The flat theatre of Maladype has the smell of a theatre. There is a cashier behind a little counter in the hall, the three rooms, which open one to another (too), are the place of the theatre, the place of kitchen can be the dressing room, I think. The walls of the flat in the corner of the first floor on the Mikszáth Square, are not black, they do not cover its windows, the light is on all through the performance – so the birth of theatre depends on us and the performers.

In December 2009 they performed – still not here – Alfred Jarry’s “student comedy”, the King Ubu, in which the main attraction was its comedy like nature, which has extraordinary tempo, does not let even a moment to breath, it goes up, and put ideas on one another. So the way, how far and how actors can show and always improve for example, the development and spread of madness of power; how they can handle the difficulties of the construction of figures and situations from the torn pieces of newspapers, from the piles of newspapers. And finally, how they can drive themselves and their viewers through the laugh physically and with humour too. Well, they did it brilliantly – but I mention this performance not because of it. But because, during the past almost two and half years, the cohesive, but from the point of view of the four actors’ (Ákos Orosz, Zoltán Lendváczky, Ádám Tompa and Zsolt Páll) performance, still fresh and vehement production makes us shocked and stopped laughing many times. Zoltán Balázs’ staging – it becomes spectacular now – under and behind the overwhelming comedy is still punctually out worked and rich in meaning. The intoxication with power, which becomes mad, was simply funny not a long time ago, not in a contemporary documentary play can show Jarry’s play, the performance is inventional and surprising, it is an important comment to our everyday situations.

In reality I would like to write about Beaumarchais’ play, The Marriage of Figaro – but we should rise those attention, who has known Maladype, and those who have not, that the troupe performs the previous and new performances too here, in the flat on Mikszáth Square. Beaumarchais’ Figaro is a comedy, it is well known usually: but how much it is, or it is so much, that we can learn from Sándor Zsótér’s staging, at arms’ length from us. It turns out as well, that comedy on its own has “meaning” inside, so it is coloured not with the tragic shadow, but with the immanent idea of comedy. Especially after that, Júlia Ungár, the dramaturg has not only cut, but rewritten the text to a “flat theatre”.

I was afraid (as I do not like interactive theatre, more accurately my involvement into it), that any of the actors, would come suddenly to me and ask something. But it has happened only once, when Ákos Orosz, who performed Figaro, warned two boys, who were sitting thirty centimetres from him, that they would stop speaking, as they annoyed him. Yes. He did not break the theatrical “curtain”, just rose attention to the natural sharing of work: I play and you listen to it. This is the rule.

Between the minimal conditions all weight and exercises are the actors’ responsibility – the set it the place itself, the middle room, in which we are sitting, and the two smaller ones, which are opened from here, and we can see into them. Anyway, Mária Ambrus has some work with it too.

As well as Mari Benedek does too with the strongly eclectic costumes; training shoes and night dresses – all from the torn ones – and the actors are performing in any of them, and the mood of wearing is strongly connected to the costumes, which is the artist performance itself, by the way.

Ákos Orosz’s Figaro is a dependent, who is not from the underside, he has known some things about life, by the time he gets employed by Almaviva, so suspicion is in his blood. And the knowledge, that who suspects that can be cheated. And the fight, so that it cannot happen to him. Anyway, we feel that it could happen anytime, from the gestures of Erika Tankó, who performs his bride, the matured Suzanne, which reflect wisdom. Zsótér “helps” the actors with the accurate analysis; he connects the characters, not only the couples, however it is the most noticeable in case of them. Beside these ones, he does it in connection with the relationship between Almaviva (Ádám Tompa), who performs the womanizer mostly for himself, and in reality does not live up to it and the Countess (Judit Kovács Ligeti), who gets a little bit bored resignedly with her husband’s childish nature. Cherubin’s (Zénó Faragó) nature is the childish flaming – there is no doubt that he will have a difficult fate next to Fanchette (Kamilla Fátyol), who can find way obviously easily in the mazes of life.

So here the women are stronger (however, it does not make them happier for sure) – and then here is Mari Törőcsik’s Marceline as well.

No, she does not break the walls of the flat theatre, and does not perform Marceline into the middle of the performance. Anyway, she is the engine of the performance, as moves the woman in her scenes, on the almost unimaginable wide scale: the conqueror, the intriguer, the offended one, the begging one, the winner, the mother, the one, who resigned and accepted all. Her changes and waves have effect not only on the viewers, but on her partners too: they go on with her.

In the scene of night, it is good to see, as the cheated men walk into the trap. But – and it is especially good to see from so close – that how much they cannot see it and each other too. However – in blue, so in changed lighting but – there is light. We change points of view agilely: now we can see, because we are the viewers, and then we cannot see, because we are Almaviva. Then, during the applause we realise, that how much it is true. You can see it, you cannot – so you can!

Judit Csáki, Magyar Narancs, 2012

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)