Twenty years ago, in 2001, the Maladype Theatre was founded under the leadership of Zoltán Balázs, after the company staged Ionesco's Jack, or the submission, at the Tavaszmező street headquarters of the Gipsy Parliament, directed by Balázs. For the ten-year anniversary, a large summarization of their work up to that point was published in a book, which - according to István Nánay's criticism - can delight the reader to pick up, flip through and browse through. There was also a series of large-scale events, several audience meetings and finally a gala evening at the Pesti Theater. Now the celebration is quiet, if there is any at all. The bottom line is that Maladype remains, again in Nánay's words, one of the best in Hungarian theater life". Its current members graduated from the Marosvásárhely University of Arts. We talked with Zoltán Balázs in the summer heat.

- How are you taking this heat?

- I'm used to it. When I work, nothing bothers me.

- It's as if you were socialized to stand your ground even in difficult circumstances. You were born in 1977 in Cluj, right in the middle of a dictatorship. You could obviously sense this even as a child.

- I grew up in an atmosphere of extreme situations. I was born in Cluj, but I spent my childhood in Sighetu Marmației. My ability to resist and tolerate is partly instinctive and partly the result of conscious development. My family helped a lot in this process. Primarily my grandparents, who lived through World War II., the establishment and consolidation of the Soviet dictatorship, and the daily operation of the Romanian spying system. Their attitude, courage and, not least, their sense of humor became determinative for me. As a Hungarian man and a leader in a responsible position – he managed a grocery store – my grandfather was often taken away by the black car. He was imprisoned on trumped-up charges and only received amnesty through the intercession of my grandmother. We also had regular house searches. I remember each occasion clearly. As well as when one of my family members puts their index finger in front of their mouth, indicating that they are eavesdropping on us. The instinct to keep our family together is also alive in me. I learned the skill of redesigning from them. When we moved to Hungary and I lost the safe place of my childhood, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I decided to hitchhike around Europe. A sumo wrestler, an Indian and a French housewife also helped me on my travels. That's when I realized what a well-thought-out moment means, how important it is to notice the impulses that are important to us in time and to plan the next step based on the carefully filtered information.

- You lived with your parents and grandparents, so three generations lived together?

- In Sighetu Marmației, yes. I am of noble origin on my grandfather's side, so my upbringing was also determined by the aristocratic attitude. Officially, I could write my name as Zoltán Visky Balázs.

- It would look good on a stage.

- I mean, it would be striking. My family never paraded with their noble titles and never demonstrated their Hungarianness, they simply lived it. My ancestors were Hungarians and citizens of the world at the same time. This is what I strive for.

- Even conversations at home are not easy in a dictatorship.

- A kind of specific code language connects family members. What can be talked about, and especially how, will quickly become obvious to everyone. I also learned to think in symbols, to write economically and to distinguish between the quality of human manifestations. But most of all, I learned not to define myself in relation to others.

- How much did the dictatorship you were born into affect your childhood?

- It was constantly present, but the tensions built up as a result of the prohibitions and silences gave me special childhood adventures. At school, for example, there were regular fights between the Romanian and Hungarian classes. We wrestled almost every break, it was like exercise for us. We made up and then started again. Over time, I made many Romanian friends. From them I learned the version of the Romanian language spoken on the street, and the literature at school. This knowledge is extremely valuable to me to this day, as a director I can easily thrive in Romania. Later, knowledge of the French language also helped me assert myself in French culture.

- Who in the family told you to move to Hungary?

- My mother. At the age of twelve, I did not understand at all why we had to leave North Transylvania. My family, my first love, my friends were there. Sighetu Marmației was a paradise for me, which I had to leave against my own will. My mother wanted to ensure a future with perspective, which is why she decided to leave. My passport photo from that time has all the emotions swirling inside me: despair, sadness, anger. My mother's decision was followed by a lot of train rides. We were constantly on the road due to the handling of official papers and the search for protection. My worst childhood experiences are connected to night train rides: dirty and crowded wagons, stench, unlit, dilapidated railway stations, never-ending waitings, early morning transfers and bone-chilling cold... But in retrospect, my mother's extraordinary endurance and determination put all of this into another dimension. It happened more than once that she somehow squeezed me onto the train, but she couldn't get on and was pulled in through the window of the already departing train. The screeching of the locomotive still affects me today, as if something were being eaten inside me.

