SUMMARIES
LIGHTCURTAIN (FÉNYFÜGGÖNY)
suddenly I became fed-up with postmodernism: The Polish
dramatist Tadeusz Slobodzianek visited Budapest for the Hungarian-Polish
dramaturgy symposium. In the interview he gave to Tünde Troján, he talkes
about the traditions of his motherland coming to life in the world of
his dramas (Pearoller, Czar Nicholas, Prophet Ilja). Slobodzianek was
born and spent his childhood in Bialystok, a multinational city and
meeting point of Eastern and Western Christianity. Having finished his
studies in Cracow he returned to his birth-place where he took part
in the foundation of Wierszalin Theatre, the artistic program of which
consisted in revealing the cultural and religious roots of the region.
After several successful productions, Slobodzianek looks for new directions
and works with other theaters. He also directs his own TV- and screen-plays.
(p.4.)
looking at oneself: László L. Szigeti wrote a report
on the Polish-Hungarian dramaturgy symposium held in Budapest, at the
end of which he refers to a relationship-forming training organized
by Grotowski - a highly definitive experience for the author, - since
it would have been to the advantage of the symposium's participants
if they had paid more attention to each other. On the two-day long meeting
the main problems of contemporary theatre and playwrighting were discussed,
such as the impatient public consuming electronic media, the lack of
a new playwright generation, and the estrangement of literature and
theatre. Following 1989,the social role of theatre has changed fundamentally
in the Eastern European countries and it will take a long period to
adapt itself to the new situation. It's striking that while Polish and
Hungarian theatres face very similar problems, the Hungarian speakers
(e.g. György Spiró playwright, István Nánay critic) were much more pessimistic
concerning possible solutions than their Polish counterparts. Besides
the problems, dramaturgist Dorota Jovanka Cirlić mentioned positive
examples too, such as the theatre of Waldemar Diuk in Zakopane. On the
other hand, what others regard as symptoms of a deep ideological crisis,
Tadeusz Slobodzianek sees as practical problems surmountable by simple
hard work. For him the theatre - even in this changing world, - has
remained what it had been before: a rite of initiation, communal experience.
(p.5.)
on the spiritual roller-coaster: Tsss's critiques concern
the two performances of the Slovensko Mladinsko Gledalią c e (Young
Slovenian Scene), a group invited to the Third Műcsarnok Festival. He
felt that A Place I Have Never Been-directed by Matja® Pograjc- was
unsuccessful because the elaboration was poor in ideas. Climbing and
hanging on a metal pole construction, the actors attempt to perform
the inner life of a closed community, but unfortunately fail to communicate
with the audience. On the other hand, the author praises the serious
artistic accomplishment of the play Silence, Silence, Silence... - directed
by Vito Taufer,- and likens it to a spiritual roller-coaster that enriches
the audience with poetic horror and ever renewing psychic experiences,
for the strongly visualized scenes almost provide a catalogue of the
basic existence-situations. (p.6.)
"alter-figures" wrapped and naked: Rita Abody gives
her opinions on the other two theatre performances of the Third Műcsarnok
Festival. The Cosmos Kolej Company arrived from France; director Wladyslaw
Znorko was born in Poland. Discourse about mannequins is a performance
with strong Eastern European characteristics, regarding both its theme
and its style. The production was based on a short story of Bruno Schulz
and attempted to respect his spirituality. The audience sits around
the stage and watches it through hanging old windows while the scene
turns into a shop, a shelter, or a train according to the development
of the story. Typical Eastern European characters can be seen in war-scenes,
a subject that has been permanently characteristic of Eastern Europe.
Perhaps the performance is rather didactic, but the gesture of the actors
offering food and drink to the audience at the end of the show creates
- in any case - a pleasant atmosphere. The Italian La Societas Raffaello
Sanzio doesn't treat the audience so nicely but it's performance yields
a deeper experience. In the show about the story of Julius Ceasar based
on Shakespeare and Seneca, director Romeo Castelucci applies a highly
complex theatrical language. Besides the strong stage-effects (battering
ram swinging above the audience, live horse, all sorts of machinery)
he employs actors who shape their roles by making use of their extreme
physical features. Not only very fat and very thin, nude actors appear
on the stage, but also one without a larynx who can only whisper on
a hoarse voice. The Italian performance looks for the aesthetical in
every shocking and frightening thing, thereby placing the literary material
into a completely new context. (p.7.)
body prayer: The English Rambert Dance Company guest-performed
in Hungary. Concerning their program Kinga Sáfrány points out that it
has a very interesting way of reforming classical ballet, mixing it's
technique with elements of other contemporary dance-styles. It is a
common feature of the three pieces performed (Petite Mort, Stream, Rooster)
that eroticism plays an important role in them, which - suggests the
author, - can be accounted for as being the presentation of the man-woman
relationship on a psychoanalytic basis. In the Rambert Company's performances,
playfulness is combined with serious, almost ritual sensuality; we see
the close connection of death-wish and sexual desire (as sketched by
Freud) being realized on stage. The last piece is especially a real
treat: in that choreographer Christopher Bruce adapted modern rock music
(Rolling Stones) to a variation of the Don Juan-motive. (p.8.)
