They didn’t chew the putty - Interview with Zoltán Balázs / 2011
Zoltán Balázs offers a divine, dynamic performance to the audience of the Andrej Bagar Theater in Nitra. According to Shakespeare the world's a stage, while English playwright Arnold Wesker says all the world’s a kitchen. A kitchen in which people with different mindsets, emotions, habits, nationalities, religions work, and their microworld is a reflection of an entire society.
- Zoltán Balázs, the founder, director and director of the Maladype Theatre in Budapest, who "opened" The Kitchen, Arnold Wesker's piece completed in 1959 at the end of last week with the young team of the Andrej Bagar Theater in Nitra, has been preparing for this work for a long time.
- A few years ago, a great project was born based on the idea of Darina Kárová. Six Central and Eastern European directors were given the opportunity to show something in twenty-five minutes. This had such a reception that Darina asked me to direct the Egg(s)Hell in Nitra. Since they couldn’t finance it later, we performed it at home and we’ve already played the fiftieth performance. However, we didn’t discard the possibility of working together. Ján Greššo, the director of the theater in Nitra, watched several of our performances in Budapest, and seeing the Egg(s)Hell, he said he wanted something like that. I already knew then: that’s not possible, because to do that, actors have to know a lot of things beforehand. A performance like that requires a special language, and even three years wouldn’t be enough for that, not to talk about two months. But I promised that if my time allowed, because my life is very busy, I would come up with something that could offer a very strong teamwork with the actors here.
- And so the choice fell on the piece entitled The Kitchen written by a world-renowned London based author of Hungarian origin on the maternal side.
"This piece has been exciting me for a long time," says Zoltán Balázs. - I did not understand why this is a great success from Amsterdam to Madrid, from Helsinki to Athens, from Paris to Rio de Janeiro, because the situation itself, the plot of the piece is actually very simple. There is a kitchen in a large restaurant where people, chefs and waiters cook and whine together. We can't talk about the development of characters with dramatic weight, the situations are two or three sentences, yet the piece itself puts the company, the actors' nervous system, mental condition and physical abilities to the test. Since now I had two months when I could leave my company safe at home, as Sándor Zsótér directed The marriage of Figaro with them, I said I would undertake. But it has been under planning for two years. Meanwhile, we starred here with the Egg(s)Hell, we had great success, which led the director to that belief that a co-production should be created. However, Fico’s party was not very happy that the Hungarians were about to come last year, so the plan was blown away. But because the theater in Nitra was very adamant that at least the staff would come, I said, until Figaro is born at home, I will work here with my people. Last year I worked in France, then in Timisoara, now here in Nitra, and next year I'm going to Switzerland, but Maladype is always in the first place. However, I also need new impulses, new encounters to make a check-up on my own operation.
- The result of a two-month rehearsing process is The Kitchen in Nitra, and although it will shine like a gem on the theatre's repertoire, Zoltán Balázs knows that there is still something to polish.
- We only had one rehearsal a day, as the actors play here every night, but they were very adorable, because we worked a little extra during stolen times in the afternoons. Being an energetic, strong person, I really enjoyed working with this talented team. With the help of Sylvia Huszár, who was my colleague, my interpreter in staging the work, I learned a lot in Slovak, and my dynamism and energy permeated even the safest actor. We didn’t sit at the table for two weeks for analysis, we didn’t chew the putty, we took action right away. Try it, do it, grab it! There was no time to whine, to philosophize, in this system the actor does not have to think about it, here it is necessary to move, to do it, to absorb the situation with its physique and presence, and to put energy into it easily and unnoticed. Seventeen actors play head-to-head, which is certainly strange to the audience here. They are not used to parallel actions, only to single-line things. Seventeen people work here at once and they are lavish in what they offer choreographically.
- "The theater has made a big sacrifice for this performance," says the thirty-three-year-old director. He had to break many rules that were his own. The community cannot do more for a performance, an artistic work than to give up itself and adopt a new style with maximum force, says Zoltán Balázs.
- The actors who play in The Kitchen have come a long way, they haven’t even gotten to where we’re heading together, but they’re already heading in the right direction. Although our joint work ended with the premiere, we are actually starting now. I leave happily, because the company has done a tremendous job, the actors are juggling, braving, but which I am also proud of: they have not betrayed me, they have stood by me all the way, and I know that the performance has a perspective. And not only did they learn, I also gained a lot of experience with them, which I can now turn back into the “common”: to Maladype.