- Is all this in your performances?

- For sure. Especially the violence that suddenly materializes out of nowhere.

- Will you be able to sort it out someday?

- I do this constantly, although my directions are not motivated by trauma processing intentions. For me, directing means another form of self-expression alongside acting, a consistent examination of connections. Both activities have a liberating effect on me, perhaps because I didn't have a convulsive desire for either. I can thank Miklós Benedek and Tamás Jordán that I became a director. I was a first-year student in the acting department of the University of Theater and Film Arts when Miklós asked us who was doing what after rehearsals. I was just getting acquainted with the works of the split-conscious Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, and for fun I tried to put together a four-part fantasy game for myself. Miklós asked me for the manuscript, and the next day I spoke on the phone with Tamás, who was the director of the Merlin Theater at the time, and also a member of the Portuguese-Hungarian friend group. He strongly encouraged me to stage the play I had put together at the Merlin Theatre. "But I'm not a director!" - I said. "Then it's time to try it out for yourself! Get the actors together, rehearse in the summer, show in the fall!" he answered. I took it as an adventure, so I went for it. The performance titled The ancient anxiety was premiered in 1999 and, to my surprise, was a great success. When I was in my second year, Mr. Lajos Tiszeker, the secretary of the study department at the time, ran into me one morning and mysteriously said that we would meet again in the afternoon. At two o'clock he knocked on the acting room and beckoned me to follow him. I looked at Miklós, who nodded affirmatively. I had no idea what kind of plan I was part of and where we were going. Tamás Ascher, László Babarczy, Imre Csiszár, Gábor Székely and Gábor Zsámbéki were waiting in the building in Vas Street, because they were supervising the admissionary exams to the post-graduate course in directing. They asked me why I wanted to be a director. I replied that I didn't want to, and I wasn't even interested in being a director. And what are you interested in? they asked. The circus - I answered - that's what interested me in my life. I was asked to tell about my experiences with circus arts. And I told stories with vigor and passion. Not long after the admission, Mr. Lajos knocked on the acting class again and told me in his humorous way that from now on I would sleep even less because I was accepted. I couldn't even imagine how I would be able to complete the two majors at the same time, but the course of things developed quickly. I rehearsed until midnight in the acting department, and from midnight to dawn in the directing department.

- When did you sleep? I'm asking seriously. The physical burden on the representatives of the theater profession seems to be greater than average, although this obviously also depends on who undertakes how much.

- I took on a lot and slept little. Unfortunately, that hasn't changed since then...

- Who became your class teacher?

- László Babarczy. Miklós and Tamás were right, it turned out that I really have directing skills. In the classes of Levente Osztovits and György Karsai, it soon became clear that I can analyze a play well, I can grasp the essence, but also that I look at the world from a very different perspective than is appropriate and customary as a director.

- Before we talk about that: how did acting itself come about?

- I had my first theater experience in Cluj, as there was no theater with a permanent company on Sighetu Marmației. However, the theatrical impulses I received there did not leave any traces in me. The traveling circus performance and the Catholic mass had a truly cathartic effect on me. Both events are based on fixed forms, yet the contents they unfold keep the attention of the participants in continuous motion. Of course, a lot also depends on who it is, and above all, how it interprets what is said at the given ceremony. Everything is pre-planned, yet unpredictable and risky.

- What is the risk in a Mass?

