Chekov wrote the play at the age of nineteen into eleven notebooks, connected by string. It is two hundred printed pages. Without cutting it would be a nine hours long performance, or even more. The text, which was thought to be lost, was found in 1914. It was published nine years later.

The first page came off, so the play has been called Without title for a long time. A version of title is the – Without any Father, Erzsi Gaál last staging called it that way in the Castle Theatre, where her National troupe brought the play on ice – it brought us closer to the original aim of the drama monster, than the Platonov, which is usual for us. The later one narrows it down into one wandering hero, the earlier one reports the peers’ obsolescence.

It is a symphony of great orchestra. It is prelude for all the Chekov’s plays. All his later plays can be found in it, from Ivanov until The Cherry Orchard. Voynitsev would perform Hamlet in it, as Hamlet is hidden in The Seagull. Voynitsev is the stepson of the landowner, his name is different from Voynitsky only with a syllable, so from Uncle Vanya, who supports going on as well – Sonia: “work, work” – as the bitter raising of hope echoes in Platonov. Uncle Vanya becomes angry: he could be Dostoevsky or Schopenhauer. Here Platonov complains, that if he had not waste his life, he would have become Byron or Columbus. The selling of The Cherry Orchard is in connection with the wasting of indebted Voynitseva’s property. They push into aimlessly their never fulfilled desires, as well as The Three Sisters do. It is the silent fail of the old-fashioned noble life on the countryside, the possibilities have slipped out under their foot, but the remaining desires, which cannot be fulfilled can be sounded first in Platonov too. It is not a first trial of his young age. It is not a trial of pen. It is not about the lack of knowledge of theatrical rules, in contrast to it: the play is about the denial of safety. The great fights, the withering without any outside driven actions, the drying from the branch can be seen here with all its splendour towards death.

I am sure, that the Russian life – the life – in its all beauty can develop here, if the whole play was performed during an evening without any cuts. Of course, only between the most optimistic circumstances. Where the high levelled theatrical culture of the troupe and of the society can perform together, where money (of the theatre and viewers), the talent, and the educated viewers can form optimistically the human encyclopaedia, which does not take into consideration the theatrical rules and recreate them at the same time. It would not be unique in the theatre history, But the Chekov probe was always outside of it. Then we can hear the harmony of all motifs. The tight connection between the far parts of the story. It becomes clear, that how much new thing has been brought by the almost child man from Taganrog, as well as his brutal recreation and different point of view.

I admit that it is insatiability. The Autumn Festival in Budapest and the Thália Theatre have given the possibility to the Troupe of Maladype to create the present performance on the place of once existed pub named by Miss Arizona, Mrs Rozsnyai.

In Zoltán Balázs staging, in the middle of the place, around which we are sitting on its four sides, Bea Molnár’s huge billiard table is standing. The performance is one fatal play. (In Erzsi Gaál’s staging the characters were going around unwieldy chess pieces, as the toy tools of a mental game).

The best performers get all the nine wonderful roles. However, Zoltán Balázs gets two performers from Temesvár: Erika Tankó (who performs Platonov’s wife, from the harmless until the wild one), and Zénó Faragó, who performs with sharp plasticity Isaac Abramovich Vengerov, the lazy and curious one from Paris, and lottery winner new rich man of the future. The Slovakian Vica Kerekes has performed for a long time in home theatres, but now she becomes mature as a freelancer in the Maladype Theatre between their connected safety, where they catch each other’s look as aerialists. Judit Kovács Ligeti is the owner of the Voynitsev property, she is the widow wife of the general: she reigns over the others, as she is supported by the past welfare, she owns only the power of her womanhood and sharp mentality. Zoltán Lendvánczky starts her stepson with sparkling joyful laughs, and when his life collapses, the smile seems to be frozen on his face, he is not crying for himself, however his remaining smile tells: he cannot believe the catastrophe of his love. He has not got used to the bitterness of life. The hopelessness develops in him only later. Kamilla Fátyol in the role of the cheating wife is more and more safety, she is catching with her deepening performing culture. Zsolt Páll is anxiously above the others as the gold idol of his wealth. Ádám Tompa (Triletsky) is flying over the stage as a joyful elf. He treats confidently the viewers. He does it so friendly, that the asked ones answer him fluently. It is not an easy trick. Tompa brings the cloudless serenity at the beginning of the performance. He is the master of play, the boy, who is always ready to eat, drink and make jokes. He seems to be the one, who orders the ballet of the joyful group of guests around the table. There should not be any misunderstanding: Platonov is not any kind of physical theatre, neither a dancing composition. But the members of the troupe has so well-trained moving, that their steps, gestures are strictly punctual, as in a classical ballet.

The programme does not help me, but I think, that they use János Elbert, little bit polished translation.

The main character remains the last one: let’s come Ákos Orosz’s appreciation. We do not see a lazy, overweight one, left in the countryside. Platonov is 27 years old. Ákos Orosz will be 25 in a month. The role is at his age, but he knows more than it. He escapes from female arms to arms. First he is distant, then he gets used to lies of love, about which it cannot be known, that how much it is a lie or a truth. We can follow a cheerful young man’s slow collapse with artistic truth, from the closeness of a microscope. The cheated world turns against him. He realises himself, his fail. He is stub around with billiard cues. From Orosz’s body the toy sticks come from, as from Saint Sebastian the arrows did. The Roman guard was killed because of his catholic belief. Platonov was killed, because the others think, that they are different from him. They are not solider or more honest, or more resistant to seduction than he is, and they are not more empathetic to their partners than the lazy teacher is. They do not have solider aim of their life. They are just falling into the world.

Péter Gál Molnár, Nol.hu, 2010

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)