MGP: I love the fries with bacon – Ionesco in Tavaszmező Street
The title of the theatrical report could be: How can we get rid of Ionesco? Behind the church in Józsefváros, in the upper room of the Gypsy Parliament according to the actor and director college student, Zoltán Balázs’s staging Ionesco’s absurd play, Jack or The Submission was shown, which was written by the Romanic-French (French-Romanic) author in 1950. Between The Bald Soprano and The Lesson. Because Ionesco’s early plays did not get a great response, only in 1955, the director, Robert Postee could put it on stage with a modest success in the Huchette.
You cannot interfere into the art history without guilt. Ionesco, who was thrown out through the door, now climbs back through the window. The things are unavoidable. Thanks for conscientious children gardeners and aesthetic warders in the battle for the modernity of our daily bread, they have discovered again and again, from hour to hour the beginning of the XX. century. Just taking the offer from the past two weeks: one dance troupe found dadaism really relevant, another dance group performed Toklas pas de deux by Gertrud Stein and Alice B. A well-known French art dealer made for his birthday dinner Marinetti’s menu of his futuristic cookery book from 1933. Balázs Kovalik put on stage Tzara’s the Romanic-French dadaist writer’s play, which he wrote in 1918 and Poulenc set it to music and made its opera version in 1947. Last time Kovalic directed Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ post-dadaist opera, in it the middle-class family, the government, and its institutes encrouach the representative of the new generation to cripple him to themselves. In the play, which Ionesco wrote 51 years ago, the family force the boy to tell the sentence, which forms him into a civil average: I love the fries with bacon. The old Ionesco’s ghost met up with the young theatrical person from the director course. Who is at the beginning of his career can find close to him the one semi-centenary who is in rhyme with the present, in case of the annoyance of the audience, of violation and of the wrecking of the perspective.
Ionesco’s characters who are shown in Tavaszmező Street are personalities without personality. The main character’s name is Jack. His dad’s name is Jack too. Moreover, his mother’s name is Jack. What else can be his grandmother and grandfather’s names than Jack. The offered bride’s, who has two than three noses, and nine fingers, name is Roberte, and her father and mother have similar names too. They do not have separate names. They do not have any distinguishing features. Ionesco’s antitheater is the new weapon in the fight against the antitheatrical theatre.
All of it is just a snobistic pant if the performance is not good. Besides the theoretical questions, it is more important if they were able to resuscitate from the letters the word? The performance, which was held in the Gypsy Parliament, is full of wild prank, bitter mockery, childish pathos.
It is a committed childish play. The characters with a joy, without smile get lost into their happy and tragic fun.
A mixed group who take on forming theatre was formed into a troupe. They can show the impersonality with a great inner strength and with the magic of their personality. I am taken mostly by Jack’s mother’s Erzsébet Soltész’s fierce acting, breachy malice and charming disloyal acting. Rudolf Balogh got the main role and lives his comical role with great tragic strength. Or with a lot of humour he shows the tragedy of his character. Balázs Dévai plays the role of his dad. He is in and out at the same time. He is pathetically sarcastic and sarcastically passionate. During the intimate moments of the play he is whinnying in the corner like a horse. They are playing like children. With concentration. They are getting lost in it. Of course, they know where the edge of their personality is. Nóra Parti, who is beautiful like a lay figure, has an elf-like, malicious humour. Krisztina Sárközi with her partners are convincing column-saints in the embrasures. Hermina Fátyol is the grim mother from the absurd opposition of Romeo and Julietta. Árpád Bogdán exhales colourful table tennis balls from his mouth. Dragan Ristic is the odd man of the theatre, he is the producer, the singer breadwinner of the family, composer, and together with Dusan Ristic, he is the translator of the play into Gypsy language. The performance turns all the disadvantages of the place into its advantage, because it does not cover but emphasize the drawbacks. The set (which is a multi-usable plastic cage) and the costumes were designed by Judit Gombár. Roberte’s padded bride dress appears independently on a higher level. It is a ghostly appearance. The dress moves, walks, lives and just after it, a hand, which is wearing an opera gloves, reaches out of the decollete and Erika Molnár steps out the depth of the mobile dress. She is the only one who speaks Hungarian. With it, she increases the isolated ones’ inarticulateness. Zoltán Oláh is the one-man orchestra of the performance. There is a tin pot in his lap. He sounds many ways, multiplying himself. He gives the rhythm of the wild performance. For which Ildikó Gyenes as a choreographer trained the bodies.