- Reflexes arising in us from the interplay of conscious and unconscious stimuli. Of decisive importance is the right ratio of the instinctive mixing of concrete and abstract events, the personal reflection of direct impressions and the authenticity of our responses. The importance hidden in the details of the content to be processed also largely determines how we can identify with everything that someone conveys to us as a speaker or a priest. As a spectator, the atmosphere of the circus tent, and as a minister, the atmosphere of the church captivated me. Live music played an important role in both places. I was amazed by the shapes, colors, gestures, iconic action patterns and the ability to identify, the creative power of the collective imagination.

- You could have been a priest, or even worked in the circus...

- If it hadn't happened... At the age of six, I ran away with a traveling circus troupe because I wanted to be an acrobat clown. However, my grandfather noticed my disappearance in time, came after me with the police and took me home. Then I felt that I had been robbed of the meaning of my life. As compensation, I gathered together the guys living on our street and we created theater performances. I read a lot because books allowed me to travel far. Even today, I can see my grandmother, who was a very well-read woman, as she finishes her tasks for the day, takes out a book, lights a cigarette and starts reading at the kitchen table. As a child, I watched her and wondered where she might be now, who she might meet... In order to get answers to my questions, I started reading the same books she did,I searched for my grandmother's secret life. In this way, we were forever connected by confidential contact through books. When I hitchhiked around Europe and visited exhibitions, I often thought about how happy it would have been for her to have been able to see certain works of art in their original form. On these trips, I also realized that everything in the world is connected to everything else. Once, in a small gallery in Paris, I discovered a painting of an Indian grandmother bathing in a tub with her grandson. I shuddered because I remembered my first drawing, which also had the same theme: bathing with my granny as a child. At that time, we saved money by having the whole family bathe in the same water, and we two were the last ones. It was a huge realization and joy for me when I understood that common themes viscerally connect people living in different parts of the world.

- So how did the theater come about?

- We changed countries and I was in a vacuum. My mother's vitality and cheerfulness helped a lot, but the lack of a new community left a strong mark on my everyday life. We lived in Hernád, where one evening I saw an announcement on TV that the Budapest Children's Dance Theater was announcing a recruitment. I applied and was hired. I traveled from Hernád to Budapest every two days after school to be with my dance theater playmates. When I was in the eighth grade, I heard from my Hungarian teacher, László Karai, about the drama department of the Horváth Mihály High School in Szentes, where I submitted my application form on the advice of my mother. I was accepted, and four wonderful years began in Szentes...

- We turned from there because it quickly became clear at college that you see the world and directing differently than usual. Has this already shown itself in Szentes?

- Already in my childhood. Guests only came to us if they asked my family beforehand: "Is Zoltán at home?" When I was at home, most of the time they turned back. I constantly provoked my surroundings. I wondered where the boundaries were, what people would tolerate and how they would react to my challenging behavior. Excitement was my essence. I primarily irritated my immediate environment, but I didn't spare myself either. I was a bit of a public danger.

- Certain theater performances can also be perceived as provocation.

- Mine are mostly intellectual provocations, manifestos of creativity. I'm not a fan of throwing bananas at spectators or dousing them with ketchup. The thought and mental energy that connects the audience with us is effective when it blends organically into our being.

- This is enough of a provocation, not to mention the chosen forms. Can you summarize what you think about the theater?

- I hope that my ideas about the theater are very malleable. In my dictionary, theater is neither a concept nor an object. I see the art branch that nurtures the most intimate relationship with the audience as a whimsical and passionate creature with a particularly complex nervous system, sometimes angry, sometimes forgiving, sometimes mysterious and unpredictable, other times raw or poetic. Every day I have to rebuild my relationship with him, gain his trust and win him over to my creative intentions. If I use it, it will take revenge, if I look down on it, it will eat me up. As a mobilizing force that generates change, it urges me to always redesign myself, to never think of my person as authoritative or indispensable. It teaches me to interpret my human and professional insights as part of the entire theater culture, and to consider myself only as a mediating medium between a visible and an invisible world. I consider the director's greatest virtue to be the ability to focus on the essentials and the sophisticated professional knowledge that can imperceptibly connect the attention of those sitting in the audience with what is happening on stage, childlike curiosity with mature self-disclosure. At the age of forty-five, I know exactly that I don't define the organism of the theater, it's the other way around, it defines me. We haven't gotten bored of each other and we haven't fallen out of love with each other yet.

