MGP: Büchner
It is a very erotic theatre. However, the actors do not get naked. Except for Ákos Orosz: he pulls down his trousers as king Pipo and suffers from constipation while he is squatting. The usual sexual teasing is missing too. Fortunately, we cannot even see the often imitation of any sexual activities. In the narrow cellar room of Bárka Theatre the air is shaking from eroticism, where Maladype Theatre performs Leonce and Lena by Georg Büchner, on a Japanese like ballet mat, in front of bamboo sticks.
Eight actors are in T-shirts with short and long sleeves, with salivary-like black – it is tight at the bottom part, a really buggy at the top – uniformed trousers. The generous usage of clothes let them pupated if they pull it up, they can use it as a bandage, they can even touch between their partners’ leg to put away the ruffle of the salivary, as they would push away the branches of a tree to see better. The outside characteristics makes us remember the Indonesian religious theatre, the primitive tricks of the Balinese theatre, which inspired Antonin Artaud too. It is a very erotic performance. It is made by the eight performers’ connection and by their concentrated looks. By the intensity of their presence. The roles and genders, which are mixed as cards, strengthen the confused world of Büchner’s comedy. They are arguing with Leonce’s sentence: “Oh my God, how many women do we need to sing through the whole scale of love? ... I turn myself out twenty-four times every day as a glove.”
The performance has biological effect too. They are young and show their hidden secrets of their personalities as they are ready to play (to those, who have eyes to see). From them the most irresistible one is Katalin Simkó, who is glorious. I seemed to be prejudiced in favour of her, however she did not convince me less when in an excellent exam performance of Brecht, in the role of a mother in The Wild Duck in the Katona Theatre, as Hedvig, who is admired by many. In Büchner her look sticks up as a dagger those she looks at. Or she melts into the other’s body gently. There is huge power in the small blonde girl. She can whenever move her magical power to destroy a big city too. She can brings up easily from herself the opposite contents. Her partners do the same. The performance is built on it. They are closed into a well-made or bad structure of cast. They do not play only one role. All eight of them play the whole play. They know its turns, thoughts, hidden words. It there is a wish they can enter any role. Zoltán Balázs, the director, encourages the viewers to edit the performance, do not believe it to be an eternal one, which cannot be changed, as it is called to be the reading of the director by professional writers. They should play together with the performance. They should be interested in the other interpretation and formation of the same scene. The complete performance, which is free to be change as a puzzle, should be built on strict, unmovable, final worked out variations, and permutations of play.
Balázs jumped over himself. He jumped more freely his own top as a director. Up until now he has worked with plays, which avoid the stage. Büchner – however, he is out of the so called European order of drama literature – is the first play, which has national theatrical historical background too. Of course, Balázs’ Büchner is original that way, that it avoids traditions. It would not be proper it we compare it to Tim Caroll’s Hamlet, just because it gives possibilities of alternative variations. The interpretation of Büchner goes deeper. Instead of the scholar-like explanation of the connections of changing partners to one another, the concentration, the inner attention and the attention to their partners, they let the viewers in confused human-social relationships. We forget our reading experiences before. Whether we have seen the play before. Have we know anything about it or meet the first time. We get into the centre of human circuits and accurate attentions. And we follow the performers’ attention. They guide our attention.
Gábor Thurzó’s translation is valid from 1955 for 53 years, it is fresh, with modern words. It grabs me even with its trimmed, shorter poetical accuracy.
Ákos Orosz owns the whole scale on the stage from the childish smile joyfulness over the used and disciplined concentration, which is aimfully applied objectivity similarly to a set, until the heroic role. He is a soloist and then serves subordinately as a side character, or an effect on the stage. Ádám Tompa can express himself plastically even with bare fingers standing upside down. He articulates so happily with his fingers, that he is more understandable than many who cry on the stage. If he is put on his feet from his head, he takes place in the group in doubled version. He creates distance for himself with a repressed smile.
Éva Bakos, the hard worker of amateur theatres for many years and of Maladype, shines in her private scene. She performs Leonce’s monologue by popular demand or as a result of the director’s tricky game. She performs with sign language the main character’s monologue, which we have heard before, to those who do not understand these signs. It is a grate artistic trick. My only question is that how can she sign the Nankeen trousers?
Zsolt Páll is the strictly serious man between the youngsters. He is emphasised by his Swedish language knowledge and his authentic Transylvanian dialect, when joke comes out from his dark mood. The large-bodied man goes easily on all fours, as a child from the nursery school, who climbs out of the cot. They have changed the German child song into a more joyful one. They cheer it in German, holding each other with checked infantilism. Here I should note that the songs, they use in the performance, are all very fresh and anachronistic, if we take care of Büchner’s era instead of ours. Kornél Mogyoró with his percussion set gives rhythm and calming ending to the play. Swedish, Transylvanian idioms, German, sign language. They make the properties speak. The bamboo stick can be weapon, penis, carrying chair, monument, cross, instrument and a tool that hits the rhythm. They handle them perfectly. They give sound to the silent objects.
