The Scottish like name must be sounded strange, as Stratford – upon – Avon is not only far away from Scotland, but the writer himself is far from it, as his is English to the core, but anyway some kind of weird affinity can be felt at many points of his life, towards the Northern, mythical – superstitious neighbouring society that can experience not a little amount of suffering because of their stormy history. Shakespeare’s last tragedy, the “Scottish one” expresses gloomy and impenetrable darkness onto the history, power, fate, on everything, which has been the importance of the tragedy before, and on which he wanted to increase till the end as a goodbye action. However, Macbeth not so paradoxical way, was written for a celebration: for the reception of the Danish king, on behalf of this I. Jacob (Scottish: VI. Jacob), who can know the important side character of the tragedy as one of his ancestors. Which is called to be the “Scottish play”, by the superstitious theatres, because the demons visit not only the play, but the performances too, so it needs many courage and self-awareness to perform three Macbeths in Gyula during the double anniversary.

Next to Shakespeare’s four hundred and fiftieth birthday, the festival of Gyula, which has been named after him, has become ten years old this year. Here we should spend some time, because while the British play writer is getting younger by the time – his modern nature, actuality and present sense became the calling word of the conference, which has been organised as the important event of the festival – but the Shakespeare Festival of Gyula is not similar to a child, it gets matured in time, it has important attraction, it has formed its own identity; it has grown up magnificently. During a decade it has not only risen from the great amounts of local events, and it has not only put on the map of Europe the wonderfully various and always high levelled events of Gyula of the long week, but it has made an international pilgrimage site the middle-aged stone castle, which has seen many things. As those kind of performances are shown here during these days, which cannot be seen anywhere else, in our country, which is lack of international theatrical festivals, we should appreciate the continuous high standard of artistic level, the virtuosity of the organisation, and the atmosphere of the scales of events: with concerts, conversations, and with the anniversary exhibition in connection with the first nine festivals – which can be seen anyway as a contemporary international theatrical anthology too...

...the scales of Macbeths’ archaic story, has begun with the anatomy of the main character with the performance of Maladype Theatre. So it is not a representation, but analysis, reflexion and the scales of comments, which naturally – sometimes as it comes from the logic of the play: unnaturally – can serve the task of narration. And because of it the Scottish play seems to be suitable for this kind of opening and re-composition, as it can be seen as one of the “plays of thoughts” by Shakespeare, as we are inside in reality the main character’s soul and mind, who is fighting with his own doubts, posture and of course with his opponents. The amount of Macbeth’s texts is almost the double and half of his most talkative partners’, his monologues many times counterpoint the action, other times they paraphrase or refute it, that is why the relationship between the actions and words is more plastic and nuanced, than in case of other tragedies by the writer.

That is why the performance has not opened the play from the side of the “word”, but from the side of the vision and sounding, which as it is well-known can burn into our memories more strongly than the diction, and which get the most important exercises of the communication during this evening. The place also expresses it: as we are inside an instrument, or we ourselves can become instruments too, the background wall appears as wall with strings, on it must be a giant guitar, and while the silver lines have sounds, they also divide and connect at the same time, and then when a cut head appears on the side string, the closing accord was born, which silenced the overture. At the end of the story, Macbeth’s cut head becomes the part of the final, when it is put into the cage of silent rats, by which they give the possibility of really thought-provoking comments and associations. Especially with the knowledge of the study of rats, as the very intelligent animal – which giant skeleton is one of the most dominant visual elements of the performance – has many characteristics, (as the zodiac sign of Chinese astronomy has known a lot about it) which are coloured dark only be the characteristics, which are connected to them, on its own, these are the survival instinct with elemental power, the pragmatism without any values or even the characteristic of active formation of fate – and then we are not so far away from Macbeth.

Zoltán Balázs has strengthened the aesthetic effects of the vision and sounding in this performance against the verbal conventions, that in it the place – body – sound can appear in a composed, stylized and naturalistic way at the same time, and the logic of the story can be opened only by the imagined and associative ways. The nakedness, which is used as one of the dominant visual elements, sometimes can carry fallibility, sometimes its flexible softness nature raises desires, and with it I can emphasise mostly the dramaturgy of the viewers’ looks and that is why the clothes are not for covering the bodies, but to put them in frame and to offer them. The material, colour, elements of which sometimes give answer to the motifs of the set, as they would turn it for the story, which feels itself at home in the world of magic, as it can do it with the bodies, and turns the fallible bodies either in the desire or in the murder into objects as the tragic continuation of the same story. The stylization of the movements is also divided with “ritardando” and “presto” from the rules of souls – the anatomy does not know psychology – sometimes the puppet of sticks that is formed wittily seems to be more realistic than his flesh and blood mates. Other times the excesses of fear and horror shake Macbeth, who is ready to die, to death with extreme power: only a few can talk so punctually about death, which is waited, deserved, well-known and anyway horrific. The anatomy, according to its original meaning, is about the body, but the origin of the term must have come from the Greek verb “to cut” – that way the cut-up Macbeth will not be the “performed” or “shown” Macbeth, but it is mostly the demonstration of the cut-up, cut-out one. Because of it, the title of the performance, defines the genre, which is well-known in fine art, from Leonardo and Rembrandt until Barcsay, and it has important lyrical examples too; and according to it, they expect different attitude from the viewers too, as the body – as well; the performed – body – that way these are those kinds of eminent theatrical versions, which show the entire thing.

András Nagy, Színház (extract), 2014

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)