- In an interview you call Robert Wilson and Anatoly Vasiliev your masters. Were you in direct contact with them?

- They both taught me. They shaped my approach to theater as both masters and mentors. I learned from them that artistic creativity is not only a blessing, but also a responsibility.

- Did the provocative tendency in you cause difficulties?

- Many times for those around me. In Hamlet, for example, I provoked the dislike of my colleagues many times. Not everyone appreciated my acting based on surprises and quick changes. My presence was considered too personal and embarrassing by some. There were people with whom we could tune in to each other, but most of my partners did not like my acting boundaries...

- Does it hurt if someone doesn't understand you?

- Not today, but there was a period when the papers wrote about Zoltán Balázs beating the spectators. During the performance, I took the reticule of a spectator so that she wouldn't poke around in it, she got another tock from me and I ordered her to continue watching the performance... so, I really behaved terribly. I couldn't understand how someone could be looking for their handkerchief when the actors were performing a public vivisection. Can't they see that there is a lot of work in the performance, and the main character just managed to formulate a complicated thought?! In retrospect, I think it's ridiculous, but I gained important insights through my whimsical actions. Today, both as an actor and a director, I represent the opposite of everything. If the spectator wants to dance during the show, do it, if you want to go out, go. You're right to want to be somewhere else because we're not doing something right. It took time for me to understand that everyone has a different capacity for acceptance and tolerance, cultural background, childhood and adulthood, and a completely different way of thinking about the world than the artists sitting next to them or creating the performance.

- And it could also be that the person who gets up and goes out is simply tired. I sat through performances without any idea what was happening on stage. So you've changed.

- Radically. Each production added something to this process, but the greatest change was induced by the performances of Hamlet and Leonce and Lena. One shaped my vision as an actor, the other as a director. Many people are afraid of change, even though it is natural and necessary. During foreign productions and tours, I get a million new impulses, I have to quickly adapt to different situations, since in Hanoi I can achieve my goals as a director in a completely different way than in Tehran or Chicago. The pillars of change: the desire to renew, creative flexibility, a stable nervous system and the right mental condition. I learned this from Ilona Béres in Theomachia, Mari Törőcsik in The Marriage of Figaro, László Sinkó in The Duchess of Malfi, Andrea Ladányi in Inferno and Erzsébet Kútvölgyi in Dada Cabaret.

- If you mention them: were the "big ones" easy to handle?

- Absolute. They are predatory artists who, when they smell blood, are unstoppable.

- Does the so-called entertainment theater annoy you?

- When they do it right, I love it. The "bien fait" performances require a complex score, precise coordinates and proportional editing, the actors' cooperation manifested in rhythm, dynamics and style. This kind of complexity is close to me, it is the basic criteria of my directing method. I worked at the Budapest Operetta Theater no differently than at the Bárka Theater or the National Theatre. Nine's audition process presented me with the same challenges as any major drama I've directed at home or abroad. The musical work evoking the creative world of Federico Fellini demanded directorial precision, acting discipline, flawless stylistic sensitivity and carefully executed interplay from all actors. With the troupe of the Operetta Theater, we unfolded the layers of the multi-threaded monumental story, rich in transformations, as carefully and meticulously as the dimensions of any dramatic work I have adapted for the stage. I can thank Nine's rehearsal process for meeting Ildiko Bánsági, Zsuzsa Kalocsai, Enikő Szilágyi, Andrea Szulák, and I could list the names of the artists with whom I made lifelong friendships. These relationships are as defining for me as previous encounters with Maia Morgenstern or Mark Rylance. From time to time, it is important to immerse ourselves in the personality of a new playmate and surrender to the moments we experience together. Pessoa calls it one of the greatest privileges to experience with others how life flows through us.

