György Karsai: Rebellion - anatomy
There is punctual interpretation of the text, there are crystal clear and disappointingly true ideas about rebellion, revolution, practice of power, there is a structure of performance with the strictness of the score, it is a virtuous performance. There are costumes in baby pink, in T-pink, in mauve, in blood-red and resounding red and multi-functional (of course, red) pile of gloves around, under, above and next to; there is much humour and romantic feeling, which turns into cynicism – we can watch Zsótér’s new performance with the troupe of Maladype in the New Studio of Thália.
The young gentleman, from a very wealthy family, Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) was not eighteen, when Victor Hugo’s friend circle, the Cénacle, accepted him, and from that time, his life was about literature and mostly about theatre. However, after two failures one, after another, - La quittance du diable /Accounting with the Devil/, 1830., it was not even performed; La Nuit vénétienne /A Night in Venice/ 1831., it was an obvious fall in Odéon – he got enough from the theatrical practice but for the great luck of the after-ages, not from the play writing. It meant a freedom for him instead, he did not want to see his plays on stages again: he felt correctly, that the writers’ romantic worldview of that age, was very far from his own.
He did not believe that a poet could have effects on the social situations, and he did not even think, that a writer would fight with his pen to make the society better. Instead of these, he would like to show the great feelings – love and hate – which can give freedom and bring to rapture. Between 1833 and 1837, he wrote many longer and shorter lyrical poems and he wrote at least two play during this time, between them we could find the five acts long Lorenzaccio (1834).
Lorenzaccio was put on stage quite late in 1896 for the first time, almost forty years after Musset’s death (in the Théatre de la Renaissance), and only because Sarah Bernard wanted to play its main character. However, she made the whole text rewritten, she changed even the end of the actions – and if we can believe the statements from that time, Lorenzaccio stood in front of them as the celebrated saviour of people, he was a hero, who brought freedom in the end. The original staging, which had positive meaning in a way, can be well connected to the performance history of Lorenzaccio in the 20th century too, from its performance in 1917 in the Comédie Francaise until the other one, which was staged by Jean Vilar as a festival performance in Avignon (1952, with Gérard Philipe as the main character).
In Hungary, first the Madách Theatre put it on stage in 1960, when the main character was performed by Miklós Gábor. It was performed in Miskolc (1978) and in Veszprém (1982), then a few years ago Victor Frunza put it on stage in Temesvár, in the Gergely Csiky National Theatre: according to the critics it was a very effective and valuable performance.
Sándor Zsótér’s performances ask the viewers to do, which they do not want to usually (especially not all of them): devoted attention, concentration, preparedness. Anyway, after many years of experience, now it can be said: where he appears, from Szeged to Eger and from the Attila József Theatre until the Radnóti and Maladype, he creates values, that kind of real theatre can be born there, which can move the troupe, and make them more theatrical and the viewers too.
Crowded into one corner of the New Studio of Thália Theatre, we can find all the five characters, when we arrive. Two of them, with deep dedication are knitting and crocheting from red string (maybe gloves), the others are standing behind them, similarly to a group of sculptures of a fountain – maybe from Firenze – they are watching a little bit lazy, with mysterious half smile on the edge of their mouth while we are taking our seats. There is only one fake-biedermeier wooden table, two similarly styled chairs, and one standing lamp with three branches, fixed in the corner to a short cabinet, which is extremely ugly and makes us remember the luxury of the housing estates of the 60s from the last century. On the wall there are picture of gothic church inside, painted glasses and statues, which are cut from artistic albums, they are in childish order, one under and next to another. And red gloves thrown in the middle of the mess, which covers everything.
Mari Ambrus’ set and Mari Benedek’s dresses, on which we can see the fantastic wealth of the colour of red, do not represent places – the changing of places, the actors announce on pale voices (it can be a tiny, malicious tribute to Brecht?) – but they also tell the same story as Juli Ungár’s new translation of Musset does (in a form, which is almost the third of the original one). Five actors perform it for us now (the original one was not performed for decades in France, partly because the writer put four hundred characters and more than sixty changes of scenes in it).
