Leonce and Lena, which was peformed in Bárka Theatre and from the new term has been played in the New Studio of Thalia, has got everything from the fighting rejection until the hot adoration. There is not anything interesting in it; that is the fate of a performance, which tells something different in a different way than the others have done it.

László Zappe can connect with laconic concision the great amount of diverging analysis, when he sums them up that way at the end of his critic, which was published in the Népszabadság: “We can say that this playfulness is just about self-serving, or that this is the end of theatre. But even that this is the beginning of it.” The generous connection of the two ending points can be unusual, however this is the whole thing about. If I want, I can see on the stage the quintessence of the experiences of Maladype, about theatre-making, which have been accepted whether by cold contempt or by childish joy from professional side and the exciting over thinking of their previous results; if I want I can find a really new direction - above all according to some professional writers not only for the renewal troupe but for the whole theatrical life of Hungary too.

And then we have not told any words about Büchner. It is not for coincidence of course: the base is the play of Leonce and Lena for sure, but the eight actors have learned its twenty-five scenes in four-four versions. The viewers can choose from the hundred variations, which have been formed that way - close to the premier still with the director, Zoltán Balázs’ active cooperation. The performance has got its greatest excuse at that point: “...there are not real conditions for the choice. We have not even known the working titles of the almost hundred versions.” (Tamás Tarján) According to Gábor Pap “the situation could be solved if the performers would give us a “menu”, which contains all the made versions. Not only because of the fact that the working titles of the scenes have strong attraction on their own (Jacuzzi, Britney, Czechslovak robot, Mission impossible and so on), but because we could live over better the idea of the whole performance, and maybe we would like to choose between the missing scenes next time”.

„Leonce and Lena is originally mosaic-like, expressive play, it is mostly poetically verbal, than full of actions, and offers itself for the process” - Tamás Koltai accepted the justification of the unusual method, about the result of which MGP talks that way: “We forget our previous experiences of reading. Whether we have seen the play other times. Whether we have known it, or we are about to know it now. We get into human electrical circles, into the center of accurate looks.”

Because if all these the human factors cannot work then the performance would fail too. But according to MGP the “fragment like whole” (Tamás Tarján) in a way of Maladype or the “accepted fragment” (Noémi Herczog) can become a “really erotic” performance thanks for the performers: “thanks for the eight performers’ concentration, their gaze, which can reach us as they are connected to one another. For the intensity of their presence.” The readers could find playfulness in the opinion of professional writers if they read them one by one: while MGP talks about the “presence” of the eight actors of Maladype, Tamás Koltai recognizes only (?) their “readiness”. “They are building worlds from fragments..., which are determined. They are vulnerable - for the autocracy by empire, director and viewers - , and they serve at the same time. They accept it with self-awareness. Poker-faced. With dignity.”

The humility is a returning and well-defined term of each analysis. Gábor Pap compares the actors, who “are pushing the boundaries of their own capacity” to marathon runners, according to Noémi Herczog we can see emotional and physical boundary situations on the stage. The vision of circus - which has returned many times in the analysis - is connected to what we could see here, as we are worrying for the tightrope walkers as much as for the actors who can cause pain for themselves too, if the effect(iveness) of the scene depends on it.

Anyway, physical pains: Ákos Török, who usually writes about dancing performances, uses the term of physical theatre as the basis of his whole analysis, which Tamás Koltai mentions too: “The physical theatre requires strong concentration, tempo-rhythm, punctuality and partnership. It is hard work first of all, it means resignation from the comfortable stereotypes.” Török in connection with the actors’ physical and mental demand, says: “There is something hardly defined, but really shocking in the way as they are standing on the side of the stage and waiting for calling, more and more tiredly, whether they are looking at their partners or backwards to them, but with blank expressions. And when Zoltán Balázs or the viewers decide that way, they walk onto the stage...”

Tamás Jászay, Revizoronline, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)