Performances born out of encounters - Portrait: Zoltán Balázs, director of Maladype Theatre / 2018
Maladype Theatre has been around for almost two decades, and audiences have long been able to enjoy their performances not only at home but also overseas. True to its name, their community is a real meeting place where viewers can get to know different cultures and innovative theatrical methods within the framework of plays with special themes.
What does the name of the company mean?
Maladype means “encounter” in the Lovari Gypsy language. When the theatre was founded seventeen years ago, there were some Gypsy actors performing in our productions. The joy of performing with non-Roma actors and the exotic experience of "encounter" that affected everyone inspired us to find a Lovari word that accurately expressed our feelings at the time as the permanent name for the newly formed company. That is how we became Maladype. Our name is pronounced in many different ways at home and abroad, but the essence of our performances, born in the spirit of artistic and human encounters, is uniformly decoded everywhere.
I first encountered the name Maladype Theatre about six years ago, when Budapest was plastered with posters and advertisements of the company. How come I hadn't heard of you before?
Perhaps because you didn't frequent Szkéné Theatre or Bárka Theatre, where we performed our first shows. During the 2015 poster campaign, thanks to our theatre's dedicated supporters, we were able to advertise ourselves more visibly and promote Maladype as a brand, as well as our performances and other content. As an independent theatre, we couldn't have afforded this campaign, because we sustain ourselves through grants, subsidies, and tours abroad. The success of the "I watch Maladype too" campaign was largely due to the fact that we were in the right place at the right time. The campaign was backed by professionals and supporters who had been following the development of our theatre for a long time and held the "Maladype phenomenon" in high esteem; thus, while traveling on the subway, tens of thousands of people became familiar with the name of our theatre overnight. Thanks to widely recognized figures (György Csepeli, Kata Huszárik, András Kepes, Tibi Kiss, Dávid Klein, Anna Pásztor, Mari Törőcsik) who were happy to recommend our theatre, people passers-by took notice of the name Maladype. They sought us out on every possible forum and came to see our performances.
In this column, I talk not only to the directors of large institutional theatres, but also to the leaders of small companies, such as independent theatres, most of which do not even have their own venue. How is Maladype different, and how does it lure audiences away from its competitors?
Unfortunately, only a few of the more significant representatives of the independent theatre scene are still active (Forte, Stúdió K, Béla Pintér Company, Maladype), and our future is also very uncertain. It is true that at the time of submitting the annual operating grant application, a few people get together and try to apply as a company with some temporary name and plan, but later on they cannot ensure any real process or transparent structural and artistic development for their ensemble and audience. Maladype is a constantly changing theatre workshop with a seventeen-year history, which has had periods of "co-tenancy," as we have performed at Szkéné, Bárka, and Thália theatres, but seven years ago we settled on the first floor of the building at Mikszáth Kálmán Square 2, where our permanent venue, Maladype Base, operates. We perform our larger productions in classical theatre spaces and our smaller ones in this more intimate, minimalist apartment theatre environment. We distribute our permanent repertoire both at home and abroad, so our actors can easily adapt to unexpected situations that present new challenges. It often happens that we perform a show that we play for an audience of sixty to sixty-five at the Base in front of an audience of up to a thousand abroad. Our performances, which deal with unique themes, are inspired by the works of unconventional authors and bear the mark of directors who are known for their extraordinary vision and innovations in content and form. We have only one problem: we have outgrown this beautiful, bourgeois home and need a larger and technically better-equipped venue where we can perform in front of a larger audience almost every night. I am determined to see this plan through by the end of 2018.
As far as I know, they currently have nine pieces in their repertoire, which they take on tour both at home and abroad. The latter is excellent publicity, bringing the company international recognition!
These invitations are thanks to domestic and international theatre professionals, critics, and festival directors who, after seeing our performances, recognized that Maladype has a unique theatrical language and value system that, in its exclusivity, can easily be converted to any part of the world. From America to Iran, Italy to Poland, we have performed in many countries, with our actors performing with subtitles, simultaneous interpretation, or in English, which they speak excellently. We always incorporate a few sentences into our guest performances that the actors convey in the language of the given country. It was a huge deal, for example, when we performed King Ubu in Iran—the opportunity to perform in a dictatorial system was fantastic in itself! The actor playing Father Ubu delivered the final line, “If there were no Poland, there would be no Poles,” in Persian as “If there were no Iran, there would be no Persians,” and the audience in Tehran gave a standing ovation.
This is the best way to show where an artist stands as a creator and thinker, and where a company stands as a collective.