There have not been any performances by Zsótér, where the equality between the vison and text has been presented and used so much. Sometimes one interprets the other one (all weapons are represented by flowers; if it a sword, than a gladiolus of course – a rose, why not?), then sometimes they counterpoint, put into quotation marks, or mock each other: when they mention cobble a sound of meow answers from the corner. Do not hesitate my son” – a father tells to his son, and mousse comes from the son’s mouth, and then we can hear the music of Ghostbusters – of course, without any instruments, just the sounds of it – when Lorenzaccio’s ghost frightens his mother. The cynical statement of the Council of the Eight Ones (of course there are only three of them) becomes a wonderful Renaissance rap-choreography and it is put on stage with the accompaniment of mouth music, and so on.
I was confined with a hundred and ten minutes long vibration and flows of ideas. I have never laughed so much during a Zsótér performance, while we are watching an opening story of conspiracy from the XVI. century, which is very disappointing, and serves eternal truths. Musset’s tragedy ruins all illusions and romantic at the same time, in which the verbal and gesture irony can reveal and deepen the basic idea, the unavoidability of the continuous renewal of cynical power, the vainness of the liar gesture of self-sacrificing heroism.
The forest of red gloves, which has been created for million transformations, finally gets a “human” form: after the successful assassination and the moving of Lorenzo away, for the new ruler, Cosmo’s inauguration speech, it becomes a faceless creature. The cloak of a cardinal, hands of a cardinal and crown of a cardinal are formed from it, which announce its speech for people with the standing lamp, which improves into a microphone. The endless power moves its endless number of fingers on all parts of the body, it is a comic figure from frightening horror or sci-fi, who is a vivid monster creature, that announces the program of the new gratifying order.
Lorenzaccio has been analysed as the paraphrase of Hamlet – Zsótér does not even miss the jokes, in connection with it (for example, Lorenzo starts the word...word...monologue than ends it suddenly, he says it to be a flown of words) – and of the rebellion against the romantic writers’ (Hugo, Rostand, Dumas) view of world too. Zsótér makes us view Musset’s play as the tragic comedy of universal disappointment.
The actors are presented, like in the case of Zsótér’s theatre, with dedication, discipline, high-level concentration and attention to one another. In this “all interpreted words are connected to an over thought motion-theatre” we cannot even imagine, that there is anybody, who does not know the text, which works as a closed score, perfectly: the knowing of text, which has become a body, is evident. Ákos Orosz is the only one, who performs “only” one role, he is Lorenzo-Lorenzaccio; here and now I would like to emphasise his extraordinary intensive mimics: besides the text and movements, in his case as a third dimension the lights, flashing in his eyes, his smiles and position of his head can elevate the whole story. Ádám Tompa can be naïve, cruel and mysterious at the same time, while he is putting on himself the different forms of power (Alessandro, the cardinal, Strozzi – why do they tell this name always with the wrong pronunciation, I have no idea, if it is a humour, I do not understand it, if it s mistake, they should correct it – Cosmo). Zoltán Lendváczky is a sensational comedian, he has thousands of humour – he can be a woman (marchioness Cibo, Caterina, Lorenzo’s aunt), and a real Renaissance painter of the court (his tattoo scene together with Ádám Tompa should be thought).
Zsolt Páll is made from one block, he is the uncle, with motionless face and a cruel adviser, then an emotional mother and Caterina. Kamilla Fátyol’s authoritative presence controls continuously the happenings of the out-moved time: she is the red dressed Moira – who gives us at the same time Ariadne’s string, which re-interprets the story and shows us the direction – she is the middle-class-girl with her corrupted morals, the courtier, who closes his eyes and the cynical assassin too.
Yes, somewhere here (and that way!) we should look for the task of theatre, in a more pathetic way, all which Aristotle defined as the rising of fear and condolence and the liberation from these feelings: Zsótér rereads a theatrical text again, then shows, how he understands it, and I am ready to follow his way of thinking, analysing. I take care and then understand the presented interpretation. He opens that new kind of layers of meaning from it to me, that after the performance I can see not only the given play, but maybe the world too in a different way.
