 |
Director Andraš URBAN / Urbán András
Movement Deneš DEBREI / Döbrei Dénes
Set Design Zoltan PEROVIČ / Perovics Zoltán
Costume Design Tinde VARGA / Varga Tünde
Music Erne VEREBEŠ / Verebes Ernő
Assistant Director
Robert LENARD / Lénárd Róbert
Premiere:
April 29th 2009 |
|
|
|
CAST |
|
Unknown,
who really is that for a while |
Akoš BUZA / Buza Ákos |
Resetkov,
prison guard, who is Pista according to Black, or who Black thinks is Pista |
Arpad MESAROŠ / Mészáros Árpád |
Resetkov Junior,
the same guard, only a lot younger |
Arpad MESAROŠ / Mészáros Árpád |
Johnnydeppo,
prison warden |
Gabor MESAROŠ / Mészáros Gábor |
Locker,
educator |
Robert LENARD / Lénárd Róbert |
Righteous,
the king of thieves, internal prison master |
Imre-Elek MIKEŠ / Mikes Imre Elek |
Evangelist,
neophyte or missionary |
Danijel GOMBOŠ / Gombos Dániel |
Pearlie,
first ‘lady’ of the prison master |
Zalan GREGUŠ / Greguss Zalán |
Black,
did not fight for this |
Zoltan BALINT / Bálint Zoltán |
Crafty,
has beard like Lenin or Lennon, profane saint and martyr |
Atila URI / Úri Attila |
Dr Mila Blade,
Johnnydeppo’s female alter-ego, handles scalpel well |
Andrea ERDELJ / Erdély Andrea |
Jeanne Gillette,
cannot be excluded she is Dr Mila Blade’s alter ego, handles scalpel well |
Marta BEREŠ / Béres Márta |
Dr Brain,
a likable (even when it is only a) face on the way from the torture room and massive cell scenes, with increasingly less nails, limbs, guts etc, until he disappears, although his leg is similar to frog’s, one never knows |
Zoltan MOLNAR / Molnár Zoltán |
Marushka, older woman |
Marta BEREŠ / Béres Márta |
Magduska, younger woman |
Andrea ERDELJ / Erdély Andrea |
|
|
|
|
| THE 'DEZSŐ KOSZTOLÁNYI' THEATRE - SUBOTICA |
|
|
|
Alternative, experimental, modern and open - this is what characterises the “Kosztolányi Dezső” Theatre from Subotica. The theatre was founded by the local Subotica government in 1994. At first it operated in the building of the Subotica National Theatre. Ferenc Péter and Tibor Szloboda played an important role in its history so far. Since 2006/2007 season András Urbán has been at its head. In November 2006 the theatre opened the new season in its own theatre hall. The ensemble consists of four young actors: Márta Béres, Andrea Erdély, Árpád Mészáros and Imre Elek Mikes. They gave five premiers: The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, Dracula - The Brightness of a Moment, Tangoby S. Mrožek, Five for Two, Dénes Döbrei) and Heni Varga, The Hardcore Machineby Brecht, which premiered in Berlin. The 2007/2008 season has seen premiere performances of: Urbi et orbi by János Pilinszky, The True Nature of Love by Brad Fraser, The Last Temptation of the Lambby Andor Szilágy, The Collector byJohn Fowles, A Curve of Death (after the drama by Otto Tolnai), Turbo Paradiso (after the short story Encyclopaedia of the Dead by D. Kiš), Happy Lunatics by Zsolt Pozsgai. During this season the ensemble has been invited to the 58th Festival of Professional Theatres of Vojvodina (Zrenjanin), 53rd Sterijino Pozorje, Festival “POSZT” (Pécs), INFANT (Novi Sad), “THEALTER” (Szeged), “SZIGET” Festival (Budapest). During the 2006/2007 season the theatre initiated a programme series ‘Streetcar Desiré’ (Desiré villamosa), a unique project in Vojvodina. The aim of the project is to present theatrical and related productions Vojvodinian audiences have not had a chance to see and to introduce recognised national and Hungarian artists. The programme has included mainly alternative theatrical productions and theatre of movement performances, and organised literary evenings and concerts. The theatre wants to provide a space for young artists of Vojvodina. Since October 2007 it provides simultaneous translation into Serbian. |
|
|
P E R F O R M A N C E...... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is a prison story I started writing after being encouraged by Karoly Vicsek. I am, luckily, not familiar with this prison world, I don’t have that kind of experience. The feeling of being enclosed, however, is present in me, and it is so characteristic of our time. Here prison primarily means the kind of space for play that corresponds to the stage space. Thus it is a modern prison of our time. If I tried to come up with its most accurate accord, it would be the loss of moving space, which is one of the most important characteristics of our time. A sort of claustrophobia, therefore. The action takes place with a few parallel threads, one attempting to present some kind of prison story. Next to it flows a story about the expectance of the president, which, of course, does not take place. The other thread is a story about a drunken sailor who tries to walk on the frozen sea in order to reach his lost ship, but he comes to this prison island. There he is entangled in the barbed wire, and in that dark world he becomes the only bright spot. In the first version of the text, I named him electric Jesus. Something also happens in the prison itself, of course, the story about the relationship between the prison commander and the officer-educator is dominant. That story draws a parallel with theatre. The two of them try to build in the prison a kind of reformation system that would prove prisons are the most important pillars of the establishment. Creative work in this case also ennobles the soul, and it offers some kind of survival strategy.
