Theatre needs a new reality - Interview with Zoltán Balázs / 2016
He finds today's fast-paced, frantic world incredibly slow, and he strives to surprise audiences with something new and unpredictable every time. Despite all the difficulties, he tries to remain independent and, if necessary, constantly rethinks his plans. His latest production, Dada Cabaret, will be performed next on December 8 by Maladype Theatre in collaboration with Átrium Movie-Theatre. We spoke with actor-director Zoltán Balázs, artistic director of Maladype Theatre.
There was a video about the rehearsal process of Dada Cabaret, in which several artists shared their thoughts on what Dada means to them. However, your response was not included in the compilation. What does Dada mean to you?
While working with Dadaism during the rehearsal process, the question arose again and again: can art and creativity have a radical impact in the positive sense of the word? Can it bring about fundamental change, generate new impulses, and effectively stimulate blocked or unfulfilled processes? On the 100th anniversary of Dadaism, while staging the play written by Matei Visniec, I too was unable to escape the manifold validity of answers. I could best describe the essence of Dada with the title of Lajos Kassák's book, The Book of Purity: a process of purification and decluttering that has a comprehensive effect on my own life and on theatre as a whole, on the relationship between art and everyday life.
That sounds quite radical actually. So how do you see it now: can art have a radical impact?
I would like to believe so. We have a lot of unacknowledged, unspoken, distorted, and "musty" issues that we are somehow unable to clarify with ourselves and our environment in time; and when the time finally comes, it is too late. We have slipped out of space and time. That is why, as theatre makers, it is our job to be in sync with "spicy" topics such as sexuality, religion, politics, and the social processes taking place around us. Many people justify their exclusion by saying that the world has become too fast-paced, spinning along its path with incomprehensible energy and momentum. To me, it seems incredibly slow! This contradictory feeling about life—which may stem from my restless, sanguine nature—is certainly reflected in the performance.
In what form?
Mainly in the person of Tristan Tzara, the inventor of Dadaism, who, with his talent, is able to energize the events around him and draw like-minded, "crazy" playmates into his outspoken games, so that we all unwittingly become his accomplices. One of the special abilities of the Dadaists was that they were able to refine the horrors of the day into a different kind of reality through a new lens. I believe that theatre also needs a new reality: a new theatrical civilization that requires Tzara-type, rebellious figures who keep their era in a state of fever, with new ideas and a renewed set of tools, integrating new demands and experiences into their development. The work of Richard Huelsenbeck, Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber, and Emmy Hennings—all of whom were determined participants in the creation of Dada, which became an "-ism" since then —was characterized by astonishing faith, energy, and momentum: a personal commitment to redesigning the moment while constantly reflecting on the environment. I think that no artist today can avoid this if they take what they do seriously.
Are you doing something similar? If I understand correctly, you are not just staging the play, but trying to reproduce the Dadaist mentality as a whole.
I wouldn't call it reproduction, because no one knows how our Dadaist friends actually worked at the beginning of the last century. There are legends passed down by word of mouth, but whether they are true or not is unclear. Perhaps only certain motifs can be considered truly authentic, while the rest were created later by time, or those who cultivated the legends – such as the story of the supposed meeting between Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Tristan Tzara. In this regard, there are also few tangible records from contemporaries, from the pens and notes of James Joyce and other writers. There are also very few film clips that could reveal how Tristan Tzara and his group realized their Dadaist ideas on stage, or what cabaret—as a concept and genre—meant to them exactly. In any case, the intertwining of Voltaire's persona and the cabaret genre created a very interesting merger in the name and program of the Cabaret Voltaire, which opened its doors in 1916 at Spiegelgasse 1, operating as a café by day and an entertainment venue by night. Putting the emblematic figure of the Enlightenment on their banner, they examined things from a different perspective and in new contexts, presenting them in their provocative performances. Let us not forget that Voltaire himself was an exile who, at certain periods of his career, lived, worked, and thought about world affairs under turbulent circumstances, just like Tristan Tzara or Lenin. These magnetic forces instinctively attracted each other at that time and continue to do so today, based on some kind of unspoken shared values. This attraction is the guarantee that contemporary artists capable of thinking in a Dadaist way are able to override and reject their acquired experiences and make room for unexpected events.