György Karsai, kultura.hu, 2009
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
The young gentleman, from a very wealthy family, Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) was not eighteen, when Victor Hugo’s friend circle, the Cénacle, accepted him, and from that time, his life was about literature and mostly about theatre. However, after two failures one, after another, - La quittance du diable /Accounting with the Devil/, 1830., it was not even performed; La Nuit vénétienne /A Night in Venice/ 1831., it was an obvious fall in Odéon – he got enough from the theatrical practice but for the great luck of the after-ages, not from the play writing. It meant a freedom for him instead, he did not want to see his plays on stages again: he felt correctly, that the writers’ romantic worldview of that age, was very far from his own.
He did not believe that a poet could have effects on the social situations, and he did not even think, that a writer would fight with his pen to make the society better. Instead of these, he would like to show the great feelings – love and hate – which can give freedom and bring to rapture. Between 1833 and 1837, he wrote many longer and shorter lyrical poems and he wrote at least two play during this time, between them we could find the five acts long Lorenzaccio (1834).
Lorenzaccio was put on stage quite late in 1896 for the first time, almost forty years after Musset’s death (in the Théatre de la Renaissance), and only because Sarah Bernard wanted to play its main character. However, she made the whole text rewritten, she changed even the end of the actions – and if we can believe the statements from that time, Lorenzaccio stood in front of them as the celebrated saviour of people, he was a hero, who brought freedom in the end. The original staging, which had positive meaning in a way, can be well connected to the performance history of Lorenzaccio in the 20th century too, from its performance in 1917 in the Comédie Francaise until the other one, which was staged by Jean Vilar as a festival performance in Avignon (1952, with Gérard Philipe as the main character).
In Hungary, first the Madách Theatre put it on stage in 1960, when the main character was performed by Miklós Gábor. It was performed in Miskolc (1978) and in Veszprém (1982), then a few years ago Victor Frunza put it on stage in Temesvár, in the Gergely Csiky National Theatre: according to the critics it was a very effective and valuable performance.
Sándor Zsótér’s performances ask the viewers to do, which they do not want to usually (especially not all of them): devoted attention, concentration, preparedness. Anyway, after many years of experience, now it can be said: where he appears, from Szeged to Eger and from the Attila József Theatre until the Radnóti and Maladype, he creates values, that kind of real theatre can be born there, which can move the troupe, and make them more theatrical and the viewers too.
Crowded into one corner of the New Studio of Thália Theatre, we can find all the five characters, when we arrive. Two of them, with deep dedication are knitting and crocheting from red string (maybe gloves), the others are standing behind them, similarly to a group of sculptures of a fountain – maybe from Firenze – they are watching a little bit lazy, with mysterious half smile on the edge of their mouth while we are taking our seats. There is only one fake-biedermeier wooden table, two similarly styled chairs, and one standing lamp with three branches, fixed in the corner to a short cabinet, which is extremely ugly and makes us remember the luxury of the housing estates of the 60s from the last century. On the wall there are picture of gothic church inside, painted glasses and statues, which are cut from artistic albums, they are in childish order, one under and next to another. And red gloves thrown in the middle of the mess, which covers everything.
Mari Ambrus’ set and Mari Benedek’s dresses, on which we can see the fantastic wealth of the colour of red, do not represent places – the changing of places, the actors announce on pale voices (it can be a tiny, malicious tribute to Brecht?) – but they also tell the same story as Juli Ungár’s new translation of Musset does (in a form, which is almost the third of the original one). Five actors perform it for us now (the original one was not performed for decades in France, partly because the writer put four hundred characters and more than sixty changes of scenes in it).
