the directors of Hamlet of this term, Carroll will have less problem with the old text. Arany’s old style can be a drawback, if Shakespeare’s language is that on English speaking areas.

The choice of Arany, as the choice of the play too, builds on the canonical viewpoint, which gives the possibility of a language game with the viewers’ expectations. On the one hand, Arany’s translation is “The” Hamlet for many on Hungarian language, many of its lines have become sayings. On the other hand, in connection with Hamlet, those viewers have an idea, who have not watched or read it before. Above it, this viewer, (even those who have watched and read it) is the inheritor of a romantic Hamlet image, which is questioned mostly in the direction. In case of canonical play, there is a phenomenon that “we know them before we read them, as Péter Dávidházi points it out in the Hungarian acceptance history of Shakespeare, and it characterises the individual acceptance too. Hamlet from the point of view of the Hungarian culture history is the most important play by Shakespeare. The first one, which is mentioned by critics, the German theatre in Hungary put it on stage first, and Hamlet is the first, totally Hungarian adaptation (so not just parts of it) by Ferenc Kazinczy.

What kind of text tradition did the English director get from János Arany? As István Géher writes it, Arany for the translation “Studied well the German text by Wieland and Schlegel, and found the modern base edition by Nicolaus Delius, together with his German notes.” Delius’ English version combined the text of the folio with the parts of the quarto. So Tim Carroll could hold in his hand the conflate publishing tradition and the translation after it. The question is if the director keeps the combined text, or followed the today’s trend of publishing and pushed Arany’s text towards the folio or the quarto tradition. It is not a question from the first time that we cannot listen to the “whole” Hamlet in the Bárka.

Does the “whole” Hamlet exist on stage? From historical point of view, its cut is the norm, the script of Hamlet, which is the same as the published one is the exception. Takes into consideration the English tradition, Claris Glick says, that sometimes they put Hamlet on stage without any cuts, the cut version of it has centuries long traditional and common practice. Shakespeare’s play is almost double as long as the theatre could bear it even in Elizabethan era, and we can find many refers to the theatrical cuts of the text of that time too. According to Lukas Erne, both the second quarto and the first folio are lyrical texts and not theatrical ones, and as they are known today, both of them needed shortening and theatrical changes too.

Alan C. Dessen in his study: The director as the editor of Shakespeare, studies the British Shakespeare directions after 2000 and states that the directors’ most common tools in case of Shakespeare are the cutting and writing over and the re-editing of the scenes. He calls the reasons partly pragmatic, while the other parts of it come from the director’s conception. Between the pragmatic reasons, there are the defined length of time, the composition of the trope, the reparing of old-fashioned and shadowed part. A characteristic tool of the conception changing is the re-editing of the scenes.

An illustrative example for this later one can be the fate of the monologue “to be or not to be” (3.1.) in those two English versions of Hamlet in 2004, which I saw too by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Old Vic. Both Michael Boyd (RSC) and Trevor Nunn (Old Vic) re-placed the famous monologue from the third act. Boyd put the great monologue and the monastery scene after it to the scene of 2.2. Because of it, the re-edited scenes could counterpoint Polonius’ idea, which tried to convince the royal couple that Hamlet’s state of mind can be because of Ophelia’s unrequited love. Nunn made Hamlet tell his famous speech at the end of the first act, after the lines of “The time is out of joint” between the tools that refer to suicide and it created a clear continuity between the two speeches, which are separated by a whole scene from each other.

In case of the script of Bárka, the great monologue remains on its place in 3.1., after that Polonius and Claudius have hidden to be able to become the ear witnesses of the dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia. So the famous monologue, as the three editors of Arden have emphasised, is not a real monologue, as Polonius, Claudius and Ophelia are within hearing. Anyway Hamlet speaks as he would be alone, and we can usually see this on stage too (there are exceptions, in the performance of Old Vic in 1977, Hamlet told his speech to Ophelia, who was on stage, according to the dramatic text too).

In Bárka Theatre Zoltán Balázs worked out more solutions for the “To be or not to be”. In Gyula he told it from the top of the castle wall, while the viewers were sitting in the moat. In the Fencing Hall, in the performance of September, he put the scissors first to his own, and then to a viewer’s throat, while he was telling one part of the speech, then he made the viewer repeat it. In the performance of November he repeated more the parts of the “To be or not to be”, some lines he told in sotto voce. In the last performance, an old lady a little boy told in turn by turns the text, which Balázs whispered into their ears. In the Bárka Theatre the paradoxical effect of the monologue is the fact that Hamlet told it as he was alone (it is even truer in case of the fulfilment on the caste wall, where the physical distance grows huge between Balázs and the others). It gave the effect of loneliness as in the case of those performances where I took part, Hamlet did not tell his speech to Ophelia. In spite of this the “To be or not to be” has never been a monologue, as he always built the scene on the viewers’ non-verbal reactions, he always told it to the viewers and chose some of them to act together.

From the point of view of the editing of the text, Carroll uses radical interventions too, in his direction of II.Richard (Globe 2003), he used the possibility of the combination of roles. For the formation of the script in Bárka the moderation and conservativism of editing techniques are characteristic. We can tell that Carroll did not use many techniques, which were mentioned by Dessen: there is not any combination of roles, there are not any additional texts, he did not re-place any scenes. He did not use the modern Hungarian directors’ favourite tool, the insert and the frame story too. Carroll’s changes in connection with the translation by Arany can be put into three main groups. The first, and most common technique is the cut, the second one it the re-writing, the third one, which technique he used once, is the changing of lines. One part of cuts have philological origin, the other part means the traditional theatrical cuts, the third one can be connected to theatrical pragmatics.

1. The cuts

1.a. Philological cuts

A part of Carroll’s cuts have philological basis. The Oxford Shakespeare mentions in the appendix sixteen, parts of the text, which are only in the quarto. The Delius edition, which Arany used for his translation, is a conflated edition, so it contains those parts too, which are missing from the second quarto and the folio. From the comparison turns out, that Carroll left almost all parts, which were only in the quarto. So with this decision he pushed Arany’s translation obviously towards the folio. According to the editors of Oxford Shakespeare the folio is a more theatrical text, so Carroll put closer the more lyrical quarto towards the theatrical text tradition.

Basically the part of the quarto is missing from the script. These are the following:

1.4.589-611: Hamlet’s ideas about the king’s party (“This heavy-headed revel east and west Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations” and so on.)

1.4.650-3: The end of Horatio’ speech to Hamlet, which is about the danger of the Ghost (“The very place puts toys of desperation” and so on.),

3.4.778-89: Hamlet’s crititc to the Queen in the bedroom scene (“Sense, sure, you have, Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err” and so on.),

3.4.917-926: Hamlet’s plan that trap Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (“There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd” and so on.),

4.7.584-94: That part of Claudius’ speech in which, similarly to Hamlet, he is thinking about the wants, while he is planning with Laertes about the trap of Hamlet (“There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still” and so on.).

The cutting of some parts of the quarto sometimes happened in bigger units, so they were cut together with parts, which are both in the quarto and the folio. I will boldfaced those numbers of the lines, which were cut from the script, and were only in the quarto, and I put into brackets those, which were further cuts by Carroll:

1.1.106-124: Bernardo and Horatio’s dialogue about Julius Caesar before the appearance of the ghost can be found only in the quarto.

(Carroll cut this part of the text only three lines earlier: “It is the main motive of our preparations” and so on. 1.1.103-24).

3.2.375-6: The closing couplet of the queen on Stage is only in the quarto: “Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there”.

(Carroll cut more from this love promises, he used only two lines from them: “So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er ere love be done” (365-6). He left the lines: “But, woe is me, you are so sick of late”, and so on. (3.2.367-376)).

3.2.422-3: The Player queen’s another quarto-couple was left from the script (“To desperation turn my trust and hope! An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!”).

(Carroll left the next couple out to: “Each opposite that blanks the face of joy Meet what I would have well and it destroy!” (3.2.424-25). In the script from the eight lines long rhythmical promises on stage, only four lines remained: “Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light! / Sport and repose lock from me day and night!” (420-1), “Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, / If, once a widow, ever I be wife!” (426-7)).

4.1.41-46: That six lines, which Claudius tells to Gertrud and show his real political virtue, can be found only in the quarto. He wants to tell the killing of Polonius and his acts in connection with it that way he wants to avoid the scandal (“And what's untimely done... Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poison'd shot, may miss our name, And hit the woundless air.”). Besides this, Carroll cut Claudius ordering speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find Polonius’ dead body (4.1.32-46). That way in the next scene (4.2) it seemed to be a self-diligence as the courtiers are looking for the dead body. However, at the beginning of the 4.3. from the king’s questioning turned out that they did it according to his order.

4.7.537-550, 570-2: Only the quarto contains Claudius and Laertes dialogue about Laertes’ fencing abilities. Carroll cut more ideas by Claudius, which would be formed in front of us about the trick against Hamlet, in which he based on Laertes’ fencing knowledge and his reputation (4.7.526-76).

5.2.447-8: Only the quarto contains Horatio’s ironic comment about Hamlet, which he mentions during the dialogue with Osrick. Hamlet’s question to Osrick: “What call you the carriages?”, Horatio interrupts there: “I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done”. Carroll left Horatio’s addition with a bigger cut, which contain many of Hamlet’s jokes in connection with Osrick (5.2.440-55).

5.2.484-97: The dialogue between Hamlet and God about the organisation of the duel, can be found only in the quarto. Carroll cut it together with other funny lines in connection with Osrick (5.2.474-97).

With the leaving of the parts of the quarto the director got generally closer to the text version of the folio. For three times from the sixteen he differed from his own practice. For the first time, he kept three lines from the deleted quarto. In the bedroom scene, Hamlet talks to Gertrud about the power of habits. Carroll cut the lines 3.4.873-884, and kept only the lines (878-80) “Refrain to-night, / And that shall lend a kind of easiness / To the next abstinence: the next more easy” and so on, which is only one concrete demand in the middle of the long line of thought. For the second time, one part of the dialogue between Osrick and Hamlet can be found only in the quarto (in case of Arany these are the lines of 5.2.403-436). Carroll kept one part of it, he kept Osrick’s eulogy about Laertes, which was there to rise Hamlet’s vanity. Anyway, he deleted Hamlet’s answer in which he mocks Osrick’s style (409-418). He could do it as remained enough from the teasing (for example the lines of 418-426, 430-1, 435 are the parts of the script).

The greatest difference can be found in scene 4.4. According to the folio, this scene is very short, only eight lines. (in case of Arany the right lines are 4.4.146-153), which contains Fortinbras and the Captain’s dialogue about the fact that they asked free crossing over Denmark in the war against the Polish people. In the quarto this scene is seven times longer (In case of Arany these are 4.4.146-153) In that version Hamlet asks the Captain about the reasons of the war, and connects the listened ideas to his own task. Carroll kept exceptionally the part of the quarto, and deleted only five lines from the scene (4.4.149-51, 165-6). So that way, Hamlet’s famous speech that started with lines: “How all occasions do inform against me, / And spur my dull revenge!” (4.4.177-214) becomes part of the script closer to the folio, however the quarto is a longer part.

This speech is that part of the director’s interpretation of Hamlet, which he could not leave because of its canonical nature in a performance, which reflected strongly to the conventions. The speech is important from the point of view of the dramaturgy of Hamlet too. Hamlet finds a newer acting base for himself in this scene. While he is talking about Fortinbras’ campaign, he faces up against that behaviour, which is (momentarily) ideal for him: “Rightly to be great / Is not to stir without great argument, / But greatly to find quarrel in a straw / When honour's at the stake. / How stand I then, / That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, / Excitements of my reason and my blood, / And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see / The imminent death of twenty thousand men, / That, for a fantasy and trick of fame”.

