Seventeenth note

Movie with a great form. Ten Minutes Older (The Trompet and The Chello). About time, after a qoute from Marcus Aurelius. It is a series of 15 10 minutes films made 15 different well known (I guess all of them, even I know just some) directors. They had got this topic, and the time limit. What makes it really interesting is the various different solutions on the same task together.
A task which is so important. How one takes it, and how the other does. How one passes by. How difficult it is actually to speak about it.
Like a conversation. Amazing ones, and others which are more simple, more gag-like.

Sixteenth note

I have conculded reading the Travel Book, what you wrote to me. I enjoyed reading it very much, it is amiable feeling to get closer to your time, what you have spent in Nepal, through the imprint of it in small notes, details of your thouhghts and days in the order, how you experienced them.

*

When you were here in Budapest the last time, you talked about the similarities between different religions. You mentioned the Way: the Tao aswell.
The qoute, wich stands under the title of this log-book, comes from Tao Te King. It is a part of the 78^th verse, and it is one of my favourite guidelines. This year we have choosen it as the motto of Föld Theatre.

The Daughter of the Turkey-herd Woman - fourth part

The prince started to run the streets of the town to find a place, where they can employ him. He wandered on hundreds of streets and alleys. Finally he had found a shop of an old jew. He was selling salt, paprika, vinegar and such stuff; and he supported his big family of what he earned. When he entered, the wife of the jew was at the desk; and she asked him, what does he need.
"I don't want to buy anything." Replied the prince. "Give me work, employ me." The jewish woman almost petrified with astonishment; it never happened before, that someone wanted to be an employee in their miserable store.
"Do not gird at me, you noble man! Go rather to the restaurant opposite to us, they will employ you."
But the prince kept his ground. "I'll rather stay here. Just as I told you." The woman ran to her husband.
"Come man, listen what this noble man is saying. He wants to be employed at us. What will we eat, if this shop needs to feed one more person?"
The jewish man went down to the store, to see who is pushing around with his wife." He glimpsed at the prince and took stock of him, and than he said to her: "Listen woman, where there is food for nine, there will be for ten aswell. Let him stay." And he turned to the prince: "You can stay, noble fellow. Sell the things, what you see on the shelves."
And from this moment the prince stood behind the desk. He was so beatiful, that he was shining.
The first customer, who came to the store was a girl. When she noticed the prince, all her strenght left her, and she was even not able to ask for something. After some moments, when she was coming back to herself, she said: "Salt... Give salt!"
On her way back home she knocked the doors of her girlfriends, and brought them the news about the beatiful man in the shop. The street was sounding of the girls urging their mother to send them to buy something in the shop.
Girls were rushing to the shop of the jew, the prince sold everything, and the drawers became full of money. From that day the jew was starting to do well.
Some months later, on a late afternoon the prince asked the one son of the jew, Mayshi, if he wanted to come with him. Mayshi was the closest in age to become a man among the sons of the jew. He helped a lot in the store, and they became good frineds with the prince. "Where?"
"Don't mind where, Mayshi. Just decide, if you want to come or not."
" I will."
"Take than a sack."
When the night fall down, they went to the cellar of the duke and rubbed it.
Some time later the prince asked Mayshi again: "Do you want to come with me?" Mayshi didn't say a word, but he took the sack, and they went again. They returned to cellar from time to time, and from the money they rubbed they made a bigger house for the family, they opened restaurants, cafés all along the street.
One night, when they went to the cellar, Mayshi asked the prince if he could be the first to enter. "You entered before me so many times, let me be the first today."
"Don't go Mayshi, because it will be fire for you, and smoke for me!" Answered the prince. But Mayshi was beseeching to him until he let him go. Mayshi entered, went down the stairs, and right there, after the last stair, he got caught by a trap.
When the prince arrived after him, he saw what happened. He said outloud: "Jump off stone!" But the blocks stayed on the boy.
The prince started to cry. "What shall I do with You, Mayshi? You can not come out, they will find you here, and they will recognize you, and revenge themselves on you and on your family."
"You are right." Said Mayshi. "Do, what you think is the best."
The prince stayed with him until the dawn, and than he realized, that Mayshi died from the squeeze of the blocks. Than he took his knife, and cut the face of Mayshi many times, so no man could recognize him, and than he ran away.
When the duke's guards found Mayshi's corp in the cellar, they reported him about the case, the duke turned to his twelve councillors. "What shall I do with this person without face? How can I find out, who was the burglar?"
The councillors said to him: "Don't worry, noble Duke. Take a horse, and tide this corp to it's tail, and pull across the entire town. His family will recognize him. Tell the soldiers to make a mark on the gate of the house where they start to cry, when they pass by."
So they grabbed the corp, and started to pull it on the streets of the town.
The prince was sitting in the gate of the shop, with the youngest child of the jew, they were making a shoe. When they came with the body of Mayshi the small boy recognized his brother and started to cry. "They killed Mayshi! They killed my brother!" The prince took the prodding tool and hit it into the palm of the boy. The soldiers came, and asked why is he criing. The prince told them, that they were making a shoe, and the boy hit the tool into his hand. The soldiers couldn't decide if they beleive him or not, so they put a mark on their gate, and left.
During the night the prince took a similar chalk and made a mark on each gate of the town. So when next day the duke came to see the house, where they were criing, he could not find it, because there was a mark on each gate, even on the gate of his own palace.
