Actor and director Zoltán Balázs questions personal responsibility with a manifesto based on Viktor Kravchenko's book "I chose freedom." Viktor Kravchenko was one of the first to report firsthand on the workings of Stalinism, with the intention of shaking up the free world, yet it took decades for the Hungarian translation of his book to be published. However, actor-director Zoltán Balázs, founder and director of the Maladype Theatre, considers it a personal mission to use this story as a prism through which we can confront our own unspoken and everyday traumas. Most recently, he impressed—and liberated—his audience at the Zwinger in Kőszeg. We spoke before the performance.

You've been telling Viktor Kravchenko's story for two years. What is life like with him?

Intense. Although yesterday's performance in Budapest followed a longer hiatus. I don't say I played him, because it's far from acting in the classical sense; this "one-man show," which is difficult to define in terms of genre, is based more on communicating thoughts. I call it a manifesto, but not because I'm loud or I'm trying to force it down people's throats. I call it a manifesto because Viktor Kravchenko's important moments, dilemmas, and decisions—which he experienced from his birth to his defection—seem to be repeating themselves: around us, within us, through us. The kind of personal responsibility that the text conveys, and that is an essential part of our everyday lives, is always very precisely encoded, regardless of the age of the audience. Yesterday, for example, there were many students in the audience who, although they did not know this era apart from learning about it from hearsay or their studies, were still perfectly capable of adapting the story to their own lives, down to the functioning of the small communities in which they themselves exist. The most shocking thing was when, in the end — there is always a discussion after the performance—one of our audience members stood up and said that because I had interpreted this story so honestly, he considered it a personal gift, and in return, he would like to give me a personal gift too. Something he had never shared with anyone else. That his grandfather was a kulak persecutor, and that this is still an unprocessed fact for him; a trauma that needs to be talked about. That he also has ancestors similar to the characters in the Kravchenko story. It was shocking. We also created a theatre-in-education program for the performance, entitled The Kravchenko Case, which was supported by many people regardless of their worldview or political affiliation—something I am very proud of. Thanks to this, I was able to reach disadvantaged regions and students who don't often see theatre, especially on such topics. There was a project called the Freedom-tour: I visited important places in Viktor Kravchenko's life and recited the manifesto from Washington to Ukraine. A documentary film was made about the trip. But the crew didn't just visit the locations of Viktor's life, they also visited the locations of my childhood – my hometown is Cluj-Napoca. The end result will be a strange common denominator between our stories.

When can we see the movie?

Hopefully in the spring: it is being made in co-production with several partners. A lot of people are looking forward to it. The thing is, there is something else I can't talk about yet: there will be a major event connected to the premiere. I had a crazy idea that I would really like to make happen. It looks like there's a chance. So, this complex program has been going strong for two years. There is a constant demand for it. The world feeds it, keeps the topic alive. And the truth must be told. And as a freedom-loving person—that's how I was raised, that's how I'm genetically wired—I seize every chance to create opportunities for those who also define themselves through freedom to exchange ideas. Viktor's story is perfect for this, as is his personality. He is restless, energetic, creative, humorous, relentless, and unpleasant. At the same time, his family is strongly driven by a strange mixture of a desire for freedom, ideologies, utopian visions of a better world—and, consequently, great beliefs and great disappointments.

Restless, energetic, creative – as if you were describing yourself. I thought that even if I knew nothing about the background of the performance, I would not feel that anything was missing. The title says it all: I chose freedom – it could be the motto of your own life and your career as a theatre maker.

That's exactly what happened: that was the motive. Ariane Mnouchkine said in an interview that one of her five favourite books is I Chose Freedom, which I had never heard of before. Later, of course, it turned out that historians in Hungary knew of its existence; that it was published before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag, and was therefore one of the first to report on the distortions and horrors of the Soviet system. But when I read the Mnouchkine interview, I immediately thought that anyone who writes a book with such a title would interest me: both the author and the work. (It was also significant, of course, that a theatre director whom I greatly respect lists it among her favourite books.) We jumped into negotiations with the sole legal heir, Kravchenko's son Andrew Kravchenko, without knowing what we actually wanted to have translated and published. I just trusted that a work with such a title would be about what I suspected it might be about. So that's how I felt about the book—just as you may feel about me. But Andrew Kravchenko didn't agree for a long time. He only saw his father between two scrambled eggs at breakfast once every six months. Viktor Kravchenko, disillusioned with the Soviet system, had made it to America, but he did not find freedom there, or at least not in the way he had imagined it. He was constantly on the road, sometimes popping home to visit his current wife and his only surviving son; his sons left behind in the Soviet Union had been executed. Andrew had few real memories of his father, so for him, the portrait painted in the book was sacred. No one could even add footnotes to it. Andrew couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of stage production could be created from this story. And here comes the twist. After about three years of negotiations, when it seemed that I would have to give up and abandon the project, my colleagues sent Andrew a recording of my last Hamlet performance. He watched it and immediately wrote back, "Well, this is my father." My sanguine personality was in sync with his idea of his father. That's how Maladype Theatre got the rights, and that's how Péter Konok, himself a historian, produced his wonderful translation.

When I think of Zoltán Balázs, Hamlet is the first thing that comes to mind. That mercurial, fantastic kid brought to life in Tim Carroll's production. But on the other end of the spectrum, Balázs Zoltán is also associated with his production of Ostrovsky's The Tempest: full of music, grand visuals, and theatricality.

I think in terms of processes. From the beginning of my career, I have thought—as I have experienced in my family and with artists who are important to me—that change is the most exciting part of a creator's life. Not to preserve, record, or become insular, but to allow for the recognition or new encounters generated by the risk factor to happen. It is true that this diversity places a greater demand on our audience and on those who want to chronicle the history of Maladype. We are not characterized by predictability and the use of well-known codes, but always by something new. This is not always easy for my colleagues either. The process is organized by one thing: rethinking, redesigning, the unexpected. It is a constant kaleidoscope game that moves and drives us, with certain defining stations on the road. Hamlet was such a defining point in my life, influencing many things in my career and the further development of Maladype. Fast-forwarding, rewinding; this is very important. To have an objective and a subjective time, in which I can create a dialogue. Then we also need crazy people who support this way of life, who believe in it. I'm not complaining: we have a wonderful audience at home and abroad, but I don't make things easy for them, that's for sure.

Did the Kravchenko manifesto open up new paths, just like Hamlet did? What paths did it close? Although your activities are very diverse, there seems to be a solid foundation underneath that does not change.

The theme of freedom expressed in the Kravchenko story brought me insights that made me think not only as a man, a human being, a Hungarian, and a European, but also as a creator. Where is one headed, and when are those moments when certain decisions must be made? That we do indeed have to let go of some things that we believe to be inseparable from ourselves. What it means to start over courageously, freely, powerfully. The gesture of re-creation – that is what interests us. People recreate themselves in every situation. That is what is happening here, in the Old Tower in Kőszeg. And there is something else that connects all my performances. According to Bob Wilson, who was my teacher, there are two types of actors. One comes in to the theatre from seven to ten to be liked, doing everything with that motive. The other, less spectacular, comes in because they have something to do on stage: with the subject, with themselves, with the audience. If they receive love, they don't reject it, but it's not their primary goal. I consider the Kravchenko manifesto to be a particularly personal matter, and based on my experiences over the past two years, it has had a significant impact. For two and a half hours, people sit and listen, lending their time, attention, and energy to the story of a single person. Today, when everything is buzzing, spinning, and whirling, people sit here and listen to another person. This is a great gift.

Lívia Ölbei, Vas Népe, 2017

Translated by Lena Megyeri