Zoltán Balázs’ brand new staging in Bratislava and Prague

After the debut of August, the performance of the graduating actor class of the Târgu Mureş University of Arts in January 2018, the performance was invited to many Romanian and international festivals. After being performed at the HolnapUtán Festival of Oradea and the Szín-Tár Festival of Kecskmét, the nonverbal show inspired by Bruno Schultz’s short stories, The Cinnamon Shops, August will be performed the Showcase of Transborder Theatres at the Thália Theatre on 20 April, 2018.

The performance, staged by Zoltán Balázs, Artistic Director of Maladype Theatre, will make a debut for the czech audience at the Zlomvaz Festival Prague on May 5, where only four performances from abroad were chosen by the organizers of the festival. After this, the audience can watch this special performance on June 9 at the Istropolitana Festival of Bratislava, on June 15 at the FITS Festival of Sibiu and June 28, at the Festival of Transborder Theaters at Kisvárda.

Zoltán Balázs is a regular guest at the Romanian theatre life: in 2005, he directed The Return of Odysseus at the Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre. In 2011, Maladype performed the well-renowned performance, Leonce and Lena, and one year later the festival-winner Egg(s)hell at the SIBFEST International Theatre Festival, and they introduced Platonov, too. In Spring, 2012, in the coproduction of Radu Stanca National Theatre and Maladype Theare, The Master and Margarita received critical and audience acclaim. In 2017, Zoltán Balázs was awarded Best Director at the ATELIER International Theatre Festival with his staging of How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients. The audience could also see him performing in 2016, as Viktor Kravcsenko in I Chose Freedom performed at Târgu Mureş. Currently, Zoltán Balázs works on the staging of Elzbieta Chowaniec’s Gardenia at the Odeon Theatre of Bucharest.

The artistic director of Maladype Theatre was invited by Erzsébet B. Fülöp, leader of the graduating actor class, to teach the students his characteristic theatrical method.

Zoltán Balázs, who has already directed university students (2007 – Mikado – Liszt Ferenc University of Music, Budapest; 2017 – The Lesson, University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest) after the thorough analysis of the short stories and creating the movement schemes, he created this bizarre system of connections characteristic of the Polish author by using an interdisciplinary and playful language

Performers: Brigitta Dőry, Brigitta Erőss, Róbert Fekete, Simon Jáger, Ivett Andrea Lukács, Gáspár Mesés, J. Viktor Szabó, Míra Szilágyi, Lilla Zsenák. Director’s assistant: Ildikó Zoltán (director student, 3rd year). Production assistant: Zsuzsa Juraszek (student of tetrology, 1st year)

szinhaz.org, April 16, 2018