"What kind of advise did you give me?" He asked his twelve councillors.
"We have said to mark only one gate."
"There's a mark on each one. What shall I do now?"
"Do not be upset noble Duke, follow our advise. Arrange a tea-evening in your court. And invite everyone, even blinds, criples, so they can come and eat, drink and carouse free of charge. You'll see, even he, the burglar's friend, who was there all the time, who knows the secret of your cellar, and who cut the face of his dead mate, even he will take upon himself to come here, and he will go immediately to your beatiful daughter's room. Command the miss to cut a mop of his hair. And the next day we will catch him."
The duke announced the tea-evening, and that everyone can come, even criples and gipsy-guys. A big crowd came, who would not like to carouse without paying? The prince thaught: "I will not miss this party occasion, of course I need to be there." He dressed up in gold and in velvet, and appeared at the evening. He didn't stay long among others, soon after his arrival he went up to the room of the duke's daughter. In the moment, when the miss glimpsed him, heaviness caught her, the boy was so beatiful. They went and lied down together right away, and they started to pet each other. They made love. And afterwards, when the prince fell asleep, the miss took the sciccors from the drawer and cut a mop of the prince's hair.
After a while the boy woke up. He stood in front of the mirror to comb his hair, and he noticed, that there is part missing from his hair. He realized it is some kind of trick with him, so he went among the carousing people, and took his own scissors from his pocket and as they were dancing or chating with each other, click-clack, he cut into one's and other's hair; he marked them the same way as it was done with him.
Before the morning came, the duke visited his daughter, and asked her, what she have done.
"I did, what you asked me to do, I marked that beatiful man." Replied the miss.
"I don't mind if he is beatiful or not. In the morning we will get him."
But when the morning came, and the duke was standing in his gate to check all visitors' hair, he had to realize there were mops missing from each hair. "Saint God bless you my sweet daughter! Tell me honestly, this big team of man had all been at your room the last evening? What have you done?"
They could not catch the boy. "What kind of advise you gave to me, you twelve councillors!" Cried the duke. "What shall I do now?! Look this big shame on me!"
The councillors put their heads together. "Listen nobe Duke, we have one more advise. Try if it works. If it won't work we can not help you any more. Announce that if there is anybody who can tell point by point what had happened with you, you will give the half of your lands and your daughter aswell.
The duke announced, and many young men, princes, dukes, poor ones came to the duke's palace on that day. Even the duke's friends came to listen to these fellows. The parents of the prince, the king and the queen came aswell.
They all listened to the different stories. The duke asked the first one:
"What have you done?"
"I killed a dragon?"
"Anything else?"
"I can not mention more."
"Than we don't have any more words to you. We are searching for something else."
The next one said a wolf, an other a man. No one could guess all the acts of the prince.
He thaught, that if things happened, he will be honest, and he will tell them all what he had done. So he signed up on the list, and he showed up in the palace of the duke.
When he entered the room the duke asked him right away. "Tell me boy, what have you done?"
"Oh Duke, how can you be so impatient? Ask rather how far I come from, ask if I am not tired, if I am not thirsty, take me a glass of wine, give me a seat. Let me rest before you question me."
The duke looked at him in astonishment. No man talked with him like this before. He took a chair, and offered the prince to sit down. The prince asked for a glass of wine. They took him. He drunk it all at once.
"Now you can interrogate me."
"Can you tell me what have happened with me? For instance what happened in my cellar?"
"Of course I can tell you, that's why I came."
And the prince told the whole story. He started from the begining, when he went on the hunting, with his father. At the point, when he talked about the cellar, the duke noticed: "It was a remarkable amount of tresure, you know, my son? On what could you spent it all?"
"I ate it, I drunk it. I am a young man." Answered the prince. When he finished his story, he pointed at the king: "And noble Duke, if you beleive it, or not, this king is my father, who I talked about. And this lady with crown, his wife, she is my mother."
The duke became released, that it was one of his friend's son, who done all this to him. When his daughter was a little girl, and the prince was a small boy, and he lived at home with his parents, the duke and the king and the queen were planning that their children will get married one day. After this point the duke started to talk with him much more friendly. "Here is a paper about the half of my lands. And take my daughter."
"Noble Duke, I don't want your daughter. Give her to someone else, who is up for her. But the paper about the half of your lands, I will take that. And now I will go home with my parents."
He went to the queen and the king, they huged each other.
"Let's go home, mother and father." But before going home, he wanted to say good-bye to the jewish family, where he worked. So he went there.
But on his way he noticed a little cottage, which he never noticed before. There was an old witch standing in the window, staring at him.
"What are you staring on me?" Asked the boy.
"Of course I'm staring at you. Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I stare at you, if I now why you are not finding your place? And if I know, that you will also not find it, if you go home with your parents. You will run up and down the streets, just like before you came away. I know what are you longing for."
"What is that?"
"They took away her in front of my cottage."
"Who are you talking about?"
"Your fiancee."
"And where did they take her?"
"They took her across the big water. Across the Black-water. And her wedding will be tomorrow right at noon."
"Can this be true?" Asked the prince.
"I am saying it to you, and it is true." Replied the witch.

