Twenty-sixth note

I have heard many interpretations of Hamlet. Often they try to understand the characteristics of the Danish prince, why is he postponing to take revenge throughout the whole story, till the end, when he is already attacked by the king himself. They say, Hamlet is a hesitant person, he can hardly make decisions. The story goes forward, because we are curious if he will kill, and if yes, how he will kill Claudius. But he is slow to do the act, he almost does not get to do it. One says, he is melancholic, another says he is rather a philosophical type than a man of actions.
I don't know, if that is so.
But I know, it is not easy to kill someone. And I wonder why noone speaks about this.
If I would think, I have the duty, that I have to kill someone, I would suffer from this. It would be very hard.
I think Hamlet is a story about a person, who got a command, that he has to kill someone. Whereever this command comes from (the origin can be even in himself), he tries to face with it. The play tells the story, how he struggles with his duty. How he thinks over and over, and how he tries to bring himself to do it.
When I have to kill someone with my own hands, when I have to be present at the death of the person, who I murder, that is like killing myself aswell. We are created to be emphatic, and when someone dies in my presence, I experience death aswell, I project his death on myself, and I have to face, how it would be, if I had to die. I have to kill something in me, in order to be able to murder someone else. That's why in modern times armies fight with weapons, which kill the enemy in a long distance, far away from the murders. So they do not have to experience the death of their victims.
Of course, one could say: but he kills Polonius without any hesitation, and it seems this act does not turn him down.
But Hamlet kills Polonius by accident, and that is very important. And I think this is an important epsiode in the story, which can help the actor, to understand and to show, that there is a serious battle going on in himself, about committing a murder. There are two processes going on from this point in the story in him at the same time. These prosseses are reverse of each other. In one the protagonist is trying to face a murder what he has to do, before he does it, in the other he has to face and deal with it, after the act.
And we should not forget, that Polonius is behind a curtain, when Hamlet stabs him to death. He can not see his victim, and he thinks it is the king. To kill the king without seeing him, would be similar, how modern soldiers murder - without being a witness of their act. And that would solve his problem. Of course he can not kill the king, by accident. But he has to deal with the experience murdering someone, while he still tries to accept his role as a murder.

Extracts from a letter - three

When I was following the rehearsals in the town of Saint George, I learnt a new instruction, which I never heard before. It wasn't a seldom case, when an actor heard the director asking him to play his partner. You are not playing yourself, your are acting him. Sounded the instruction.
What does this mean, I asked myself, how does this make sense, what is the meaning if an actor starts to act something, which is not based on his own character, but on one different. And after hearing several times, I asked the director himself, what he meant by this.
It was a cigarette break, we were standing out on the cold and dirty corridor, it was under construction in fact, they repainted it for the premier. This play was performed in a small studio of theatre, which was based in a grey office-block, a department of the state health-care company. People, who came to take out or prolong their insurance were queuing up at the other end of the corridor, separated from us with a glass-door. They used a different entrance, but it happened, that clients due to some misconception entered on the gate of the theatre studio, and asked about health-care. After I asked my question, a middle-age lady entered from the street, a few steps above us. She looked upon us, and stoped at the top of the staircase. Excuse me sir, Administratia Asigurărilor? Althaught we didn't look at all as any administration office, people are prepared for unusual circumstances in this country. She didn't know, if she had entered to the high estimated office, or somewhere else, something unknown, who knows where, so she was as modest and polite, as possible. She was in need for something, so she had humilate herself.
The director showed her the way. She contatly descended on the stairs, and passed through us with eyes falled down.
You see, she was not acting herself, she was acting us. She didn't know who we were, and what she could expect from us, she went under us, she acted us. The man, who is the care-taker of the building, who came before the rehearsal, because I asked him to fix the circulation of the heating, as we were freezing in the past days, he was also acting us. He went above us, as he considers us as intruders in the health insurance's building.
Acting the other person, oh, that's a wise discovery. How rare is a man, who never plays others, but remains himself under any circumstances. How big is the tempation to act the one, who you face with, either beacuse you have more power, than he does, or exactly because you have less. There's a potency, which drives you to go above, to go under.
Just to fulfil the expactions, to follow the track, which is marked.
When one shows the sign of being above you, your path is marked, and the opposite works aswell, when you see people giving you the higher position, it is not simple to stay on the same level, your own level, a human being, equal to any other.