Maladype Theatre is a small company, but it has a lot of energy! Together with me, the company consists of five actors: Zsigmond Bödők, Kata Huszárik, Ágota Szilágyi, and Erika Tankó. Of course, we also have guest artists, depending on the requirements of the play and its director in terms of the cast, but basically, the mental and physical condition, complex attention, and preparedness of the permanent Maladype actors are the foundation of our creative processes. We are fortunate because over the past seventeen years we have been able to work with such great actors as Ilona Béres, Erzsébet Kútvölgyi, Andrea Ladányi, László Sinkó, and Mari Törőcsik.
Do you have a summer break, as is customary for institutional theatres?
In theory, yes, but in practice, not really. Last summer, for example, we presented Csongor and Tünde in Gyula in co-production with the All Arts Festival, and we performed Richard III at the Shakespeare Festival. Our performances can be seen not only in the capital, but also in the countryside and beyond our borders. These expeditions generate very important encounters, and we feed the experience gained on tour back into our everyday work.
In the 2018/2019 season, Maladype celebrates the eighteenth year of its existence. How was it actually created back then?
It was founded by chance. In 2001, a Serbian producer, Dragan Ristic, approached several Hungarian directors with the question of whether they would direct a theatre performance sponsored by him, with Roma and non-Roma actors. Everyone found the idea very interesting and exotic, but no one was bold and committed enough to take it on. However, they all agreed that there was this crazy, adventurous guy studying directing at the University of Performing Arts who would definitely be on board. The Serbian producer told me that it would be Eugene Ionesco's play Jack or the Submission, which had failed everywhere else in the world, that it would be performed in the Roma Parliament, and that we would rehearse at night. This idea, based entirely on absurdities, aroused my interest so much that I agreed to direct the play. Contrary to initial expectations, the performance was a huge success, and we discovered that Ionesco's absurdity is perfectly understandable and almost "realistic" when performed by multilingual actors in a non-traditional theatre space. The professional and public success of this performance inspired our next productions, School for Fools and then The Blacks.
This is how Maladype was born, based on the joint efforts of a group of people with diverse ideas.
Yes. However, my colleagues and I had to learn how to consciously build a company, artistically, structurally, and strategically, both at home and abroad. The first seven years laid the foundation for our theatre's reputation. I am confident that, on the threshold of adulthood, 2018 will provide us with a larger venue, where we will finally be able to spend our time not on day-to-day organizational tasks, but on long-term, predictable operations and finding the right balance between looking inward and outward.
Pepita Magazin, 5 February 2018
Translation by Léna Megyeri
What does the name of the company mean?
Maladype means “encounter” in the Lovari Gypsy language. When the theatre was founded seventeen years ago, there were some Gypsy actors performing in our productions. The joy of performing with non-Roma actors and the exotic experience of "encounter" that affected everyone inspired us to find a Lovari word that accurately expressed our feelings at the time as the permanent name for the newly formed company. That is how we became Maladype. Our name is pronounced in many different ways at home and abroad, but the essence of our performances, born in the spirit of artistic and human encounters, is uniformly decoded everywhere.
I first encountered the name Maladype Theatre about six years ago, when Budapest was plastered with posters and advertisements of the company. How come I hadn't heard of you before?
Perhaps because you didn't frequent Szkéné Theatre or Bárka Theatre, where we performed our first shows. During the 2015 poster campaign, thanks to our theatre's dedicated supporters, we were able to advertise ourselves more visibly and promote Maladype as a brand, as well as our performances and other content. As an independent theatre, we couldn't have afforded this campaign, because we sustain ourselves through grants, subsidies, and tours abroad. The success of the "I watch Maladype too" campaign was largely due to the fact that we were in the right place at the right time. The campaign was backed by professionals and supporters who had been following the development of our theatre for a long time and held the "Maladype phenomenon" in high esteem; thus, while traveling on the subway, tens of thousands of people became familiar with the name of our theatre overnight. Thanks to widely recognized figures (György Csepeli, Kata Huszárik, András Kepes, Tibi Kiss, Dávid Klein, Anna Pásztor, Mari Törőcsik) who were happy to recommend our theatre, people passers-by took notice of the name Maladype. They sought us out on every possible forum and came to see our performances.
In this column, I talk not only to the directors of large institutional theatres, but also to the leaders of small companies, such as independent theatres, most of which do not even have their own venue. How is Maladype different, and how does it lure audiences away from its competitors?