The actors of Maladype are clearly open to this – the making-of video reveals, for example, that they even had to write Dadaist poems during rehearsals.
I am confident that our actors' Dadaist thinking will be able to connect with the authentic approach of the "rebels" (in today's slang: "crazy modernists") who started the movement 100 years ago. Although the creators of Dadaism wrote the Dada Manifesto a century ago, calling all artists to arms, as performers, musicians, sculptors, or painters—adapting to the ever-changing coordinates of the Dadaist imagination—everyone also wrote their own personal manifesto. That is why I believe that there is no such thing as "the" Dada; there is only "our" Dada. Just as Tristan Tzara had his own particular image of Dada, so did the other members of the group, regardless of whether they came to Switzerland from Romania, Germany, or America. Sooner or later, thinkers of every age feel the need to ruthlessly review and discard all the social and cultural excesses that have accumulated up to that point. Thus, all kinds of world-improving intentions and utopias are doomed to destruction, becoming distorted caricatures of their own promises over time. When a society reaches the end of its crusade of ideas, just as a revolution devours its own children, grandiose claims consume themselves. For me, therefore, Dada is also about finding a new moment in the destruction of the moment. This way of thinking is not foreign to Maladype either. This mentality can also be seen in our performances of King Ubu, Egg(s)hell, and Great Sound in the Rush, which the audience identified with the concept of "happy accident" during our American tour. The essence of this approach is that if something does not happen in the performance as planned during rehearsals, the actor does not panic, but reacts quickly and easily to the events of the moment in the spirit of rethinking, thus gaining the advantage of the situation.
Through your work with the members of Maladype Theatre company, you must have known that they were open to this. But how did you feel that this was also true of Erzsébet Kútvölgyi, who plays Lenin?
Erzsébet Kútvölgyi demands this kind of opportunity for reinvention. She is a wonderful, "predatory" actress who said in an interview with Origo that she is not satisfied with people only wanting to see her usual manners. For her, it is a challenge to try something new, a task based on risky and unusual acting choices that provoke her. Robert Wilson distinguishes between two types of actors: there are those who want to please the audience from 7 to 10 and do everything they can to be loved by the audience at all costs, while forgetting the reason that brought them to the stage as actors. Then there are those who go on stage because they have something to figure out about themselves and the issues raised by the play from 7 to 10. If they are applauded at the end of the performance, they are of course very grateful, but their main goal remains to publicly and authentically reflect on the issues raised by the role. I believe in the latter type of actor, and Erzsébet Kútvölgyi is exactly like that, as are Ilona Béres, Mari Törőcsik, Andrea Ladányi, László Sinkó, and Károly Kuna, with whom I have had the good fortune to work in my previous projects. In an artistic sense, they are all predators, because they thrive on bloodlust. I am fascinated by their atavistic energy and their ambivalent and unpredictable stage presence. The French call them "monstres sacrés," and as a director, I learn the most from them.
Dada, the musical nature of cabaret, Lenin, the Maladype Theatre, the guest performers... all of these can raise different expectations in the audience, who may sit down in the auditorium with a wide variety of motivations and expectations. What should they expect, what will happen to them during the performance?
I hope that by subtly and cleverly directing the audience's attention and timing our dramaturgical, visual, and acoustic effects well, we will achieve the goals that we formulated and built up together with the author, the actors, and the band during rehearsals. Of course, the collage and montage techniques characteristic of the Dadaists, the revelry in all styles, be it linguistic, musical, or theatrical, are indispensable to the performance. Many things must come together for the performance to form a coherent whole in the spirit of total art. In this performance, co-produced with Gábor Gábriel Farkas and his band, Gábriel participates not only as musical director, but also as an allegorical figure of Dadaism, as Monsieur Dada, singer, and actor. His investigative spirit brings to life the iconic figures of Dadaism: Tristan Tzara, Emmy Hennings, and Sophie Taeubert, as well as Lenin and Krupskaya, who lived in exile in Zurich during World War I. They are played by Erzsébet Kútvölgyi and the actors of Maladype—Zsigmond Bödők, Ágota Szilágyi, Erika Tankó, and Kata Huszárik—in a lively, dense, associative, and playful joint performance that stimulates the imagination. Although there are different images of Dada, various impressions and patterns, people and gestures living in our collective and individual consciousness, no one can decide which artistic influences and styles Dada draws on most: there is no canonized interpretation. This is why the "fashion show of -isms" is such an important scene in the performance, where every -ism we know (surrealism, impressionism, symbolism, rayonism, suprematism, pictorialism, nabism, etc.) is represented in an endless "artistic writhing."
