Maladype Theatre recently presented Richard III, directed by Kossuth Prize winner Sándor Zsótér. According to the director, many people approach this story with prejudice, while in reality they have no idea about the play. According to the director, many people approach this story with preconceptions, when in fact they have no idea about the play. What's more, they don't even recognize it in their own environment when someone behaves like Richard III. We spoke with Sándor Zsótér before the premiere of the play: in addition to Shakespeare's drama, we also discussed several of his previous and future productions, as well as the movie Son of Saul.

What is the difficulty (or easement, if any) of staging a play that everyone has some prejudice or preconceived idea about?

What idea would it be? Where would it come from? Even those who have never studied the story in depth can surely recall certain catchphrases. Everyone has some kind of memory of "My kingdom for a horse" or "I am determined to prove a villain."

But these mean nothing! The audience thinks they know Richard III, but they don't. They approach something they know nothing about with prejudices or false preconceptions. How could someone who comes to watch the play know it? They haven't read it, they just quote clichés, a line here and there. Anyone who knows nothing but thinks they do is stupid. Some people will know something, because they’ve seen the play here and there – in the best case, they will compare our production with their previous experiences, and it can even turn out good. If the question is whether it is easier to do a play that no one knows: well, then you have to deal with different kinds of preconceptions. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad. "I don't know it, so I hate it." In this case, a lot depends on whether the audience is willing to be curious.

Isn't it difficult to pay attention to the specific story of Richard III without prejudice, when, in addition to the fact that everything in theatre takes place in the present tense anyway, the source material lends itself so well to being updated for any era?

What can we do with a specific historical figure? We're not historians. It's nice that his skeleton was recently found... Shakespeare's work itself is a transformation, condensing, translating, summarizing for a certain purpose. Then, 400 years later, people come along, they have their own purposes, and they start doing something with the play for those purposes. Why is it not enough to read a play meaningfully and try to say what is written there? Actualization is not a clear concept. It can mean a tool, an object, a cell phone, or a camera. A reference to a politician. A piece of clothing. A change in the text. What makes us say, "My God, this is still true today!"? Human behaviour and patterns of behaviour don't change much. Some things do: everything happens faster, we speak a different language. Language can indicate very precisely when something happens. Why are we presenting Richard III now? A play that is timely and has been timely many times before. The leader of Maladype Theatre, Zoltán Balázs, tells me that he would like to present this particular Shakespeare play. I wouldn't say that it has never been so timely, but now is simply an opportunity to deal with this play. It would be tempting to update it by pointing the finger at a public figure today. I think it's more important to show how a person becomes a villain, that their environment is no better, and that without them, he couldn't even exist.

So, the goal is for the audience to recognize a timeless behaviour pattern or phenomenon?

It's more about the fact that human nature doesn't change, but everything else does. In the form we see in Richard III, none of this exists: wars aren't like this, discussions don't happen like this, people aren't eliminated like this – it's much more cynical, shorter, faster. This is a fairy tale compared to today's life, but the same human motivations, manipulation and slander techniques are at work. This is a fairy tale compared to life today, but the same human motivations, manipulation and slander techniques are at work. Richard is described with a beautiful epithet: a peace-breaker. There are people who cannot tolerate harmony or tranquillity around them, they have to stir things up somehow. On the other hand, when they achieve their goal, there is not much to enjoy about it. I think the problem is that this process is difficult to catch in the act. If it were transparent, people would not be able to get away with it.

It's easy to say, "Oh, we see that!" We don't even see it in our own environment. This is exactly what needs to be shown, that we don't notice it, otherwise people would immediately say, "This is a scoundrel, we won't elect him as our leader, this workplace manager is incompetent, we will revolt and sweep him away..." How should this be shown? It's not the what, it's the how that's difficult. Going back to your first question: people remember something vague: someone hunchbacked talking, seducing a woman, and in the end, "my kingdom for a horse." It's difficult to get them to pay attention to the details within this. There are performances that simply try to make themselves understood through visuals, music, and images, often instead of acting. They find a code system that the viewer immediately recognizes—a tie, a stadium, a bear, migration—and once they recognize it, they no longer pay attention to the thing itself, but to the fact that "oh, of course, it's him." The code is there, you don't have to pay much attention, recognition is like understanding everything. This is not a sin, it is not a question of good or bad. There are performances like this, and there are those that do not work this way.

You mentioned that the people surrounding Richard are important because they are accomplices in a way. Why did you omit Richard's opponent, Richmond, who could play the role of the positive hero?

The fifth act presents a tough task; suddenly, after two or three hours, a character we know nothing about comes in, and he is supposed to be the positive hero. He is just as power-hungry as Richard III, just as unjust as he is, yet somehow the author manages to make you root for him because Richard has done so many dirty deeds. And yet you will root for Richard! The man you had been seeing as evil, vile, a worm, a smiling murderer for hours! Then someone comes in and says he's going to be good now... It's a very difficult role. Someone comes in at the end, says three lines, and we're supposed to love him? We don't know him, we haven't seen him in an emergency. Richmond had something to do with Queen Elizabeth, the author's patron, but we don't really know him. I felt that this character was unnecessary. That's the end of the story. The other roles remained almost without exception.

Isn't it scary that viewers might even see Richard III as lovable?