The discovery of the newer motivation Balázs’ performance interpreted in different ways. In July, he played with the reflectors, which lighted the castle wall. Maybe he tried to find his new motivations (or his lack of motivation) at the source of light. He raised the reflector, pointed it towards us, as he would like to seen into our thoughts too, what he could find there but he pulled the lamp out of the socket. The situation with comical elements had no clue in the performance in November. That time I could see Hamlet, who was physically broken, and lived with suicide gestures.

1.b. Classical theatrical cuts

Besides the philological changes, some of Carroll’s cuts had their place between the British theatrical traditions. Claris Glick’s study gives the classical cuts from Hamlet according to the English scripts of three centuries, from Thomas Betterton (1676) to Laurence Olivier (1969). The twenty-seven scripts, which Glick studied were all cut, the fewest of them can be found in case of Olivier (162 lines, all together). Glick put these between the classical cuts: Polonius and Rajnald’s line (2.1.), the modern theatrical reference about the boy actors (2.2.), a silent game (3.2.), and the role of Fortinbras is whether cut out or shortened a lot (1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 4.4, 5.2). The part, which is about Hamlet’s oversized body is deleted many times too, from the twenty-seven studied script, sixteen of them left it out.

Tim Carroll according to the classical cuts, left Polonius and Rajnald’s scene (2.1.1-77), and the lines about Hamlet’s oversized body (5.2.584). Meanwhile he kept many parts in the script, which had been deleted many times. The role of Fortinbras remained but got shorter. He left for example the roles of Cornelius and Voltimand in connection with Fortinbras and Claudius’ political ideas (1.2.193-217, 2.2.164-169, 175-211) and he deleted many lines in connection with the Norwegian war (1.1.62-66, 73-94, 103-109). Anyway as the dramatic text, the script was finished with Fortinbras’ words. The dramaturgic role of the line about Fortinbras was to take the empty place (Fortinbras has no possibility to take revenge on Hamlet, as his father killed his father too). He is neither a saviour nor a usurper he just closes the act. In the performance the lines about the war and social life are not stressed, there were some references in the text, but the viewers could forget them too. During the performance I could not remember the parallel between Fortinbras and Hamlet’s story (his father is dead, his uncle is the ruler), as Carroll left this later reference out too (1.2.193-201).

1.c. Pragmatical cuts

In Shakespeare’s dramaturgy sometimes some characters indicate the acts of the next scenes, and gives lyrical ideas for the next play itself. The writers of the scripts, because of time limits, deleted many times, as the performances were usually three and a half hours long. Some examples of it can be 3.1.31-36, in which Claudius reveals for the viewers the plan of overhearing of Hamlet and Ophelia. Later we could learn all these from the acts on the stage. Polonius’ announcement was deleted about his plan to hide behind the carpet (3.3.625-633), which could be seen soon on the stage. However, Claudius’ order to Rosencrantz and his partner to find Polonius’ dead body (4.1.) was deleted, in the next scene (4.2.) they were working on its fulfilment. Six lines were left out (3.2.249-254), in which Hamlet would like to know whether the royal couple watched the play, and a similar act on stage was written down by the character, named the God (5.2.)

One variation of theatrical pragmatology is when Carroll put an earlier part of the dramatic text into the script because of a longer cut in the text. The change is the most radical one between the conservative editing techniques of the play. In the scene of 4.7., the plan about the intrigue against Hamlet was developing continuously, we could witness the king’s loud thinking in the company of Laertes. Carroll cut a part of it (526-576). When the whole trick was there in Claudius face, he summed up the plan to Laertes (598-612), which is also in the script.

Bárka Theatre                                                                                                            Arany

King                                                                                                                           (I will work him) 533 (One) and so on

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;                                                             (word), 606 (Together)

Revenge should have no bounds.

But, good Laertes,

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.

Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:

I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall:

And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practise

And call it accident.

We'll put on those shall praise your excellence

bring you in fine together

And wager on your heads he, being remiss,

Most generous and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise

Requite him for your father.

The speech in the script is different from the translation as the writers put six lines from the king’s earlier, cut lines (532-537, emphasised) into this one. This is the only example of re-editing, which happens in the same scene (with 60 lines difference), in the same character’s speech. The editing was necessary because those lines were deleted, which show the birth of the idea (526-576). Comparing to the speech of the dramatic text, the script got six lines (532-537), and two of them were left (604-5), in which Claudius refers to Lamord (“And set a double varnish on the fame / The Frenchman gave you,”). Carroll had to leave these lines out as he had left Claudius’ earlier refers to the Lombard motive (551-560).

2. Transcription

Claris Glick brought many examples for the rewriting of the text and for the transformation of some speeches. In the script of Bárka there is not any example for this later one (I did not count here the re-editing of Claudius’ two monologues within one scene and sixty lines). There is not any examples for rewriting of the text, as Glick thought about the rewriting of Shakespeare’s English text, and he thought about the adapting practice of restoration. Rewriting happened in case of the script of Bárka Theatre for two reasons. Once one its writers went back to the English text, and put a translation into a text, which is not from Arany. Secondly, when the writers modernised some Hungarian expressions, which they thought to be old-fashioned and according to them they would make harder the telling and understanding of the texts on stage. In case of re-writing the authors usually used István Eörsi and Ádám Nádasdy’s solutions.

2.1. Returning to the English text

Carroll in the first twenty lines of the opening scene returned to the text of the English edition twice. Mostly because he thought both of them important moments for the interpretation of the play, as he did not make a critic about the translations of the whole play. Francisco lines are different in the script from in the translation. In the later one there is: “'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart” (1.1.6-7.). In the script instead of “And I am sick at heart” there is „And my heart is heavy”, as in the translation by István Eörsi. In the Arden edition there is “I am sick at heart” and the script returned to the picture of “heart”. Harold Jenkins wrote in his notes, that Horatio does not tell the reasons but foreshadows that things do not go well, and he quoted Dover Wilson, according to him in Francisco’s melancholic answer we can see Hamlet’s future. There is an important re-writing ten lines later, when for Bernardo’s question: “Say, What, is Horatio there?”, Horatio’s answer in Arany’s translation is: “It is his body and soul” while in the script: “A piece of him” as in Nádasdy’s translation. In the English version there is: “A piece of him”. According to Jenkins the place indicates that Horatio raises his hand, and metaphorically, it refers to Horatio’s scepticism, who makes his presence smaller in the actions with humour. Arany’s translation is full of pathos instead, in contrary to the irony of the English text.

Hamlet and Horatio’s dialogue is shortened to the reasons of Horatio’s return, and the script is different from Arany’s translation many times:

Arany                                                                                                                        Bárka

Hamlet

I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

Horatio

A truant disposition, good my lord.                                                                           I get away from schoo, my lord

Hamlet

I would not hear your enemy say so,                                                                        I would not hear your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,                                                                  Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report                                                                       To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself: I know you are no truant.                                                              But what is your affair in Elsinore?

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

The writers got back again the original English version (“A truant disposition, good my lord”) when they changed the “truant disposition” to the “get away from school” according to Eörsi. The line: “I would not hear your enemy say so” refers to “enemy” anyway.

In Hamlet and Ophelia’s scene in the monastery, the line 3.1.125.was in the script differently than in the translation. For Hamlet’s statement: “I did not love you”, Ophelia’s answer in Arany’s translation is: “I was even more disappointed”, while the script, because of the original English version (“I was the more deceived”), used the version of: “I was even more deceived” (Nádasdy uses a similar verson “I was more deveived”, while Eörsi translates: “than I am more deveived.”)

Instead of Claudius’ phrases: “these sayings are not mine” (Arany, 3.2.303-4) in the script we could find: “these words are not mine” following Nádasdy. With some lines under it (326) we find another change comparing the translation to the script:

HAMLET

Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA

I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET

That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

OPHELIA

What is, my lord?

HAMLET

The nothing

In the script there is “The nothing”, in Arany’s translation Hamlet says: “I said nothing”. In the English text there is: “Nothing”. He repeats Ophelia’s “nothing” some lines before, which is a refer to the shape of “O”, to the traditional representation female genitals. Hamlet continues with it his joke of “country matters”, which we cannot find in Arany’s translation. (“Do you think I meant country matters?”). At that time the expression of “country matters” had a meaning of sexual action, and with the stressing of the first syllable of the word “country”, the word “cunt” (the pejorative form of the female genital) was stressed because of the similarity to that word.

In line of 3.4.850. the word: “enthusiasm” appears twice in Arany’s version. The script changed it into “insanity” as the Hungarian version of the English word: “ecstasy”. (the Arden’s note wrote “madness”) [57]. After Ophelia has got mad, Laertes cries that way: “Do you see this, O God?” (4.5.421). The script changed Arany’s translation and used “they see” instead of “you see”. The personal pronoun “you” from the line: “Do you see this, O God?” could be told to the other on stage and to God too.

2.2 Modernization

As Judit Berki wrote about it, in the 80s there was an argument in connection with the performance, directed by Tamás Ascher in Kaposvár, the question is whether it is allowed to correct Arany? [58] The director asked Eörsi to delete the old-fashioned verb forms, the words, which are hard to understand, so to form the play to the expectations of the modern viewers. Today after many new Hamlet translation have been made (Eörsi, Mészöly, Nádasdy) probably only a few would argue for its integrity from the point of view of classical theatre, anyway the justification of eclectic scripts is still topic of many arguments. According to Berki it was a backtrack that all the three directors of Hamlet in 2006 put on stage Arany’s translation which was “secretly” (Mészöly) corrected in 60s and 70s and “a bad forgery” (Nádasdy) without signing the corrections instead of having chosen one from the three new translations.

Before the new translations in the 80s and 90s, Arany’s text was treated with respect of classics, it could explain why the performers did not talk about the necessary correction of it. After the new translations there is a possibility of choice, and I do not think that it is a backtrack if a director builds his performance on the old-fashioned nature of the text, on a well-known text, and on the reflexions on these. In this situation the solution would have been more consistent, if besides the cuts there were not any other modernizations, and the old text remained old. Anyway, theatre does work on philological aspects, but it is formed by the aspects theatrical pragmatics. The modern English directors modernize Shakespeare too, because they are afraid of the fact that the audience may not understand some phrases and more complicated sentence structures.

The writers of the script of Bárka, because of similar pragmatic ideas, to have made the text more understandable, fixed the text to the viewers’ expectations. Here are some examples of modernization: Instead of an old-fashioned word in the script there is “our sister” (1.2.184). Laertes’ line: “For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour” (1.3.438) was also modernized. They used the modern word for the word “my daughter” (2.2.255), instead of “train of air” they used “draught” (2.2.343), and instead of “poltra” they used “mite” (2.2.407). Ophelia’s answer to Laertes: “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart.” was too old-fashioned again in Arany’s translation and it was modernised in the script with the help of Eörsi’s translation.

In the first speech to the Ghost (“Angels and ministers of grace defend us! / Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd” 1.4.612-632) Arany used two expressions, which were changed in the script.

The “wax-opal” is not the part of our active vocabulary and it could make understanding harder on stage as there is not any possibility to look up some words. Both Eörsi and Nádasdy used “shroud” in their translation. István Géher wrote about it that “wax-opal” had an archaic effect; in editions there is always a note for it: “a shroud filled with wax”. So it must be ununderstandable without the explanation. But its contrary is true: it can have more meanings. With its old-fashioned nature it has a similarly mysterious meaning as the Shakespeare’s original version had in its time with its modern nature then. Instead of the well-known »cerecloth«, the used »cerements« is the poet’s own invention, its aim was that from the French word »cirer«, the phrase »to cere«, which they got from there (means to wax something) to connect it with its material nature the Latin expressions, which rhyme with it (for example: »sacraments, ornaments«) thanks for their ritual abstraction.” According to Géher the word: “póla” can make us remember the meaning of a linen strip, which they used for the wound care in Arany’s time, but it can refer to the modern Hungarian swaddling too. The study goes on with the marble gum, which is against “the dramatic nature of oxymoron”, which is not in connection with the original one. Arany himself wrote “marble jaw first (as well as Eörsi and Nádasdy did), then he changed his mind. Géher wrote that in his final solution he gave a magical translation instead of a faithful one. The authors of the script chose the un-declaring in theatre instead.