Humphrey Bogart in kolozsvár: Katalin Vincellér's article
is about the peculiar, though less successful endeavour of the Mozgóház
Társulás (Moving-Hause Group).The Plan Sequence Danse is theatre and
film at the same time: it grasps the theatricality of shooting (especially
that of the long setting).The troupe is waiting for the director at
the first Hungarian film-studio, among them Mihály Kertész who - later
in America - became world-famous as the director, among others, of Casablanca.
The actors haven't seen a motion-picture camera yet, they discover it
for themselves playfully and begin shooting immediately. The audience
can see simultaneously on the projector the film being made and the
shooting itself, that is, how much reality differs from what is finally
recorded on the celluloid. The spectator is in a difficult situation
insofar as he should pay attention at more than one thing, while the
performance yields no directions regarding when and where to it is most
worthwhile to turn our attention. It is also a problem that the basic
idea - great as it is, - does not in itself fill the performance in
its full length, the tricks of film-making remain in the foreground
throughout, and the story itself is not interesting enough. (p.9.)
semi-dry, quality clown-joke: We may read Sándor Lajos's
compilation about Csaba Méhes, who "celebrated the tenth anniversary
of his first stage-appearance with a 'one-person festival' (in Budapest
MU Theatre). He celebrates like an old man, although he's only thirty-two,
and my impression is that we're not at the end, but rather, at the very
beginning of something and we may expect lots of surprise from him."
"When I was a child I was crazy about circus, especially clowns. After
a while, however, I realized that I was bored with them and that I saw
only embarassment in what the many stumpy-noses and big-shoes did and
they took us to be stupid. They think I'd laugh at any foolish joke.
Many times, what they do hurts already, so much so that I could think
the trouble is with me: I've grown old or become disappointed, etc.
Yet, Csaba Méhes is the proof for not being so. I'm laughing in tears
seeing him. It's not me who is taken to be stupid but clown and audience
together, both of us are stupid. Csaba Méhes follows the most noble
tradition of clowns, what's more, he developes it into a theatre, a
more complex formation. Meanwhile it is humour itself that saves him
from the 'violet', overcomplicated manner spreding more and more in
avant-garde-alternative circles." (p.11.)
avant-garde at hargita: The Figura Stúdió, a Hungarian
troupe working in Gyergyószentmiklós, Transylvania, has been in Budapest
for a study-tour. They have participated in different courses and visited
nine theatre performances. Sándor Lajos assembled a mosaic from the
opinions of the Studio's young actors about the performances they've
seen, and he also reviews the history of this small minority theater
- founded fourteen years ago - based on conversations with the members
of the company. Figura Studio is the smallest of the seven Hungarian
theatres in Transylvania, operates in a difficult financial situation,
trying to foster the traditions of Hungarian culture but also to experiment
in an innovative direction, occasionally along the lines of utterly
avant-garde ambitions. (p.12.)
the other face of bulgarian theater: In our series
Messzelátó we endeavour to give some information about a selected country's
most recent and most interesting avant-garde/alternative/fringe theatre-trends,
with the help of an expert. At first, Gergana Geteva (editor of the
Sofian periodical Teatr) gives coverage on subjects such as who is in
the limelight in Bulgaria, what kind of tendencies are discernable in
Bulgarian theatre life. In an overall review she mentions the Sfoumato
Theatrical Workshop, which works in the spirit of Grotowski and Barba,
the experiments of Boyko Bogdanov, the solitary art of Marius Kourkinsky,
and also the internationally known Credo Theatre, Stroke Theatre, and
Amarant Dance Studio Formation. (p.13.)
FRONTLINE (FRONTVONAL)
the wicked draughtsssssssman: We may watch/read the
"black-and-white" story - titled Left - right/one - two- of the Serbian
picture-story drawer Aleksandar Zograf, together with an intimate Zograf-review
of our "picture-story-fan" author Tsss. "Zograf collects dreams: he
draws lucid, hynogogic, dreep dream stories from the experiences of
his friends, his mistress, and his own. These are sad, oppressive visions
that are hard to forget, like the first beating and the last hug." (p.17.)
torture garden - or else szergej departs: Szabolcs
T. writes: "Where the body of another ends, where your's only just begins,
there one finds the Garden of Torture, a dream of the two TG brothers
Allan and David, the fetish and body art club conjured in London, October
1990, where even the pregnant Barbie would abort from the sheer spectacle.