The actors, who are primarily dramatic actors, also learned serious musical material.
The musical material is incredibly rich and diverse, ranging from the 1910s to the present day. Although not representatives of the musical genre, the actors sing brilliantly together in multiple parts and perform choreographies of various styles to a high standard. I don't like to talk enthusiastically about our actors, because when theatre directors praise their wonderful actors, it always seems suspicious, but I am really terribly proud of them and I am sure that those who come to see Dada Cabaret will feel the same way. The performance features 35 songs in different styles, almost all in different languages. This would be a daring undertaking even for a musical theatre.
Dada, as has been mentioned before, is also provocative. Does this also appear in some way in the performance?
We don't pour ketchup or a bucket of water on anyone; we didn't plan any provocations of that kind. However, we do plan to provoke intellectual and spiritual excitement. Before the performance, I always say to the actors, "Have a good trip!" I hope that this journey into the unique matrix of the play will be a real ADVENTURE, not only for the actors, but also for the playful audience.
Your biography mentions three theatre workshops—the Horváth Mihály Secondary School in Szentes, the Studio of the National Theatre, and the University of Theatre and Film Arts —any one of which could have a lifelong impact on an artist's career. Did you encounter slightly different ways of thinking about theatre at each of these places?
In the many different schools I attended, I was able to learn about the diversity of thinking and that only preparation and consistency can give validity to different creative ideas. Ultimately, of course, one must find and put together one's own self, as poet Attila József says, from one's own "pieces of God."
This is also a kind of Dadaist gesture. There are examples of people who adopt a certain way of thinking and then work according to it.
Of course, one can even create "eras." It is a Hungarian peculiarity that if a play is liked by audiences and critics, the creator quickly churns out a dozen more based on the same formula, so that when the audience returns for the umpteenth time, they know exactly what they are going to get. This is a safe and, above all, reassuring "alliance" for everyone, in which no innovation, unexpected choices, or theatrical effect requiring experimentation and research disturbs the peace of mind of creators, audiences, and experts. This is an existing "creative strategy," but it is very far from my own. I am inspired when, just like myself, I can always surprise the audience that comes to see us with something new; I honour them with a demand for unpredictability and variety.
Was this already the case when you were in high school, as a teenager, or did it take time to develop your own strategy and assert it in the world? Or is it so much a part of your nature that it has never been any different?
When I look back on my childhood, there are millions of stories that prove that I never liked arriving somewhere, but rather being on the road. I was always looking for situations where moving forward seemed almost impossible. When I was in high school, I hitchhiked a lot in the summer: I travelled with a sumo wrestler, an American Indian, and other strange characters. Adventures like these toughen up your nervous system and personality in an amazing way. Whether consciously or instinctively, I eventually became what I was probably meant to be; I represent this mentality in theatre as well. Running an independent theatre in Hungary today is not a safe bet. It is unpredictable both structurally and financially: we have to survive impossible situations over and over again. I have not joined any group; I try to remain independent. I think in terms of value-centered theatre, which is capable of integrating all kinds of quality ideas into its spirit. I am uncompromising in this regard.
We last spoke in May, in connection with the premiere of Richard III. Are there any developments regarding Maladype Theatre's new season that were not known at the time, but are now?
The number of premieres planned for the 2016/2017 season will definitely be reduced because we simply do not have the necessary financial resources. I don't even know how long we will be able to keep our permanent venue, the Maladype Base on Mikszáth Square, as property prices are rising and with them rises the rent. At the same time, there are also some positive developments: one of our sponsors has bought new chairs, which is a huge help for us. I just don't know, now that we have the new chairs, whether we will still have the Base in May. But what is this constant rethinking if not a Dadaist way of life in the 21st century? No one could have known beforehand how long Cabaret Voltaire would exist. God forbid that we too should end up becoming an "-ism"!