The famous line: “To be or not to be: this is the question” is different in Arany’s main text (3.1.56), but in his notes Arany himself gave the original line in the same version too. The note, which Arany wrote to it: “Maybe the line is more well-known that way: To be or not to be”. Both the director and the dramaturg thought to be better to use the more “well-known” line, as in the script there is: “To be or not to be”. There are many topos in Hungarian literature, the changing of which in a performance, which used conventions, would have resulted the missing of reflexion to the canon.

We can find an important re-writing in Ophelia and Hamlet’s dialogue, which comment the scene of the Mousetrap (3.2.447-52). In Arany’s translation for the modern ears the sexual refer is very hidden. The script made it more modern, the second, “”poking” part of it was made according to Nádasdy.

There was a more important change after Claudius’ unmasking. The poem was not put in the script with Arany’s translation (3.2.474-7) but with István Eörsi’s.

The original version:

“Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

So runs the world away.”

What results did these changes make in the script? How did it change because of the director’s Hamlet reading? What kind of possibilities did the script offer with the remaining text and cuts for the performance?

The Ghost of the script

The central question of the detective story of Hamlet, that how can Hamlet know that the Ghost tells the truth. The viewers of the performance could learn about the killing of a brother and king from Claudius’ confession (3.3), but how can Hamlet know it for sure, as he could not hear Claudius? About the Ghost, similarly to Hamlet, Horatio and his mates cannot decide if the Ghost that evokes the form of the king, has good or bad intentions. (For the two a good example can be found in 1.1, where Horatio’ words: “Do, if it will not stand” and Marcellus’ answer to it: We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence”).

These lines, which are in the script too, refer to the double understanding of the Ghost, which is the characteristic of Hamlet and the Ghost’s meeting. For Hamlet’s protestant world, the mentioning of the purgatory is suspicious in its own (Stephen Greenblatt wrote a whole monography about the similar protestant and catholic theological questions in Hamlet.) However, the cuts changed the ghost-appearance, the most important characteristics, which are in connection with the dramatic text and the spirit of the performance, the ambivalence and the unsolvable contradictions have remained.

Horatio and Hamlet’s dialogue about the appearance of the Ghost is shorter in the script, the questions and answers about the Ghost’s outlook were cut (1.2.400-410, 415-416). The scene of oath was shorter too (1.5. 800-803, 808-811, 817-820, 827-833). Hamlet’s repeated calling to take an oath and the mentioning of the Ghost as an “old mole” are missing too from the script (832-3):

HAMLET

Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast? / A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.

The questioning of the Ghost’s authenticity appeared a few lines before (822-4), Hamlet’s comic and disbelieving attitude remaind the part of the script:

HAMLET

Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, / truepenny? / Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage—/ Consent to swear.

That way, ambivalence remains in the script too, however with the cutting of the “mole” thing, on a stage there was not as much reference and a comic statement was missing too.

The performances refered well to the doubt. In the performance of July, when Hamlet met (1.4.) the Ghost, who was staring (with Attila Egyed), he held a viewer’s hand and came fearfully closer to him. During Horatio’s words, with which he tried to talk him out of it, the Ghost disappeared, then jumped up from behind the viewers as a puppet, so not only Hamlet saw the Ghost in two different ways, Attila Egyed played in two, a comic and a tragic role. In scene 1.5. during the telling of poisoning, Balázs and Egyed were in physical connection all through it (whether it is hitting or hugging). Balázs jumped into Egyed’s neck, kept him like a little boy at the part of: “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder”, than at the part of the telling of the poisoning he hit and pushed the Ghost in delirium, then they hugged each other at the lines of: “Let not the royal bed of Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damned incest”. Only some fragments remained from these, great amount of touches and gestures between father and son, in the performance in November. Zoltán Seress’ Ghost, who had armour from aluminium foil in the performance in November had alienating effects, there were fewer touches and comic elements.

Neither Polonius could avoid the barber, with whom, Hamlet threatened him, because of his (2.2.631). Many scenes by Polonius and Ophélia got shorter, mostly with Polonius’ words (1.3.553-558, 561-566, 2.1.104, 106-109). Rajnáld and Polonius’ scene was missing, which made the intriguer Polonius, who is looking after his own son, weaker in the script (2.1.1-77). Polonius tried to prove his idea about the love sorrow anyway, which was made more colourful sometimes with promises and retardative rhetoric forms. A part of them was shortened in the script (2.2.262-271, 285-291). To the king’s speech: “Love! his affections do not that way tend!” and so on (3.1.172-185) some lines were cut from Polonius’ answer (I mark to them in brackets): “It shall do well: [but yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love. ] How now, Ophelia!” (3.1.186-188). So the script made shorter Polonius’ boring repeated idea about love. A comic possibility was out because of it, according to the script Polonius was about to accept the king’s diagnose, while in the dramatic text against all signs he insists to his idea. The dramatic text is rich in similar scenes (especially the scenes of 2.1 and 2.2.), the cut of some of them could not eliminate this characteristic of Polonius’ role.

In the performance, Polonius (whether he was played by József Czintos or by Béla Gados) formed a comic old man. Between Czintos and Balázs there was a mainly ironic, sometimes emotional game of a father and son, with many physical contacts (Balázs hugged and jumped on, played with Czintos like a boy), while his relationship with Béla Gados was cooler and more suspicious. The editors of Arden 3 mentioned, that while Polonius was a comic role for centuries, today he has been hardly ever that kind. Judit Berki mentioned József Ruszt’s direction in 1972 in Kecskemét, as the new interpretation of Polonius on Hungarian stage, who was ruthless instead of a silly old man, and he appeared as a political leader. Meanwhile, in contrary to the note of Arden 3, both English Hamlet performance in 2004 (the already mentioned RSC and Old Vic) had a comic Polonius, whose figure was turning into burlesque. The actors of Bárka Theatre used this tradition too, and the cuts of the text gave less possibility too to form a spying and intriguer figure.

Horatio of the script

According to the script, Horatio is Hamlet’s close friend, and this interpretation could be found in the performance too. From Horatio, who is ironic and an outstander in the dramatic text, remained less. From Horatio’s last speech, Hamlet’s six lines long abstract was out (“so shall you hear / Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, / Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, / Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause” and so on 5.2.682-88). The missing lines would indicate two types of interpretation of Horatio. We could read that way that Horatio understood only those things from the happenings, or that only those things happened, the interpretation was our work, and Horatio could not do it instead of us. In Horatio there can be a less friendly performance, as the king considers him to be his ally (4.1., 5.1.). The script left those parts, which made Horatio “less friendly”, so Horatio and Fortinbras political discussion got shorter, which was about to install the new playground of power. From Fortinbras’ these lines were cut: “For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune: / I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, / Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.” (691-3), and with it Horatio’s ambitious answer was left out too: “Of that I shall have also cause to speak” and so on, 694-8). Laurence Olivier’s film version in 1948 strengthened this ambitious Horatio. As Fortinbras’ role was cut, he fulfilled it, and Horatio said Fortinbras’ last words and put him on the role of the new king. Peter Brook emphasized the importance of the role too in his direction in 2000 in Paris too, Horatio opened and closed the performance [68]. In the Bárka Theatre he was Hamlet’s playmate, with whom he did the clown jokes together. In those four performances, I watched, there were not any reference to Horatio as a politician.

Claudius of the script

The line of Cornelius-Voltimand emphasizes Claudius as a politician and a “good king”, and its leaving makes it weaker. When the king makes decisions in connection with Polonius’ death, as a good strategist he tries to save himself and Hamlet too. This tactical Claudius was less stressed because of the cuts (the lines of 4.1.1-3, 13-22, 32-46 were cut). From the 4.3. Claudius’ speech (77-87) was cut, which would prove his political insightful. He knows that Hamlet is popular, his punishment would get a political meaning too and the scandal would fall back on his own head. Claudius’ plan about the killing of Hamlet became shorter by half (the lines of 4.3.130-3, 135 -139 were cut). From the scene, 4.5. the king’s situation analysis about the loss was cut (4.5.295-314). He evaluates the situation again as a good politician (he notes for example that: “For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him”). He understands the situation well, meanwhile Laertes first blames the king for his father’s death.

Claudius and Laertes’ scene (4.7) is shorter, in which Laertes blames the king for the impunity of Hamlet’s murdering act, and then they plan the duel. Claudius’ reasoning to Laertes was cut too, about the reason of the leaving of Hamlet’s punishment (the enlisted reasons: his passion towards Gertrud and Hamlet’s popularity, 474-493). Claudius’ lines to Laertes about the fact that Hamlet can be punished just trapped were cut too. In the scene Claudius mentions a story, according to which Mr. Lamord has praised Laertes’ fencing abilities in front of Hamlet and this made him jealous (526-576 were cut). From this memory comes the idea of the duel and of the poisoning foil. The making of the plan itself was cut (526-576), Carroll used only its summary. So in the script we could find fewer parts, which would refer to Claudius as a king, who handles well the foreign- and domestic policy, to his logic with the tools of Machiavellianism.

In the performance, thanked for the cuts in the script too, Claudius as a ruler was not emphasized, the play was mostly about the family’s relationships. Claudius and Gertrud’s relationship is intimate, tender and full of eroticism in all the four performances (either Zoltán Seress – Olga Varjú or Attila Egyed – Kriszta Szorcsik performed the roles). As the performance showed the actions mostly through the dialogues, Claudius (especially when Zoltán Seress played it) showed overall a multi-faced man, who was not a psychologically motivated Machiavellian all through performance.

Gertrud and Ophelia of the script

The two female roles of the script, however, there were cuts in connection with both Gertrud and Ophelia’s texts too, were not changed significantly, and their meanings remained the same on the level of the text. The reason for it, that in case of all men roles, the political and intriguer lines were shortened, and we could find similar things in connection with the female characters. In the performance the play, which was showed in connection with Hamlet’s relationship to the women is ambivalent. Balázs in the performance in July, in the bedroom scene, made an oedipal scene with Olga Varjú: there were hugging and kissing. In September, he had mostly aggressive behaviour: at the beginning of the bedroom scene Balázs pushed a rusty scissors to Olga Varjú’s neck. With Kinga Mezei (Ophelia) in the performance in July he formed a spiritual and physical relationship (we could see the choreography of a sexual affair in the funeral scene, 5.1), in June they played like kids with each other, in September, with provocative Nóra Parti he was dismissive instead.

The actors and the Mousetrap

Hamlet is theatre about theatre. The performance of Bárka Theatre played with the mechanism of theatre and the combinatory of theatrical elements. In connection with theatrical reflexivity the director made those elements to be the part of the script, which were usually cut in English theatre traditions. The meeting with the actors remained in the script, Pyrrhus’ long speech (the rehearsal of theatre in theatre), Hamlet’s crucial Hecuba-speech, Hamlet’s advices to the actors and the greater part of the silent play and Gonzago play too.