The meeting of the physical and the virtual travel book

You are here. I should write my paper for university class. The last one like this.
Because of this I stayed at home, instead of hiking with Attila, Bence and You. How much I would like to be there!

School in the Castle District

Fifteenth note

I wrote an sms last week to Esther, just asking, how she is, how they are, if they were still together with Laila.
They are! She wrote to me, that they are in Turkey, and they are trying to get to Israel.

Fragments

We have been in Austria yesterday with Bence. We have seen a performance of Peter Brook. Three actors have shown on stage five small texts of Beckett. An amazing woman, and two good actors. Very simple, very short (about 50-55 minutes, which has pased so fast, that I haven't noticed), very accurate.
Almost no set (exept for the lighting, which they have used, and some small objects).
They started with a piece about a blind and a cripple. (Rough for Theatre I.) They both want something from each other, they try different methods to find somekind of relationship, they tease each other, they talk, one helps the other, the cripple even hits the blind. I could feel both of them are acting, and reciting the text in a way, which makes easy to recognize, that these are lines in theatre play, told by an actor.
But afterwards the woman (Kathryn Hunter) came on seen, and told the text of Rockaby. She was sitting in a chair almost all the time, sometimes she rocked, as if she was sitting in a rocking chair. Once she stood up, and did it with chair, as if someone else would sit in it, and rock with it. She was talking in a capturing way. Exact, dry and a littlebit sad sound. And from this point the performance started to wing it's way.
They have made loose game with the texts of Beckett. The last scene was a beatiful fusion of childishness and old age; three woman sitting on a banch, remembering of their young years, leaving and returning to the banch, one by one, and whispering about the one who left to each others ears. The original text (Come and Go) gives the instruction, that the one who leaves, should completly dissapear. In their version, she always walked a few meters away, and than stayed, showing her back, as children do, when they are the seekers and they count in the play hide and seek.

Budapest

The Daughter of the Turkey-herd Woman - third part

The prince threw his hat in the direction, where he saw the bonfire and climbed down the tree, and started off in that way. He reached the edge of the forrest. There blazed the big fire, and twenty-four gaudy bandits sat around it. They were turning a buffalo on a skewer above the flames.
"Whatever comes to me, I need to go there." Said the prince. "I'll check who are these." He mustered his courage, and steped up to them. "Good evening!" He saluted them.
"For you aswell. What kind of fellow are you?" Asked one of them.
"Just like you." Replied the prince.
"If that's true, just take some of this meet." Came the answer. The prince couldn't do anything, he took his pocketknife, cut a piece of the meet and started to eat it, in a fine and classy way, just how it fits to a noble person. The eyes of the bandits met.
"Oh you are not at all like us. Look how it goes." And they threw big pieces of the buffalo-meet in their mouthes, as big as a chair. "Okay, if you figure out, what we have been lurking for in the neighbourhood for twenty-four years, you are going to be our cheaf."
"You have gave me an easy task." Replied the prince. "I know exactly, that you are lieing in a wait for burgle in the cellar of the duke, who lives nearby. The cellar is full of gold, but you never managed to enter, because from east there is cock and from west there is a dog guarding the gates of the cellar. When they notice you at the gates they allways start to make noise, and wake up the guards of the duke. But I know the solution for the problem."
"Hurrah, hurrah! You're our cheaf, lead us to the cellar." Cried the bandits, and they all started off. The prince brought one of the bones of the buffalo, and tied a little noose on it. When they have reached te eastern gate, and the cock started to crow, he threw the bone with the little noose on the neck of the cock, and they all run away. The dog has smelled the bone, and started search for source of the smell. When the dog found the cock with the bone in it's neck, it ate the whole animal. And the bandits had time to brake the lock of the eastern gate. They all went in, and when the dog had come after them, they shot it down in the cellar, so no one could hear the noise of the shot. They took away as many gold, as they could.
When they spent all the money they had robed, they decided to go back to the cellar. But the duke had put unbrakeable metal lock on the door, so they undid the wall next to the door. When they made the hole, an idea came into mind of the prince. "Listen, I'm the cheaf, I'll go first." He told them. "You come after me in the order as I call your names." He sliped through the hole, and called them one by one. And when a bandit came through the hole, he stood behind him, grabbed his hair, and cut his neck with his knife. He killed all the twenty-four bandits, and made a pile of them in the cellar. He took gold with him, and left the place. He didn't go back to the shady joint of the bandits, but he went to town.

Fourteenth note

I concluded reading yesterday Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus. I started to read it approximatly a year ago, but when I arrived to Vestjyllands, there was still a little part left from it (maybe 80 pages), and I tried to complete, but after some weeks I had to admit, I can hardly find time to read on that place. During the five months of the school I almost didn't read anything exept for the Odyssey.
So some days ago, I brought out the book again, and yesterday I came to the end. I cried after the last page. It is sad to become lonely beacause of your art. The main character had done the reverse of Giacommeti's saying, he had rather chose art than life.