Annamária Verasztó, origo.hu, 2016
Translated by Lena Megyeri
There was a video about the rehearsal process of Dada Cabaret, in which several artists shared their thoughts on what Dada means to them. However, your response was not included in the compilation. What does Dada mean to you?
While working with Dadaism during the rehearsal process, the question arose again and again: can art and creativity have a radical impact in the positive sense of the word? Can it bring about fundamental change, generate new impulses, and effectively stimulate blocked or unfulfilled processes? On the 100th anniversary of Dadaism, while staging the play written by Matei Visniec, I too was unable to escape the manifold validity of answers. I could best describe the essence of Dada with the title of Lajos Kassák's book, The Book of Purity: a process of purification and decluttering that has a comprehensive effect on my own life and on theatre as a whole, on the relationship between art and everyday life.
That sounds quite radical actually. So how do you see it now: can art have a radical impact?
I would like to believe so. We have a lot of unacknowledged, unspoken, distorted, and "musty" issues that we are somehow unable to clarify with ourselves and our environment in time; and when the time finally comes, it is too late. We have slipped out of space and time. That is why, as theatre makers, it is our job to be in sync with "spicy" topics such as sexuality, religion, politics, and the social processes taking place around us. Many people justify their exclusion by saying that the world has become too fast-paced, spinning along its path with incomprehensible energy and momentum. To me, it seems incredibly slow! This contradictory feeling about life—which may stem from my restless, sanguine nature—is certainly reflected in the performance.
In what form?
Mainly in the person of Tristan Tzara, the inventor of Dadaism, who, with his talent, is able to energize the events around him and draw like-minded, "crazy" playmates into his outspoken games, so that we all unwittingly become his accomplices. One of the special abilities of the Dadaists was that they were able to refine the horrors of the day into a different kind of reality through a new lens. I believe that theatre also needs a new reality: a new theatrical civilization that requires Tzara-type, rebellious figures who keep their era in a state of fever, with new ideas and a renewed set of tools, integrating new demands and experiences into their development. The work of Richard Huelsenbeck, Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber, and Emmy Hennings—all of whom were determined participants in the creation of Dada, which became an "-ism" since then —was characterized by astonishing faith, energy, and momentum: a personal commitment to redesigning the moment while constantly reflecting on the environment. I think that no artist today can avoid this if they take what they do seriously.
Are you doing something similar? If I understand correctly, you are not just staging the play, but trying to reproduce the Dadaist mentality as a whole.
I wouldn't call it reproduction, because no one knows how our Dadaist friends actually worked at the beginning of the last century. There are legends passed down by word of mouth, but whether they are true or not is unclear. Perhaps only certain motifs can be considered truly authentic, while the rest were created later by time, or those who cultivated the legends – such as the story of the supposed meeting between Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Tristan Tzara. In this regard, there are also few tangible records from contemporaries, from the pens and notes of James Joyce and other writers. There are also very few film clips that could reveal how Tristan Tzara and his group realized their Dadaist ideas on stage, or what cabaret—as a concept and genre—meant to them exactly. In any case, the intertwining of Voltaire's persona and the cabaret genre created a very interesting merger in the name and program of the Cabaret Voltaire, which opened its doors in 1916 at Spiegelgasse 1, operating as a café by day and an entertainment venue by night. Putting the emblematic figure of the Enlightenment on their banner, they examined things from a different perspective and in new contexts, presenting them in their provocative performances. Let us not forget that Voltaire himself was an exile who, at certain periods of his career, lived, worked, and thought about world affairs under turbulent circumstances, just like Tristan Tzara or Lenin. These magnetic forces instinctively attracted each other at that time and continue to do so today, based on some kind of unspoken shared values. This attraction is the guarantee that contemporary artists capable of thinking in a Dadaist way are able to override and reject their acquired experiences and make room for unexpected events.
The actors of Maladype are clearly open to this – the making-of video reveals, for example, that they even had to write Dadaist poems during rehearsals.