 Istvan BESZEDES |
|
|
|
S E L E C T O R ' S...R E P O R T...... |
|
|
|
|
The play was made after the contemporary text by István Beszédes
(an author from Senta), a fragmentary, absurd, philosophical drama
with elements of an extremely grotesque, surrealist humor. The story
takes place in a prison, and a few stories are interwoven: arrival of the
president is awaited, there is an appearance of Unknown whom everyone
considers a Messiah (but it turns out he is a drunken helmsman),
a theatre play is prepared etc. These narrative currents provide a frame
for different discussions – about the meaning of existence, innocence,
sin, guilt, passage of time, corporality and spirituality, punishment,
the function and esthetics of theatre, power etc. The directorial reading
of Beszedes’s text is rather specific, the form of the play is complex
and unusual, and, therefore, significant for the development of stage
language in our theatre. Technology is used for multiple purposes in
the play (video broadcast, microphones), which has numerous meanings
on the formal and conceptual level. That sort of radical technologisation
and theatralisation dissolves the theatrical mechanism and
indirectly poses questions about the relationship between the live and
mediated play, nature of live as well as media-translated performance.
On the level of meaning, this is how questions about societal supervision and control are initiated, also about the alienation of a human
being, in circumstances of a huge influence of technology and new
media in society. For this type of contemporary theatre, about which
one could say it belongs to a post-dramatic expression (as Hans Thies
Lehmann defined it), it is common for viewers to be exposed to multiple,
simultaneous images and actions in different media. This creates
a diffusion of their focus, requires a more serious, more active, more
dedicated interpretation of the play. This type of expression destroys
the foundations of the theatric approach that assumes the creation
of illusion and identification with characters. Changes in the use of
media, genre and style of performance in Sardinia require from the
audience an interpretation based on understanding the connection
between different sources and materials, and not an emotional reaction.
This de-hierarchisation of theatrical means contradicts the tradition
that aspired to abolish the confusion and to establish harmony
and understanding. It also means abolishing the classical esthetic ideal
of an organic connection between elements, and it leads to the attention
to the individual and the whole at the same time. The audience
is supposed to be left (partly) confused, so they would interpret and
create their own structures of meaning more actively. Because of the
requirement for an increased audience activity in the process of interpreting
actions on the stage, this radical break with the traditional
dramatic linearity includes a certain socio-political engagement, no
matter how debatable and porous that term might be in these times
of various (post) post-isms.
Ana TASIĆ |
|
|
D
I
R
E
C
T
O
R |
|
 |
A
N
D
R
A
S
U
R
B
A
N |
|
|
ANDRAŠ URBAN / Urbán András
Born in 1970 in Senta. As a 17-year old, he created an independent theatric and literary workshop (he was the author, director and actor). Later he formed the theatre Aiowa, which treated theatre as a specific, but still all-art ideological action.
He enrolled in the Novi Sad Academy of Arts, studied film and theatre direction, directed in Subotica National Theatre. In the mid-90s, he abandoned his studies and theatre work, and lived in privacy for years.
He graduated direction in 2000, in the class of Prof. Vlatko Gilić and Bora Drašković, and started working intensely in theatre again. With the support of the Szeged MASZK and his own ensemble, he created “independent” theatre plays. He is the founder of the international theatre festival Desiré Central Station. He worked in Novi Sad and Belgrade, led art workshops in Romania, traveled on a study trip to Japan. Since 2005, he has been the director of the Hungarian City Theatre Dezso Kostolanyi in Subotica.
He looks at theatre as an enlightened place of occasional provocative action, where a specific aspect of art reality is thought, spoken and organised.
The play is for him communication and the other reality existing for itself, but it is created in the relationship between the performer, performed reality and the viewer. He directs through an interactive communication with the actor.
