Balázs Bozóky: Richard III: Lady Anna in a bra
Shakespeare is not absurd. Anyway, Sándor Zsótér’s witty performance wants to make him absurd. He tries to do it not only with the set but with the costumes too. The idea of the stage, in the middle there is a structure, which can be used many ways and similar to a scaffold. It is the critic about the performance of Richard III of the Maladype Theatre.
The defining element of absurd is the humour, so he sometimes takes the play that way. Maybe I have never heard the viewers laughing so must during a performance of Richard III, as in case of Maladype Theatre.
Many have tried to make Shakespeare absurd. For example in Kolozsvár, Gábor Tompa has made worldwide famous performances according to similar conceptions. In Sándor Zsótér’s performance the most important thing can remain classical: the figure of Richard.
Zoltán Balázs with natural performance, connected to an old styled text, can have the effect, which makes us think that he is telling his own monologues.
The role, which he brings to life, seems to be natural, in which he can work with huge simplicity, so his performance is a heart-warming experience from the first moment, as he enters the stage, the biggest room of the flat theatre. The carefully built up figure’s playfulness can be seen in the act as he tries to make connection with the viewers at the beginning with the help of a bubble bower, which can be seen as an element of the absurd theatre since Brecht and his alienation effect.
The brilliance of absurd plays can be seen as the performers speak out to the viewers, while they try to get into connection with them in a new way. During the dialogues the actors speak to the viewers many times, that way the viewers can analyse their messages, and their partners are speaking next to them. Richard many times plays with the time too, he plays with words and human lives too. He spends time in an artistic and fine way.
Sándor Zsótér shows the possibility of absurd in Shakespeare, which has been exciting so far.
Jan Kott discovered it in 1960s. He wrote with the title of Contemporary Shakespeare an absurd interpretation of Shakespeare, about his great tragedies. Sándor Zsótér gets the inspiration from him too. Zoltán Balázs shows a colourful figure that requires the performers should have a high artistic standard. He speaks clearly and understandably. He does not only repeat the text, but he learns it, lives it over and takes the secret into it.
Lady Anna, who is performed by Ágota Szilágyi, sometimes, strengthens then weakens her voice, she tries to act up, but unfortunately the turn does not come that way.
The most beautiful part of her role is the fact, as she slides from one love to another. Her love is the one, which makes me cry, which leaves her, because she has been killed, meanwhile she finds another kind of love by the tomb of that same love. She falls in love with the killer. Ágota Szilágyi’s Lady Anna does not make us feel what kind of effect Richard has on her. The dramatic deepness is missing from her performance, and she is degraded into an ordinary woman, whose presence cannot reflect that she really understands the importance of her role.
Richard and Lady Anna’s meeting is the dramatic key moment of the performance.
Because of Sándor Zsótér’s autotelic staging instruction all the three female characters feel themselves awkward in controversial bras, carpets cover the lower part of their body, which are fixed with clothes pegs. What can be the reason of nakedness in reality? The director’s ungrateful idea ruins the characters. I sometimes have the feeling that I am sitting on a dress rehearsal. The costumes are still at the dry cleaner and the actors just get something on themselves.
The director is not interested in the welfare of female characters. In the original Shakespeare’s play, the writer shows with the help of Lady Anna that Richard is an immensely charming evil Machiavellian figure, who can win and have effect on the others even in impossible situations. Ágota Szilágyi does not feel it, so she tries to compensate with visual effects.
In the story, everybody wants revenge – and Richard can benefit from this moral slough, who is not a king of the middle age any more, but a Renaissance monarch.
Sándor Márkus’ comical Margit is a new one. I likes bearded and quirkily mad old lady, who tells curses from behind the scaffold and uses authentic theatrical effects. The children are marked with dinosaurs puppets, and that way they mention symbolically the children, who live in the Tower. The heir of the throne cannot remain any descendants.
The play of king, which was written around 1592, adapts the interpretation of the tragic hero of the Elizabethan era to the 21st century, with the help of absurd. The aim of the usage of Ede Szigligeti’s classical text and the absurd elements is to show Richard’s figure more interesting, and get more viewers involved in. The most interesting one maybe, that Prince Gloster does not become a killer. His appearance is not handsome: he is a gnome, he is humped, lame, and an ugly figure. His will and purposefulness are more enchanting, which he can show brilliantly with the lack of partner.
I liked very much the interludes without text, these tiny things were more interesting for the director than the key scenes.
Sándor Zsótér knew that this actor could perform the most important scenes, so he let him form the role. The showing of lovesickness is missing. I cannot feel any sign of attraction. Lady Anna criticizes while she is spitting, she does not show any contacts of feelings. Richard tells his own monologues. I can see the collection of monologised situations, which are put into an absurd situation.
At the end of the performance, the monologue that is made with a torch, this black and white play of shadows, in which the mind goes mad, the outburst of hallucinations and fear of death can place the point on the letter “I”. The music is suitable too, the text of the modernised British punk lines up Richard’s victims.
To talk about the side characters too, Balázs Fila’s Lord Hastings is a well built up and over-thought performance. His gestures have their place, he can actualise the performed character. Above all the reconciliation of the king is rather humorous and spectacular. The director draws the false peace with covered homoerotic representation. The killing of Prince Clarence on the table of a bakery with the stab of a laser sword three times becomes very reserved. Márton Pallag performs four different characters, but it is characteristic to many smaller performers too, who can appear in different roles again and again. Sometimes this transformation without any transition is a little bit confusing, the viewers need to know the original play to understand it.