The Daughter of the Turkey-herd Woman - second part

There was somewhere a black world. And in the black world lived another king. No single woman wanted to marry this king, because anyone who tried, was murdered by him.
They were saying about him, that he is so pagan, that he would let Sun's blood effuse, if it would go with him to the altar. But the king could't stand that he had to fast in love. So he took on one hundred merchants, to go from village to village and from town to town and buy him a wife. They travelled with pouches full of gold and cried in each town: "We are buying women, cripples, lames, blind ones." But there was no single soul, who wanted to put his daughter or wife up for sale.
Until they have reached the town, where the king and queen lived, who have employed the turkey-herd woman. As the king have heard the criing of the merchants, he called for his wife. "Hey come, and listen to what these men are shouting, let's sell them the dughter of the turkey-herd woman, so she will get so far, that she will be never able to come back home." So they called in to the palace one of the merchants, and told to him: " We have a girl for sale, but we only sell it to you, if you promise you take her so far away, that she will never find her way back home." "Oh have no fear about that." Answered the merchant. They brought to him the girl, who was shining from beauty, but the merchant even didn't throw a glance at her. He put her in a dog-box, so she will not be able to recognize the way the are going.
When the pagan king so her, he immadietly fall in love with her. And he had locked her in room, under the eye of guards, until he prepares their wedding.
When the merchants have took the girl with them, the king in the white world made a copy of her of gypsum, and made a funeral for her.
When their son finnished his studies in Germany, he came back home, and asked about his mate from his child-hood. His parents told him, that she had died, and they have buried her. The boy didn't want to beleive it. "It's not true!" He mumbled. "It's not true!" He started to run the streets, and kept asking the people passing by, if it was true, that the daughter of the turkey-herd woman has died. He went to the graveyard, and asked after the grave of the girl. When he saw the name of the girl on the headstone, he cried, he sobed but he couldn't do anything, he had to take in, that he can not do anything, no one can resuscitate dead people, expect for God. So he went home.
At home he had fallen into melancholy. He sat for days wordlessly, with tears in his eyes, he was wringing his hands, he was thinking, and he didn't receive any food. He was mourning for his mate. His lips became like the lips of a rabbit, and he became so week, that he started to shiver every now and than.
The king almost became mad of worry. He asked his wife, what he should do. "Take him on a hunt. Go to the forrest, bring all dukes with you, and bring him aswell. Shoot on deers and wild-boars. Maybe he will forget his sorrowful thoughts."
They announced the hunt. It would have been a big shame for the prince, if he hadn't gone with them. He took a gun, and went to the stable to choose a fine horse.
They rode to the forrest. Others told him to follow a path, and they will chase the beasts towards him, so he only have to shoot them. He conceded, and the hunting started. The blew the horns, beated the drums, span the clappers, screeched, shouted, cluncked.
The prince started to ride on the path, and a little later there came a little hare, and stood right in front of him. He took his gun the shoot it, but the hare tilted his tail, in way that seemed, as if it was asking for mercy. The prince let down his gun. "Nope will I hurt it, it is a bland hare. I will rather go to it, and capture it live!" He got off his horse, and tried to catch the hare. But the hare sprang on. He tried again, but the hare sprang a litlle further again. He was chasing the hare into the middle of the bushy forrest. He thought, that he will manage better if he can use both hands, so he tied his horse to a tree, and left his gun there, and followed the hare into the scrub. And the hare kept spranging in front of him. Once, when he tried to catch it, the hare sprang one much bigger than before, and disappeared. The prince didn't see it anywhere. And he didn't even know, where he was. He realized, that he got lost, and it became dark. "Oh my God, where am I? Where should I go? What shall I do?" After puzzleing his brain, he decided, that he will climb on a high tree, so that he will be able to see, if there is light coming from somewhere. He did so, and somewhere in the far distance he saw a bonfire.

The Daughter of the Turkey-herd Woman - first part

We are making a performance of a Transylvanian Gipsy folk tale with the ensemble of Föld Theatre. The title is Wise of the World. To collect material to our performance I am reading other Gipsy stories, they are amazingly beatiful.
There is one, with an enthralling description of a love relationship which goes through on abundance of tribulations.
The Daughter of the Turkey-herd Woman
There was once a very wealthy king and a queen, who had no child. So they had take on someone to take care of their poultry. They employed a turkey-herd woman. After several years she became pregnant, and at the same time the queen became pregnant aswell. They have given birth to their babies on the same day. Both babies, the daughter of the turkey-herd woman and son of the king and queen were beatifully shining, and the entire white world (= the world where humans live) was shining from their beauty, when the parents were holding up them, to show them to the sun.
When they became six , and they had to go to school, the king has decided, that since the girl has born in the court, so it is his duty to pay her education, they will go to the same school.
They went to school each morning together, hand in hand, and the young prince thought that the girl is his sister.
Once, when they were fourteen years old their classmates told to the boy: "This girls is not your sister, she is the daughter of the turkey-herd woman, and you are the son of the king.
The boy didn't want to beleive, what they were saying, he went home, and asked his dad, if the girl was his sister or not. The king told him the truth.
The boy mused on what he had heard. And he decided, if the girl is not his sister, she will be her wife. And on the next day, when they were coming home from the school he nipped the girl, and another day he stroked her. The girl didn't counter the approaching of the boy. They matched to each other more and more, so much that in secret they started to make love to each other.
But one day the king has noticed from his window what the youngsters are doing, he called for his wife.
"Don't you notice something on these two kids"
"Not at all, they're playing, and going to school together."
"Mind, what I'm saying to you; some day we are going the have a big scandal, that God gave a child to this girl."
So the queen ambushed them again, and when she realized, that they are kissing and petting each other; she deliberated with her husband over what shall they do. They can not permit their son to marry a girl with a poor background. They decided that when the prince will finnish the elementary school, they will send him to study in Germany, so he forgets the girl.
The prince obeyed his parents will. They made him a passport, and escorted him to the trainstation.
The boy was not even on half way of the journey, when he took his golden pen, and started to write a letter on paper, white as the snow. My true love, thanks for God, I'm fine. I'm here and here. I love you very much."
But it was the king, who found the envelope on the gate-post. He became angry and burned it in the fireplace. And when the boy has arrived to the school, his first thought was the girl, so he wrote to her again. But the king received it again.