The cuts were mostly in connection with the theatre of that time. From the meeting scene with the actors the characteristics of types of actors (2.2.452-458) and a part of those lines, which were about the affairs of contemporary theatre (475-489) and Hamlet’ joke about the handshake with the actors (496-500) were cut. Hamlet’s jokes about the contemporary conventions and his statements about the boy actors were not in the script (2.2.548-558). From Polonius’ historico-pastoral speech (2.2.523-528) the last line: “For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men”, however (summarised in a line) it would be very characteristic for the Hamlet performance in Bárka. Carroll may have cut this line, because Polonius’ line must have connected the actors of Bárka with the actors from the play. As Polonius’ words are about a troupe, the performing method of which (the product of an earlier performance) was parodied by Hamlet too (3.2), this comparison would have reduce the performance to a simple scheme, which would have worked against the director’s conception, which was in favour of plurality.

Hamlet’s introduction got shorter at the Pyrrhus speech (the lines 2.2.562-575 were cut), only the lines of: “I heard thee speak me a speech once (...) 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido” remained. In the part, which was cut, Hamlet analysed the play as a critic (“twas caviare to the general.”), as it did not get into the script, there was a less talkative, analyser Hamlet than in the drama was. The Pyrrhus speech itself was told on the stage, both by Hamlet and by the first actor too. For Carroll it was important to have that long, rhetoric speech, which is similar to the parody of style. On one hand it could be a perfect possibility of performance to the actors, on the other hand it would precede one of the key scene of the play, Hamlet speech about Hecuba, in which he compared his own situation to phenomenon of theatrical experiencing and effect. David Kastan wrote, that Hamlet, as we could learn it from his classical styled advices to the actors (3.2), believed in the mimetic and didactic function of art, and he tried to identify with Pyrrhus, the famous vengeful boy of Virgil (2.2.562-650). But the exercise was not successful because Hamlet found out that on the base of poetic, which was built on imitation, he could reach only the repetition of the sin. In his Hecuba speech (2.2.678-740) he admired the actor’s abilities, whose art was not about the art of repetition: “What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he should weep for her? What would he do, / Had he the motive and the cue for passion / That I have?” (2.2.688-691).

Hamlet was unsatisfied with his own performance as an actor in his Hecuba speech, in the next step he got to the realization that the tool to get the evidence would be theatre (“I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play 's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.” 2.2.738-740). When Hamlet told, that: “I have heard / That guilty creatures sitting at a play / Have by the very cunning of the scene / Been struck so to the soul that presently / They have proclaim'd their malefactions” (2.2.723-26), he referred to the mechanism of action of the contemporary theatre theory. As Edward Burns wrote about it, the era of Elisabeth knew many stories, in which the viewers admitted their own sinful story because of the effect of the performance. Thomas Heywood, a contemporary play writer, mentioned two similar stories as an example for the moral benefits of theatre, which was attacked much because of moral issues. As the scene of Mouthtrap pointed it out, the mechanism of the effect of theatre cannot be planned so evidently, as Hamlet imagined it, and as Heywood stated it. The acceptance of the importance of the Hecuba speech, that the director did not cut even a line from it, he turned the attention towards the operating of theatre. In the speech, as Robert Weimann wrote it, the actor did not identify perfectly with his role, he told it to himself as an actor, and reflected on the question of identification. Carroll’s performance, according to this interpretation, showed us always the actor, who was working on the formation of the situation. According to Weimann, the mimesis was not the product itself, but the process, where the actor was always more than the closed representation of the role.

An unpredictable shocking moment of theatrical effect was born in the performance in June, not long after the scene of Mouthtrap when one of the viewers was so affected by the performance, which he was watching carefully, that he got an attack of epilepsy. Balázs’ performance moved in theatre rarely experienced physical, emotional and intellectual energies in the viewers. For an actor, that kind of performance could be very demanding physically, where he hanged upside down as a bat, on the barrier of the balcony or did acrobatic exercises on a chair, lived always in movements and activity, while he was telling the hardest text of drama literature. It was a great achievement especially because he did not do it following the director’s orders, but he set it for himself every evening. It required the closed contact with the viewers, the acceptance of those, who wanted to play, the high level of empathy, concentration and emotional intelligence. The intellectual challenges of Hamlet, the games of words, and rhetorical turns of the 19th century were enough on their own too.

Hamlet’s advice to the actors remained in the script too, just the last lines were cut, in which Hamlet would make that actor hit, who is “more Herod like, than Herod” (3.2.215-216). The Hamlet of Bárka was a performance, which reflected well on performing, so those parts were not cut, which criticized the actors’ mannerism (3.2.218-240). The counterpart of that critic, which we could hear the most, (clowning, too much improvisation) in connection with the performance, could not be found in the script (241-247), Hamlet gave there advices to the clown: “And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.” The cut must have been according to the same logic as the line by Polonius, which has already been mentioned, which he said about the actors (“For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men"). The difference from the text and sensationalist making the viewers laugh would have served as easy analogy to compare it with the performance of Bárka Theatre. There were examples for both, especially by the greatest clown, by Zoltán Balázs, who played Hamlet. Hamlet’s prescriptive lines got the meaning of a parody of themselves, if the actor, who played Hamlet in the performance, accepted the role of the possible clown. Balázs exploited this possibility: he played with the tools, he made acrobatic tricks, made fun of the other characters, spoke to the viewers, he played with them. Thanked for the missing advice, the viewers could not connect Hamlet to the role of the clown, whom he condemned, but they could see him formed the clown. The self-mockery reflection was not there.

The photo of rehearsal, silent performance

Carroll kept the silent performance as the part of theatrical reflection, he played pantomime with or without masks, we could see stylised movement theatre. The dramaturgical role of the silent performance is mysterious, as the performance, which was built on dialogues (the Mousetrap), repeated what we could see in the silent performance. So directors usually choose one of them with the title of the Mousetrap. As we could learn it from Ágnes Matuska’s writing, this point of view of using one of them, characterised the film adaptations of the play too. Between the films, which have been studied, only the one, which was made from Tom Stoppard’s play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, used the dramatic element of both the silent performance and the Mousetrap. Those performances, which were interested in the meta drama of the play and its self-reflection, built consciously on the seemingly redundancy, which could get many possibility of interpretation and play anyway. Ádam Nádasdy emphasised four possibilities: 1. the king does not listen to, 2. the silent performance is stylised, it is hard to understand, 3. from the silent performance the line of relationships is not clear, 4. the king understands it, but at this point he can control himself.

In the performance under the silent part Claudius took care mostly about Gertrud, so he did not listen to most of the time. When he watched the theatre with interest, it was usually during the performance with texts. The situation forced him anyway into a static situation (into a dramatic trap), Ophelia’s words indicated clearly when the king could stand up, (When Lucianus pours the poison into the sleeping man’s ear), so if he understood it before, he could not move anyway. As Claudius did not reflected on the Gonzago play and its effects by words, the actor could react with mimics and gestures. It is hard to give the description of the king’s reactions, because the scene of the Mousetrap divided the viewers’ attention, while similarly to Hamlet they had to watch the king’s reaction, the Gonzago play went simultaneously with Hamlet’s solo performance. Hamlet trapped himself too in the Mousetrap. The simultaneous happenings divided his attention too (the division of the viewers’ attention is the dramatic version of it), Ophelia and not he told that the king stood up. Meanwhile Hamlet thought the theatrical trap successful, the king did not make a confession, as the characters of Heywood’s story did. In spite of Hamlet’s all revealing intention, he could not get obvious evidence. It could not be decided how the king understood the happenings (he accepted it as the mentioning of the past, he connected himself with Lucianus, or he saw Hamlet in Lucianus, who played the king’s nephew according to his role, and unsderstood it as a threat of the future). We could not know how mimetic this inside performance was. As W.W. Greg pointed it out, it was not for sure that the Ghost told the story of the murder precisely according to all the circumstances.

Hamlet of the script

The speaker with the most amount of texts of Shakespeare’s longest play, could not avoid that barber. What was missing form Hamlet? What did not we learn from him? Hamlet himself warned us for his ununderstandable nature in the scene of the flute (3.2), when he told Guildenstern: “You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery” (...) but “yet you cannot play upon me.” From this mysterious Hamlet the following elements were cut.

There was not in the script Hamlet’s bloodthirsty speech in which he planned the murder of the mother from the end of 3.2. (585-597): “Tis now the very witching time of night, / When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out / Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood, / And do such bitter business as the day / Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother. / O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever / The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom” and so on. As the previous planning of murdering was not in the script, Hamlet was shown to be less conscious and less mature in connection with his plans. Parallel with it, Zoltán Balázs’ performance was not characterised by psychological construction, plans in advance, but by spontaneous reaction, and play with the possibilities. Carroll left less from the planning and manipulative Hamlet of the dramatic text in the script, and with it he strengthened the improviser Hamlet on the level of the text too.

In the bedroom scene, after the appearance of the Ghost, the speeches got shorter with more lines (3.4.823-4, 829-834, 835-837, 838-40, 852-6, 864-8). There are especially more cuts from Hamlet’s moral advices to his mother. The advices were told, but many explaining and additional parts were missing from the script, for example about the nature of habit and good intention (873 -878, 881-886, 890 -894), and the parable about the birds was cut too (904-11). From Glick’s study we could learn, that over the centuries between the common cuts in theatre could be found Hamlet’s longer thinking around a given problem (these are the following: about drunkenness 1.4., about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s fate 3.4., about the connection between Polonius and the worms 4.3., his philosophy about the courtier’s skull and Alexander the Great 5.1., Hamlet’s report about his travel to England to Horatio and his apology for Laertes 5.2.). Carroll also cut the parts of 1.4., 3.4. 5.1.

Horatio and Hamlet’s dialogue gives the possible interpretation of a cynical Hamlet, which is at the beginning of the scene after Ophelia’s funeral (5.2.294-6). We could not know what did the phare “So much for this” refers to, but if it does to Ophelia’s funeral, than an uninterested Hamlet in connection with Ophelia’s happenings, enters at the beginning of 5.2.:

HAMLET

So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other; You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO

Remember it, my lord?

Carroll cut these lines from the script, so the actor had fewer possibilities on the level of the text to show Hamlet’s cruel face too. Balázs’ play anyway, depending on the (especially with the actresses, who played Ophelia and Gertrud) scenes and the evenings, could be hurtful, threatening and cruel. In the performance in September, at the beginning of the bedroom scene (3.4.) Balázs pushed a rusty scissors to Olga Varjú’s neck, and used physical violence many times.

Hamlet’s strategic thinking could be recognised mostly in connection with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s and besides them, with Claudius’ role. His relation to the courtiers was ambivalent from their first scene (2.2). On the one hand the tone is friendly and intimate but on the other hand it was characterised by distrust. Hamlet thought, then learnt that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were there around him because of the royal couple’s rule, they were called in. In their new scene (3.2.) after the Mousetrap, the courtiers’ task became more obvious, and in proportion with it, Hamlet was more hostile. From the hostile tone, many elements were out, for example a reference to the courtiers’ political ideas. According to Rosencrantz the inheritance was the main reason for Hamlet’s strange behaviour, Hamlet answered with a proverb for it (3.2.535-542). From the second part of the flute scene (3.2.543-69) some lines were out too in the script (543-8). Another addition was cut from Hamlet’s hostile tone and Guildenstern’s politeness (the missing parts from the script I marked with brackets).

ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET
So I do still, (by these pickers and stealers.) O, the recorders! let me see one. (To withdraw with you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN

O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET

I do not well understand that.) Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN

My lord, I cannot.

After the king decided to send Hamlet to England, because he thought him more and more dangerous, Carroll left out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s speech, which was worthy of courtiers, it was about the nature of the king’s safety. According to the script we got fewer from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s political statements, the lines of 3.3.602-624 were out. They were more harmless in the script than in the drama. This more harmless reading brought the script closer to Tom Stoppard’s interpretation, according to him the courtiers were more similar to “confused innocent” people than to Claudius’ “hired men”.

