The Autumn Festival of Budapest finishes with a nice surprise this year – Zoltán Balázs puts on stage Platonov by Chekov, with his own troupe, in the Maladype Theatre. We can see an intellectually effective and emotionally sharp performance, which balances with some risks between comedy and tragedy, as the sleepwalker Sasha tries to balance on the edge of a billiard table. On the table, where her cheating husband lives through his Don Juan-like adventures.

Some years ago, Zoltán Balázs just burst among the theatre directors with his high standard and intellectual directions.
At that point the quality of his plays were much better than his company’s acting skills. Now we see, that his young actors are mature and impressive and the director is working with greater and more sophisticated skills. He still prefers to use the simple geometric solutions: all actions are focused around a billiard game, a billiard table defines the cubic shaped theatrical space. From this small space the director takes out the maximum number of possibilities. He still loves the exact psychological portraits (like the allegories of the French Eric Rohmer-type), at the same time he knows, that the game has the chance of accident and risk – his actors are really playing billiard.

The viewers are watching their play joyfully and placing their bets. Maybe here is the time for the managers of the international festivals to bet on them too.

Natalia Jakubova, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2010

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)