The performance speaks all language. Mostly the language of theatre. On the level of a mother, father tongue. Leonce and Lena is not an experimental theatre. It is a well-made theatre.
MGP, szinhaz.hu, 2008
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
Eight actors are in T-shirts with short and long sleeves, with salivary-like black – it is tight at the bottom part, a really buggy at the top – uniformed trousers. The generous usage of clothes let them pupated if they pull it up, they can use it as a bandage, they can even touch between their partners’ leg to put away the ruffle of the salivary, as they would push away the branches of a tree to see better. The outside characteristics makes us remember the Indonesian religious theatre, the primitive tricks of the Balinese theatre, which inspired Antonin Artaud too. It is a very erotic performance. It is made by the eight performers’ connection and by their concentrated looks. By the intensity of their presence. The roles and genders, which are mixed as cards, strengthen the confused world of Büchner’s comedy. They are arguing with Leonce’s sentence: “Oh my God, how many women do we need to sing through the whole scale of love? ... I turn myself out twenty-four times every day as a glove.”
The performance has biological effect too. They are young and show their hidden secrets of their personalities as they are ready to play (to those, who have eyes to see). From them the most irresistible one is Katalin Simkó, who is glorious. I seemed to be prejudiced in favour of her, however she did not convince me less when in an excellent exam performance of Brecht, in the role of a mother in The Wild Duck in the Katona Theatre, as Hedvig, who is admired by many. In Büchner her look sticks up as a dagger those she looks at. Or she melts into the other’s body gently. There is huge power in the small blonde girl. She can whenever move her magical power to destroy a big city too. She can brings up easily from herself the opposite contents. Her partners do the same. The performance is built on it. They are closed into a well-made or bad structure of cast. They do not play only one role. All eight of them play the whole play. They know its turns, thoughts, hidden words. It there is a wish they can enter any role. Zoltán Balázs, the director, encourages the viewers to edit the performance, do not believe it to be an eternal one, which cannot be changed, as it is called to be the reading of the director by professional writers. They should play together with the performance. They should be interested in the other interpretation and formation of the same scene. The complete performance, which is free to be change as a puzzle, should be built on strict, unmovable, final worked out variations, and permutations of play.
Balázs jumped over himself. He jumped more freely his own top as a director. Up until now he has worked with plays, which avoid the stage. Büchner – however, he is out of the so called European order of drama literature – is the first play, which has national theatrical historical background too. Of course, Balázs’ Büchner is original that way, that it avoids traditions. It would not be proper it we compare it to Tim Caroll’s Hamlet, just because it gives possibilities of alternative variations. The interpretation of Büchner goes deeper. Instead of the scholar-like explanation of the connections of changing partners to one another, the concentration, the inner attention and the attention to their partners, they let the viewers in confused human-social relationships. We forget our reading experiences before. Whether we have seen the play before. Have we know anything about it or meet the first time. We get into the centre of human circuits and accurate attentions. And we follow the performers’ attention. They guide our attention.
Gábor Thurzó’s translation is valid from 1955 for 53 years, it is fresh, with modern words. It grabs me even with its trimmed, shorter poetical accuracy.
Ákos Orosz owns the whole scale on the stage from the childish smile joyfulness over the used and disciplined concentration, which is aimfully applied objectivity similarly to a set, until the heroic role. He is a soloist and then serves subordinately as a side character, or an effect on the stage. Ádám Tompa can express himself plastically even with bare fingers standing upside down. He articulates so happily with his fingers, that he is more understandable than many who cry on the stage. If he is put on his feet from his head, he takes place in the group in doubled version. He creates distance for himself with a repressed smile.
Éva Bakos, the hard worker of amateur theatres for many years and of Maladype, shines in her private scene. She performs Leonce’s monologue by popular demand or as a result of the director’s tricky game. She performs with sign language the main character’s monologue, which we have heard before, to those who do not understand these signs. It is a grate artistic trick. My only question is that how can she sign the Nankeen trousers?
Zsolt Páll is the strictly serious man between the youngsters. He is emphasised by his Swedish language knowledge and his authentic Transylvanian dialect, when joke comes out from his dark mood. The large-bodied man goes easily on all fours, as a child from the nursery school, who climbs out of the cot. They have changed the German child song into a more joyful one. They cheer it in German, holding each other with checked infantilism. Here I should note that the songs, they use in the performance, are all very fresh and anachronistic, if we take care of Büchner’s era instead of ours. Kornél Mogyoró with his percussion set gives rhythm and calming ending to the play. Swedish, Transylvanian idioms, German, sign language. They make the properties speak. The bamboo stick can be weapon, penis, carrying chair, monument, cross, instrument and a tool that hits the rhythm. They handle them perfectly. They give sound to the silent objects.
The performance speaks all language. Mostly the language of theatre. On the level of a mother, father tongue. Leonce and Lena is not an experimental theatre. It is a well-made theatre.
MGP, szinhaz.hu, 2008
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)