Changing view from the window of the room, where you have stayed

Music

When I stayed at Esther's appartment in Copenhagen, for a I while we shared the hospitality of her with Olga's brother, Mateusz and his friend. One evening we went biking with Mateusz, from Nørreport, all the way down to the statue of the Little Mermaid. In a street near Nyhavn we met with a music band, playing on violin, accordion, saxofon very cheerful music. We decelarated the speed of our bikes, to listen to them. They were walking by a wedding couple, and playing music for them. As I figured out later, just for fun, beacuse they were walking towards a pub, where they were going to play on that evening. As we slowed down by them to their speed, one of them crossed the street, and walked by us, and invited us to this pub. We went in and listened to them. Great music, reminds me a lot klezmer, and the guy told as later, yes, it is mixture of swedish folk music and klezmer. Unfortunatly we couldn't stay there for long, because, Olga was waiting for us (originally we went just for a fifteen minutes ride), and we didn't have any money with us to drink something in the pub (for the same reason). After the first unit of the music, we were leaving. The guy, who invited us, came to our table, and we had a little chat. He was really kind. The name of the band is Räfven, he gave us a call-card. Some weeks ago I checked their website, and I found a part on it, where you can order their CD, I thought I'll try, maybe it is possible from abroad aswell. It says you pay the price for the CD, when it arrives. Well, they have sent me their CD, without any fee, I didn't had to pay for the postman. I guess it is a present from them. I'm very pleased by their kindness.

Thirteenth note

I have heard an interesting saying of Giacometti, the sculptor. They were qouting him in an old French film: One man and one woman.

"If I had to choose, what to save from a fire, a man, or a Rembrandt painting, I would choose the man." And the man qouting him in the film, commented: "He would rather choose life, than art."
Great! I hope it is true, that Giacometti said so, and it is not only the invention of the author of the sreenplay .

Twelfth note

We have performed on Sunday and yesterday, the new version of Round Cabbage at Sirály. Tonight we will do it again. We play the bottle game, we pose questions to the audience. Afterwords we try to build in to the scenes what they tell us. It is really really hard. And the solutions what we found were mostly verbal, exept for one thing. We ask for qualities of another person (the question is: What makes you fall in love with someone else?), and we pick small objects from a bag (for example: a shaver, a matchbox, a little plastic toy figure, a bottle cork, tissues) which we associate with the qualities what the audience tells.
It is interesting to experience how difficult it is to react right in the moment. It is good education for being present. But I don't think this is the best solution for presence and reality on stage. It reminds me more a very planed trick of a magician. The spontaneity is an effect just, which enchants the audience.

You have started your course yesterday in Nepal. I really wonder how it goes. And what you will think afterwords.
I understand very well, what you have wrote to me in the comment; travelling with a friend can be easier, and maybe gives more freedom, than travelling alone.

Eleventh note

When I am thinking about the phenomens, which are interesting for me in theatre, I very often find theological categories to describe them.
One of these is predestination.
When protestantism begin, John Calvin tought, that it is already layed down on the day of your birth, wether you will be beatified or not. This idea is concluded from the christian faith; that christians account God as omniscient.
It is not an easy problem, because if we accept, that God knows everything, he might know about all your life aswell, even before you were born. And if we accept, that world exists as a result of God's will, he is the one, who wanted it to be; it follows the question: did he create people, who he knew, will go to perdition, will suffer endless. Catholics always argued with this tenet. Their line say; God gave you free will, and it depends only on your decisions, wether you get to heaven, or not.
Neither side has easy position; if you are thinking with human logics, there are contradictions in both theories. If I accept predestination, it casts doubt on God goodness. If I beleive in the decisive power of free will, it questions the creator's omniscience.
Anyway, in both theories, there needs to be some special relationship between the one's and God's knowledge about future, because a man doesn't know what's the future, and where do his decisions lead to.
When we show stories on stage, we know how they will end, we know all parts of them, also the ones, which are not shown yet. But our aim is not to tell a story, which happened in the past, we want to show it in present time. How different occurences follow each other.
When you are telling a story, your position is outside of it (even if you are telling it in first person), you admit with the past forms of the verbs, that it had happened, and even if you haven't reached the end of the story in your storytelling yet, it is possible to know how it will end. When you are showing a story, you are acting as if you wouldn't know the end of the story before it ends.
I was telling you several times, theatre is really interesting for me, when things on stage are not imitations, they happen really.
It follows the question; how can you honestly take this position on stage, when you are working with a story, which you rehearsed several times.
It is obvious, you can have ideas, plans and stories in your head, as a director, but it's is only the actors, who can fill it with real life. How can an actor be free on stage, and live the story really, I'm trying to find solutions for this a question.