It was an important change that the first part of Hamlet’s last monologue (3.4.917-933) about the trapping of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (917-926) from the third act was cut. This monologue was only in the second quarto, its presence showed a more calculating and vengeful Hamlet than the one in the folio or the script:” There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows, / Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, / They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, / And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; / For 'tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard / But I will delve one yard below their mines, / And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, / When in one line two crafts directly meet.”

In this so called fire master speech Hamlet thought in the 3.4., that what must have been in Claudius’ official letter (for the content of which, Claudius referred to only in 4.3.). When Hamlet talked about how to send the courtiers to the moon, he was planning to get Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into their own trap. Anything could be in the royal trap, Hamlet could know or not that they brought his capital sentence in it, the same thing happened to the courtiers that would happen with him. So Hamlet did not plan obviously their death, but it could be in the game too, it depended on the fate, which was planned to him by the king. Hamlet in the quarto and the courtiers too were more calculating than in the folio.

The sponge scene remained in the script (4.2.), where all friendly parts were lost from Hamlet’s speech; he left Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for all the time, to whom, according to him the king’s support could give content. The beginning of the scene 5.2. got shorter, and the Hamlet of the script spoke shorter about the courtiers’ death. They got fewer explanation and devastating sentence (the parts in brackets were cut, 356-360).

HORATIO

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.

HAMLET

Why, man, they did make love to this employment; / They are not near my conscience; (their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow: 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. )

Thanked for the fact that Carroll brought the script closer to the folio, in the relationship between Hamlet and the courtiers there were more comic things. To get the effect of a more harmless Hamlet-courtiers, Stoppard left out the firemaster speech of the quarto from his play, and even that flute scene, which in a cut form could be found in the script of Bárka Theatre. Thanked for the stressing of the script, in Hamlet and the courtiers’ interactions, the clowning was the ruler part. Hamlet made mostly fun of them, and when they revealed (when Hamlet learnt that they were called), it seemed to be school-like bust instead. At the same time (contrary to Stoppard) Carroll did not cut all those parts from the dramatic text, which referred to the courtiers’ mission. In the performance depending on it, the courtiers were balancing between the reaction of the dutiful sycophants and of friends, who got a political exercise.

The monologue of: “How all occasions do inform against me And spur my dull revenge!” (4.4.), which was only in the quarto, could be connected well to the strategic thinker Hamlet’s picture of the quarto. According to Paul Werstine in this scene Hamlet, while he was thinking about Fortinbras, found motivation for himself for the fulfilment of revenge, in the name of honour: “Rightly to be great / Is not to stir without great argument, / But greatly to find quarrel in a straw / When honour's at the stake. / How stand I then, / That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, / Excitements of my reason and my blood, / And let all sleep? (...) O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” Hamlet in the folio, only in the second scene of the fifth act talked about his motivation, when he told to Horatio: “Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon-- / He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother, / Popp'd in between the election and my hopes, / Thrown out his angle for my proper life, / And with such cozenage--is't not perfect conscience, / To quit him with this arm?” This part was in the quarto too, the following part was only in the folio anyway: “and is't not to be damn'd, / To let this canker of our nature come In further evil? (...) “the interim is mine; / And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'” (5.2.367- 72). According to Werstine for Hamlet in the folio, the stake was the salvation, while in the quarto it was the thinking in honour.

In Bárka, he thought mostly in theatrical situations. The experimental performance was built on a conservative script that followed strictly the dramatic text. The playfulness of the performance came from the discovery and re-formation of the traditions. Carroll traced back the improvisation and the activation of the viewers to the conventions of the contemporary theatres of Shakespeare’s time, and the loyalty of the script to the dramatic text could free energies of the traditions for the viewers of theatre of today. The formation of the script of Bárka, showed us punctual Shakespeare philological and theatre historical knowledge. The techniques of edition were characterized by restraint, which was on behalf of usage of possibilities, which were encoded in the dramatic text (in connection with cuts, role consolidation, transcription, insertion, edition of scenes and so on).

Carroll’s script shows us, that the method of performing, as he has found it out, built on playful improvisation that doubts the canonical readings, can work effectively, when it is built on a classical text. As Melinda Sőregi wrote it, “the troupe of Bárka tried to treat Hamlet as a rite text, which does not need any reasoning.” Besides its rite text nature, at the formation of the script it did not mean to be untouchable. Carroll treats Hamlet as a text of theatre, and cuts it bravely. Arany’s translation is 3914 lines, from the script about 1300 lines were cut, which results in a script with 2614 lines (so about 66 percent of the translation remain). If we compare the script with the 3570 lines of the folio of Hamlet, to which Carroll has brought closer Arany’s translation, then the script is 73 percent of the text of the folio.

The director and the dramaturg’s cuts are conceptual, which remained in and out of the script, are in connection with the director’s interpretation. The script of Bárka, because of the changes of the translation shows us a less strategic Hamlet, a less outstanding Horatio, a less intriguing Polonius, a less manoeuvring Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and a less politician Claudius. There were cuts in Gertrud and Ophelia’s texts too, but compared to the below ones, they did not lose their nuances based on the text. The ghost of the script usually kept its ambiguity. The scenes of “theatre in theatre”, the texts about theatre remained mostly in this performance, where the working of theatre and actors, the viewers’ increased involvement were in the centre of the performance.

The script moved the text obviously towards the folio of Hamlet. Carroll cut all texts, which were only in the second quarto, except for three of them. Those parts of the quarto, like the speech of the firemaster and those, which were in the folio too, for example 3.2., the cut of the monologue that was about the planning of the murdering of the mother, resulted in a less provident and strategic Hamlet in the script on the level of translation. With this Carroll made the base of the improvising Hamlet with the text too. More surprisingly the speech of 4.4. “How all occasions do inform against me”, which was only in the quarto, remained there, and with it at this point broke the dominance of the folio, and brought in another motivation, the honour as the reason of acting, with the example of Fortinbras. As the result of the cuts, less remained of Hamlet, who made quick generalization from the parts, and who proned to rhetorical detours.

The exercises could be very punctually circumscribed, we could talk about the Ghost revenge-script, the performance of the Mousetrap or the staging of Hamlet, the text could be the most secure constant thing and the always-changing one too. Shakespeare’s Hamlet has more versions, which remained for us, many edition traditions have changed the versions. In the theatre the dramatic text could be the fix starting point anyway, about which during the performing has turned out how unfixable it is. The same dialogue can be born on stage in very contradictory situations on the stage, it is formed by unexpected situations, and the performance can never be the same. Especially in case of a performance, which is similar to Carroll’s, who aimfully deleted the fixed things. His theatre introduces us the moment of birth and its unrepeatability. If we could not experience the moment of birth on the stage, than it happened against the conception. The performance could have remained on program, but in the scale of performances, accidentally there were some elements, which were fixed, the combinatory of the performance seemed to be finite. The greatest enemy of improvisation theatre that is based on fixed text is the scale of performances itself, from which repetition can be hardly deleted. The importance of Carroll’s theatrical experiment cannot be found in the fact if the performance can defeat repetition and fixed things, but in the fact of revealing the mechanisms of theatre, which part can be fixing and improvisation, the performance and the process too.

Júlia Paraizs, apertúra, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)

This year I met director Zoltán Balázs again at the premiere of For Your Own Good, a production created together with the team of Odeon Theatre.

We had not seen each other for some time, but at the press conference I was pleased to notice that the passing of time had only added a slight melancholy to the features of this always cheerful artist, who chose the freedom of expression — something that inevitably comes with the financial difficulties of independent theatre.

I first met him in 2011 at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, where he arrived with his own ensemble, the dynamic troupe of Maladype Theatre, bringing an energetic performance that was just crazy enough to be exciting for audiences. In Egg(s)Hell, eight young actors perform movements timed down to the second: with the speed characteristic of slapstick, relationships between individuals and within the group gradually emerge while the actors attempt to catch and pass on a highly valuable EGG without breaking it. But should we understand this as a real egg, or the symbolic and primordial one?

A year earlier, at the same festival, I had seen an unconventional and brilliantly choreographed Leonce and Lena by this independent Budapest theatre company, in which the audience could choose from several possible outcomes for the story. The fact that Constantin Chiriac, director of the Sibiu festival, invited Balázs and his troupe back again was probably due to the ineffable quality this young theatre-maker possesses — the thing that makes his stage vision unmistakably unique and whose boldness enriches the language of contemporary theatre.

The surprises did not end there. On the evening after the performance, when the director arrived at the filming location of an interview introducing the theatre artists participating in the festival — which we were preparing for the Romanian public broadcaster TVR — the Hungarian Zoltán Balázs greeted us in vivid and nuanced Romanian. He had, after all, been born in Romania and spent around eleven years there. And he is one of those people who not only do not hide their origins, but value them.

So in 2019, when we sat down to talk at the Odeon Theatre after the premiere of For Your Own Good, neither his openness nor his excellent command of Romanian surprised me anymore.

Based on a text by the young award-winning Italian author Pier Lorenzo Pisano, the director created a visually overwhelming performance structured around the questions raised by the play: how dysfunctional are today’s families, and how can one escape their bleakness?

Sanda Vişan: In a 2013 interview, you said that contemporary texts did not interest you. And now, surprisingly enough, your current production is based on a text written by a 28-year-old playwright, while last year — also at the Odeon — you worked on a text by a Polish playwright born in 1982. Did you take a little break to see what is happening in the world today?

Zoltán Balázs: You see, we say one thing and do another, but that also means we are open to opportunities that arise. I never thought I would work with a contemporary text when this opportunity came along. And it is no secret that I first discussed things with Dorina Lazăr at the Odeon. At the time we talked about a large-stage adaptation of La Fontaine’s fables and Matei Vișniec’s Dada Cabaret, which I had already directed successfully in Budapest.

Things changed afterward, and the theatre got a new director. To my surprise, Cristian Șofron called me and said he wanted to continue the collaboration. Honestly, this is a very rare gesture — directors usually prefer choosing the people they work with themselves and do not typically continue collaborations started by their predecessors. I was very surprised, but I told myself: why not say yes if they want it too? Let’s see what this Fabulamundi Playwright Europe project has in store for us. After that I chose the play Gardenia.

The Odeon Theatre became a partner in the European Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe project in 2012 and, within the framework of the programme promoting contemporary drama, staged eight readings of plays from the contemporary dramatic literature of ten member states between 2012 and 2016. In 2018, a text by the Polish-born playwright Elżbieta Chowaniec was staged under the direction of Zoltán Balázs. The Hungarian director preserved the essence of the repeatedly tragic fate of four women who, from the tyrannical great-grandmother to the modern great-granddaughter, all search for their own freedom but ultimately follow the same path through the turbulent second half of the twentieth century.

The director also managed to retain the text’s cruel honesty, elevating the play — at the level of relationships between the characters — onto a foundation free of sentimentality, while channeling emotionally charged moments symbolically into operatic excerpts performed by the actors.

S. V.: In 2019 you also chose For Your Own Good by Pier Lorenzo Pisano yourself?

B. Z.: Yes. Tamara Susoi was a tremendous help — she is the heart and mind of this project and works with great motivation both on Fabulamundi and on fulfilling our directorial wishes. She motivated me as well to embark on this adventure. I never illustrate the author’s text; what interests me is how I can complement and enrich it, how I can create a personal mythology.

There is no doubt that he elevated the meaning of the otherwise overly simple realist text to another level: he created a baroque and tension-filled stage universe in which the confrontations caused by the prodigal son’s return to a dysfunctional family take place aboard a ship headed nowhere — yet one that transforms the banal figures of reality into legendary characters.

