Readers Theatre

- Readers theatre at Maladype Base

Taking advantage of the possibilities its space offers, Maladype Theatre launches a new project: a rehearsed reading series. The program will feature select plays by lesser-known contemporary authors, which will be enacted by the actors and guest artists of Maladype with unconventional theatrical means.

The Story of The Panda Bears Told By a Saxophonist Who Has a Girlfriend in Frankfurt

Performed by: Zoltán Lendváczky, Mariann Molnár, Ákos Orosz, Erika Tankó, Ágota Szilágyi
Reading theatre session was attended by the playwright Matei Vișniec and theater critic and translator Daniela Magiaru.

Pandamedvek 1


A slackerly young man wakes up with a girl in his bed whose name he does not remember. Nor does he remember where and how they met, their journey to his squalid apartment or what they did after they got there. The young woman is happy to explain, however—indeed, so reassuring is her recollection of the facts that he pleads with her to stay. She promises to return that night. He promises to wait for her. Nine nights are a lifetime to a man and woman brought together under curious circumstances. Bound by a promise and a bottle of wine they travel through a dream like caged lightening. Together they discover sometimes, all you need to
approach perfection is a saxophone and a broken alarm clock.

Actors: Zoltán Lendváczky, Erika Tankó, Ákos Orosz, Mariann Molnár,
Director: Zoltán Balázs

Discussion with Matei Visniec
(Daniela Magiaru, theater historian and Anna Scarlat, translator will also be the guests of the discussion)

„A good writer can feel the inner energy of the text, and if one follows this, the text completes itself, but if someone constrains, nothing will remain.”
Matei Visniec

Matei Visniec is one of the most famous European playwrights. He studied philosophy at Bucharest University and became an active member of the so-called Eighties Generation, who left a clear stamp on the Romanian literature. Before 1987 Matéi Visniec had made a name for himself in Romania by his clear, lucid, bitter poetry. Starting with 1977, he wrote drama; the plays were much circulated in the literary milieus but were barred from staging. In September 1987, Visniec left Romania for France, where he was granted political asylum. He started writing in French and began working for Radio France Internationale. At the present time, Visniec has had many of his works staged in France, and some twenty of his plays written in French are published. After the fall of the communist regime 30 of his plays were staged in Romania. The Hungarian theatres also play his dramas very often.

Daniela Magiaru – Critic, translator. She acquired her PhD in Arts in 2008. Her essays were published in Romania and Germany. Her first book, titled Matei Visniec, The illusion of kind words was published in 2010.

Worlds of power b Daniela Magiaru

About independent company shows Maladype(which celebrated ten years in 2012) I wrote on several occasions (Leonce and Lena, King Ubu, Egg(s)Hell, Lorenzaccio). As well, about the coherent program that follows the appointed road of freedom and of the authenticity. What I find extremely legitimate in the case of any theatrical company, and particulary this company, is looking for maintained the need to always find new ways of making art. To these are added a real opening towards the spectators or as formulated Balázs Zoltán “we age together with spectators” , having reactions and especially a dialogue is essential during Maladype assumed. That’s why they developed a series of programs that come to recompletion the artistic vision. For instance, "Free Academy", which aims to bring together people with common interests that through public discussion “to find new topics and identities in the concept of reality drama”. In the current season, the themes that were proposed: the power, the formation of conscience, creative thinking, human reactions of relinquished of prejudices. At Maladype’s has place a graphic course and it works as a film club, at which besides the screenings, the participants have the chance to meet the film makers. Another project (which debuted in 2011) is called “Cross-Roads”. He aims to mirror the trends of cultural life, creating contacts between companies with different sensitivities. In the project were involved already independent theaters from various countries. From Romania, Teatrul Act was present in Budapest with ,,Amalia breathe deeply “ into a 'shift' of performances and Maladype played in Bucharest ,,King Ubu”.

One of the latest programs are the readings. Here, the text of Matei Visniec , “The story of the panda bears told by a saxophonist who has a girlfriend in Frankfurt” (in the presence of the author ) of a particular reading, from at least two reasons: the game space and the concept. In the small place – apartament type – from Maladype Theatre is always a pleasure to come back. The rooms from the “Base” have extremely cosy places that invite you to breathe the conviviality air. Furthermore, the rooms are impregnated by the air shows held in the closeness of the spectator. Recognize elements of décor, view and scenary construction who brings automatic mind other mounting. Matei Visniec’s text propose a love affair in nine nights consumed in lyricism , then borders on the dreamer, fractured between two realities. The pattern chosen by Balázs Zoltán for reading corresponds perfectly to the piece. The central place of the “Base” can be accessed in three different rooms. Three doors with their secrets, two couples, four players and nine nights. More than that, the unconventional reading from the formal point of view, a layer of colour throught the ingenuity of thought, of leaving each scene played “in the style” of another painter. They literally become moving painting. A quizz that went over again, in fact, each of the nine nights in a different key, print them over the air in time, and in the image and which restores a wide path, from Botticelli to Picaso and Fernando Botero. Each “speaking ” painting achieved new valences (sometimes comically unexpected) or additional depths by calling a type of imaginary that operates with a different instrumentation. The text is to be transformed into images extremely vivid. The doors open slowly loosen, the light opens in colourful bouquets and the eye perceives the painting made such of skillful by the actors ( in fact all the elements of stage design were created by them). The sentences recieve this way the loads and the virtue of the plastic living. Even if the performance of the play is strongly visual, the actors are away to sit “in the picture”, reading a text.

Two worlds- pictorial and textual are brought together throught the creativity of approach, but also throught acting. If the paintings are asking the attention of the view to the light and to composition, spoken words bring the noise level and complets the meaning of the story.

You can watch, as in Cubist paintings, the same topic from several perspectives simultaneously. Panda bear story can be read in any of the proposed options, having elegance, madness, lust, subtlety, humor, depths, beauty. Each scene provides a extra piece in building the mosaic story and each mosaic title enhances them to others.

The text allows and urges to multiple reading keyes and looks like the actors and the director started a game whereby trying them all. Behind the open doors- are entire worlds of powder which color wires of a beautiful story.

Daniela Magiaru