- They say youngsters are the harshest critics. Are you afraid?
Not really. I've attended quite a few question-and-answer sessions with secondary school students when touring with the Krétakör Theatre. It's not only about them being critical, because I ask some questions too. Like what they perceived in the text, what was interesting for them and what was boring. I don't mind if they don't like something, it's actually quite educational. I've realised that they decode very differently than we 35- to 40-year-olds. Even students in classes specialising in theatre do not have much of a reference for the theatre, rather much more for film. But even Viktor Bodó and his contemporaries think this way: they direct plays utilising their knowledge about film. The performances are quite film-like, packed with associations, soundtracks and videos.
- As a member of the Krétakör Theatre, you mostly work with Árpád Schilling. Does he also have this film-like approach?
- He is a borderline case. The text is important to him, which is a classic director's approach, but he often has a film-like vision. Strong images on stage often come when the directors "write" the play. I have worked in something like that, for instance in Mycountymycountry. The director served the ball and I had to receive it: make it into a text. Still, I am mostly interested in the language, a contemporary text in antique form, for instance in the case of Phaedra and the Moliere-text in Finito. As a counter-effect to the director's theatre, this has existed in Germany for some time: a seemingly rigid and non theatre-like play text, for instance in the case of Schimmelpfennig. János Térey's dramatic poems are in the same vein in Hungary.
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- Why have you picked Finito for the discussion at the school in Óbuda?
- Because they can see it at the festival, performed by the Örkény Theatre. If it would be completely up to me, I would perhaps choose instead my latest play, Transit. The Zalaegerszeg theatre commissioned the play and I have been writing it in verse-form, in iambic hexameter. I am still working on it, chiselling it out.
- How does such a commission work? Do they say: write something for us but make sure you are finished by December? Or do they say, please write a play about the mating of pigeons? Maybe, our main actress Maca needs a good leading role?
- Berci Bagó told me to write a play for the big stage, possibly with a large number of characters in it. Of course, it is important to have good communication with the troupe at times like this. The play is set in an airport transit hall, after an emergency landing. It is a contemporary situation, written in blank verse, in iambic hexameter. Dramas by the ancient Greeks and by Shakespeare were written in this form and I only recently realised that it was also the form for (Imre Madách's) The Tragedy of Man. This is the metric form for drama. You do not realise that they are reciting verse, yet it adds some form of elevated character to contemporary figures. This form excludes superfluous groans but also prevents ellipsis. What remains is the communication of ideas. In addition, this form is like a preservative: who knows whether Antigone would have survived, had it been written in prose. The premiere will be held in February. This is our third work with Berci. We met when I was invited to a performance of my play Cocaine Couriers, which he had directed for a second-year high-school class. It was a hell of an exciting premiere, with some interpretations of the play I had never thought of.
- Does that often happen to you?
- Quite rarely. But for instance at this year's POSZT (Pécs National Theatre Convention) I attended a secondary school discussion. Once we got past the rounds of polite remarks, some really interesting things came up. I was sitting there gob smacked when the students started discussing whether one of the reasons behind the conflicts between Blondin and his wife was that they had no children. What's more, they got this simply from the text. The reason I left out a child from the story was that I thought it would make things more complicated.
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- So around 15 writers go around to schools, which gets students to read a play everywhere. Who are written plays important to?
Very few people read plays these days. Regardless of whether it is a contemporary or an old one. I cannot imagine anyone just going to the shelf to pick up Bánk Bán. On the whole, reading quality literature only happens in a subculture situation. Playwrights are UFOs among writers anyway. Even someone who has published just two volumes of poetry is more representative than Ferenc Molnár, Szomory or Ernő Szép. We have been thrown around for years when it comes to professional awards. When someone was nominated for a Jászai Award, some said: but you are a writer, so you should be nominated for an Attila József Award. But when someone is nominated for an Attila József Award, they say: but you belong to the theatre. Finally, this situation has been cleared up: for the past two years, playwrights are also eligible for (and they have also been receiving) Attila József Awards. The reason we set up the Playwrights' Roundtable was to reintroduce theatre to the general public and give it back its literary prestige. And this is in spite of the fact that - if you think about it - a play will reach far more people through the theatre than a book of poetry. Finito has been performed for an audience of around 400 people every night. Niebelung Residency has recently been transferred from the Cave Hospital to the Lipót and it has been sold out for months. Many in the audience will take the text of the play home as a result of the theatre experience.
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