László G. Szabó, Új Szó, 2011
Translation by: Zsuzsanna Juraszek
- Zoltán Balázs, the founder, director and director of the Maladype Theatre in Budapest, who "opened" The Kitchen, Arnold Wesker's piece completed in 1959 at the end of last week with the young team of the Andrej Bagar Theater in Nitra, has been preparing for this work for a long time.
- A few years ago, a great project was born based on the idea of Darina Kárová. Six Central and Eastern European directors were given the opportunity to show something in twenty-five minutes. This had such a reception that Darina asked me to direct the Egg(s)Hell in Nitra. Since they couldn’t finance it later, we performed it at home and we’ve already played the fiftieth performance. However, we didn’t discard the possibility of working together. Ján Greššo, the director of the theater in Nitra, watched several of our performances in Budapest, and seeing the Egg(s)Hell, he said he wanted something like that. I already knew then: that’s not possible, because to do that, actors have to know a lot of things beforehand. A performance like that requires a special language, and even three years wouldn’t be enough for that, not to talk about two months. But I promised that if my time allowed, because my life is very busy, I would come up with something that could offer a very strong teamwork with the actors here.
- And so the choice fell on the piece entitled The Kitchen written by a world-renowned London based author of Hungarian origin on the maternal side.
"This piece has been exciting me for a long time," says Zoltán Balázs. - I did not understand why this is a great success from Amsterdam to Madrid, from Helsinki to Athens, from Paris to Rio de Janeiro, because the situation itself, the plot of the piece is actually very simple. There is a kitchen in a large restaurant where people, chefs and waiters cook and whine together. We can't talk about the development of characters with dramatic weight, the situations are two or three sentences, yet the piece itself puts the company, the actors' nervous system, mental condition and physical abilities to the test. Since now I had two months when I could leave my company safe at home, as Sándor Zsótér directed The marriage of Figaro with them, I said I would undertake. But it has been under planning for two years. Meanwhile, we starred here with the Egg(s)Hell, we had great success, which led the director to that belief that a co-production should be created. However, Fico’s party was not very happy that the Hungarians were about to come last year, so the plan was blown away. But because the theater in Nitra was very adamant that at least the staff would come, I said, until Figaro is born at home, I will work here with my people. Last year I worked in France, then in Timisoara, now here in Nitra, and next year I'm going to Switzerland, but Maladype is always in the first place. However, I also need new impulses, new encounters to make a check-up on my own operation.
- The result of a two-month rehearsing process is The Kitchen in Nitra, and although it will shine like a gem on the theatre's repertoire, Zoltán Balázs knows that there is still something to polish.
- We only had one rehearsal a day, as the actors play here every night, but they were very adorable, because we worked a little extra during stolen times in the afternoons. Being an energetic, strong person, I really enjoyed working with this talented team. With the help of Sylvia Huszár, who was my colleague, my interpreter in staging the work, I learned a lot in Slovak, and my dynamism and energy permeated even the safest actor. We didn’t sit at the table for two weeks for analysis, we didn’t chew the putty, we took action right away. Try it, do it, grab it! There was no time to whine, to philosophize, in this system the actor does not have to think about it, here it is necessary to move, to do it, to absorb the situation with its physique and presence, and to put energy into it easily and unnoticed. Seventeen actors play head-to-head, which is certainly strange to the audience here. They are not used to parallel actions, only to single-line things. Seventeen people work here at once and they are lavish in what they offer choreographically.
- "The theater has made a big sacrifice for this performance," says the thirty-three-year-old director. He had to break many rules that were his own. The community cannot do more for a performance, an artistic work than to give up itself and adopt a new style with maximum force, says Zoltán Balázs.
- The actors who play in The Kitchen have come a long way, they haven’t even gotten to where we’re heading together, but they’re already heading in the right direction. Although our joint work ended with the premiere, we are actually starting now. I leave happily, because the company has done a tremendous job, the actors are juggling, braving, but which I am also proud of: they have not betrayed me, they have stood by me all the way, and I know that the performance has a perspective. And not only did they learn, I also gained a lot of experience with them, which I can now turn back into the “common”: to Maladype.
László G. Szabó, Új Szó, 2011
Translation by: Zsuzsanna Juraszek