- Pessoa did not multiply himself by accident.

- He had eighty-three alter egos.

- That's a lot...

- We all have a lot of personalities.

- Robert Wilson said that everyone directs the same basic theme that had the greatest impact on him as a child. For you, this is what dictatorship is.

- I am really only interested in the relationship between the individual and the power, as you say in an interview that can also be read on your website, adding "The determinism and the issue of free will"? At all, isn't it a simplification to bring the performances of the past decades to a common denominator in terms of content? Similar to, for example, a climate researcher who looks for a location where he can collect the necessary basic data and take an air sample that is representative of the entire continent, I also look for an area that is essential for my theatrical summaries. My point is true both figuratively and concretely. In order to obtain jointly valid connections, I have to thoroughly comb through the given area - from now on we will understand it as: topic - and I need to examine the related information extensively. As part of the process, it is essential to compare my latest discoveries with previous data. The credibility of my results depends to a large extent on the exact detection of changes relative to the lowest common denominator and the way of implementing the plan for new awareness arising from the already evaluated and analyzed facts...

- In your last show, in Tancred Dorst's play, Merlin, how is the relationship between the individual and power present?

- By prescription. Dorst also sees that all ideas believed to be inaudible sooner or later fall to ashes. They cool and freeze like revolutions. The seething crowd seeks a new savior, and then rejects him as well. This phenomenon is uncovered by Weöres in Theomachia, Genet in The Blacks, Hölderlin in Empedocles, and presented by Ostrovsky in The Tempest, Jarry in King Ubu. Having had the opportunity to stage these works, I know that they are far from didactic messages and tongue-in-cheek moralizing. Dorst's greatness can also be measured in this. In the epic drama written forty years ago, he encourages us to think about ourselves and the world in which we live. This is dangerous, and not everyone wants to face it, but we theater makers must inspire these processes of awareness.

- Doesn't it bother you that few people will see Merlin - let's stick to this show? Especially since you play in Eötvös10...

- We knew that Merlin would be a layered performance, but we still thought it was important to present it. It is no coincidence that it has only been performed four times in Hungary: in 1984 at the Víg Theater, in 1995 at the Új Theater, in 2012 at the Örkény Theater and in 2021 at the Maladype Theatre. Our performance represents a unique stage universe and a video clip-like rhythm that the 16-25 age group can identify with, but unfortunately many of them do not have the basic knowledge necessary to understand the voluminous work. They don't know Yoko Ono or the Pendragon legend. What really bothers me is that, as a twenty-year-old troupe, we still don't have a permanent place to play. We quickly outgrew the Maladype Base on Mikszáth Kálmán square, which we owned from 2009 to 2019. In the evening, only fifty spectators could take seats in the "big hall", so the room theater space, although it lent an atmosphere incomparable to any other playground to our performances created in a minimalist way, turned out to be very narrow after a while. Then came the soaking and we became "cross-country runners" again. We temporarily found a home in Eötvös10, and we play our repertoire performances in the Chamber Hall.

- Internal cultural migration.