S. V.: How did you arrive — from the language characteristic of your troupe, based largely on physicality and the rhythm of movement and music — at the kind of language we saw at the Odeon, rich in a sort of profane sanctity, where movement mostly appears on the level of hissing confrontations?

B. Z.: A great deal depends on the play itself, the author’s intentions, and naturally the troupe, the situation, the possibilities, and my own vision of the text. I haven’t changed, but I want to find the right interpretation for each play so I do not repeat myself or recycle elements from previous productions.

My greatest desire — sometimes it succeeds, sometimes not; that’s life — is to observe, invent new things, important things, to discover fresh impulses that open new possibilities of expression for me as a director, as a human being, as a man. I would like to live on Jupiter, where, as far as I know, one day equals three Earth days, because 24 hours are not enough for me to deal with this source of joy called theatre.

It gives me enormous joy to find collaborators in whose eyes I can see understanding awakening; to see people connecting with one another and understanding something anew; to see two or three actors suddenly grasp the whole picture while others get lost, and still others — from whom you would never expect it — discover themselves. It is fascinating, this thing that comes from setting thought into motion.

Without thought behind it, any movement becomes false, neutral, anonymous, empty of content. That is why I am always interested in the actor’s thinking and personality, and I try to guide them toward their personal desires so they can fulfill the requirements of the play in that way. Pisano’s text is completely different from Büchner or anything else I have worked on in recent years. For example, last year at the Odeon I worked on Gardenia by the Polish playwright Elżbieta Chowaniec. At first the text struggled to find its way to the collaborators, the actresses, the audience. Then it began to flow naturally.

S. V.: Both texts you selected revolve around generational differences and dysfunctional families. Two different authors, two similar themes. Have you encountered similar dilemmas in your own life?

B. Z.: Every family has problems, but joyful things as well. I was born into an exceptional family, inheriting the traditions of a noble lineage on one side. At the same time, my father was an extremely simple man. My mother and father loved each other, but a large part of their conflicts stemmed from cultural differences between them.

S. V.: So your mother, who came from a noble family, felt she had married beneath her social rank?

B. Z.: Exactly. Moreover, the two families barely kept in touch.

S. V.: That’s understandable.

B. Z.: After a while I understood it too, but when they divorced I was still a child. My sister and I were left without a father, and we did not understand the situation at all; it was very difficult. We need time and maturity to understand such things. Family always offers an opportunity for reconsideration and reevaluation — if we manage it, if we receive help.

In this play, for example, the Stranger both helps and obstructs the Boy in making a life-defining decision before setting out on his own path. But is this the only possibility, the only answer to the questions: what is the purpose of my life, how does my father feel, what is my mother doing? This text led me toward magical realism, inspired by Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Born in 1977 in Cluj-Napoca, Zoltán Balázs studied acting and directing in Budapest and, at the age of 24, took his artistic fate into his own hands by founding the Maladype Theatre, which has since become an important pillar of Hungary’s independent theatre movement. The experience he gained in workshops abroad — with Anatoly Vasiliev and Josef Nadj, or while learning alongside Robert Wilson — is clearly visible in his theatrical vision, where music and scenography are equal to the spoken word.

S. V.: From what I have seen of your work, I sensed a consistency and an ability to create a symbolic framework for a performance. For Your Own Good is a text that, when read, has almost no chance of escaping the cage of realism. Yet on your stage the visual layers sometimes have a Wilsonian quality — you once called it monumental minimalism. The ship in which the action unfolds symbolizes sorrow rather than hope.

B. Z.: Charon’s ship does not bring much hope. I mean, one may hope that on the other shore we will find what we could not find here, but we do not know exactly what awaits us there. The ship is a space of possibilities, relationships, hierarchies, of the vertical and the horizontal, of distance and closeness — therefore it is in constant motion. Constantin Ciubotariu’s set design contains many surprises.

The text also offers the possibility of constructing a thriller that ends in a powerful metamorphosis. At least that is how I interpreted this somewhat banal text, from which one could easily have made a social-documentary production. But there are already excellent directors working in that style — for example, Gianina Cărbunariu would probably have created a wonderful performance from it. It benefits both the troupe and the audience when a foreign director arrives who sees things a little differently. These different colors, signs, and flavors accumulate and diversify the Odeon’s palette.

Zoltán Balázs directs productions in Romania, France, the United States, Slovakia, and Germany. His enthusiasm resembles that of a child marveling at the world and wanting to show others the starry sky. He is the kind of artist for whom creative freedom is not negotiable. This also means that sometimes he must face the financial insecurity that accompanies the path he has chosen.

S. V.: Now that Hungary’s political system has taken a different direction, what is happening with your theatre?

B. Z.: For the Maladype Theatre this is a very difficult situation. Eighteen years have passed since its founding.

S. V.: Meaning eighteen years of struggling against political and economic tides...

B. Z.: Against everything at once. Two things help enormously: the support of the audience...

S. V.: But no performance can survive on ticket sales alone.

B. Z.: That’s true, but whenever we enter a crisis or face major problems, the audience immediately stands beside us. They raise money and help us with their own hands. It means a lot that Maladype is internationally recognized as an independent theatre, so we can also rely on the international market. This is a great joy for us.

Unfortunately our headquarters was destroyed after the upstairs neighbor flooded us. As a result, many sets and costumes became unusable, and we cannot perform seven out of ten productions. Recently the company participated in three festivals, and I accompanied them. Now that we premiered at the Odeon, we are preparing for more festivals.

Interestingly, after the accident many people from the theatre scene contacted me to say how much they respected and loved our work. Even if they cannot host all our productions, they would gladly invite us from autumn onward. We are very happy about this because it means our presence also matters in Hungary.

To answer your previous question: I find it very sad that even after working for years, proving your worth, leading people, collaborating with emblematic actors, teaching, directing, and creating unique collaborations throughout the country, what you do still does not count. What matters are political and family connections, communicating in a certain way. Of course, this is not true only of Hungary, but such things are alien to me; I want to sleep peacefully at night. I try to stay away from solutions that may rescue you in the short term but afterward leave you unable to look at yourself in the mirror. In the performance we presented at the Odeon, I also tried to speak about this.

S. V.: So you sustain yourselves through tours and festivals?

B. Z.: Yes, through tours, performances in different countries — from Iran to India, from Albania to America; we are preparing to go to Egypt and Vietnam... Through different unfamiliar situations I give my actors opportunities to develop both artistically and personally. We have a mode of expression and theatrical language that cannot easily be absorbed in a short period of time; even if people are open, when I work with foreign companies there is usually neither enough time nor the right conditions for this kind of work. I need to know everything in advance: what kind of theatre I am going to, what play I will work on, what my possibilities are, how I can push them out of their comfort zones while still ensuring that there is pleasure in the symbolic and concrete journey we take together toward the performance.

S. V.: Although Hungary is moving in an illiberal direction politically, the country is doing well economically. Aren’t people in the business world — who are making a lot of money through state contracts — open to supporting the arts?

B. Z.: That would be wonderful, and in some form it does exist. Our sponsors, for example, help us, but it is not enough to establish long-term relationships. Besides, those who are on good terms with the state do not have financial problems — they receive support. These things are painful, and I would like to find proper solutions, especially for my team, who work day and night.

So I try to work with what I have, but naturally there comes a time when things can no longer continue this way. I must choose whether I will find a home in Hungary or in another country.

S. V.: After so many years, so much perseverance and resistance — because despite the economic circumstances your troupe still exists — do you still ask yourself this question?

B. Z.: I try to ask the right question. I believe a person should be where the world needs them. Where they are not needed, where people do not know they are needed or simply do not want them, the artist should not remain present. That probably grants us the necessary freedom as well.

Whatever fate may bring, whatever the future holds for Zoltán Balázs, one thing is certain: his encounter with theatre in the country where he was born has borne fruit. In Timișoara, Sibiu, Târgu Mureș, and Bucharest as well, audiences will be able to board the “Ship of Good Hope” at the Odeon Theatre in November to see Zoltán Balázs’s two productions, Gardenia and For Your Own Good.

Sanda Vişan, Adevărul, 2019.

Translated by Panna Adorjáni

For eighteen years now, one of the country’s most unusual independent theatres, Maladype Theatre, has operated mostly from a second-floor apartment known as “the Base” at 2 Mikszáth Kálmán Square. Zoltán Balázs is its founder, artistic director, stage director, and actor — the driving force through and through. We talked about him and the company. And about everything else...

As you rushed in just now, I’m sure that, as always, you’re in the middle of something. What is it this time?
I’m preparing to go to the Odeon Theatre in Bucharest, where last year I directed Gardenia by the contemporary Polish playwright Elżbieta Chowaniec. The production was very well received by both the Romanian theatre community and audiences, so the theatre management invited me back to further develop the theatrical language that had already emerged with the actors of the ensemble. This time I’m staging For Your Own Good by the contemporary Italian playwright Pier Lorenzo Pisano.

Let’s jump way back: when and how did theatre first capture you?
It wasn’t theatre that captured me, but the circus. I was born in Cluj-Napoca, but until I was twelve we lived in northern Transylvania, in Sighetu Marmației, before relocating in 1989. I was six years old when my grandfather took me to see a travelling circus. I saw half-successful tricks, sad performers, and a tired snake lazily twisting around without enthusiasm — and yet the experience was overwhelming. I was completely enchanted. As a result, that very night I packed my things, and at dawn I showed up at the travelling troupe.

The caravan was just taking down the tent, and without even asking who I was, they took me along with them. Back home everyone was desperately searching for me, but my grandfather, remembering the look in my eyes during the previous evening’s performance, quickly figured out where I might be. They came after us with the police, stopped the caravan, and took me home. For more than a month I refused to speak to my family because I felt they had deprived me of the meaning of my life.

I longed to become an acrobatic clown who, after every blood-curdling stunt, could turn to the audience and say: “Hepp! Calm down, people, it’s only a joke and a game...” The circus became the most alluring art form for me, and the duality of sacred and profane moments captured my heart and imagination. For a long time I searched for similar impulses but couldn’t find them. After changing countries, I hitchhiked across Europe purely for pleasure, meeting Native Americans, sumo wrestlers, housewives, all sorts of people... I had an enormous appetite for life and threw myself greedily into every adventure that seemed promising.

Did you find what you were looking for?
Yes — at the drama department in Szentes. My teachers, Mihály Bácskai, Mrs. Mihály Bácskai (Erzsike), Imre Keserű, Zoltán László, and Erzsébet Dózsáné Perjés patiently and wisely guided me along a theatrical journey infused with personal experience. That was when I first encountered acting as one of the most exciting and complex forms of expression. A defining experience for me was a production based on Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil, which, thanks to the francophone connections of the Szentes secondary school, we were able to perform at the festival in Avignon. There I met Marcel Bozonnet, then director of the Paris Conservatoire, who, after seeing me perform as Baudelaire, invited me to continue my studies there. At the time, though, I felt I had things to do in Hungary — I had found a home there. And besides, I was in love... For three years I attended the studio of the National Theatre, and then I was admitted to the acting class of Miklós Benedek at the University of Theatre and Film Arts. A year later I was also accepted into the directing program, in the class of László Babarczy. Later, circumstances allowed me to begin studies at the Paris Conservatoire simultaneously with my training in Budapest. During the combined semesters I had the opportunity to learn from masters such as Robert Wilson, Anatoly Vasiliev, and Min Tanaka.

As a trained actor-director you worked at the Bárka Theatre while founding Maladype at the same time. How did that happen?
Coincidences organized my life. In the spring of 2001, several people drew the attention of the Serbian producer Dragan Ristić to a “strange, unruly, rebellious” character — a graduating directing student who was open to any kind of madness. That was me. Ristić wanted to create a European-level theatre production in Budapest with Roma and non-Roma actors working together. He asked me to direct Eugène Ionesco’s Jack, or the Submission in both Romani and Hungarian. “You do know this play has failed everywhere in the world?” I asked him. “I know,” he replied, “but this time it won’t.” He was right. The premiere took place at the Roma Parliament, and the troupe — assembled from different places — became a huge success with both critics and audiences. We performed at impossible hours, at night, to packed houses.