There have not been any performances by Zsótér, where the equality between the vison and text has been presented and used so much. Sometimes one interprets the other one (all weapons are represented by flowers; if it a sword, than a gladiolus of course – a rose, why not?), then sometimes they counterpoint, put into quotation marks, or mock each other: when they mention cobble a sound of meow answers from the corner. Do not hesitate my son” – a father tells to his son, and mousse comes from the son’s mouth, and then we can hear the music of Ghostbusters – of course, without any instruments, just the sounds of it – when Lorenzaccio’s ghost frightens his mother. The cynical statement of the Council of the Eight Ones (of course there are only three of them) becomes a wonderful Renaissance rap-choreography and it is put on stage with the accompaniment of mouth music, and so on.
I was confined with a hundred and ten minutes long vibration and flows of ideas. I have never laughed so much during a Zsótér performance, while we are watching an opening story of conspiracy from the XVI. century, which is very disappointing, and serves eternal truths. Musset’s tragedy ruins all illusions and romantic at the same time, in which the verbal and gesture irony can reveal and deepen the basic idea, the unavoidability of the continuous renewal of cynical power, the vainness of the liar gesture of self-sacrificing heroism.
The forest of red gloves, which has been created for million transformations, finally gets a “human” form: after the successful assassination and the moving of Lorenzo away, for the new ruler, Cosmo’s inauguration speech, it becomes a faceless creature. The cloak of a cardinal, hands of a cardinal and crown of a cardinal are formed from it, which announce its speech for people with the standing lamp, which improves into a microphone. The endless power moves its endless number of fingers on all parts of the body, it is a comic figure from frightening horror or sci-fi, who is a vivid monster creature, that announces the program of the new gratifying order.
Lorenzaccio has been analysed as the paraphrase of Hamlet – Zsótér does not even miss the jokes, in connection with it (for example, Lorenzo starts the word...word...monologue than ends it suddenly, he says it to be a flown of words) – and of the rebellion against the romantic writers’ (Hugo, Rostand, Dumas) view of world too. Zsótér makes us view Musset’s play as the tragic comedy of universal disappointment.
The actors are presented, like in the case of Zsótér’s theatre, with dedication, discipline, high-level concentration and attention to one another. In this “all interpreted words are connected to an over thought motion-theatre” we cannot even imagine, that there is anybody, who does not know the text, which works as a closed score, perfectly: the knowing of text, which has become a body, is evident. Ákos Orosz is the only one, who performs “only” one role, he is Lorenzo-Lorenzaccio; here and now I would like to emphasise his extraordinary intensive mimics: besides the text and movements, in his case as a third dimension the lights, flashing in his eyes, his smiles and position of his head can elevate the whole story. Ádám Tompa can be naïve, cruel and mysterious at the same time, while he is putting on himself the different forms of power (Alessandro, the cardinal, Strozzi – why do they tell this name always with the wrong pronunciation, I have no idea, if it is a humour, I do not understand it, if it s mistake, they should correct it – Cosmo). Zoltán Lendváczky is a sensational comedian, he has thousands of humour – he can be a woman (marchioness Cibo, Caterina, Lorenzo’s aunt), and a real Renaissance painter of the court (his tattoo scene together with Ádám Tompa should be thought).
Zsolt Páll is made from one block, he is the uncle, with motionless face and a cruel adviser, then an emotional mother and Caterina. Kamilla Fátyol’s authoritative presence controls continuously the happenings of the out-moved time: she is the red dressed Moira – who gives us at the same time Ariadne’s string, which re-interprets the story and shows us the direction – she is the middle-class-girl with her corrupted morals, the courtier, who closes his eyes and the cynical assassin too.
Yes, somewhere here (and that way!) we should look for the task of theatre, in a more pathetic way, all which Aristotle defined as the rising of fear and condolence and the liberation from these feelings: Zsótér rereads a theatrical text again, then shows, how he understands it, and I am ready to follow his way of thinking, analysing. I take care and then understand the presented interpretation. He opens that new kind of layers of meaning from it to me, that after the performance I can see not only the given play, but maybe the world too in a different way.
György Karsai, kultura.hu, 2009
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)