- We can call it that. Maladype finally deserves to have its own playground worthy of its professional recognition and achievements, where it can practice its profession under suitable conditions. Our theater workshop is a cultural export whose value is known to everyone at home and abroad. In a more caring theater society, they would not only welcome our successes, but also build on our international reputation and years of experience. Forward-looking creative plans and value-based collaborations could neutralize professionally unfavorable priorities in the long term. At the moment of its establishment, Maladype committed itself to a consistent examination of theater art, never following fashions or conforming to expectations. Since the beginning, we have followed our own path, which, although we play a lot abroad, brings us back to Hungary again and again. It is a paradoxical situation that they are considered ambassadors of Hungarian culture all over the world, and we still don't have a permanent playground here. Although we would like to play more in Budapest, the opportunities and conditions offered by the hosting institutions are limited, and the conditions are complicated. Our ability to adapt is strong, but the key to our company's survival is that we are different from other companies, not that we are similar to them. The dependency relationship established with the receiving institutions also does not help the completion of the "small-scale lifestyle" realized in its own rhythm. Primarily we belong to ourselves. We are a sovereign creative community that believes that theater does not belong to some, but to everyone. The spectators do not expect abstract "literary" theater from us, but a social experience and interaction. Our relationship cannot be pursued. Each of our theatrical experiments is rooted in the collective's theatrical desires, which is why our performances include open rehearsals, introductory and processing sessions, and audience meetings. In 2009, for the first time in Hungary, we opened the entire rehearsal process of King of Ubu to spectators curious about the anatomy of the work, where they were with us from the reading rehearsal to the premiere. They could see up close the fragility of acting, the plasticity of talent, and the interplay of factors needed to turn a less than successful moment into a success. The participants in the open rehearsals understood that high-quality theater production is the combined result of sensitive and meticulous processes, but the professional aspects should not be overmystified, and the professional aspects should not be underestimated. They felt the importance of balancing everyday and festive impulses, the importance of the silent and the spoken word. They rediscovered the great possibility of "painting" with words, describing external and internal events, and made their own experiences tangible for others. A few years ago, when someone traveled abroad, they sent a postcard to their loved ones, which featured a local landmark on the front and a few lines of greetings on the back. When the person returned home from his trip abroad, he sat down his family or friends and told them step by step what an experience it was for him to see the particular attraction for the first time. In other words, he had to put his impressions into words, accurately and sensitively paint every detail that defined him. Today, people send a selfie in which they can be seen the most, and with that, the entire procedure is dismissed. Our verbal abilities no longer have any function in this field. But then, how can an actor use the words of Aeschylus or Shakespeare to make the message of the messenger in a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean drama understandable?

- Compared to your childhood, and compared to mine, the world has changed a lot. You also write in the ars poetica that can be read on your website that we are living in a new era of human civilization, in which creativity and all abilities that a machine lacks are valued, and these abilities could be acquired most effectively with the help of art and theater.

- I am interested in the harmony of thought, word and action, their combinations manifested in movement, gesture and music. Maybe that's why my performances are often called all-art works. The theater profession likes to quickly pigeonhole any new, as-yet-unknown phenomenon, so my performances already belonged to the category of ritual theater and physical theater. I hate labeling and find it unnecessary. It is especially meaningless in relation to defining the creative activity of a sovereign creative or theater community that is constantly looking for renewal. Both Maladype and myself have done a lot to enrich Hungarian theater culture with new, modern and exotic impressions of form and content. It is enough to mention only the 2003 School for Fools, the 2004 Pelléas and Mélisande, the 2009 Faust and the Duchess of Malfi, the 2011 Inferno, the 2015 Great Sound in the Rush, or 2016's Dada Cabaret, or 2017's Three Sisters and Csongor and Tünde.

- Is there any point in distinguishing stone theater and independent companies?

- Nothing on earth. The only differentiating factor should be quality. Although Maladype's spirit is really independent from everything, structurally it belongs to the group of independent theaters, where unfortunately we all depend on various tenders and operational support. I would rather call ourselves an avant-garde theater, an artistic community fighting for dynamic traditions and methodically searching for new ways and forms of expression. Our company is made up of free and independent people who are not afraid of the possibility of making mistakes. We do not strive to conserve our successes and build eras from a style typical of our emblematic performances. I decided quite early on that I didn't want to repeat myself, and although critics prefer already labeled, predictable products, I will structure all my arrangements along new content-form relationships. That is why I have consciously changed creative styles since I started. Our performances Jacques, The Blacks, Leonce and Lena, Don Carlos or Egg(s)Hell represent a completely different universe... I won't even mention my foreign productions. I was always interested in being able to surprise myself, my playmates and the spectators. It feels good that the audience of Maladype is growing old with us, and also that there is some kind of spiritual continuity between the artists who defined the different periods of our theater.