Unfortunately, only a few of the more significant representatives of the independent theatre scene are still active (Forte, Stúdió K, Béla Pintér Company, Maladype), and our future is also very uncertain. It is true that at the time of submitting the annual operating grant application, a few people get together and try to apply as a company with some temporary name and plan, but later on they cannot ensure any real process or transparent structural and artistic development for their ensemble and audience. Maladype is a constantly changing theatre workshop with a seventeen-year history, which has had periods of "co-tenancy," as we have performed at Szkéné, Bárka, and Thália theatres, but seven years ago we settled on the first floor of the building at Mikszáth Kálmán Square 2, where our permanent venue, Maladype Base, operates. We perform our larger productions in classical theatre spaces and our smaller ones in this more intimate, minimalist apartment theatre environment. We distribute our permanent repertoire both at home and abroad, so our actors can easily adapt to unexpected situations that present new challenges. It often happens that we perform a show that we play for an audience of sixty to sixty-five at the Base in front of an audience of up to a thousand abroad. Our performances, which deal with unique themes, are inspired by the works of unconventional authors and bear the mark of directors who are known for their extraordinary vision and innovations in content and form. We have only one problem: we have outgrown this beautiful, bourgeois home and need a larger and technically better-equipped venue where we can perform in front of a larger audience almost every night. I am determined to see this plan through by the end of 2018.
As far as I know, they currently have nine pieces in their repertoire, which they take on tour both at home and abroad. The latter is excellent publicity, bringing the company international recognition!
These invitations are thanks to domestic and international theatre professionals, critics, and festival directors who, after seeing our performances, recognized that Maladype has a unique theatrical language and value system that, in its exclusivity, can easily be converted to any part of the world. From America to Iran, Italy to Poland, we have performed in many countries, with our actors performing with subtitles, simultaneous interpretation, or in English, which they speak excellently. We always incorporate a few sentences into our guest performances that the actors convey in the language of the given country. It was a huge deal, for example, when we performed King Ubu in Iran—the opportunity to perform in a dictatorial system was fantastic in itself! The actor playing Father Ubu delivered the final line, “If there were no Poland, there would be no Poles,” in Persian as “If there were no Iran, there would be no Persians,” and the audience in Tehran gave a standing ovation.
This is the best way to show where an artist stands as a creator and thinker, and where a company stands as a collective.
Maladype Theatre is a small company, but it has a lot of energy! Together with me, the company consists of five actors: Zsigmond Bödők, Kata Huszárik, Ágota Szilágyi, and Erika Tankó. Of course, we also have guest artists, depending on the requirements of the play and its director in terms of the cast, but basically, the mental and physical condition, complex attention, and preparedness of the permanent Maladype actors are the foundation of our creative processes. We are fortunate because over the past seventeen years we have been able to work with such great actors as Ilona Béres, Erzsébet Kútvölgyi, Andrea Ladányi, László Sinkó, and Mari Törőcsik.
Do you have a summer break, as is customary for institutional theatres?
In theory, yes, but in practice, not really. Last summer, for example, we presented Csongor and Tünde in Gyula in co-production with the All Arts Festival, and we performed Richard III at the Shakespeare Festival. Our performances can be seen not only in the capital, but also in the countryside and beyond our borders. These expeditions generate very important encounters, and we feed the experience gained on tour back into our everyday work.
In the 2018/2019 season, Maladype celebrates the eighteenth year of its existence. How was it actually created back then?
It was founded by chance. In 2001, a Serbian producer, Dragan Ristic, approached several Hungarian directors with the question of whether they would direct a theatre performance sponsored by him, with Roma and non-Roma actors. Everyone found the idea very interesting and exotic, but no one was bold and committed enough to take it on. However, they all agreed that there was this crazy, adventurous guy studying directing at the University of Performing Arts who would definitely be on board. The Serbian producer told me that it would be Eugene Ionesco's play Jack or the Submission, which had failed everywhere else in the world, that it would be performed in the Roma Parliament, and that we would rehearse at night. This idea, based entirely on absurdities, aroused my interest so much that I agreed to direct the play. Contrary to initial expectations, the performance was a huge success, and we discovered that Ionesco's absurdity is perfectly understandable and almost "realistic" when performed by multilingual actors in a non-traditional theatre space. The professional and public success of this performance inspired our next productions, School for Fools and then The Blacks.
This is how Maladype was born, based on the joint efforts of a group of people with diverse ideas.
Yes. However, my colleagues and I had to learn how to consciously build a company, artistically, structurally, and strategically, both at home and abroad. The first seven years laid the foundation for our theatre's reputation. I am confident that, on the threshold of adulthood, 2018 will provide us with a larger venue, where we will finally be able to spend our time not on day-to-day organizational tasks, but on long-term, predictable operations and finding the right balance between looking inward and outward.
Pepita Magazin, 5 February 2018
Translation by Léna Megyeri