On an honoured day of each month, it is here that the ones outcasted
from their bodies or closed up in it excessively meet. (...) with a
fine and slobbery grumbling, only for this one night turns most of them
into that against which they had been warned by the family, into a wolf-man,
a satyr, a satire, a western witch. There are typical and archetypal
creatures of every kind here. Moral and political rules are violated
here, the inertia-system of the outside world becomes mixed up, but
not that of the inner world." (p.18.)
a simple opera: On the 27th of January, 1998, Ben Patterson
invaded the Műcsarnok with the support of our collective subconscious.
Under the pseudonym FMR, our co-worker reports from the spot. "Ben Patterson
was born in Pittsburgh, in 1934.In 1960 he moved to Cologne, where he
became a pioneer of the radical contemporary music scene. In Wiesbaden,
together with George Maciunas, he organized the remarkable International
Fluxus Festival in 1962, of which he remained a significant figure till
the early seventies when he withdrew in favour of living an "everyday
life". For more than 17 years he hasn't taken part actively in artistic
life, yet, he appeared occasionally on events like the 20th birthday
of the Fluxus in Wiesbaden, or the 1983 Biennial in Saő Paolo. He made
his come-back in 1988 by the exhibition called Everyday Life. From 1992
he lives in Germany, again." The last action of the special collective
performance was the completion of one of Ben Patterson's own piece of
art: "Ben expresses his conviction that having got familiar with the
taste of his art we should make an original Ben Patterson composition
with the use of fineliner and paper, which - in case it reaches proper
standard, - he obviously signs. About that standard he wishes to give
no comment, however, it is certain - considering the 60 pounds fineliners
at him,- that Ben is a sub/supraconscious fineliner agent." (pp.19-20.)
BATH-WATER (FÜRDŐVÍZ)
To get to the whole through the parts: "In our new
column we wish to consider such a part of the human document which has
as its (not even hidden) goal the unity of present and future with the
past, so that they don't diverge. This document is the photography.(...)
The photo is a way for us that -being teared from reality- leads toward
new knowledge and the 'stretching' of imagination into infinity. According
to H.-C. Bresson one has to think before and after taking photographs.
That way the photographer participates unwillingly in the discoveries,
in the early perception of mysteries, and is able to show the world
in a way that has not been known before. The first guest of the BATH-WATER
column is Bruno Bourel who arrived in Budapest from Paris. The lights
of the city and the people made him to stay here. His working method
is clean and extremely simple. The other guest of ours is Zsolt Birtalan,
a photographer living in Budapest. The pictures presented here were
taken by him in Paris and in New York, between 1995 and 1997." In this
column we may read writings on photo, picture, "atmospheres of mediums",
the conceivable and the inconceivable, from the pens of Zsolt Birtalan,
and Attila Ara-Kovács. (pp.21-28)
PHOTONGRAPH (FOTONGRÁF)
The ghost of experiment: Sándor Kiss summarizes his
thoughts on the experimental and short films shown at the 29th Hungarian
Film Festival. The article is a melancholic and highly descriptive analyses
of a "movie-feeling" that has fallen into its pieces. Altogether, it's
a sad piece of writing about the Festival, mentioning a few names of
talented upcoming artists. (p.29.)
black'n white glassballs: "The rap is spinning, needle
in the vein, gun in the pocket. Brooklyn - New York - America. Subculture
- multiculture. Whites - blacks - racism. Wealthy-poor. A film about
poverty, drug, music, black America." Rita Abody and László L. Szigeti
wrote about the black director Vondie Curtis Hall's fisrt film Gridlock'd,
that will soon appear in the Budapest cinemas. It "(...) presents the
'soil' from which music springs. Exciting and of high standard; but
facile, pretty, and rainbow-like compared to reality." The leading role
is played by the legendary and tragic-fated Tupac Shakur. "All in all,
the film is far less tragic than its real background. It is light, humorous,
and somewhat naive, by no means lies heavy on the stomach, yet, it stirs
the heart and the mind.(...) Here and now we can't describe how important
the subcultures are and how much chance they have to enter into high
culture. But this film has a chance to do so." (pp.30-31)
picturetricks: Gábor Gelencsér's writing on documentary
- on the occasion of the 29th Hungarian Film Festival, too, - follows
up the metamorphosises of Hungarian documentarism from primitive-film
to television worldnet. His starting point is the dilemma that "the
film is a reproduction of reality", meanwhile all that we see is the
endproduct of a series of decisions made by the man behind the camera.
Within our media-galaxy at the door of the third millennium it has become
difficult to tell reality from the elements of fiction. "We've replaced
our windows to the world by monitor screens", our eyes function as cameras
do. But what is the role of the demand to record reality continuously
at the end of the twentieth century when the transvestites of this artistic
form, namely, pseudo-documentaries, have already made their appearance?
(pp.32-33) We'll never die: Zsolt Sőrés writes about how death rises
again in Alien 4, a "mixture" of a Hollywood black-and-white monster
story and the dark, morbid, European shiver. A real optimist utopia,
in which the hero returns to the ecologically recovered Earth. In Alien
4 the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet reinforces the strange and weird atmosphere
so typical of his earlier works. We may also learn from the article
about the special procedure applied to create a visual world that evokes
the future regarding colours and picture-definition. (pp.34-35.)
jean-jaCques lebel exhibition - anthology (from works of young
artists): Preliminary review is published about the upcoming
exhibitions of the Contemporary Art Museum/Ludwig Museum Budapest. A
monumental retrospective show of the world-famous and versatile artist
Jean-Jacques Lebel will be open between 2. April and 10. May, featuring
the works of Lebel from the sixties onwards. A collective exhibition
titled Anthology can be seen during Budapest Spring Festival (19. March
-19. April), the participants of which are mainly young artists in their
thirties. Although mostly painting is concerned, the show restricts
neither artisitc form nor technique. Simultaneously with the show, a
volume will appear with the title Anthology, containing works from writers
of similar age. (pp.36-37.)
WHITE NOISE (FEHÉR ZAJ)
ACCORD-conjuring - Notation-pursuit: This article is
about the Fourth Pause-Sign International Festival of Improvisational
Music, held in MU Theatre Budapest, in December 1997. It comprises two
bodies of text communicating with each other -both written in the spirit
of the experimental musical event, - the authors of which are the young
writer and critic Zsolt Székelyhidi and one of the participating musicians.
We may read evaluations of the concerts and workshops, but also inner
comments and reflections on the spontaneous, yet extremely complex practice
of improvisation. By expanding the very art of critique, these texts
aim at sketching the spirit of metamusical-improvisational functioning
that brings about individual aesthetical situations. (pp.38-39)
SZEMZŐ - ISLAND: On the occasion of the new, upcoming
CD (titled Relative Things) of the composer Tibor Szemző, the author
Attila Ürmös discusses the composer's different activity areas and the
more important metaphors of his artistic career,- e.g. that of the "island",
which is to signify the lonely man living both linguistically and psychologically
in the midst of a community, the mysterious deserted island, and Szemző's
own independent artistic stance within the domestic professional field.
In this short interview Szemző gives his opinion on the relationship
of action-art and music, textual narration, repetitive music, but also
on great thinkers and artists who influenced him as a composer and performer,
such as the Hungarian Béla Hamvas, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Joseph Beuys.
(p.40) Energynoise and spaceturbulence (Noise EssaY): From the pen of
Zsolt Sőrés we publish an essay (titled Energynoise and spaceturbulence)
on the aesthetics of experimental noise-music. The present issue contains
the first part of his text, the remaining parts will be published subsequently.
The author starts out with two main topics: the first is the research
into hyperspace-energynoise, began by Nikola Tesla and Henry Moray,
the theory of which intends to restore - from the viewpoint of art:
through the allegory of "noise" taken from the context of the theory
- the harmony between man and cosmos. The other viewpoint is the sketching
of the different branches and activity areas of today's noise-music,
following the trends of electromagnetically produced music during the
past decades. The author, himself a practicing experimentalist musician,
attempts to bring close for the reader the aesthetics of one of the
most avant-garde musical and performance activity area by employing
peculiar, sometimes even shocking viewponts in his analysis. (p.41)
Black noise: Within the White noise column, under the
title Black noise, we start to offer recommendations regarding records:
eight short critiques are included about new or recently published recordings
by Morton Feldman (USA), John Zorn (USA), Eugene Chadbourne (USA),Rune
Lindblad (Sweden), Mats Gustafsson (Sweden), the Ersbline (Switzerland),
the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble (England), as well as CD-anthologies
of the Sound Off (Slovakia) and the Crossing Borders (Holland). This
inner column aims at making the reader acquainted with the current directions
of experimental and avant-garde music and their borderlines. (pp.42-43)