- Speaking of the 2004 The Blacks, Péter Molnár Gál wrote: "Even if no one can understand the show, it's a theatrical beauty." Do you still remember how this provocative and seemingly mild wording affected you at the time?

- I consider every sentence of Péter Gál Molnár about us a gift. He was the only critic who continuously monitored our development since our establishment. Not only did he watch all our performances and analyze them in his usual way, but until his death in 2011, he considered it important to act as an interpreter between our theater and the critics. Nothing shows his commitment to my work as a director and his consistency as a professional writer better than a few sentences he made in connection with the presentation of Inferno, our jubilee performance in 2011: "Balázs's productions go head-to-head with the scooter theater trend. Not even the University of Omniscience's Dante course. Not a literary quickie.” Today's career starters are no longer given such an opportunity. Actors and directors just starting out don't know what it means to be the focus of the attention of an unquestionable professional chronicler. MGP's education and sarcastic humor also helped the audience a lot to adjust between the authentic actors and charlatans of theater life. During the break of my performance of Faust I.-II., I accidentally heard this phrase from one of our famous judges: "Damn, I have to read the second part!" I was shocked because I thought that the critics would arrive prepared for the premiere of Goethe's work. In connection with this case, I became aware that in certain critic training courses, students are explicitly encouraged not to read the basic work that inspired the performance to be seen, but to let the event freely affect them. How?! Imagine the consequences if, as a director and teacher, I were to give the same advice to my actors or my students: as you feel... In my opinion, the greatest virtue of a director is not to illustrate the given work, but to make visible the invisible world hiding between the lines. Unveil. Shows up. Art is a kind of presentation ceremony. That is why it is a sacred event. A good theater performance is like an angel's welcome, it brings good news to people, they feel chosen and addressed. Thus, the actor, and through him, indirectly the director, is an angel bringing news...

- Has it ever been said that you expect a lot from the spectator?

- Yes. But I only require from them as much as from myself. True, that's a lot. I expect no less from the actors. But why would I?

- In any case, you have to acknowledge that few people are interested in what you do.

- We see this differently. I don't dispute that my persona and my directions are divisive, but my performances are at the center of many different interests. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be constantly directing abroad and our troupe wouldn't be present at various festivals around the world, from Algeria to Vietnam. It is a fact that Maladype is not a theater popular with the culture snob audience, there are no scandals surrounding our company, activist artists do not upset the moods at our performances, we do not write open letters on a daily basis, we do not whine and we do not demand donations. I am not a member of any dinner parties or clubs. As I said before, I don't conform to anyone, I follow my own path.

- You are obviously a maximalist as a private person as well. You have friends?

- Yes, I have a close circle of friends made up of extraordinary people. And yes, I am also a maximalist. If I wasn't, I would never have experienced such human and professional adventures as I fortunately had during my forty-five years. Take, for example, the highlight of my acting career so far, the 2003 Hamlet directed by Tim Carroll at the Bárka Theater. In the performance realized in a special concept, situations arose countless times when, thanks to my perfectionism, I was able to experience extreme acting situations that could not have tempted me professionally in any other form of theater. At the show, for example, when I started the To Be or Not To Be monologue, I heard that I was fake. "I'm lying and reciting," I thought. Then, for the first time in my life, an unknown inner voice spoke and advised me to be silent. "I'm an actor, I'm playing Hamlet, I can't keep quiet!" "Of course! You can hear that you are lying too! Start again!” - He told. And he kept saying it until I finally gave in and stopped: "Sorry, I'll start again!" After the audacious and civil gesture, amid the stunned silence, there was no going back. "And now? Can I really tell you in person?” I asked myself the desperate question. In the end, I reconstructed the monologue word by word out of the difficult situation and the audience rewarded my authentic acting action with applause. The lesson learned from the incident was that as performers we have to take risks at every moment and if something doesn't go as planned, don't pretend everything is fine.