Directions (selection): own projects Lizards, Dew; G. Buchner Woyzeck; Shakespeare, Hamlet, Dejan Dukovski, Fuck Him, He Started It First; F. Arrabal, Picnic on the Battlefront; Jordan Radičkov, Lazarica (Balkanstage Bulgaria); Janos Pilinski/Urban, Children; Beckett, Waiting for Godot; Sylvia Plath/Urban, The Girl Who Barked at the Moon; Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew; Brecht, the Hardcore Machine (Berlin); D. Kovačević, Sabirni centar; Danilo Kiš, Turbo Paradiso (after the Encyclopedia of the Dead).
Short Films: Someone and Someone, Glass (AU Novi Sad–TV Novi Sad); As If We Didn’t Exist (AU Novi Sad)
Partisan from the Dawn, short stories, zEtna
Prizes and Awards: First Prize at the Festival of Small and Experimental Stages in Pančevo, Special Prize of the Bitef Jury (Wojzeck, Hamlet), Prize for Direction and for Innovations at the Inspection of Alternative Theatres in Szeged, Award by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture for theatric creation Jászai Mari, Sterija Prize of the Round Table at the 53rd Pozorje 2008 (Urbi et orbi), Prize of the Infant Festival for the best play (Brecht the hardcore machine), award for best director at the Festival Fortress, award Pro urbe of the City of Subotica. |
|
|
|
|
We are talking about prisons. Finally, a piece we named Sardinia, takes place on a prison island, I like to mention this text as a libretto. In itself it is very characteristic, with “speaking” turns, interweaving. It talks about the world rushing into an unusual absurdity that is, in itself, very witty. Although this is an abstracted place, in the language sense the text is a very exciting adventure. I would like the rehearsal for this piece to take place as a free day-dreaming. I approached this piece as a sort of operetta. We will talk about this play that, beside its puns, intellectual wit, expresses very intimate, humane moments. Starting with all the horrors of this mean world, to the fact that prisoners listen to the voices of whales in their sleep. This is the kind of poetic world we are trying to approach with contemporary theatric means.
Andras URBAN |
|
|
A
U
T
H
O
R |
|
 |
I
S
T
V
A
N
B
E
S
Z
E
D
E
S |
|
|
IŠTVAN BESEDEŠ / Beszédes István
Born 1961, poet, translator, editor. Organiser of the Youth Cultural Centre in Senta (1986-89), editor-in-chief of the journal Új Symposion (1989–1991), founder and editor of the on-line magazine and publishing house zEtna (http://www.zetna.org, od 1999). Author of three poetry collections Kívánja-e a pirosat? / Would You Like Red?,1988; Égviziséta, déli tükör / A Walk on the Heavenly Waters, Mirror of the South, 1997; Messziről Andromeda / From Afar, Andromeda, 2007), a collection of play in verse for children (Rozsdaszín / The Gold of the Land Rotten on the address http://www.zetna.org/zek/konyvek/98/index.html], 2006) and prose collection (Napkitörés / Solar Eruption, 2008). Winner of the 1st Regional playwright competition in Szeged (2008). |
|
|
|
|
Postdramatic Plays
(...) Realised after a contemporary text by Istvan Beszedes, the play Sardinia can be defined as post-dramatic… This is some kind of absurdly comic musical that deals with a series of important questions about politics, religion, ethics and theatre esthetics. The narration is here also fragmentary, a few plots taking place in a prison are interwoven.
Technology is used in the play in an intelligent and multi-meaningful way (microphones, video-broadcasts). Four monitors directly broadcast the plot taking place on the stage, the one visible to the audience, as well as another the audience does not see. This procedure is stimulating on both the formal and conceptual level. Implicitly questions are posed about the relationship between the live and mediated performance, through teatralisation that dissolves the theatric mechanism. This causes reflections about social supervision and control, faceless Orwellian/Kafkian totalitarianism, as well as about alienation of man in the circumstances of general teatralisation produced by a media context. The stage also represents some sort of bizarre weight-room, thus, self-ironically defining the problem of the importance of the body in society that deforms spiritual potentials (set design Zoltan Perovič). Actors play quite theatrically, in accordance with Brecht’s ironic, distanced, analytical, completely stylised directorial concept (Erdely, Meszaros, Mikes, Robert Lenard, Gabor Meszaros, Zoltan Molnar, Attila Uri, Zoltan Balint, Akos Buza).
The play Sardinia is a little unusual in Urban’s work up till now, because of the choice of genre – techno/comical musical, but it possesses all authentic values of Urban’s directorial poetics: sensuality, lucid stylisation, strange imagination, charming, sometimes childishly honest humour. And this complex, luxurious form of the play is not its own goal, but it gives a frame for challenging interpretation of the position of the contemporary man, painfully stretched between the cold, alienating techno reality and the essential, already desperate need for finding the meaning of life, trampled by the facelessness of new social circumstances.
Ana TASIĆ, Politika, December 27th. 2009 |
|
|
|
|