Maladype grew out of that ensemble. What does the word mean? And how did you begin?
In Lovari, it means “encounter.” That word most accurately expressed the experience that united all of us during the Jack production — the connection born between performers and audience. That is why we chose it as the name of our theatre. Our next premiere took place at the Szkéné Theatre and was based on School for Fools by Michel de Ghelderode. In the performance, the actors spoke Romani, Hungarian, and Latin. We were convinced it would be a disastrous failure, but to our surprise it became an even greater success. Our third premiere seemed an even more impossible undertaking because we chose a playwright whose works and personality had not yet been accepted by Hungarian theatrical taste: Jean Genet’s The Blacks, which we premiered in 2004 at the Bárka Theatre with music by László Sáry.

What made it seem impossible?
Because of the complete absence of traditionalism and social realism characteristic of the French author, and because of the unusual, innovative fusion of the formal and thematic features typical of my own work. The production was essentially a contemporary opera in which singing and speech appeared as “masks” within a story boldly integrating motifs from various exotic movement cultures. In the plot — built on peculiar reflections and rituals — the actors of Roma origin played the white aristocratic court, while the Hungarian actors portrayed the slaves, the Blacks; for example, Artúr Kálid played a white woman... These productions established Maladype’s reputation both in Hungary and abroad. They articulated the company’s unique conception of theatre and turned the actors into emblematic figures of a different kind of actor. That’s how we began. Everything afterward became organic chapters of a story writing itself.

You suddenly had a company, with all the joys and burdens that come with it. Let’s take them one by one.
I quickly had to learn the uncomfortable tasks of grant writing and fundraising. I had to pay attention to the kind of collaborators I surrounded myself with. I also had to make the members of the company understand that our work was defined by a competitive spirit. For example, if the development of the ensemble is endangered by a difficult-to-motivate actor who lags behind, then we have to let them go, because in the long run they hold back the “racehorses” of the theatre. In short, I had to quickly grow into the not-so-popular role of company leader and always be ready for replanning and redefinition.

As I see it, you carry all this on your shoulders. Don’t you get tired?
So far I can still handle it. Maybe my childhood circus experiences also play a role in that. Every one of my productions contains an element of risk and resistance. Maladype actors must be able to focus on many things at once; their nervous systems cannot be ordinary, and they must adapt to every unexpected situation...

...where even the audience almost becomes part of the performance because they are so immersed in it. In a large repertory theatre, the audience applauds or boos, but in your intimate performance space the fifty spectators surrounding the stage immediately laugh or shout into the play itself. How can actors adapt to that?
Through daily practice and conditioning. This kind of attention cannot be learned at university. The actors who work with me possess a certain kind of “recklessness.” During performances they must apply a special ability of flexibility and spiritual-emotional suppleness, which they acquire over time through various training sessions. Someone who lacks this may still be a good actor — just not with me.

What kind of theatre is the Odeon?
One of the world’s most respected theatrical workshops. The Romanian equivalent of Budapest’s Vígszínház. After the 1989 revolution, under the directorship of the internationally renowned Vlad Mugur, it became internationally famous. Directors such as Andrei Șerban, Mihai Măniuțiu, Alexander Hausvater, Radu Afrim, and Gianina Cărbunariu have worked there. As far as I know, I am the first foreign director to work with the Odeon ensemble. That also places a great responsibility on me.

What makes directing abroad different?
Mostly the fact that I can devote all my nerves and attention entirely to the creative process and the actors’ work. That is a huge luxury! In Hungary my everyday life is dominated mainly by organizational and managerial tasks. I’ve become accustomed to the reality that the leader of an independent theatre company, whose troupe lives from day to day, always has to redesign and rethink everything.

András Váczy, Business Class Magazine, 22 July 2019.

According to the director of the Maladype Theater, it would be worth to distinguish amongst the independent companies between the ones with serious past and early-stage companies.

The alteration of the Corporate Tax system puts the nearly 18-year-old company in a difficult position. At the same time, the theater director believes that the current situation creates a good opportunity to clarify the real professional questions, which have been swept under the rug a long time ago, and to radicalize the situation of the independent theaters. He finds this achievable on a strictly professional basis, taking in consideration real values and performances.

- Can you remember what situation were you in and what was your first reaction, when you have been informed about the Corporate Tax decision?

- We’ve been in a waiting position; we should have found out which companies will offer us the maximum amount of the Corporate Tax based on the number of the audience and income. The Corporate Tax support covers nearly two months of Maladype Theaters’ functioning. It is very important since as an independent theater with constant company and team of associates we have to maintain seventeen people. It was questionable, how we can agree with future backers, such as MagNet Bank, and when can we start the subsidy process. Then we received the news, that the Corporate Tax system will be abolished or changed, but we did not receive any information about the criteria’s of how all this will happen; unfortunately, the distribution ration is still unclear. We did not see the point of reacting to the initial rumors. We wanted to wait for unambiguous information. Since then, we know that the cost plan for theatrical support is ready and the cultural under-secretary of Ministry of Human Capacities, Péter Fekete, will be responsible for distributing the 37 billion HUF theatrical support budget.

- What did you do about these unexpected situations so far?

- Taking into consideration the changed situation, we tried to find a financing solution from alternative sources. We can handle the unexpected circumstances only if we are constantly ready for a change and we have multiple survival strategies. This can be a creative, puzzle game as well, but you can’t gamble with an artistically and structurally functioning company. A large part of our income it is from our foreign tours, our guest performances, and thanks to this are we still alive. It is a decisive question for us, that in the revised Corporate Tax system on what conditions will the payment happen, who will benefit from it, and will the independent and private theaters and cultural festivals have a place in this new package, and if so, what kind of place.

- On your website, it says that you are a company that can always redefine itself, and you consider the actual changes as a natural process of theater making. Is this statement valid for the current situation as well?

- As we know, some terrestrial life forms do not grow in a light and oxygen-rich environment, but instead they are found in hot water, alkali or acidic soils, nevertheless they live and exist. Translated to our theater situation: thanks to our adaptation, we are „survivors” among the independent companies and this gives us support and strength. If we would truly face the misuses and professional anomalies caused by the previous Corporate Tax, and the whole matter would be responsibly and prudently investigated, then this current situation could even bring positive changes by rethinking the entire support system of the performing arts.

There could be also a reconsideration in long-standing structural issues. For instance, selection between independent companies could take place and they could highlight those five truly independent theaters, that for many years have been showing earnest professional accomplishments home and abroad as well with little, incalculable financial support. I find it inappropriate that in 2019, the Maladype Theatre is in the same position as the start-up companies, that are often organized for a single event. This does not mean, that in the course of time these theatrical adventures cannot grow into a serious, considerable ensemble, but we, who have already been through this process, know from our experience, that a lot of things are necessary, first of all, long-term professional and operational concept and planning.

I do not believe that anyone could contest the almost eighteen-year-old Maladype with its innovative performances and special theater education programs for contributing to the current character of the Hungarian theater; which is why I feel that this secondary treatment that concerns us and other independent theaters similar to ours it is derogatory. It would be opportune reconsidering the value-based system of transparent financial and professional support and take accountability seriously.

- What criteria do you think should be laid down for this?

- Very concrete ones. The companies should present long-term functional plans built on genuine professional ideas, but not just on paper, but also in an effective and demandable way in the theater. They should be able to maintain and improve their function; they should be interested in the implementation of complex theatrical processes and in the restore of their achievements as widely as possible. They should have a place in their structural-intellectual strategy for innovative ideas and solutions, and a place in their communication, a straightforward, dynamic, and active tone addressing to a multigenerational audience.

However, the most definite measure of effectiveness is that, from a professional point a view, what can the company add to the canonized greater whole as a valid practical suggestion. Beside highlighting those five independent theaters that show proper function, it would also be important for these companies to have their functional support at the beginning of that particular period, to ensure planning and functional safety. Many suggestions have been written as a response in the previous years, but nothing happened. This is what the Board of Trustees, published on April 12, 2018, is about.

- From this, I conclude, that there are people near the government who are well aware of this situation.

- Yes, there are professional councils, curators, under-secretaries, and ministers who recommend the same thing year by year. To no avail. We all know within the profession which of the independent groups are really operable and which truly regular guests of foreign festivals are. The intention to change the Corporate Tax was, among other things, the fact that among the performing arts organizations were some, who misused the „whipped” data of the pseudo-spectators from foreign performances and thus received extra funds. The problem is that not only those, who caused this whole issue to explode had been affected, but also those who had done their job honorably compared to their own possibilities. The baby has been thrown out with the bathwater.

- What could be the solution?

- The most correct would be to account those responsible, and those, who were not part of this dirty game, would be given the opportunity to put a word in the reallocation of the Corporate Tax system. Now it seems, that following the example of the Film Fund, the Corporate Tax support of theater art community is also being resolved by distributing Corporate Tax offerings from a common pot. But what and who exactly this decision affects, we don’t know it yet. It is heard, those national and advantaged institutions will benefit the most. No one talks about us, the independents. It is also important to mention that the dust cloud swirling around the Corporate Tax was a good cover for the fact that the National Cultural Fund of Hungary’s production applications were not announced in the autumn of 2018. Also not to mention the fact that the announcement of the 2019/2020 operational applications is already in one-month delay compared to last year’s date.

- How does the current situation affect Maladype in terms of premiers?

- I hope that one of our two premiers planned for this season, Euripides Trojan Women will take place in the direction of István K. Szabó. In the midst of fateful wars, the play that focuses on different female principles is very relevant and a worthy task for the actresses from our company. Also, our audience can welcome Mária Varga as a guest artist in the performance. Witold Gombrowicz Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy would have its premiere at the beginning of April in my direction. The twelve actors of the company would play together in this performance, but the fate of this is still uncertain because of the mentioned reasons.

- How do you find the silence of the theatrical scene?

- We do not have a positive experience with different professional and interest organizations. We have also left the Independent Performing Artists’ Association a couple of years ago because we felt that it did not represent our interests at all. The fabric of theater society is also very damaged. Coming to a new age, a new dimension, I find it necessary to think and want to think together about the new theater life form, but I do not like the violent manifestation of criers and the those who call themselves „professional mouthpieces”. In my opinion, any ruthless and reckless statement about the common cause of our profession is extremely detrimental. For me, true professionalism means only one thing: the consistent and involved search and research work. How we are capable of artistic and human solidarity for the development of theater art, the launch of incentive and integrative creative processes and their widest possible completion and preservation. Do we strive for a greater understanding, consensus, dialogues of the past truths and the theatrical processes of our times. Today I feel timely the world-renowned Japanese writers, Mishima Yukio, an urgent call from the mid-twentieth once more, in which he draws the attention of artist to the risk of arts over-politicization: „It is time for artists to return to the art!” Maybe we should also think about why are we dealing with theater making; business and self-interest control our everyday theater activities or we have deeper, stratified connection with the essence of the Theater, which cannot be regarded as just a concept or an object. The FIVE GATES era-specific theatrical-methodology concept, which I started in September 2018, examines these theatrical and technical issues with seven young graduates.

- It is also stated on your website that you support yourself from funding applications. The interviewees of this series of interviews so far have all said, that these funding sources are so small that they do not provide enough coverage for not even one new premier. How can you solve this?

