We spoke with Zoltán Balázs, director of Maladype Theater, about success, finances, theatrical "predators," and, of course, their latest production, Three Sisters.

You graduated from the University of Performing Arts with degrees in both acting and directing. When did you feel that you wanted more than just acting?

I didn't feel that way. Miklós Benedek, who was the head of my class in the acting department, asked us at the end of the first year what we did when we weren't rehearsing. I replied that, for my own pleasure, I was writing an imaginary play based on the works of Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet with multiple personalities. He asked me for the play and secretly gave it to Tamás Jordán, who was then the director of Merlin Theatre and a member of the board of the Portuguese-Hungarian Friendship Society. Tamás offered me the opportunity to stage it that summer with actors of my choice. "The Ancient Anxiety" was a success, and soon I found myself at the entrance exam of the directing department, where the teachers on the committee asked me why I wanted to be a director. I replied that I actually wanted to be an acrobatic clown, so we talked about the circus for forty minutes. Then they accepted me. In short, it is thanks to the "conspiracy" of Miklós Benedek and Tamás Jordán that I became a director. I never thought about founding a theatre company.

In the end, you became an actor and director, and you have been the artistic director of Maladype Theatre since 2001. What are some of the tasks you have to perform outside of your creative work?

As the director of Maladype, together with my colleagues, I have to ensure the conditions necessary for day-to-day operations—the right rehearsal conditions, financing and logistics for our performances, programs, and domestic and international guest performances—in other words, our survival, and that is no easy task. An important part of securing our annual budget of 50-55 million forints is the grant application for operational costs, which unfortunately has increasingly disappointing results every year.

Do you understand finance?

More and more. I've had to learn a lot of things over the past few years. Organization, communication, strategy development and re-planning. It's been very useful, but I only have this extra knowledge because we are constantly faced with the question of whether we will be able to start the next season.

How far ahead can you see?

Until the opening night of our production of Three Sisters. But that's only because we were just able to raise the necessary funds from private donors. Our operating budget ran out at the end of January. I think it's nonsense that we won't know until the end of spring what our budget will be for the 2017/2018 season.

How long can you keep working like that?

As long as my sense of humour doesn't fail me and my team stands by me. As long as our goals are shared causes. It's true that most of my mental capacity is focused on securing the financial resources necessary to survive and to continue producing high-quality artistic work, and that consumes a lot of energy.

However, these efforts pay off, as you have had tremendous success, not only at the company's base in Mikszáth Square – where, in addition to performances, a series of multidisciplinary arts programs also takes place – but also in other places from the Átrium Film-Theatre in Budapest to the United States. In addition to your directing work, you can be seen as an actor in Sándor Zsótér's production of Richard III, and before that you performed a one-person manifesto, "I Choose Freedom", based on Victor Kravchenko's life. You hold workshops and work with young students at the University of Theatre and Film Arts.

After the International Bartók Seminar and Festival, we took László Sáry's short opera "Great Sound in the Rush" on a national tour, then to Vienna for the Theatermusiktage Wien festival, and most recently to Geneva for the Théátré Saint-Gervais, where we performed it in co-production with the Qaartsiluni Ensemble.

“Great Sound in the Rush” also received the Artisjus Award for Classical Music Composition of the Year in 2016. Katalin Gabnai published a seven-page study on this performance in this spring's issue of GRAMOFON.

Indeed, László Sáry's "half-serious" opera brought about a fortunate encounter for the creators, the performers, the audience, and the critics alike. In addition, my 2016 Chicago production of Matei Visniec's “How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients” will be coming to Budapest in early June as part of an international tour. Fortunately, we are often invited abroad: Maladype Theatre is known and loved. We have also successfully completed the cross-border tour of Viktor Kravchenko's one-man manifesto, I Chose Freedom.

You returned to acting with this play after several years.

Tim Carroll's Hamlet at the Bárka Theatre brought me tremendous revelations. I could feel what it meant to be the driving force behind a performance based on truly free and courageous acting. I found this again in the Kravchenko material. Workshops have always been an integral part of my work. Most recently, I held a theatre workshop in Vienna entitled The Golden Bug-method for participants in an international festival, and I also took on a course in János Meczner's class at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. I also staged Sullivan's Mikado as a puppet opera with his former students. Now we are working on Ionesco's absurd play The Lesson every night.

Your production of the Three Sisters, which will have its premiere in April, is based on a very interesting concept.

It will be a special performance because my creative partners and I, together with the actors, will realize each scene of Chekhov's play in the style of a different painter from the Renaissance to the present day. We dedicate the performance to the memory of set and costume designer Judit Gombár, with whom I had a defining relationship for many years. Sadly, she passed away last year.

Why Chekhov? Why Three Sisters?

Few plays are suitable for this kind of play with metamorphosis, but Three Sisters is a story of great transformation. The first act is rebirth itself, the humanistic Renaissance. The second is the Baroque, Mannerism, the third is avant-garde art, and the fourth is a perfect reflection of contemporary visual art endeavours. We are preparing for another assault on theatrical traditions, which has already become our trademark.

At Maladype Theatre, even the read-through differs from theatrical traditions.

Indeed, at the read-through, the actors do not yet know which role they will play in the final performance. We read the play several times and everyone reads several roles, so that the actors eventually make the whole story their own and deal with the problems of several characters parallelly. Before I announce the cast I have decided on, they come up with their own. This is extremely interesting because it reveals how they see themselves and each other. There are usually many surprises at this stage.

When you invite guest artists from outside the company, such as Erzsébet Kútvölgyi in the recent production of Dada Cabaret, how do you choose them?

There are "predatory" actors, such as Ilona Béres, Mari Törőcsik, Andrea Ladányi, László Sinkó, and Zsolt László, and it is a privilege and a joy to be around them and work with them. We have wanted to work with Erzsébet for 15 years, since the premiere of "The School for Fools", but only now have I found an "exotic" role for her that I could invite her to play as a guest. She plays Lenin with elemental force in our performance of Dada Cabaret.

Who else would you like to work with?

Éva Almási.

Returning to the picturesque styles of Three Sisters: if you were a painting, who would paint you?

Perhaps Simon Hantai. His works are characterized by wonderful forms and layers of paint, which are both cosmic and deeply human.

Georgina Helyes, kozonseg.hu, 2017

Translated by Lena Megyeri