About my experiences at Odin

Dedicated to Olga aswell

When I finally left the school, heading Odin Theatre in Holstebro, you asked me, to tell about my time there; I have some small remarks, it was really just a few days.
The first thing, which amazed me the most, was the openness of the theatre.
The first time we went there, I was suprised, that there was no cloackroom, there was only a rack for coats at the end of the hallway. If you wished to, you could hang your coat there.
I remember, when we saw Andersen's dream for the first time, after the performance we met with several actors and also with Eugenio on the hallway.
The building includes not just the performing and rehearsing spaces, but the technical rooms, offices, the actors private rooms, the archive and the libary of the theatre, two small kitchens and the rooms for guests. The spaces, which are used by the audience are not strictly seperated from others, as it is usual in most of the theatres, which I have seen before. To get to their rooms, where they can dress and undress, the actors are using the same hallway as the audience.
When I was going from my room to the little videostudio, I also had to go through the corridor where the doors of the actors' rooms are. The whole theatre is an organism, which lives together.
The people, who arrive for a workshop, or to make a research, as I did, are latching on to the life of the theatre.
I was wondering, why do other theatres hide actors? Why is it necessary to let them meet only in the show, and seperate them from each other before and after?
Are they afraid, that the magic effect, that the actors transform to another person on stage, will disappear, that the audience will discover some kind of trick?
Normally we can meet actors only on stage, or at the most, we can read an interview with them in a magazine. We can not great them after a performance, or ask them questions. Is it necessary to disguise the actor, as an ordinary person, in order for us to beleive that he does something special and interesting when he is acting?
At the end our performance in the school, The Homecoming of Odysseus, when you went out of the building and the audience followed you, I was very happy, that there was no possibility for the usual very formal bowings. You were standing around the fire, they applauded, you applauded aswell, cried my name, and than the whole group splited up for small groups having coversations. It was easy there, as it was easy also in summer at Hantos, because we knew each other.
I wanted to find the same meeting between the audience and actors at the end of The Journey of Odysseus, in the Merlin Theatre, which seemed a bigger challange, because it is a much more formal place compared to both - the school, and the village enviroment.
We agreed, that you go out from the performance hall to the foyer, light your candles, and sing Létyé la zozule, and wait for the reaction of the people, wether they come out, or not. We agreed also, that you do not bow, if they come out.
They came, which was a great pleasure to experience, because it is something, which you would like to happen, but it is not happening because you explained people they should do like this, they are doing it, because they understand your aim.
After the song you blew your candles, and came in front of the stairs, very close to the people, this was not planned any more. And it was a risky situation, how to find the bridge from being observed, being in caracter, communicating in a special way, to a normal person - person communication.
There were two reactions: Olga went to one member of the audience, actually it was my mother, and huged her; some other's could not handle so well this unplanned situation, they needed to hold on to something, which was familiar to them, which they knew the mechanism of already. This is how the whole group started to stand up in a line to bow. I understood why it's happening, but I regreted.
In Odin, I never saw actors bowing. The audience applauds, but they never come back on stage after the performance is over. You can meet them on the hallway, if you wish to.

By watching the recordings of performances from different ages of the company, it is visible, they have come a long way.
Barba declares, that he looks upon Grotowski as his master. On one hand this clear statemant is sympathic for me. Today it is not a trend if you are an artist to say about another artist, that he is your master. We mostly say very gently drawn sentences; "I was inspired by some aspects of his work.", "I understood very well his style.", and such others like these.
By seeing some recordings of their early performances and some also of Grotowski's performances, I think you can recognize that there is a connection between the creators.
On the other hand I think, if you have so close artistic connection to one specific person, it makes you very hard to not to take from his artistic solutions, but find your own when you face a similar problem. It is even hard to find your own problems, which you want to work with.
I am not saying this is negativ. I don't think if you have a hard task, it's bad. Fighting with hard things can take you to great results.

Tenth note

We have seen a special performance some days ago with Anikó. We wanted to go theatre, but she has been tired, so she didn't wanted to go the one of the big, elit theatres of Budapest to see some serious, classical play. We agreed, we would like to see some alternativ performance made in a small theatre, but we haven't found anything in the program, which really interested us.

