For almost an hour the Don Carlos performance of Maladype has been similar to the American teenager soap operas of the 2000s, to the Orange County: Carlos – leaves all the power behind – can think only about his love towards his step-mother, king Elizabeth, who however hard tries to avoid the prince’s heart outbursts, she cannot stand against it fully. The piquancy of the thing is not the fact, that Carlos’ lover’s dad is the wife of II. Philip, but the queen’s maid. Eboli on one hand is the lover of the king, but by the way, she is in love with his son. In this opaque coincidence of this love triangle, there is only one man outside the circle, for whom it is important what will happen with the people, while the whole royal house fights for their selfish aims: he is Marquis of Alva. When Marquis of Posa with his own total freedom and idealism stands in front of the megalomaniac king, then the storm of feelings stops: suddenly it is all about us.

Of course, it would be a generous degradation if we tell that the first hour of the performance, is nothing else just a soap opera, working with canned feelings. The feelings are added much more finely, reserved and discreetly, and all through the performance, crystal-clear interests drive the characters, in case of their formation, the troupe of Maladype can perform something elevated. Maybe it is not an exaggeration to tell that there is not any other theatres in the country, where all the actors so trustfully and on such a high level can perform and live on the stage at the same time.

Károly Kuna’s desperately frustrated shining gaze can express all mania of power, which comes from fear and instinctive jealousy and this gaze can tell everything about II. Philip – maybe those things too, which we do not want to know so much: what a ruler looks like from close, who cannot accept different opinion. Kuna’s king can remain human-like all through it: his hysterical outbursts and silliness come from the narrow-mindedness of the continuous fear. Gabriella Varga in the role of princess Eboli can understand almost by words all self-revelation in front of Carlos. The actress performs an obedient and self-confident maid, she deals with feelings reserved all through the performance, but when she finds in sweet face to face with the choice of her heart, she just throws on him the flirting, which is filled with fine sensuality. Varga has a good sense of rhythm, she keeps a parade of form, which comes from her inside, which gives a perfect base for Eboli’s later vendetta, which ruins everything. Erika Tankó’s Elizabeth is sensitive, she keeps balance between the sensuality and honesty, she flies from man to man – sometimes she is driven by her heart or noble aim, and she always remains woman that way, that she can even fall in love with Marques of Posa, who has not sense of these kind of ordinary things. Zoltán Lendváczky essentially from the tiniest gestures until the most basic signs of characters, is similar to a teenager, who is on the edge of growing up, who cannot accept that there are more important things on the world than the love affairs. He is always made to face up with it, and obviously he does not like it so much. He can accept his responsibility, only when it means his best friend’s life. László Keszég is loyal to the upper aim of power between all circumstances, he is a reserved and rigid Duke of Alva. Gyöngyi Blasek orders with easy superiority, she is the omnipotent representative of the Almighty, in the role of the Inquisitor.

Ákos Orosz’s Marquis of Posa subordinates everything to the upper aim, he is ready to sacrifice everything to be able to create a world, which is easy to live in by doing tricks with the ruler, or at least gets over him somehow. Posa fight for his ideas all through the performance, Orosz with very fine, human-like measures can get the individual needs, his selfless and pure friendship into his acts – it is another question, that in his case the individual and common interests are the same. Maybe it is not an accident, that he can stand in for all his ideas against the king with courage, freely, facing up with the unsure thing, which are on favour of humans in reality. The actor puts all his sentences into these few moments, which we all should claim here and now.

The king is deaf of course, the attention from him is condescension, it is a grace without content, without any arguments, the only thing, which he can do is to try to fill Posa’s mouth – and it is such a wonderful picture, when the king feels his opponent’s mouth with oranges. Nobody has to be afraid of interpreting this concrete thing in the easiest way, as the most important element of the performance is that the orange tree is not an easy allegory of Fidesz – the collecting of oranges can be a kind of displacement activity as well as the property of love games.

No matter how playfully and freely, but the actors, with the continuous moving of their gazes can fill the place, given by the set, which was designed by Judit Gombár and which is made of a wood-settee and an orange tree in the middle of the stage. Don Carlos can be so understandable and concrete by its elements, – which actuality is nicely emphasized by Mari Benedek stylishly made fashionable and cool costumes – it is easy to get lost in it. The problem is not the fact, that Maladype with Zoltán Balázs’ leading does not want to make a one-dimensional political statement, and it is even very likeable that the performers try to interpret the play itself (dramaturg: Judit Góczán). They put it into parallel with our present, but instead of it, the fact is that these parallels, the statements to us, in spite of the actors’ performance become very small from the point of view of the length of the performance (there is much unimportant information too, from which sometimes hard to get the important ones). Sometimes it can be felt, that the troupe changes Schiller’s original play, they could let more to the dramaturgical scissors. The motives, the concrete things, the sub-meanings, many times remain between two actors’ look – sensibly it is there, only for them, and for the viewers these are inaccessible.

Finally in the country, ruled under the sky of the orange tree another powerful man – meanwhile a woman – the Inquisitor states order, next to her the so far omnipotent-like king seems to be an easy runner-up – he even sacrifices his son to be able to keep the throne. The relationship between power and religion, however in this picture does not point over, the later one can freely play with the earlier one, while the earlier one covers himself with the later one. Anyway, it also makes the understanding easier, that the residents of the Orange County, in their own complexity, have not been strangers to us anymore, even if Marques Posa is not enough.

Attila Nyulassy, 7óra7, 2012

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)