I am confident that our actors' Dadaist thinking will be able to connect with the authentic approach of the "rebels" (in today's slang: "crazy modernists") who started the movement 100 years ago. Although the creators of Dadaism wrote the Dada Manifesto a century ago, calling all artists to arms, as performers, musicians, sculptors, or painters—adapting to the ever-changing coordinates of the Dadaist imagination—everyone also wrote their own personal manifesto. That is why I believe that there is no such thing as "the" Dada; there is only "our" Dada. Just as Tristan Tzara had his own particular image of Dada, so did the other members of the group, regardless of whether they came to Switzerland from Romania, Germany, or America. Sooner or later, thinkers of every age feel the need to ruthlessly review and discard all the social and cultural excesses that have accumulated up to that point. Thus, all kinds of world-improving intentions and utopias are doomed to destruction, becoming distorted caricatures of their own promises over time. When a society reaches the end of its crusade of ideas, just as a revolution devours its own children, grandiose claims consume themselves. For me, therefore, Dada is also about finding a new moment in the destruction of the moment. This way of thinking is not foreign to Maladype either. This mentality can also be seen in our performances of King Ubu, Egg(s)hell, and Great Sound in the Rush, which the audience identified with the concept of "happy accident" during our American tour. The essence of this approach is that if something does not happen in the performance as planned during rehearsals, the actor does not panic, but reacts quickly and easily to the events of the moment in the spirit of rethinking, thus gaining the advantage of the situation.
Through your work with the members of Maladype Theatre company, you must have known that they were open to this. But how did you feel that this was also true of Erzsébet Kútvölgyi, who plays Lenin?
Erzsébet Kútvölgyi demands this kind of opportunity for reinvention. She is a wonderful, "predatory" actress who said in an interview with Origo that she is not satisfied with people only wanting to see her usual manners. For her, it is a challenge to try something new, a task based on risky and unusual acting choices that provoke her. Robert Wilson distinguishes between two types of actors: there are those who want to please the audience from 7 to 10 and do everything they can to be loved by the audience at all costs, while forgetting the reason that brought them to the stage as actors. Then there are those who go on stage because they have something to figure out about themselves and the issues raised by the play from 7 to 10. If they are applauded at the end of the performance, they are of course very grateful, but their main goal remains to publicly and authentically reflect on the issues raised by the role. I believe in the latter type of actor, and Erzsébet Kútvölgyi is exactly like that, as are Ilona Béres, Mari Törőcsik, Andrea Ladányi, László Sinkó, and Károly Kuna, with whom I have had the good fortune to work in my previous projects. In an artistic sense, they are all predators, because they thrive on bloodlust. I am fascinated by their atavistic energy and their ambivalent and unpredictable stage presence. The French call them "monstres sacrés," and as a director, I learn the most from them.
Dada, the musical nature of cabaret, Lenin, the Maladype Theatre, the guest performers... all of these can raise different expectations in the audience, who may sit down in the auditorium with a wide variety of motivations and expectations. What should they expect, what will happen to them during the performance?
I hope that by subtly and cleverly directing the audience's attention and timing our dramaturgical, visual, and acoustic effects well, we will achieve the goals that we formulated and built up together with the author, the actors, and the band during rehearsals. Of course, the collage and montage techniques characteristic of the Dadaists, the revelry in all styles, be it linguistic, musical, or theatrical, are indispensable to the performance. Many things must come together for the performance to form a coherent whole in the spirit of total art. In this performance, co-produced with Gábor Gábriel Farkas and his band, Gábriel participates not only as musical director, but also as an allegorical figure of Dadaism, as Monsieur Dada, singer, and actor. His investigative spirit brings to life the iconic figures of Dadaism: Tristan Tzara, Emmy Hennings, and Sophie Taeubert, as well as Lenin and Krupskaya, who lived in exile in Zurich during World War I. They are played by Erzsébet Kútvölgyi and the actors of Maladype—Zsigmond Bödők, Ágota Szilágyi, Erika Tankó, and Kata Huszárik—in a lively, dense, associative, and playful joint performance that stimulates the imagination. Although there are different images of Dada, various impressions and patterns, people and gestures living in our collective and individual consciousness, no one can decide which artistic influences and styles Dada draws on most: there is no canonized interpretation. This is why the "fashion show of -isms" is such an important scene in the performance, where every -ism we know (surrealism, impressionism, symbolism, rayonism, suprematism, pictorialism, nabism, etc.) is represented in an endless "artistic writhing."
