Hermina Fátyol and Kamilla Fátyol are members of the Maladype Theatre. They often learn, rehearse, perform from morning to dawn. They hope the next season might be looser than what’s just behind them.

- At the Pécs National Theater Meeting, with a half-hour break, you played Leonce and Léna twice in a row, with very intense movements. I don’t think you should take two of those energy-consuming productions a day, plus they last until midnight. I had a feeling you were going to die there.

- H. F.: For us too. And on top of that, we had been rehearsing since ten in the morning.

- It is said that it is common for Zoltán Balázs to rehearse all day.

- K. F.: This has eased recently. But even if Zoli doesn't drive us to death, because he's used to it, we go in ourselves and rehearse out of self-diligence.

- You work a lot for quite a bit of money. What do you believe in?

- H. F.: I started dealing with theater with Zoli Balázs. Previously, I only did small things, for example, I was featured in exam films and clips. Then one of my acquaintances said I could play at Zoli, he looked at me and said "good."

- K. F.: I applied for film directing, I was not interested in theatre because I didn’t like it being far, loud, big people talking on the big stage. I felt closer to the film. But I liked what Maladype did.

- H. F.: We’ve already played together at the School for Fools, there’s a pair of twins in the play, and we’ve become these.

- Did you learn acting on the go?

- H. F.: Absolutely. I had training, but to this day I have a problem with my speech.

- K. F.: Exercise classes were held from nine in the morning, then rehearsals, speech and singing classes, performances in the evening, followed by a discussion.

- Did you never wish him to hell?

- H. F., K. F.: Of course we did!

- H. F.: We took under everything, nothing happened by force. After Leonce and Lena, several people asked how it was possible that Zoli would force us to do such a thing. If someone doesn’t want to, they don’t. They are horrified, for example, that the girls are standing on the boys ’neck like in the circus, while a bamboo rod is all supported by us.

- And during this, you even have to talk.

- K. F.: Yes, yes. They used to be terrified of this. But we already got this at the performance of The Blacks, especially in connection with our latest show, Egg(s)Hell, in which, for example, we fall from two meters.

- At first, I felt how ugly it sounded that Balázs was almost taming you.

- K. F.: He also used that word, but he said he didn’t want to tame us.

- Yet I saw that he sets everything very tight, your personalities didn’t have much of a role, you had to do what was prescribed. In the case of Leonce and Lena and the Egg(s)Hell, you can also feel the hard work, which obviously comes with a certain drill, but in addition to the military, it also radiates incredible joy and liberation from the production.

- H. F.: That's right. This is especially true in Egg(s)Hell, because we don’t even have fixed scenes in it, like in Leonce and Lena, we improvise throughout the performance.

- K. F.: All we know is about what should be formed at the end and beginning of the performance. We don’t know what the next music Zoli would play, it may be completely unknown to us. We have to improvise within certain rules of the game and be completely liberated.

- Do the members of the band really love each other, or is it just a pretense?

- K. F.: We really love each other very much.

- H. F.: But we are not a sect, although many have already said that.

- Aren't you a commune?

- K. F.: We don’t live together beyond the theater.

- H. F.: But we spend a lot of time together. Egg(s)Hell, for example, couldn’t be done with actors gathered from here and there with the usual 6-week rehearsal period. It would have been impossible to create this with people who are not much together and do not work with as much intensity as we do.

- Don’t you look down on people working in traditional theater and aren’t they looking down on you? Isn’t there a similar contrast to that between classical and contemporary dancers?

- H. F.: Maybe they look down on us, I don’t have prejudices. But I wouldn’t be able to exist in a traditional theatrical operation, I just don’t care. I just got into Maladype, I didn’t want to be an actor at all.

- Don't you want to be that even now?

- H. F.: I can't answer that. I want to play with our current ensemble for as long as I can, if I don’t, I’ll see what I’m going to do.

- Do you feel that the actors are convertible, or is it mostly tied to Zoli Balázs?

- K. F.: I don’t think we’re just attached to him because we’ve learned from others and worked in additional places. But a few years ago, we were already thinking about whether the company consisted only of Zoli Balázs actors. Then we realized that it was made up of actors and mostly people. Many people have worked with someone else before Zoli Balázs, and they have been working ever since.

- K. F.: I was also a studio and assistant actor at the Bárka. But right now I don’t know what kind of theater I care about very much and what I don't care about at all. I don’t particularly like the performances I see elsewhere.

- What's not to like?

- K. F.: When someone is on stage and you can see that he is an actor. Whether one plays pretty well, speaks well, maybe I even enjoy it, but something is still missing that will catch on, which I’m still in love with three days after. Of course, we are also very far from what we imagine about theater.

- H. F.: I can't stand the spectator-actor distance, the so-called box theater, I find it outdated.

- You've also filmed a movie.

- H. F.: Last year, for example, we shot Antigone with Gábor Dettre. Kamilla played Antigone and I played Ismen. But we also shot with Pater Sparrow, Kamilla with Pálfi Gyuri.

- What do you know about next season?

- H. F.: Zoli promised he wouldn't kill us. Sándor Zsótér directs the Lorenzaccio, I'm not in it, but Kamilla is. Then the boys will rehearse King Ubu, which doesn’t include girls. We don’t know the rest yet for sure, maybe it’s going to be a looser season than the one behind us.

Cover Interview, Pesti Műsor, 2009

Translation by: Zsuzsanna Juraszek