I dreamed

I came home from somewhere, my mother was pregnant, and my parents had built a new ell to their house, and they moved there. There were two storeys, and there were two rooms, above each other, where the floor was slanting. I asked, why did they bulit a slanting floor, and they told me it's beacuse the master builder. He was a friend of ours, living in our neighbourhood, some streets away. The answer meant, that he either was lazy to dig out the fondament, so he placed the floor on the splanting ground, or that he thought, this is the best solution for our new house.
It seemed, that my parents already accepted the case. We were busy taking care of my mother, who was very close to give birth. There was only one day left till the day, what was appointed by the doctor. Her stomach was huge, and we were afraid to touch it, for fear of that it would start the process of birthgiving. She went to bed, and I knew, it's the last night before she will be taken to the hospital, to give birth.

Extracts from a letter - two

"Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we may be."

When Hamlet meets his mother, he is very distant with her. The queen even asks him: "Have you forgot me?" Hamlet encounters a woman in the queen, who is very different from the image, of what he had about his mother in the past.
A mother is one, who brought us up, and who we are mostly very strongly related to, she is a fundamental role-model in our lives. All what we consider as our own principles about how to behave, are some way derived from our parent's example, either because we have accepted their rules and oppignions or because we are fighting against them, and we counter with them.
When a mother contradicts the principles, what she handed over to us, a threat appears on the horizon of our ideology. I chose to live my life this certain way, and the person, who I based my knowledge on, abandons the values, what she have thaught to me.
Hamlet does not want to accept a new mother. He wants to show her, what she was before, he wants to confront her with herself in the past.

"You go not, till I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you."

This glass, this mirror is Hamlet himself. He wants to play the role of the queen in past to make it possible for her to meet herself.
He has the white hope, that all those principles, which Gertrude once beleived in, and which were once confessed loud by her, have the possibility to change her back.

He thinks, that the queen long-time ago, wouldn't accept the present queen. He has the responsibility to confront these two persons, for he is the only one, who carries the queen's once lived personality.

To meet a person who is very close to you, who is so close , that is actually you yourself, and who does not accept you - is painful. Hamlet thinks he has a reason to cause this pain.
Gertrude cries for help.

Extracts from a letter - one

We are strongly rooted in our biological origins. We used to live in tribes, and there existed a competition of proportions of organ sizes, a competion of power. The male who had bigger muscles, was the stronger, and was the one who could fuck the female. But he didn't only get the access to sexaul acts, but with his power he became the leader of the tribe, he got the possibility to obtain fair enough nutriment, and to enjoy the security of self-defense from enemies either by escaping fast enough, or by defeating the other with power surplus. Power and sizes were the only existing values in fact.
Today we consider ourselves more wise, to know power is not all, moreover is not the only quality which one can charm a woman with. But the fundamental competion remained among our relationships, as proof of our values. And thank to our roots; one who is questioned in his sexuality is questioned in his whole identity.
This is what everybody knows, this is why all the junk mails, the spams, which I receive each day, are trying to get at me at my most vulnerable point, my sexual achievement. This is why they offer solution to all the possible problems, which I might have. I could enhance my performance, if I would have early ejaculation, if I would get off earlier, than the woman does, I'm with; I could make my penis become longer, if I wouldn't fulfil my partner with the lenght of my sexual organ, if she would have a lack of sexual plesure in the depths of her vagina, or she wouldn't be satisfied with the visual appereance of my sexual tool; and I could get help with making my penis standing firm and stiff, full of blood coming into it, if I would have problems with erecting it in intimate moments. All messages I receive from my unknown well-wishers are trying to help me in being able to fulfil better and better my partner's desires. Would I enjoy sex, if I would have a longer dick? No, she is the one, who might achieve higher plesure. Do I not get fulfiled, when I reach orgasm earlier, than my partner? No, I've gone all the way, she is the one who has a lack of fulfilment. What all these messages imply, is that I am the one, who gains through becoming better in giving plesure, that I am better person, if I cause higher plesure to my partner. The idea is of course not the invention of the authors of the messages, it is my biological definiteness what they are building upon.

I dreamed

I am coming home from Romania, I was at the train station in Cluj Napoca, which was a long - long line of continuous platforms, some stairs, pedestrian bridges, and ticket offices; all very rusty and grey. I was with some people, friends, I don't remember exactly who. They stayed at the other end of this long unforeseeable platform-series, I went to buy tickets maybe for our trip. We were heading to Hungary, the strange thing, I don't remember, I was thinking about this trip as a return. I had some kind of feeling, that I know all, what is around me, I am familiar with it. I heard some Romanian talking in the speakers, and than a lady started to inform in Hungarian about the train to Hungary. She didn't just speak Hungarian, but she spoke about all the towns and lands in Romania which the train was going through using their Hungarian names, and mentioning the historical background of them, how some Hungarians talk about it, among each other. It was a feeling, that not just the language had change, but also the information, which is given on different languages. Since it's a sensitive issue in the relation of the two countries, and the official Romanian oppignion is different than the Hungarian one, I was wondering, why is she doing this, how does she dare to provoke, what can be her reason, and how is it possible, that she is allowed to talk like this in the speakers of the train station.
Even thaugh it was in Hungarian.
As if it would be only understood by Hungarians. I was suprised.
But I also got to know from her speech, that I won't have time to get back to my platform till the train will start off.

