Independence and freedom – although they go hand in hand and neither can exist without the other, they are, of course, not the same concepts. Independence is a conscious effort, a choice, the reward for which is the state of freedom. To achieve it, strong will and faith are necessary. According to the Bhagavad-gita, the most sacred book of Hinduism, a person’s essence is defined by their faith; what one believes in, that is what one becomes. We spoke with Ágota Szilágyi at the Frank Zappa Café.

- Timișoara, Novi Sad, Budapest. 3 companies, 3 countries, 3 audiences. Having gained significant experience, she made the switch. What does the Maladype offer that’s different?

- I would start at the beginning. After finishing college, I went straight to Timișoara. At that time, it didn’t even occur to me that I might not have a job, although this risk certainly loomed over us – it wasn’t because of excessive confidence, but the belief that this was meant for me, so it couldn’t be any other way. I stayed in Timișoara for 3 years. You buy your first fridge, start settling in, get a cat, lay the foundations for your life. I felt like it was still too early to leave, because there was so much more waiting for me. Then, through Sándor László, who was then the director of the Novi Sad Theatre and frequently directed at the Timișoara theatre, came an opportunity. He first invited me to play in The Master and Margarita, which ended up with me staying for 4 years. During that time, a lot changed both in me and around me. I worked with many wonderful colleagues, had important roles, but at some point, I started feeling uncomfortable. At first, I couldn’t explain to myself what this bad feeling stemmed from, and I hoped it would pass, since I was performing a lot, I wasn’t on the bench, so I had no reason to worry. But then one day I sat down with myself and thought about the roles I had. I wrote down the characteristics of those characters: a suicidal wife who returns as a ghost after her death, neurotic figures, women who are angry and desperate. I must have some desire for downfall in me, because the roles don’t find you by accident, but I know that I also have another, more playful side. I would like to be a clown, an angel, and many other things too. Over time, I lost my sense of playfulness, the very thing that makes this worthwhile. I wanted to get back my lightness. That’s when Maladype came into the picture. I met Zoli (Balázs Zoltán – editor) during my Timișoara years, when he was directing The return of Ulysses. That’s when he invited Erika Tankó to Budapest. For me, it was a huge encounter; he was the director who dared to take risks. Normally, directors play it safe: they look at the actors, evaluate their skills, and based on that, try to assemble what they want. But Zoli, on the other hand, dares to use people in ways they’ve never been used before. Erika is a perfect example of this, and I also got to show a side of myself that I consider important. Intelligence, playfulness, and femininity. After Zoli left Timișoara, I stayed in constant dialogue with him. I fed off our encounters for years. I think if a director makes sure his actors stand straight, it’s a huge thing. It may seem simple and banal, but Zoli understands that if someone holds themselves upright, their thoughts also open up, and from that point on, the actor represents a new human quality. I longed for a continuation of the work we started. When I was starting to give up on it, Zoli came to see me in West Side Story, which we were performing in Budapest at the time. I will never forget, as I was walking offstage toward the dressing room, and I saw him waiting in the café. Joy and surprise. I hugged him, and his second sentence was, "What if you worked with Maladype?" I couldn’t believe my ears. I came.

- What do you contribute to Maladype?

- We’ll find out in a week, at the premiere of Exercises in style. Queneau creates a seemingly banal story, told in various styles. Zoli chose the path where we perform the texts in the style of different film directors. We rehearse a lot, and there were open rehearsals where the audience participated as actors, dramaturgs, and directors. Now, we’re in the final stretch. One thing that Maladype got from me is that I am very musical, which is no accident – Zoli first invited me to audition for Egmont. Music and singing, for some reason, calm me down. Somehow, I get closer to myself through it. From this calmness, I can give much more.

- Looking back at your years in Timișoara and Novi Sad, they were successful – you won the Best Actress of the Season and Best Supporting Actress awards.

- At the Professional Theatres’ Meeting in Vojvodina, I won the Best Supporting Actress Award for my role as Beate in Rosmersholm (Ibsen, 2012). In Timișoara, I received the Best Actress of the Season awards (2009 and 2010) and the Pro Cultura Timisiensis Award (2011), and the Best Actress award in Kisvárda for my performances in Fanny and Alexander and Good Night, Mama! (2012).

- After such successes, isn’t switching to a new path risky?

- I am characterized by restlessness, by continuous searching. In repertory theatres, an actor can get by for a long time by polishing the image they want to create of themselves. I wanted to find out what I can do, and what I can’t – clearly, honestly. If needed, I reset myself to find this out. Zoli found me suitable for this. Going back to repertory theatres, the puzzle is so large that the details need to be aligned by the theatre leaders, so very often, individual development doesn’t even come into play, and one can’t get a role. Not because they don’t want to, but because there’s no space for it. At Maladype, there are four actors and a company leader-director – and attention. Zoli knows how to give attention. In theatre, I can endure a lot, even criticism, if it’s for my benefit, but if I’m not being paid attention to, that’s very hard for me to live with, but here, I get it fully. I believe attention has a creative power.

- In the past, during the time of Altamira and her companions, at the birth of the arts, the needs of the community were directly served. Tribe and family members participated together in dance, magic, and rituals. In repertory theatres, this directness can’t be fully manifested. I’ve spoken a lot with jazz musicians. They play in small clubs, rarely in arenas. In clubs, they breathe together with the audience, every little movement immediately appears in the performance (and vice versa), but in monumental spaces, there’s little opportunity for that. From this perspective, the repertory theatre is an arena, while Maladype is more like a club – a place for tribal rituals. We’ve come back to the birth of the arts.

- For the first time, I feel in a theatre’s relationship that this is a cause for me, that I am very connected to it, that I have a mission in this regard. We do everything. We wash our own clothes, build the sets, clean the base, often write the text, compose the music. The building blocks of creation come together in this way – it’s very personal, and not just in these physical tasks but also in striving for personal expression. Even when we work with Goethe or Schiller texts, through them, I express my own cause, my personal task on stage, in front of you, the audience. This is what makes Maladype Maladype. It’s good you mentioned jazz because the freedom in that music, and the use of the moment, allowing the moment to pass through you and speak from it, is something that’s very much present in our theatre. It reacts to the “now,” it speaks from that, not from something pre-made, because that would only be a copy of something.

- Egmont begins with a melody borrowed from Evita, which in your performance is very strong and passionate. Some periods of Argentina’s history remind me of pre-1990 Romania. You were still very young then, so you wouldn’t have many memories of it. Still, can this strong vocal expression in Egmont be nourished by childhood influences?

- I mostly have memories of how cold it was, how we almost froze in school. The teacher would make us do exercises to warm up, and then after two or three hours, she would send us home. I mostly remember the atmosphere. They could take the electricity at any time, but the candle was always there in the drawer. Children always see the world differently – it was magical to have dinner by candlelight. My parents could tell you more about bad memories. We were still very little. In Evita, the “I chose freedom” thought is important to me. This connects to the performance that Zoli Balázs will create in May, called I Chose Freedom. I chose freedom when I came to Maladype – I sing it in the song. It’s wonderful to open the window in Egmont and share that with the people at Mikszáth Square.

Note: I Chose Freedom is a book by Viktor Kravchenko, and it will be published by the Maladype Theatre Public Benefit Association in April 2015, during the Budapest International Book Festival. The book will be adapted into a theatre production, which will be presented as a “one-man manifesto” in Zoltán Balázs’ direction. The Kravchenko trial and book form the basis of the Maladype's extensive theatre education program, The Kravchenko Case.

Deák Márkus Gábor, lexi.hu, 2014.

Translation by Zsuzsanna Juraszek