The actors, who are primarily dramatic actors, also learned serious musical material.
The musical material is incredibly rich and diverse, ranging from the 1910s to the present day. Although not representatives of the musical genre, the actors sing brilliantly together in multiple parts and perform choreographies of various styles to a high standard. I don't like to talk enthusiastically about our actors, because when theatre directors praise their wonderful actors, it always seems suspicious, but I am really terribly proud of them and I am sure that those who come to see Dada Cabaret will feel the same way. The performance features 35 songs in different styles, almost all in different languages. This would be a daring undertaking even for a musical theatre.
Dada, as has been mentioned before, is also provocative. Does this also appear in some way in the performance?
We don't pour ketchup or a bucket of water on anyone; we didn't plan any provocations of that kind. However, we do plan to provoke intellectual and spiritual excitement. Before the performance, I always say to the actors, "Have a good trip!" I hope that this journey into the unique matrix of the play will be a real ADVENTURE, not only for the actors, but also for the playful audience.
Your biography mentions three theatre workshops—the Horváth Mihály Secondary School in Szentes, the Studio of the National Theatre, and the University of Theatre and Film Arts —any one of which could have a lifelong impact on an artist's career. Did you encounter slightly different ways of thinking about theatre at each of these places?
In the many different schools I attended, I was able to learn about the diversity of thinking and that only preparation and consistency can give validity to different creative ideas. Ultimately, of course, one must find and put together one's own self, as poet Attila József says, from one's own "pieces of God."
This is also a kind of Dadaist gesture. There are examples of people who adopt a certain way of thinking and then work according to it.
Of course, one can even create "eras." It is a Hungarian peculiarity that if a play is liked by audiences and critics, the creator quickly churns out a dozen more based on the same formula, so that when the audience returns for the umpteenth time, they know exactly what they are going to get. This is a safe and, above all, reassuring "alliance" for everyone, in which no innovation, unexpected choices, or theatrical effect requiring experimentation and research disturbs the peace of mind of creators, audiences, and experts. This is an existing "creative strategy," but it is very far from my own. I am inspired when, just like myself, I can always surprise the audience that comes to see us with something new; I honour them with a demand for unpredictability and variety.
Was this already the case when you were in high school, as a teenager, or did it take time to develop your own strategy and assert it in the world? Or is it so much a part of your nature that it has never been any different?
When I look back on my childhood, there are millions of stories that prove that I never liked arriving somewhere, but rather being on the road. I was always looking for situations where moving forward seemed almost impossible. When I was in high school, I hitchhiked a lot in the summer: I travelled with a sumo wrestler, an American Indian, and other strange characters. Adventures like these toughen up your nervous system and personality in an amazing way. Whether consciously or instinctively, I eventually became what I was probably meant to be; I represent this mentality in theatre as well. Running an independent theatre in Hungary today is not a safe bet. It is unpredictable both structurally and financially: we have to survive impossible situations over and over again. I have not joined any group; I try to remain independent. I think in terms of value-centered theatre, which is capable of integrating all kinds of quality ideas into its spirit. I am uncompromising in this regard.
We last spoke in May, in connection with the premiere of Richard III. Are there any developments regarding Maladype Theatre's new season that were not known at the time, but are now?
The number of premieres planned for the 2016/2017 season will definitely be reduced because we simply do not have the necessary financial resources. I don't even know how long we will be able to keep our permanent venue, the Maladype Base on Mikszáth Square, as property prices are rising and with them rises the rent. At the same time, there are also some positive developments: one of our sponsors has bought new chairs, which is a huge help for us. I just don't know, now that we have the new chairs, whether we will still have the Base in May. But what is this constant rethinking if not a Dadaist way of life in the 21st century? No one could have known beforehand how long Cabaret Voltaire would exist. God forbid that we too should end up becoming an "-ism"!
Annamária Verasztó, origo.hu, 2016
Translated by Lena Megyeri