We were walking in Király street, the street of Sirály, and we weren't so far from a very small studio theatre, which is called R.S.9. - because it is under number 9 in Rumbach Sebestyén street. According to the program magazine, there was nothing on that evening, but let's give a try, we entered and asked if there will be something.
There was something, called 'Álomszínház' ( 'Dreamtheater'). I think it is the name of the company and the title of their performances aswell. And actually it is the genre of the performances also.
In the program it said that they create theatrical scenes out of the dreams of the audience. They don't try to decipher, to analyze them, they just try to show them on stage. This sounded sympathic, so we decided to participate.
On one hand it was true. There was a coordinator, who was keeping the contact with audience, he told a little of their story, asked us questions, like how did we get there, what kind of mood are we in? Do we dream? and so on. He created a quite safe athmosphere, where you didn't feel ashame to talk aloud, when they asked you a question. The way how we got the to the point where they asked us to tell about our dreams was also well built up. More than the half of the audience had been already on their performances before, so it also helped them, to create this cosy athmosphere.
After the work, what we have done in the Monk Key, and the task which we gave to ourselves - that we should try to find the way of communication with the audience, which makes them feel safe, and free to answer; it was interesting to see how they reached this kind of state.
When we got to the point, where they asked us to tell our dreams, the one who undertook, had to go on stage, where were two chairs and an old-fashioned reading lamp. The coordinator and him set in these chairs, and we all listened to his dream (or story).
After he chose from the actors, which of them should play which role in his story. He had to give one sentence to each of the actors. And than they improvized something on what they have heard.
So on one hand it was true, what they wrote in the program. But on the other hand, they did not only listen to dreams and show them on stage. The coordinator asked questions from the volunteer dreamteller like: what kind of state were you in, in the period of your life, when you had this dream. And these circumstances, the facts outside the dream effected the scenes what they did. This is some kind of interpretation already. And I had the feeling, by doing these scenes they were trying to give some solution to the problem, what they sensed in the dreamtellers life. Which was disturbant for me. Because situations and states in life seem to me much more complicated, than how far they could get in understanding one's story by listening to it for some short minutes and than doing a littlebit funny improvisation (there is a need for some entertainment for the audience aswell) out of it.
The other thing, which I didn't enjoy in this event was the very law quality of the scenes. Everything they done was very verbal. The jokes which came ot of the scenes were all built upon some verbal meaning. And all sentences were told with similar, smooth melody.
Verbality is the first prehensile which we grab, because it is the form of communication, what we use consciously, and which has a bulided up system of telling different contents. It is the language, what we learnt to communicate on. The coordinator asked the dreamteller to give one sentence to each caracter of the story, even if a caracter was silent, or non verbal during the whole dream.
The movments and actions what they done were also shown in a "smooth melody"; and I couldn't figure out any meaning for them, unless the actors had to do something on stage.
Giving words for something which communicates without words, and trying to give some solution for a problem, which we do not understand really yet are both ways of simplification.
We heard some crazy, ineteresting dreams, and we seen some scenes, which were more poor.
There was a gipsy girl, who told her dream. She mentioned that it was a great feeling afterwards, when she walk up, so she remembers it at as a good experience. She was accompanied by someone to hold a literature class in school, but when they reached the classroom the company left her alone there, telling her, that she will manage on her own. She started to teach the children. There were some of them crying the sentence: "Gipsy girls are stinky, their pussy is rotting." Than there were some gipsy girls in the class, who started to dance, and said to her: "Look, golden rain is falling on us." And later: "Look this beatiful picture!" Ans she saw something which reminded her a buddhist mandala.
We could learn so much art, so many artistic values from dreams. From the courageously strange and unnexpected way they connect the facts, what we experience, when we are awake.
I am only interpretating, what I have seen; this unnexepected and poetic way of connecting different events and scenes was the quality of Odin Theatre's performances, which I appreciated a lot. After seeing several of their performances, I would say this quality noticeably describes an aspect of their style (at least their recent style), and not only the Andersen's dream, which we have seen togheter.
We have talked a littlebit about this once on the apropos of Andersen's dream. The meaning of making these not evident, dreamlike connections between different things on stage is not only that it creates poesy; I appreciate it, because it shows theatre can have a similar function to dreams.
We say in dreams our mind is processing our daily experiences. Especially those, which effected us a lot, and those which we could not deal with.
In theatre we do something very similar. We are trying to process the experiences which we have collectively, the experiences of the community living around us, our society.

Music suggested by Bence

Bence brought the cognition of this music from his time in France. I think you will like it. Olivia Ruiz: J'traîne des pieds...

Ninth note

You know, some of my stuff I left in Attila's car, and he took it back to Hungary, when he came home in August. It was two boxes and my big luggage. He delivered it to me, when he came to my party in September.
When I opened it, and I saw the stuff arranged exactly the same way, how I did it in a big hurry on the last day of the day school in May, I felt some nostalgia. Suddenly I remembered my room in Denmark, the atmosphere of the books and tiny things on the shelf above my bed, the clothes hanging in my cupboard.
The Madlaine biscuit effect. (In Proust's novel about lost time, when he bites a biscuit, and suddenly remembers his grandmother's place in his childhood - where he used to eat these biscuits.)

Szabi came up with a version of the video about our summer workshop. And the video about the performance is also almost finnished.
A lot if things changed since this summertime aswell, I sense, and I sensed even stronger watching these shootings.

The perpetual escaping of time is heavy, althought it is it's lightness, it's immateriality which makes different times disappear so fast.

Eighth note

We have been yesterday in Rudas Bath. I had the idea that we celebrate the anniversary of Föld Theatre there, telling poems in the basin. But only Bastian and Zsófi came. Zsófi is a new girl in the ensemble, who came to the theatre to learn about theatre-making, dramaturgy, and I hope that she will be some kind of assistant by me. Others had other programs, or found it too expensive maybe. I was a littlebit sad and disappointed. Anyway it's a great place! I regret very much, that we havn't been there with you. We need to go there, when you come the next time.

Seventh note

Hey! I realized just now, that you have commented some notes of this log-book! (Of course I read the comment to the first note, just after you left.) Great! These new comments means, you are alive on some point of the earth!
Right now it is several hours later where you are. Here it is 2 o'clock. You are maybe going to bed already.

Letter

Sixth note

Thanks for the performance, which we made together.
You said, in a year, maybe we will smile on it. I hope we will, I hope we will have the possibility to smile together. On the same space, in the same time.
I would like to write some things, about this performance later. Sometimes, during our preparation it was extremly hard. So I would like to get closer to the reasons, what made it hard. And to find what can I, and maybe what can we, or anybody profit from it.
But right now, there are more important things. Let's not talk about theater for long while.
Have a very very nice journey.
I'm crossing my fingers for you.
Or I can say, I will pray for you.
If you have time and possibilities, read sometimes this blog.
Bye.

Fifth note

How can one be happy?
Having a goal in his life?
And if he never reaches his goal?
What is important, the reaching or the fighting for it?
Relationships are important. But can one be happy without an exclusive (man - woman) relationship? How can he share than all his life, from who can he expect acceptance?
Can he find total acceptance?
Or can one be happy, without someone's total acceptance?
Or from the other point of view; can one share totally himself with several persons? Or is it possible with only one?

These are real questions for me right now. I haven't got answers for them.
I have to admit, I feel very lonely.

Fourth note

I'm wondering a lot, how you feel in Budapest.
You sit a lot in front of my computer. One does this, when he hasn't got better things to do.
In this city I have things to do, I have friends to meet. I have places to visit.
Our knowledge is not equal about the place.
As you mentioned to Attila yesterday; we came back to our lives, what we were living before, and you are on your journey.
You are on your way, to the place where you are going, I would say.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't say I am at home.
Yet.
But I am very happy, that you meet the life, what I was living before going to Denmark. The house where I've been brought up, some of my friends. My parents. My christian groups. The streets, where I've been walking. Alma.

Third note

I can imagine, that after a while it gets annoying, when I compare you, with Kálmán. Maybe I was joking with it too much, sorry. (It's interesting that in English, the word 'you' starts with a small y, and 'I' is a capital letter. Marguerita was always changing the orthography of these two words; she wrote You, and i, and very often I also write You with capital Y, but here, in this text, I would like to keep the traditional orthography.)
Of course there are some similarities. And if you focus on them, of course you can recognize them from time to time. And it is interesting to see some people, who you know, but they don't know each other, and who are familiar a little bit.
But there are very big differences of course. One of these is, that you ask questions, which I appreciate a lot in you.
Both of you speaks a lot to me, and both of you likes to share his experiences. I am happy, that I can be a witness of your thoughts, I am grateful for you, even if sometimes I get tired of listening.
You Tarjei, have the speacial quality of the equal balance between sharing thoughts and listening. You can listen too me as long as you are speaking too me. I feel that you give the same seriousness to my message, what you give to your owns. I think that's a big gift.

Second note

I had an idea today, how we are going to continue with Kerek a káposzta (Round Cabbage), our performance with Anikó.
On one hand I would like to continue performing it, because, it was succesful, we had audience, and people keep asking, when are we going to show it again.
But on the other hand, if we would do it the same way, as we used to a year ago, it wouldn't be inspiring for me.
I remember in the last times, when I used to play with LEGO, I was only interested in creating some buildings, little towns maybe, but I didn't really play with them afterwards. I feel sometimes similar interest with the performances, which I am directing. The process of creation is interesting, and some performances (the first ones) are interesting, but than, when we are ready, a new subject needs to take away my interest.
You know, I would like to find forms and ways of making theatre, when something is not just an imitation on stage, but it really happens.
I think I am still far from this, but I'm on the way.
If something really happens, we really do something. Otherwise it is only talking about something.
For me these two games with the bottle, what we have played lately (one, which I didn't participate after our workshop in my grandparents appartment, and the other, what we played in Transylvania, on that very special and bizarr place, near that hunted house) were very interesting experinces. I wouldn't call them absolutly positive experiences, but I am very glad, that I had them.
I thought that in Kerek a káposzta we will make the audience sit in a circle. And we will play a bottle game with them. We will do what the one, whom the bottle is pointing at, asks us to do. I don't want the whole performance to be improvised. I want some structures, which are ready, when the show begings, but I want a lot if things to be decided there, right at the time, when the performance is happening. We have to find the best form for this, with Anikó.

First note

I wanted to give you a present for your journey. But I wanted to give you something which does not have really weight, or maybe not material at all. Not to make your package more heavy, and not to make you take care of more and more stuff.

It happens with me a lot of times, when we have a conversation, that I can not tell a thought, which I would like to, sometimes because, we both have to many ideas connected to one topic, so I feel, I need to select from them to be able to tell some of them, and sometimes I am not able to express exactly what I wanted to.

And it also happens, that something happens with me, or I have some thoughts and ideas which I would like to share with you, when you are not there (or at least this was my experience in the period between I departed from the school and you arrived to Kishantos this August).
As you have experienced, I am not good in writting letters.
I still owe Olga and you a little report about my experiences in Odin Theatre.
So these are reasons why I want to start to write you a log-book on internet.
A log-book (according to my dictionary) is a collection of notes what you are writting when you are sailing.
I don't want to write a diary on the net. And I don't want to write a diary for you.
A diary for me is a text, which I write for myself.
And I cannot promise, that I will write here at least a note each day, or each week or anything.
I can only promise I will write here, when I will feel the need to tell you something.
When there is something which is necessary to mention in the log-book.
And it is open, there is no password, so anyone can read it. I am writting to you things, which can be interesting maybe to read for other people aswell. This is also a motivation, I think.