Péter Molnár Gál, Népszabadság, 2001
You cannot interfere into the art history without guilt. Ionesco, who was thrown out through the door, now climbs back through the window. The things are unavoidable. Thanks for conscientious children gardeners and aesthetic warders in the battle for the modernity of our daily bread, they have discovered again and again, from hour to hour the beginning of the XX. century. Just taking the offer from the past two weeks: one dance troupe found dadaism really relevant, another dance group performed Toklas pas de deux by Gertrud Stein and Alice B. A well-known French art dealer made for his birthday dinner Marinetti’s menu of his futuristic cookery book from 1933. Balázs Kovalik put on stage Tzara’s the Romanic-French dadaist writer’s play, which he wrote in 1918 and Poulenc set it to music and made its opera version in 1947. Last time Kovalic directed Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ post-dadaist opera, in it the middle-class family, the government, and its institutes encrouach the representative of the new generation to cripple him to themselves. In the play, which Ionesco wrote 51 years ago, the family force the boy to tell the sentence, which forms him into a civil average: I love the fries with bacon. The old Ionesco’s ghost met up with the young theatrical person from the director course. Who is at the beginning of his career can find close to him the one semi-centenary who is in rhyme with the present, in case of the annoyance of the audience, of violation and of the wrecking of the perspective.
Ionesco’s characters who are shown in Tavaszmező Street are personalities without personality. The main character’s name is Jack. His dad’s name is Jack too. Moreover, his mother’s name is Jack. What else can be his grandmother and grandfather’s names than Jack. The offered bride’s, who has two than three noses, and nine fingers, name is Roberte, and her father and mother have similar names too. They do not have separate names. They do not have any distinguishing features. Ionesco’s antitheater is the new weapon in the fight against the antitheatrical theatre.
All of it is just a snobistic pant if the performance is not good. Besides the theoretical questions, it is more important if they were able to resuscitate from the letters the word? The performance, which was held in the Gypsy Parliament, is full of wild prank, bitter mockery, childish pathos.
It is a committed childish play. The characters with a joy, without smile get lost into their happy and tragic fun.
A mixed group who take on forming theatre was formed into a troupe. They can show the impersonality with a great inner strength and with the magic of their personality. I am taken mostly by Jack’s mother’s Erzsébet Soltész’s fierce acting, breachy malice and charming disloyal acting. Rudolf Balogh got the main role and lives his comical role with great tragic strength. Or with a lot of humour he shows the tragedy of his character. Balázs Dévai plays the role of his dad. He is in and out at the same time. He is pathetically sarcastic and sarcastically passionate. During the intimate moments of the play he is whinnying in the corner like a horse. They are playing like children. With concentration. They are getting lost in it. Of course, they know where the edge of their personality is. Nóra Parti, who is beautiful like a lay figure, has an elf-like, malicious humour. Krisztina Sárközi with her partners are convincing column-saints in the embrasures. Hermina Fátyol is the grim mother from the absurd opposition of Romeo and Julietta. Árpád Bogdán exhales colourful table tennis balls from his mouth. Dragan Ristic is the odd man of the theatre, he is the producer, the singer breadwinner of the family, composer, and together with Dusan Ristic, he is the translator of the play into Gypsy language. The performance turns all the disadvantages of the place into its advantage, because it does not cover but emphasize the drawbacks. The set (which is a multi-usable plastic cage) and the costumes were designed by Judit Gombár. Roberte’s padded bride dress appears independently on a higher level. It is a ghostly appearance. The dress moves, walks, lives and just after it, a hand, which is wearing an opera gloves, reaches out of the decollete and Erika Molnár steps out the depth of the mobile dress. She is the only one who speaks Hungarian. With it, she increases the isolated ones’ inarticulateness. Zoltán Oláh is the one-man orchestra of the performance. There is a tin pot in his lap. He sounds many ways, multiplying himself. He gives the rhythm of the wild performance. For which Ildikó Gyenes as a choreographer trained the bodies.
Péter Molnár Gál, Népszabadság, 2001