- How did Tim Carroll react? In addition to the fact that he obviously got a freak...

- I think that when he asked me to play the role of Hamlet, he secretly hoped that I would be a generator of such and similar situations. I learned a lot from him and from each performance, which were also amazing self-knowledge courses. In my productions following that experience, the actor's identity, the everyday tone and the risk factor gained more and more space. In every consciously planned acting moment, there was an unexpectedly exploding bomb hidden, which tested the players' ability to react and adapt.

- While you also have to judge what is happening, is it so significant that you adapt to it... And when you leave the role, you adapt or stay in the role.

- If our attention fades or our brain capacity expires, we need to sharpen it again. We should not pretend that nothing happened. If we are honest with ourselves, we can turn our vulnerable moments to our advantage. Around 2008, I became interested in this kind of integrative creative approach, and it was in this context that I directed our now legendary performances. I was looking for the person hiding behind the actor's role.

- You even provoke me with your choice of pieces! Or let's say: you're taking a risk.

- I'm so. Before the public rehearsal of Theomachia, János Csányi, the director of the Bárka Theater at the time, called me to his office to tell me what a fantastic performance is in the making, what special creative energies are unleashed in this unusual theatrical undertaking, but I have to prepare for failure. We will be able to play it three or four times at most. He even asked us to translate the original title of Sándor Weöres' oratorical work into Hungarian as Battle of Gods, because the audience will not buy tickets for such a difficult-to-pronounce performance. In the end, we played the performance, which became famous as Theomachia, fifty times, and the theater was forced to cancel it only because Ilona Béres and I agreed that we would not watch our creation become the prey of snobs. I learned from Ilona and Klári Tolnay that you have to be able to stop very popular events in time.

- It is almost time to tell how Maladype was formed.

- At the end of 2000, a Serbian producer, Dragan Ristić, asked me to stage Ionesco's play Jack or the submission in the hall of the Gipsy Parliament in Tavaszmező Street together with Gypsy and Hungarian actors. I asked him if he was aware that this work had failed everywhere in the world. He answered: yes, but not now. I was so impressed by his confidence and belief in the plan that I took it on. Dragan was right, because the performance, which was played in Hungarian and Gypsy languages, was a huge success. Critics raved about our occasional troupe, and spectators lined up to get into the show. A great group of actors came together, and we felt that our meeting was special. Gypsy actors came up with the word maladype, which means encounter in the Lovári language.

- Is there a company member who has been like that since the beginning?

- There is none, but there are those who, as founding members, were key actors of our troupe for ten years: Hermina Fátyol and Kamilla Fátyol. They symbolize everything that the concept of "maladype actor" means. It would take a long time to list all their virtues, but the most important of all is humility. Selfless devotion to the common cause. The actors of Maladype develop a lot professionally, they tour many places in the world, but if they want a family and an existence, they have to move on.

- Either way: you represent continuity.

- That's true. Maladype will cease to exist when I no longer see any perspective in it. Fortunately, four years ago we found each other perfectly with an acting class graduating from the Marosvásárhely University of Arts, who immediately said yes to my contract offer. Since then, they have been the permanent company of Maladype.

- It is not easy to maintain the theater.

- It's a wonder we still exist. Now it is vital that we finally find our own playground. Otherwise, our energies will be chipped away.

- The possibility of termination must also be taken into account.

- Definitely because of the unpredictable financial situation. For the time being, however, I still feel responsible for the members of my troupe and for the objectives set out earlier in my artistic strategy.

- Do you go to the theater?

- I do, whenever I have the chance.

- Are you interested in anything outside the theater?

- Lots of things! Now, for example, the latest discoveries about outer space.

- Are there days when you don't even think about the theater?

- Hmmm... not really.


Imre D. Magyari, Criticai Lapok, 2023

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek