His troupe, Maladype, has been part of international theater since its beginnings in 2001, and he himself directs worldwide. We talked with him about adaptation and a paths made difficult, independence, inspiration and progression.

- At the end of last year, you won the main prize of the Egyptian Theater Festival with two widely traveled performances of Maladype. Adapted from Bruno Schultz's Cinnamon shops, August hardly uses language, and Yvonne is not only made difficult by language. How do you solve these?

- We have already gained a lot of practice in the field of different situation management techniques. When you play in Iran one day, Albania the next, then in America or Vietnam, adaptability becomes an essential factor. In the case of Yvonne, this is all the more true, since our performance does not have a title character. According to Gombrowicz, Yvonne herself is a temptation for good or bad, a mobilizing personality. Why couldn't it be a random spectator who is chosen by the actors from the audience? The actors of Maladype speak languages, use non-verbal signs well, and easily supplement the English text of the performances with specific expressions taken from the given linguistic environment. In Africa, I experienced a particularly great openness towards us. I rediscovered an adjective that I heard a lot in my childhood, but later became worn out: pure-hearted. During our North African tour, I was impressed that after several decades of work, they were able to realize such an international theater festival in the Sahara, where they hosted 23 African and 17 European ensembles. It's a really doping force. I already had the opportunity to participate in theater festivals in Tunisia and Egypt, but Algeria opened up a completely new world for me. We also played August in Algiers and Adrar. We flew three hours from the capital to the middle of the desert, where, as incredible as it is, there is a car wash!

- As you have stated many times, the survival of the company is basically ensured by these tours and festival invitations. Are you traveling the world for money?

- My theatre-making nature represents a Bauhaus attitude, I also like the unification of the arts, the all-arts formulation. In order not to get stuck in one kind of vision, I consciously look for new content and form units, modern tools of art. The fact that we are constantly present in the world helps me a lot in my endeavor to play out this interiority. We interact with many different people and cultures and it keeps us fresh. We learn something every day. In Vietnam, they don't use ladders because they use bamboo sticks to adjust the reflectors. In India, at the local MÜPA, the cables were still made by hand five minutes before the performance. Two days later, in Switzerland, the set workers unpacked our set elements in white gloves. A constant state of readiness keeps our mental condition lively. Our performances also change according to what new impulses the given theater environment stimulates the wide-ranging attention of our actors. If you always work only in your own environment of love, the pursuit of originality will quickly fade, because your partner and your audience will be forgiving and forgiving towards you.

- In Iran, however, there are many rules. For example, men and women cannot touch each other. You have a lot of physical contact. How do you handle these?

- We adapt to local customs. The Iranian Fajr Festival (Fajr is the morning prayer of Muslims - ed.) invites the production of the given company after a multi-round selection procedure. But even though the performance is "screened" in advance, the local censors also watch the main rehearsal in person. This was also the case with our King Ubu. Then they told us what was allowed and what was not. Boys, for example, were not allowed to play shirtless. Of course, we answered that everything was fine, and then we started to smuggle back the most important elements. By doing so, we risked the stopping of the performance. Fortunately, they didn't make a scandal in front of the audience. After the performance, the "local Mari Törőcsik" ran towards us ecstatically, then suddenly stopped. She said she wanted to hug me, but she couldn't because we couldn't touch each other.

- You direct in many places yourself. Last year, after similar invitations, Josef Nadj, for example, included a lot of African elements in his new performance.

- It is unpredictable what affects me during my work abroad. In the middle of the Sahara, for example, I was impressed by a self-conscious peacock that repeatedly attacked our actors. I thought of Olga Varjú, who in my production of Pelleas and Melisande regularly got into trouble with another aggressive peacock, who without a problem pooped on her during the performance. I relived the fantastic preparation period with Judit Gombár, the special rehearsal process together with the actors and opera singers, and I felt like watching Parazhanov's masterpiece The Color of Pomegranate again. In short, even the most banal things can trigger my ability to associate and my curiosity. In Algeria and Tunisia it was interesting to see traces of cultural colonialism and those architectural heritages. The once snow-white buildings that now stand dirty. I would have liked to peel off the huge foil covering the houses of Algiers and Tunis so that their white light could shine again. I always try to understand the local people's way of thinking and their background.

- You directed Adam Mickiewicz's play Forefathers Eve in Poland.

- I did not work in Poland during the most fortunate period, but the guest directing, supplemented by the support of Hungarian-Polish foundations and institutes, eventually grew into an event of cultural diplomatic significance. Its extraordinary character was also enhanced by the fact that, for the first time in Polish theater history, the "holy work" of the Poles was staged by a Hungarian director. This is as rare as entrusting the staging of the Tragedy of Man to a foreign artist at home. Breaking with the previous adaptation traditions, I approached Mickiewicz's universe from a different angle, but it was well received by both the actors and the audience.

- However, they often don't understand, at home we interpret theater within rather narrow coordinates.

- I have no compulsion to conform. As a director, it is not my job to illustrate the story that viewers and critics do not know or read. My concept continues to think about the writer's intentions and is fulfilled in the unfolding of the problems he raises. At Maladype, we hold an audience meeting after each performance, but we do not want to influence the spectator's curiosity and imagination with didactic messages beforehand. We let everyone react to the theater world we offer according to their upbringing, experience, culture, age, gender or mental habitus. However, only those who are familiar with the relevant code systems can comment professionally on our unique offers.

- Did you have such critics?

- Péter Molnár Gál monitored my creative development from the beginning, and analyzed the company's work step by step. This was a huge gift. He wrote it in connection with our anniversary performance, Inferno, so that no one expects a crash course in Dante from us! Not only in his writings, but also in his verbal criticisms, he warned if he experienced an artistic deviation or a conformist derailment. He considered it important that we remain a progressive company. Thomas Irmer and Jan Herbert, president of the Guild of European Critics, were such critics in our lives, to whom we also owe our international career. Today, this kind of mentor-critic attitude that examines processes and connections is on the decline.

- MGP's book caused great storms.

- Just like he did in his life. He was a divisive personality. So is his book, but maybe it would have been different if he edited his own stories. Anyway, these stories were popular and he told most of them himself during a friendly conversation. His theater education and vitriolic humor are legendary. Many people were anxious in his presence, I liked him. Maybe because I've never been an anxious person.

- You would have fair reasons to become anxious, wouldn't you?

- I lived through the last twelve years of communism, so I know what it means when a black car stops in front of our house and how a house search takes place. I saw my grandmother appeal for amnesty for my grandfather, who was in prison because he was Hungarian. There were also regular fights between the Hungarian and Romanian classes at the school. Very quickly I realized what the real face of the world was like. We lived in Sighetu Marmației, which, although a beautiful place, looks like the end of the world from here. Apart from Catholic mass and traveling circus performances, he didn't have many cathartic impulses. I had to find them in my own world. That's why I started provoking those around me. The immaculate cleanliness and pedantry of the apothecary widow who dines with us on Sundays, for example, irritated me so much that I repeatedly blew my nose into her clothes. For others, I tied their shoelaces or poured soup over them. When we changed countries and I lost my environment that provided me with security, I fell into a vacuum, but I quickly redesigned myself. I hitchhiked across Europe, carried a sumo wrestler, an Indian and a French housewife: the adventures sublimated my fears. Maybe that's why I put a lot of strain on myself.

- But aren't you afraid that you won't be able to cope with so much work?

- I see it all as a game. My creative self has never let me down. Somehow, the solution always pops up. And that sets you free.

- Why do you mostly work with literary material?

- Because I'm old-fashioned. I like to immerse myself in large-scale works, and I love to talk and argue with Stendhal, Merle, Spiro or Wallace. When I was a child, my grandmother, after completing her chores for the day, would sit down at the kitchen table, open a book, light a cigarette and read. To learn about her hidden life, I started reading the same books as her. My imagination was intensely occupied with what she might have thought of certain parts of Mme. Bovary or Lady Chatterley's lover? In the alternative reality through books, I can live the extreme existence. Later, at the drama department in Szentes, teacher Zoltán László revealed to me the public treasures of the world's theater and drama art, opened the way to Japanese theater culture and the perspective-shaping works of major theater masters. There was a moment when I felt that this huge puzzle of knowledge would never come together in me, which really scared me. But fortunately, there were opportunities that made use of the knowledge acquired up to that point. Luck has always played a key role in my life. Also when I was able to move from Szentes to Avignon, and also later on, when I was able to study in Paris in addition to the acting and directing degree that I completed in parallel in Budapest.

- The composition of your troupe is changing a lot, now it consists of members of your last acting class in Targu Mures.

- In Prague, after Patrice Pavis, the internationally recognized professor of theater studies, watched our performance August, he enthusiastically told me that I was stupid if I didn't keep this team together. I asked back: how? In Hungary, it is an art to maintain a company of two people, let alone ten people. But he planted the bug in my ear. Thanks to my colleagues, we finally managed to get enough support for a year and we were able to contract almost the entire department. Later on, foreign tours and extra support helped us stay alive. Now the situation is critical again, and I have no idea how the future of our company will develop. The trade unions' advocacy activities are extensive and ineffective, preference-based money distribution takes place, the nurturing and development of theater art has completely ceased to be a common cause, and decade-long successes and results mean nothing. The Maladype team is made up of search-researcher type actors. The closest to me are the artists who have kept their openness and are not afraid of change, of the unknown. The predators. This is how I saw Ilona Béres as Kronos in Theomachia, Erzsébet Kútvölgyi as Lenin in Dada Cabaret or Mari Törőcsik as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro. They are true reformers.

- Sometimes you also work in questionable productions. You directed Nine, a musical inspired by Fellini's film 8 and ½, in the new Operetta.

- And it was a wonderful job.

- Because of the money?

- It's great if you have a concept that you can implement without material, technical and artistic compromises. All this was a given at the Operetta Theatre. Former managers of the Operetta also invited me to direct, but the plans ultimately did not materialize. It was a joy to compose on the stage where such greats as Kálmán Latabár, Kamill Feleki or Hanna Honthy used to stand.

- But Bence Apáti is sitting outside in the buffet.

- I have work to do in the rehearsal room and on stage. The artists of the Operetta Theater want the same thing as the actors of any troupe in the world: they want to do quality work, in an attentive, motivated environment, under the guidance of a prepared creative team. We were able to cooperate harmoniously. However, we rehearsed Nine in the middle of the covid period with a triple cast.

- Do your own actors have this much-mentioned freedom?

- In addition to Maladype's obligations at home and abroad, they deal with what they want. Why would I block them? If they have a new experience, it automatically affects the joint work.

- But you keep them busy.

- Being a member of Maladype is a special way of life. Our operation has certain rules of the game, which in turn shape our rehearsal technique, the specific nature of our performances, and our domestic and foreign presence. We do not operate as a sect, but the creation, maintenance and renewal of a common dictionary is a time-consuming activity. We are not connected by parties, but by work and creative processes. Although each era is characterized by other playmates, the spirit of the band is primarily determined by me. That is why it is necessary for me to be 10-15 steps ahead of them and the renewal must be carried out by myself first. At home, we have to rethink our strategy every year and have different plans in order to remain viable. For twenty-one years I have been fighting for our survival and for a permanent playground worthy of our name. During this time, many promises were made, but they brought little results. Our international fame is our main asset, but the tours require an extraordinary nervous system and great discipline from all of us, because we have to produce guaranteed successes. If the organizers of the festivals are not satisfied with the work of our troupe and the expectations of the audience are not confirmed by our performances, they will no longer invite us or recommend us. We cannot afford this, because a large percentage of our income comes from our festival invitations. We cannot count on reliable support at home. For two years, we have received zero forints from the NKA Board of Trustees for operation. I am aware that this is punishing our insular existence, but in order to survive we need to raise 50 million a year. In a caring theater society, they would build on our international reputation and experience, they would find a way to an extensive network and professional platforms. The compulsion to conform that we lack is appreciated, but not supported.

- Did you stand up against the occupation of SZFE?

- Our class was on guard. I am not tied to parties or ideologies, rather I represent an ethical position.

- They didn't hold you accountable?

- Cultural savages hold others accountable for everything they do not hold themselves accountable for. I got used to it. I am a supreme creator who mostly tries to stay true to the theater and his ideas about truth. A lot of things don't match my values, and a lot of things I don't think are appropriate, but I always find refuge in art. Today, dexterity and quick success are important, long-term professional investment or deep professional awareness characterizes only certain creative people. An educated person, complex knowledge and a unique vision are not valuable. Unfortunately, there is also a lack of teachers, mentors and masters who can pay attention to others, who are inspiration and role models. Everyone puts themselves together from such and such scraps as they know how.

- You can be curious, but life has to be taken. Not everyone can afford to migrate from country to country, from company to company.

- This is true. I can call ourselves lucky, even if the composition of the troupe changes every seven or eight years. I think it's natural that actors want an existence, a family and more free time. The first transformation was the most difficult, but there was an opportunity to take stock and redesign. Maladype, 21 years old this year, was shaped by the talent and knowledge of many fantastic artists. Today's company is an imprint of their nervous system.

Orsolya Karafiáth, Magyar Narancs, 2023

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek