No Common European Theatre

Gábor Zsámbéki Talks to Gábor Bóta

 

A melting chunk of ice drips on Hamlet's head. Gábor Zsámbéki, general director of Budapest's revolutionary Katona József Theatre, is annoyed. Audiences still don't get it. After six years at the helm of an elite club of European theatres set up by legendary Italian director Giorgio Strehler and French Minister of Culture Jack Lang, Zsámbéki decided it was time to quit.

How was the Union of European Theatres founded?

When Jack Lang was culture minister back in 1988, the Odéon in Paris was renamed "Theatre Europe" and a big part of its annual subsidy was devoted to bringing over productions from abroad. I suggested to Strehler we invite theatres from Eastern Europe, and among the first were Lev Dodin's Maly Theatre and the Bulandra from Bucharest. The French funded it exclusively for years, though we now have other supporters, including Hungary. Strehler just invited whomever he happened to like, whose tastes were close to his own. He never made a secret of that.

Surely those theatres had something in common?

Strehler handpicked the seven founding theatres and each for a different reason. The Katona József Theatre's triumphs in Paris at the end of the eighties must have meant a lot to him. He wanted to stage Catullus by Milán Füst-a play he knew nothing about before seeing our production. He was no doubt taken by the Katona's success, youth and energy. On the other hand, he asked the Stockholm Dramatic Theatre to join because of his respect for Ingmar Bergman.

What were his selection criteria?

Strehler loathed bluffing, tepid theatre and routine acting. The personalities of the directors and theatre managers was also crucial. This was later to cause a lot of difficulty for the Union. When we started, neither Strehler nor anyone else gave much thought to the obvious fact that the member theatres wouldn't have the same leadership for ever. It came as a shock when some renowned theatre people lost their jobs, and a theatre which had been an exciting workshop under their leadership simply became uninteresting when they left. For this reason we had to work out a system whereby membership would not be automatically inherited after a change at the top.

But surely there is now some kind of mechanism for deciding which theatres get included?

Yes, of course. A vote is put to the general assembly. Supporters are needed, and the board, of course, gives an advance opinion. It is impossible to remove all limits from the admission of new members. The Union would lose its meaning. Twenty-one theatres belong to the Union today. We had to build in some firm brakes. There are many applicants every year, but our policy is not to admit an unmanageable number.

You organized Union festivals in Budapest twice and managed to get Russian director Lev Dodin invited both in 1993 and in 2000.

The first festival in Budapest got proper funding because I could say that productions by Strehler and Bergman were coming. No one would dig into their pockets for Dodin back then. But when discussions ended, and they asked me which productions I'd seriously recommend, I mentioned Dodin's company first. This was really important, because the Hungarian theatre's natural idiom is realism. Only in its best creations can performances move away from reality, and this happens rarely. Dodin's Gaudeamus just took off and departed from reality with such ease that I felt it would be easily understood by everyone, and people would at the same time be charmed by its poetry.

The Union's yearly festivals provide a key platform for its members. What are the other advantages of membership?

Festivals are only the tip of the iceberg. I've always thought workshops, a much less spectacular part, were more important. Whenever there was more money-and in the past few years this depended a lot on European Union funding-we have organized workshops. I still see this as the most important activity of the Union. The Union also mounts exhibitions of the most outstanding stage designers. Ezio Frigerio's works were exhibited in Budapest's Ernst Museum in 2000, but I would be pleased if Hungarian audiences became familiar with the work of others, too, including perhaps that by the late Fabia Puigserver, a major Catalan designer.

Are you concerned that the Union has fallen into the trap of going for big names, rather than promoting coherent themes?

Most festival organizers don't have a single idea in their heads. All they do is watch the trends and try to follow which productions have had the greatest successes. Festivals with a clear focus and theme are few and far between. The reason is always the same. You don't raise money by coming up with a fascinating motif, but rather by getting hold of the big names. The Union's big yearly festivals have always concentrated, for money reasons, on doing this, whatever the original idea happened to be. But the Union often puts on smaller festivals and nonmember theatres are also invited. The kind of festivals I really like do more than this. The idea behind the Dialogue Festival in Wroclaw, for example, is to pick out some Polish productions and confront them with productions from the West that tackle the same problems. Last year, I suggested there should be a festival with works written by their own directors, and performances should go alongside discussion sessions. It's my experience that people who believe they can best express their ideas through their own works usually end up with works that act as declarations of faith. The differences and similarities between such declarations in various countries is fascinating and worthwhile.

Can you really expect audiences to tune in to different cultures instantly?

The trouble is audiences are at a loss. No one is there to orient them about whether a visiting performance is good or not. When people aren't properly informed beforehand that something very important is about to happen, then the performance will come and go without leaving a mark on anyone except members of the profession. If these productions were more focused and regular, blunt and stupid reactions would fade away.

The Kaposvár production of Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1984), a sensation for audiences here, was loved in Belgrade because of the special East-European aspects of the production, whereas its reception in Paris was lukewarm.

Theatres that travel well keep their roots in their own national culture, but they also try to formulate new requirements for theatremakers. Imitating or copying them is senseless. But to integrate the new into one's everyday work may be extremely fruitful. Efforts were made all over the world to imitate Grotowski's theatre, which grew out of Polish Catholicism; the real benefit, however, lay in the universal acceptance of the completely new requirement which challenged actors to rethink their physical and acoustic conditioning. Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrosius, for example, has now become a widely accepted theatre-maker. Everything he does exudes the air of his own culture and country, and when he entered the scene, a period of innovation followed. Nekrosius has an ability to animate the simplest of objects, creating rites by using them, giving a profound meaning to the production. In his Hamlet (1997), he puts agricultural machinery on stage which he manages to invest with great drama. The great soliloquy also assumes extra meaning by the simple fact that the chunk of ice hung over the stage is melting, with the water dripping on Hamlet's head. Budapest audiences also got to see Part One of the production called Seasons. Here the frenzy of eating and drinking overtaking an entire community, almost degenerating into an orgy, is portrayed by having a single actor on the stage with a bucket containing a couple of pieces of wood and some nails. Only Nekrosius could have done that.

Quite a few people left during the interval in Budapest.

Yes. Nekrosius's Meno Fortas company is not easy theatre. I saw his Hamlet for the second time in France, where the audience was also offended and protested.

Under your control of the Union of European Theatres, breaking down cultural borders and opening minds was something of a crusade. Are you disappointed with how things stand today?

Everybody seems to think tolerance is now happily woven into the fabric of Europe. This isn't true, and it's especially not true of the arts. I constantly read very narrow-minde d reviews following Union festivals, even in countries with a more influential and developed theatre culture than Hungary's. A production's relationship to its own society is too often misunderstood, because people simply start out from their own reality. It's time we outgrow the childish attitude of reacting to new things with either uncritical adulation or arrogant rejection-both typical Hungarian knee-jerk reactions.

You don't see a common European style developing in the same way as American movies have a style of their own?

No, the most alarming thing would be if a common European style developed. The road the Union must take should not lead to unification, but to diversification. But there's no single European trend. In fact, the opposite of every marked trend is also flourishing.

You got involved in the Union's beginnings just when the Iron Curtain was being dismantled. Does the Union of Theatres of Europe still have its raison d'etre?

The moment when we finally got the chance to gorge on the forbidden fruit of artistic life in the West-something we barely tasted before-has long vanished. Neither does the West think we're a closed, mysterious quarter with hidden secrets ready to be revealed. But our most important activity remains, and that is to launch the careers of young actors, directors and stage designers. Many things theatre people from all over Europe learn in our workshops stick in their memories. One thing certainly endures-the spirit of discovery.

Why do you think there is no international theatre festival in Budapest?

It can no longer be said that Hungary is infrequently visited by foreign theatres. Several venues now have the opportunity to invite companies from abroad, but these productions receive too little publicity. The answer must be indifference-and, supposedly, a lack of money. But I don't believe that; there's money for many useless things. During my latest attempts to persuade people of the importance of an international theatre festival, I was told that the National Theatre had money for that. Then I spoke to its director, Tamás Jordán, who was considering a festival which would invite representatives of the country whose turn it is to hold the presidency of the European Union at the given time. That is something that I don't believe in, because, in my view, the only festivals of any use are those that try to introduce major artists and the latest theatrical trends. So we stopped short right there. But there isn't a single country around us-including those where economic conditions are far worse-which doesn't make an effort at mounting a regular international theatre festival. Is it not shameful that one has to cross the border to Nyitra (Nitra) in Slovakia to see some important performances?

Is the real reason that it might be embarrassing to reveal to foreigners the top fifteen productions in this country?

No. I am proud that Hungarians finished among the best in every workshop staged by the Union. The Katona puts on a week every year when it plays its best productions in a row. These weeks are often visited by foreign guests. Last April, they saw the dance production The Taste of Your Blood, Vasssily Sigaryev's Black Milk, Chekhov's Ivanov, Crash by György Spiró and Great Sound for Running Around, based on Sándor Weöres's poetry. They saw actors dancing in The Taste of Your Blood, acting in a prose play, and singing the next night in a musical production. This may be unimaginable in the theatres they work in. Two theatres, Krétakör (Chalk Circle) and Katona, can hardly complain of a lack of recognition abroad. Still, I feel Hungarian theatre is in danger of getting stuck. The number of makeshift productions is growing, and so is the number of productions that may be seen as pure commercial ventures without any artistic motive behind them. And I also sense the danger of inward-turning, of smugness.

You decided against trying to stay on as president, but you're not relinquishing your responsibilities entirely.

As membership grew, I had to take care of a growing amount of bureaucracy which I hated and found a waste of time. I felt my time could be much more sensibly spent if I sat with a class at the Academy of Theatre and Film. I quit teaching when I became president; I did not want to teach in circumstances when I would have to say regularly, "Sorry, I won't be able to see you next week after all." But it is part of the presidency that you frequently find yourself travelling unexpectedly. And fighting for money with the French Finance Ministry is certainly no better than doing the same at home. There was more and more of that, and I was just as fed up with making peace between theatres at loggerheads with each other. I would like to keep involved for Hungary's sake. The fact that Jack Lang became President of the Union of European Theatres means that the office went to a man who had the lion's share in the establishment of the organization. It is still undecided how active a role the deputy presidency will require. In any case, I no longer have to deal with financial problems and all kinds of bureaucratic responsibility, so once again I can teach. That is awfully important to me.

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Gábor Zsámbéki and the Katona József Theatre

Gábor Zsámbéki began his career in 1968 at the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár, one of the most enterprising companies in the country. He moved from there to the National Theatre as principal director; from 1989, he became the general director of the Katona József Theatre in Budapest; from 1992 has been its art director. He has taught at the Academy of Theatre and Film since 1979. His productions have won important domestic and international prizes.
Gábor Zsámbéki has been intimately involved in the European Union of Theatres and is its deputy president after serving as president between 1998-2004. He has been mounting his productions all over the world in countries as distinct as Cuba, Israel, Germany, Finland, France, Norway and the Czech Republic.
The Budapest-based Katona József Theatre, the National's former chamber theatre, gained its independence in 1982, and has since been widely regarded as among Hungary's best. Its productions of Chekhov's Three Sisters and Platonov and Alfred Jarry's Ubu roi have travelled the world. Gámbor Zsámbéki and Gábor Székely were the company's leading lights when the theatre was founded. The theatre's studio, known as the Kamra, or Chamber, has a mobile acting space and is suitable for all kinds of experiments; while Sufni, or the Shed, provides the home for theatre inspired by literature. At a time when many companies are on the verge of collapse, the Katona has always tried to maintain its character as a workshop, its actors always up to something new and thought-provoking. The Katona is a repertory theatre with productions that make no concessions to commercialism, yet they almost invariably sell out.

 

Gábor Bóta
is a freelance journalist and theatre critic.