- With a lot of work and trained nervous system. We try to apply everywhere. Thinking responsibly, we have no other choice in the current rules of the game. Some other methods of obtaining money have also been developed, but for their validation deliberate supportive strategy and constant expanding contact network was needed. We have built our Maladype support programs with a lot of energy. For example, thanks to a part of the previous Corporate Tax support we could make happen the very successful poster campaign called I also watch Maladype. We are aware that we need to address new investors in order to stay alive. If everyone would contribute only a small amount to the projects of our company, that can get bigger. This, of course, does not solve our annual operating deficit at all, but it is convenient for gaining time.

- Do you have somebody whose job is only this?

- All of us are multifunctional because it is necessary, efficient and economical. Although the applications are not yet written by our actors (although I have seen an example of this kind abroad), and our staff did not have to perform, but it is important that our company members can turn their hands to anything and to have quick, flexible problem-solving skills.

- In what way are actors’ moods affected by this situation? Do you perceive existential fear on them?

- As constant members of an independent theater company, unfortunately, over the years, they have got accustomed to the regular presence of uncertainty about their future. They know that they are part of a problem-solving team, and if we already have valid information about them, we’ll share it in time. In the meantime, they concentrate on what is their main task on the rehearsals and performances. For this special form of life, it is needed plasticity and constantly renewing trust that distinguishes maladype actors for other companies actors’.

- If you had to say today how long you see the future of Maladype, what date would you tell us?

- By mid-march. All of this because we successfully managed to separate the costs for the seven young people we hired in September from the cost of the theater. Last summer we took a huge risk by inviting seven members of the graduate acting class from the University of Art Târgu Mureş to our three-year talent care/support program. However thanks to some of our enthusiastic backers, and especially the long-term cooperation concept with the director of the TRIP Ship, László Magács (director, theater director, initiator of Átrium –ed.) we managed to provide for this season the necessary resources for the research-work of our new actors. László Magács recognized the importance of the FIVE GATES concept and he became a professional mentor and patron of the juniors participating in the program.

- Do you have any answer to what could be the purpose of the Corporate Tax action?

- I have several possible answers, but I hope that the main aim of the change is to have a more transparent system to operate the target amount of the guaranteed aid to be distributed from the common pot. In my opinion, a Corporate Tax system that is selective and up-to-date cannot have the only starting point of maximizing the audience. The real change would be to determine the rate of Corporate Tax support for those concerned by other professional criteria, true values, and performances. Corporate Tax support for development could also play a very important role.

- It is not clear from the government decree from December what the independent companies can expect.

- Indeed. It should be taken in consideration the fact that there are beginners among the independents and there are teams that have been working successfully for several years, who have been able to prove their viability in hopeless circumstances. This fact itself could be a powerful filter for the long overdue and necessary reduction process. The operating and support conditions for the registered organizations should also be reconsidered.

- Maladype is a theater open to the audience. Among other things, every performance is followed by a meeting with the audience where you talk about what they have seen. In the course of these conversations is the audience interested in what will happen to you?

- They always ask about the company and us; it also happened that we had previously received some useful information personally from them and not from official sources. They keep an eye on us, on the changes. We also have some of them, who regularly supports our theater with a monthly transfer. We have always considered the importance to involve our audience in our creative processes and share the concerns we face on a daily basis about our function.

- Is the old-time patronage system revitalized in Hungary today?

- It is revitalized if there is a Prometheus of our time, who will share the flame between the patron gods and the creative people. Intelligence, sensitivity, empathy, professionalism, and last but not least, practical experience and relational capital. We can consider us lucky because in almost eighteen years we have met with such backers, and we are thankful for them.

- If you had a situation where your company could not continue to function, what kind of personal plan do you have for the future?

- We’ve been struggling for a long time to survive to be very experienced „situation managers”. We have different emergency scenarios. We flip through the pages and with little risk factor we try to bring it to effect. Certainly, this does not mean that we will survive this period under all circumstances because if there is no support and applications, this is simply impossible. Practicing theater directors know exactly what a long-term artistic concept is an indispensable prerequisite for stable administration and finance.

Without this in the 21st century, you can’t develop or improve; we cannot guarantee the rental cost of our permanent theater space, the infrastructural background required for quality work and the honorary payment for our artists. Our name is well known abroad and by our international appearance we can be active participants in the worlds theater events, but as we get closer to the jubilee year, I would like if Maladype would be appreciated at last at home as well, and to see our operating amount, based on our many years of operation and achievements. Simply because we deserve it.

Anna Rácz, Szinhaz.hu, 2019

Translation by Brigitta Erőss

How did you react when Zsótér wanted to direct the play with you?

The same way I reacted in 2005 with Hamlet, when it turned out that Tim Carroll was thinking of me for the role: with astonishment, but also with great curiosity. At the time Tim said that his Hamlet needed my “director’s brain,” the playfulness of a spirit constantly renewing its strategies, and also my ability, as an actor, to plan ten or twenty steps ahead beyond the immediate situations and moments of the character. Sándor Zsótér saw me several times in Hamlet and liked my stage presence. Our Richard may in fact be an extension of Hamlet. Since Sanyi had already worked several times with the Maladype Theatre ensemble and with me personally, it was obvious that we were preparing a non-classical production of Richard III.

What do you mean by “non-classical”?

The beginning of the performance already reveals the unique nature of the directorial intention and the unusual perspective with which Sanyi and his collaborators — Mária Ambrus, Mari Benedek, and Júlia Ungár — approached the classical drama. In my opening monologue I take out a bubble wand and play mischievously with it; through this conspiratorial interaction with the audience I suggest that compared to the perfect proportions and form of a soap bubble, even the most attractive woman or man is imperfect. If I can convey this idea — one of the central pillars of Richard’s program — in the first person singular, then the audience immediately senses that our production requires a different kind of reading, a different spectator attitude, and a greater capacity for abstraction. Maladype’s Richard III will not be a conventional adventure. That is why, as Richard, I do not wear orthopedic devices, nor do I need to spend a long time demonstrating my “science of limping” at the beginning of the performance.

Instead, diction plays an important role.

We perform Shakespeare’s history play in the 130-year-old Hungarian translation by Ede Szigligeti. The text, rich in unusual expressions and never before heard on a Hungarian stage, does not provide audiences with the classical musicality they are accustomed to from István Vas’s translation, so spectators must keep their antennas much more open throughout the performance. They must pay close attention to how each character speaks, what strange adjectives and startling expressions they use. In this way the audience also invests attention and energy into taming the Szigligeti text, making it more tangible, and reaching the essential information and realizations together with the actors. Many people return to see the performance again precisely because of the text.

Your Richard is an outwardly attractive man, and inwardly he is neither satanically evil nor grotesquely twisted. This is not at all a conventional interpretation.

Certainly not. Even from Sanyi’s casting choices and analysis of the play, it became clear that we would not be using stereotypical solutions during rehearsals, and this motivated all of us greatly — for example, in how we would jointly decipher the unexpected losses within the drama.

Losses?

Yes. Because sooner or later Richard must reckon with loss. He overdrives himself, and by the time he finally acquires everything he desired, he is no longer capable of enjoying his victory; he feels like a loser. His separation from Buckingham becomes a serious trauma. The Duke of Buckingham — in our production every “cz” is pronounced in the old-fashioned way — refuses to fulfill Richard’s most important request: he does not want to kill the royal children. This leads to complete estrangement, almost a kind of “romantic rupture” for King Richard, who was elevated to the throne with Buckingham’s help. After that he loses his sense of play, his humor; there is no longer anyone to dazzle. The process of isolation intensifies, and physical and psychological disintegration takes over. We witness the collapse of the concentrating power of an exceptional mind, which eventually — at least in our interpretation — causes Richard to lose his sound judgment as well.

Thanks to Sanyi’s radical directorial gesture, we do not perform the final act. Our production ends with the line: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” By that point, a disintegrating mind is already examining itself, analyzing real and imagined intentions. “Richard loves Richard, that is, I am I” — I began it, and I must also finish it before myself, for myself, by myself. No one will mourn me or search for me. I must confront the end, which means that the “mirroring technique” I previously used so successfully on those around me must suddenly be applied to myself. And that is not so simple. Sanyi’s directorial demand is that Richard prepare an inventory of himself with an ice-cold, razor-sharp mind, and afterward accept that there is nothing more left in him — he is exhausted. He almost longs for death.

The space is tiny, and you are extremely close to the audience. Yet you are not exactly the central figure in the usual sense. Your Richard almost seems to withdraw, though at decisive moments he is there like a spider.

That is exactly what we wanted! That is what makes him dangerous. The fact that he does not reveal himself.

The Anne–Richard scene is often considered one of the key scenes of the play. In your production it seems less emphasized. Was that not of interest to you?

Sanyi thinks that what happens there is essentially a warm-up exercise — Richard is warming up, treating seduction as a kind of training program. If he succeeds there, then his much more complicated later actions will also succeed. We wanted to show Richard’s rare ability to melt so completely into the empathetic observation of another person that the other — in this case Lady Anne — feels that Richard’s claims are backed by attentive personal understanding, and that despite all his disturbing assertions, his concrete rhetorical techniques contain serious and useful truths.

Because of her own situation and emotional agitation, Anne knows perfectly well why she should have nothing to do with Richard, but Richard — still Duke of Gloucester at this point — turns her arguments around with such logical precision that she increasingly loses the thread of her own reasoning and cannot continue what she started; she gets stuck and begins new lines of argument. Taking this kind of structure, these logical leaps and rhetorical rules seriously, Sanyi did not force me into the stereotypical behavioral model that allows the actor playing Richard to conceal a gigolo beneath apparent deformities.

This scene is a huge challenge both for Ágota Szilágyi and for me. We have no grand emotional amplitudes or direct acting templates. It is a complex and demanding acting task to allow the audience, step by step, to notice the contradictions in Anne’s statements and enjoy the way Richard exposes and reflects them back to her. At first it is not a meeting between a man and a woman, but between two people who understand the situation and genuinely want to communicate about it. Yet at the same time they “click” with one another, and from this unexpected and exciting pseudo-erotic experience Anne’s relationship to life is refreshed — in short: Richard breathes life into Lady Anne.

Has your performance changed over the course of the productions?

I am convinced that it has. Returning spectators also tell us so. During the first few performances we still respected Sanyi’s concept almost too much, but over time we began to sense where there were gaps in the concept that could be filled with ever-new acting discoveries and subtler nuances. If Sanyi also appreciates these moments, it elevates all of our performances.

You mentioned that in a relatively short time you already reached your fortieth performance. I assume you are not playing only at your own Base venue.

We are receiving invitations to more and more festivals, especially festivals presenting contemporary theatrical tendencies, so there must be something unusual and formally innovative in our production. The directorial emphases are placed completely differently, and therefore the acting is built from different tools than in conventional Richard III interpretations. It demands from the actors a sense of proportion and style, as well as delicate modulation, which must be applied entirely differently in a room-sized venue, or in Gyula on the large stage of the Castle Theatre, or at an international festival — most recently in Brno, next in Bitola — where the playing area is set before an imposing large auditorium.

Foreign audiences also watch very attentively because they are not primarily given spectacular effects and grand gestures, but rather a finely tuned, intimate, and highly personal adaptation of Richard III. As the performance progresses, the special beauty and power of this approach gradually opens up to them. For example, if my healthy-looking Richard, through his straightforward behavior and direct communication, succeeds in winning the audience’s sympathy and making them my accomplices, they sometimes end up pitying me by the conclusion. Thus, although we begin from very far away, we eventually arrive very close to that single sustained note which, over time, comes to signify for everyone the inevitable essence of the fulfillment of life and death.

What we represent with this production is essentially a kind of minimal music. A work by John Cage — if we do it well.

István Nánay: “Richards,” Színház, July–September 2018.