It's good if it's disturbing. I know he's an animal, but I can't deny him a certain stature, a certain ingenuity. I have no forgiveness for him. I'm working on how to spot the moments when he could be stopped. His environment is so naive, self-interested, and utilitarian that no one thinks to say, "Stop, no more!" They think, "This can't happen to me." Then suddenly it happens.

At Maladype Theatre, the audience can see everything up close. Is it their job to notice these moments?

Half of it is up to us, half of it is up to them. We have to do everything we can, but we can't do it without the audience. And we have to take into account that if there are no simple codes, they might say, "What is this? What was that for? " Because the music isn't like that, the costumes aren't like that, they don't see it that way, they find it boring.

Why did you choose Ede Szigligeti's 1867 translation of Richard III?

I find this translation fascinating. We have to tell it in such a way that those who hear it don't even think about the fact that it's a 150-year-old text. They will hear old-fashioned words that are understandable but not used today. The question is whether the audience will be happy to hear these words. Will the sound of them surprise them, make them smile? I don't like words taken from the street or from text messages in plays, as if they came from real life, even though real life is a hundred times more exciting. I was shocked by this translation of Szigligeti. I'll take the risk.

We are talking in the set of the performance. What can you tell us about it in advance?

It is the middle room of Maladype Base. Its size is given: three doors open into it, in good places, with many possibilities for coming and going. In my experience, Shakespeare requires actors, not objects. Now there is a scaffold here. You see these everywhere on construction sites, but rarely in rooms. The scaffold provides an upper level, and the table inside it provides a middle level. The baker's table is covered with tin; it is not a dining table, a smoking table, or a conference table; its structure is something else. There is a relationship between the two metals, the tin covering and the aluminium scaffolding. The performance can be viewed from four sectors. On stage, this would not interest me, but in an apartment, the two objects that do not belong there are interesting. Here, it is fun to play with someone's head hitting the ceiling. Mária Ambrus suggested that we try it in this set.

According to Zoltán Balázs, you have changed a lot since your earlier productions with Maladype. How much do you feel this yourself? Do you have a different relationship with the company?

The composition of the company has changed. Now there are three actresses and two actors. That's why I was able to invite male actors. It's rare to be able to invite so many actors, and it's also difficult to account for them, since I invited them. I taught almost all of them and worked with them before. It's good to see where they are now. Have I changed? Unfortunately, I can't see that from the inside. I've become both more impatient and more patient.

The National Theatre recently announced its program for the next season, and you will be directing Hippolytus by Euripides. Where are you in the process?

In its early stages. The moment of conception is when they make you an offer. You get scared, but at the same time you're thrilled. And then, "Oh my God, what now?" I think it was director Attila Vidnyánszky who suggested it should be a Greek play. I only did Greek plays in college and a long time ago at the Katona Kamra. I thought of the actors I had grown fond of in those two earlier works, and I wondered what they could do in this one.

Do you ever feel that certain theatres invite you to direct, from the National Theatre to the József Attila Theatre to the Erkel Theatre, because they want to see something on stage that is different from what the regular audience of that theatre is used to?

Yes, I do. For example, it's completely different when a provincial theatre invites me. It's important to know what they're inviting me for: is the play given, or can I choose? Why are they inviting me? Because I work hard, regularly and honestly, I don't charge a lot of money, and I don't want to be a director anywhere. They usually let me into small places. Is it important to them that it be different? Only they can tell that. I think that if they call me back somewhere, they see the point of what I'm doing. Theatre is unpredictable. You put the same energy into doing things that audiences don't like, and it's often unexpected that they'll like something. I would like to believe that together with the actors and my colleagues we look a little further than what is currently in vogue. Every invitation had a complicated but reasonable reason. An investigative reporter could find out with a lot of work.

What could an investigation reveal about these invitations?

I moved to Nyíregyháza when I was 28, I was Erzsébet Gaál's dramaturge, and I started directing there. Péter Léner had just become the head of the József Attila Theatre, and decades later he invited me to direct there. It was good to work there three times. That regularity has since ceased, but the energy I invested there has paid off, as I still work with actors I met there. For example, Balázs Fila is now playing in Richard. At the Erkel Theatre, a fortunate coincidence occurred: the then music director, Péter Halász, suggested that I direct "Der Freischütz". At that time, in 2014, Zsófia Tallér's children's opera was completed, and the composer had already asked me to direct it. I was faced with a choice, and I chose the children's opera, as I had promised earlier. Later, it turned out that I was able to direct both. I don't see anything predictable in this. If a theatre calls me back, I think they see the value in what I do.

You appear as an actor in the Oscar-winning film Son of Saul. At a Q&A, Géza Röhrig said that he felt the shooting of this film was blessed. Did you feel the same way?

I felt a fear of death. Of course, I wasn't on set as much as the lead actor, who probably did much more in-depth preparatory work. I can honestly say that I felt honoured that László Nemes invited me to the casting. I was happy to get the part, and I am grateful to everyone there.

Was it shocking to see the final result on screen?

I couldn't watch the film in such a way that it would be shocking. I knew a lot of things, and a lot of things surprised me. For example, I didn't know that Géza's face drives the whole story. They worked on larger sets and knew everything in advance, but I saw little of that. At that point, you don't know what your role in the whole will be. It was enough for me to be able to do the work that László Nemes gave me. I'm very happy about everything that happened with the film and with those who worked so hard on it. It's the result of a lot of people's hard work. It's rare, but sometimes an award goes to the right place.

Annamária Verasztó, origo.hu, 2016

Translated by Lena Megyeri