Balázs Bozóky, ContextUs.hu, 2017
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)
The defining element of absurd is the humour, so he sometimes takes the play that way. Maybe I have never heard the viewers laughing so must during a performance of Richard III, as in case of Maladype Theatre.
Many have tried to make Shakespeare absurd. For example in Kolozsvár, Gábor Tompa has made worldwide famous performances according to similar conceptions. In Sándor Zsótér’s performance the most important thing can remain classical: the figure of Richard.
Zoltán Balázs with natural performance, connected to an old styled text, can have the effect, which makes us think that he is telling his own monologues.
The role, which he brings to life, seems to be natural, in which he can work with huge simplicity, so his performance is a heart-warming experience from the first moment, as he enters the stage, the biggest room of the flat theatre. The carefully built up figure’s playfulness can be seen in the act as he tries to make connection with the viewers at the beginning with the help of a bubble bower, which can be seen as an element of the absurd theatre since Brecht and his alienation effect.
The brilliance of absurd plays can be seen as the performers speak out to the viewers, while they try to get into connection with them in a new way. During the dialogues the actors speak to the viewers many times, that way the viewers can analyse their messages, and their partners are speaking next to them. Richard many times plays with the time too, he plays with words and human lives too. He spends time in an artistic and fine way.
Sándor Zsótér shows the possibility of absurd in Shakespeare, which has been exciting so far.
Jan Kott discovered it in 1960s. He wrote with the title of Contemporary Shakespeare an absurd interpretation of Shakespeare, about his great tragedies. Sándor Zsótér gets the inspiration from him too. Zoltán Balázs shows a colourful figure that requires the performers should have a high artistic standard. He speaks clearly and understandably. He does not only repeat the text, but he learns it, lives it over and takes the secret into it.
Lady Anna, who is performed by Ágota Szilágyi, sometimes, strengthens then weakens her voice, she tries to act up, but unfortunately the turn does not come that way.
The most beautiful part of her role is the fact, as she slides from one love to another. Her love is the one, which makes me cry, which leaves her, because she has been killed, meanwhile she finds another kind of love by the tomb of that same love. She falls in love with the killer. Ágota Szilágyi’s Lady Anna does not make us feel what kind of effect Richard has on her. The dramatic deepness is missing from her performance, and she is degraded into an ordinary woman, whose presence cannot reflect that she really understands the importance of her role.
Richard and Lady Anna’s meeting is the dramatic key moment of the performance.
Because of Sándor Zsótér’s autotelic staging instruction all the three female characters feel themselves awkward in controversial bras, carpets cover the lower part of their body, which are fixed with clothes pegs. What can be the reason of nakedness in reality? The director’s ungrateful idea ruins the characters. I sometimes have the feeling that I am sitting on a dress rehearsal. The costumes are still at the dry cleaner and the actors just get something on themselves.
The director is not interested in the welfare of female characters. In the original Shakespeare’s play, the writer shows with the help of Lady Anna that Richard is an immensely charming evil Machiavellian figure, who can win and have effect on the others even in impossible situations. Ágota Szilágyi does not feel it, so she tries to compensate with visual effects.
In the story, everybody wants revenge – and Richard can benefit from this moral slough, who is not a king of the middle age any more, but a Renaissance monarch.
Sándor Márkus’ comical Margit is a new one. I likes bearded and quirkily mad old lady, who tells curses from behind the scaffold and uses authentic theatrical effects. The children are marked with dinosaurs puppets, and that way they mention symbolically the children, who live in the Tower. The heir of the throne cannot remain any descendants.
The play of king, which was written around 1592, adapts the interpretation of the tragic hero of the Elizabethan era to the 21st century, with the help of absurd. The aim of the usage of Ede Szigligeti’s classical text and the absurd elements is to show Richard’s figure more interesting, and get more viewers involved in. The most interesting one maybe, that Prince Gloster does not become a killer. His appearance is not handsome: he is a gnome, he is humped, lame, and an ugly figure. His will and purposefulness are more enchanting, which he can show brilliantly with the lack of partner.
I liked very much the interludes without text, these tiny things were more interesting for the director than the key scenes.
Sándor Zsótér knew that this actor could perform the most important scenes, so he let him form the role. The showing of lovesickness is missing. I cannot feel any sign of attraction. Lady Anna criticizes while she is spitting, she does not show any contacts of feelings. Richard tells his own monologues. I can see the collection of monologised situations, which are put into an absurd situation.
At the end of the performance, the monologue that is made with a torch, this black and white play of shadows, in which the mind goes mad, the outburst of hallucinations and fear of death can place the point on the letter “I”. The music is suitable too, the text of the modernised British punk lines up Richard’s victims.
To talk about the side characters too, Balázs Fila’s Lord Hastings is a well built up and over-thought performance. His gestures have their place, he can actualise the performed character. Above all the reconciliation of the king is rather humorous and spectacular. The director draws the false peace with covered homoerotic representation. The killing of Prince Clarence on the table of a bakery with the stab of a laser sword three times becomes very reserved. Márton Pallag performs four different characters, but it is characteristic to many smaller performers too, who can appear in different roles again and again. Sometimes this transformation without any transition is a little bit confusing, the viewers need to know the original play to understand it.
Balázs Bozóky, ContextUs.hu, 2017
(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)