The theatre season has started with a dump of Chekov in Budapest. After Serban’s The Three Sisters (National Theatre) and László Marton’s Uncle Vanya (Vígszínház), Zoltán Balázs with the troupe of Maladype puts on stage the writer’s unfinished play from his young age, Platonov, during the Autumn Festival in Budapest, in the Thália Theatre.

If we compare this play to the other Chekov’s plays, it is less commonly performed. However, in Budapest it could be watched until spring in the Örkény Theatre, staged by the director, Jurij Kordonszkij, with László Széles, in the main role. Anyway, here it got the title of: Without father, and it was the Platonov of another generation, of the thirties and forties.

Maybe one of the character of the play, Triletsky can give the answer to the question, why Zoltán Balázs wants to put on stage exactly Chekov, and why he has chosen this play, what could he see in it, what made him put it on stage here and now with this young troupe. He defines his own situation that way: “I am twenty-five years old, since the university nothing has happened to me, and probably nothing will during the next five years.” We can recognise the generation of the today premature twenties, who have lost their illusions and they escape into temporary works and relationships. To quote one of Chekov’s peer, János Asbóth, who in his novel, in The dreamer of the dreams, which he wrote almost at the same time as the Platonov was written in 1870s, talked about this feeling of life that way: “To be beat before fight. To be robbed from hopes. Where are you, all my big dreams?” And how and with what can aimless, flowing years be spent? With games, whether they are real games or games of love-power.

According to it the whole performance is built on one single metaphor, on the metaphor of billiard. The set is a billiard table, the viewers are sitting around it, above it, composed in a square, there are lines of lamps. (The set is designed by Bea Molnár.) Those actors, who are not performing, are sitting in the first rows, next the viewers. During the dialogues, the actors are playing billiard. This is the point, where those, who do not understand the game, so as the critic, can lose some references, some nuances, but it is obvious that according to the score and success of the game, the actors improvise too. The billiard table is not only for the game of course, but it can become the place of love affairs and fights of business too. Platonov’s wife is balancing around the edge of the table, she rises up between the others, then – before her collapse and suicide – she almost falls down from there.

The other “stone” Platonov on this table, not with real stones, but they take revenge for their offences with cues. The continuous placing and pushing of the billiard balls can express the characters’ continuously changing structure of relationships too, they are pushed next to each other or even pushed far away sometimes by the conscious planning, than accidentally. The metaphor can work, and during the three and half hours long performance, rarely can be felt that it starts run out of breath, or it is overburdened, for example, as I have mentioned, when Platonov’s wife is balancing on the edge of the table, for such a long time. The ending picture with Platonov who is stub to death by cues, then without the holding power of the sticks, which are pulled from his body, he collapsed as a lifeless puppet, is so powerful, that it can make valid backward the consistent, central building.

Ákos Orosz’s Platonov at the beginning of the performance is unscrupulous, he takes everything easy, sometimes he is irritatingly loud half-matured, half-teenager. He play with feelings and people, especially with the four women around him. Then the only one, with whom he tries to be fair, the general’s wife will hate him too as the others, and then he will become bitter slowly, and ruin his wife, who is performed by Erika Tankó, who is honest by the edge of gullibility and devoting. Judit Kovács Ligeti, who arrives from the theatre of Zalaegerszeg, joins the troupe of Maladype now. In the role of the general’s wife, first she is elegant, an aristocratic phenomenon, so the contrast becomes even bigger, when driven by the passion of love, she almost overwhelms Platonov.

This performance gives much weight to the two Vengorovich, than for example the one by Örkény Theatre. Zsolt Páll’s older Vengorovich treats modestly, with dignity his own wealth, but then when the general’s wife refuses him, his hurt ego, which wants revenge, appears. His son, by Zénó Faragó’s performance, is more unscrupulous, he looks down the Russian countryside from the point of view of Paris, but it cannot stop him to get the last drops from his possibilities from home. His light coloured costume, which differs much from the other black dresses, separates him from the others. (Bea Molnár designed the costumes too.) Kamilla Fátyol in the role of Sofia performs on a wide scale from the rigid paralysis until the passionate outburst. Vica Kerekes forms a graceful and uncertain Maria. Ádám Tompa (Triletsky) is easy-going and confident, he communicates with the viewers too. Zoltán Lendváczky performs the step-son of the general’s wife, he is Sofia’s husband, his performance becomes truly strong, when he has to perform the disappointed and disillusioned lover.

The excellent team play of the troupe means a lot to keep up the tension and the viewers’ attention all through the performance. Judit Góczán, dramaturg has a great work in it too, as she has formed the dramatic material of the performance from a play, which would be longer than the double of the present three and half hours, with the absence of roles, with their connection, and the restructure of the text. Thanks for Zoltán Balázs, from this material a characteristic performance was born, which can sound valid, in which the hero of our time is: Platonov.

Lilla Turbuly, prae.hu, 2011

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)