Twenty-fifth note

Yesterday an evening in theatre on my own, in the studio of Katona József Theatre. I did not wish to have any company. But what am I saying, of course I had many compagnions, we were sitting shoulder to shoulder packed up in a small place, and I even met some people I know, some actresses from Transylvania, who I had seen in a performance directed by a friend, Pali, a girl, who I have been playing togheter with in a scene this June, on the street in a festival. Moreover I was sitting by an actor from the ex Chalk Circle Company, even he does not know me.
I have seen an estimated performance, which I wanted to see since a long time. It had its premier more than 3 years ago. It is based upon Franz Kafka's novel: The Trial. They chose a different title: Ledarálnakeltűntem - which is one sentence written in one word, the translation would be: IamrettledoffIhavedisapperead.
A theatre of nonsense, scenes and actions come after each other without any kind of logical reasons for the first sight. Anything can happen, after anything. To use this theatre language in adapting Kafka, is an amazing discovery.
The space is genial, when the performance starts, you see it's a narrow and long corridor, what you are sitting in, and after a few minutes they open a door at the back, and than you discover it is an extremly long corridor, and the end is far-far away from you. In the intermission, we had to go through this space and we could realize they even opened the back door and used the foyer of the theatre. And there is a mirror at the end, so it can even look neverending. Like the process of the trial, in Kafka's novel.
The actors often do hard work with their bodies and their concetration, extrem jumps, falls, dances, acrobatics, text-improvisation.
But after a while, I got bored, and i had the feeling the same effect is repeated and repeated. The creators selected out very few phenomens, and put them into definite theatrical effects, and used them several times. Many many times, it finally became a 2,5 hours performance. I had the feeling, I expect something more complex view upon the world from a theatre-piece.

Twenty-fourth note

Two headlines from Hungarian newspaper articles, published since the end of our workshop:

A certificate merite was awarded to the film of Csaba Bollók: Iska's Journey on the Freistad Filmfestival in Austria for the courage of the film in impacting with the stubborn facts, and for the acting accomplishment of Mária Varga playing the main role. (1st of September)

Hungary will be represented by Csaba Bollók's movie in the Oscar nominating process of best foreign language films. (5th of September)

"How beauteous!"

Hay Portrait

Orderliness

My mother is tiding up her room, sorting out things, and trying to make some kind of order among the rest. She has found a tiny plastic cup in her nightstand containing a tick, which was in my head in 1989. (At that time we used to be in the States.)

The Daughter of the Turkey-herd Woman - sixth (last) part

The prince and the soldier continued the card-game. Soon the prince (after letting the soldier win again) asked him to do another service for him.
"Just tell me your wish."
I pick a big pile of rose flowers and I sit in a basket. You cover me with the flowers and take this basket, and put it on the table of the miss. "
"I don't dear to make it." Boggled the soldier at the prince's demand. "I fear to do it."
"Don't be frightened at all, just leave me on her table and exit the room." Slowly he convinced the soldier to help him. He acquired a basket, lied into it, and the soldier carried him to the girl's table.
"Here you are, miss, a delivery for you." Mumbled the soldier and quickly left the room.
The daughter of the turkey-herd woman was standing in front of her mirror, combing her hair. The prince begin to rise gently from the basket behind her, so the roses started to tower in the middle. The girl noticed it in the mirror and turned in a sudden, just when the prince appeared of the roses. They embraced each other in a great happiness, they huged and kissed each other. What should they do? Where should they go?
They do not go anywhere, they lied into bed with each other straight away.
And the pagan ordered the wind band in front of his castle for his wedding, took his most pagan suite and stood on front of the march. He sent a prestigious functionary to announce his arrival to the fiance'e. The functionary arrives to her room, opens the door, and notices that she is lieing in her bed with an unknown man. He hurries back to his king and reports: "Noble King, your fiance'e is in her bed with a stranger man."
A round oath escaped the king. "Grab his ear, and take him here, let me see what sort of man he is."
The prestigious functionary alerted the royal guards and they entered the room of the daughter of the turkey-herd woman. "Get out of the bed!" The young couple took each other's hand and went to the king like that. The soldiers followed them.
But they are as like two peas. They resemble each other so much. When the king saw them, he gazed at them for an hour. And after that he sad: "Oh, Great God would beat me, if I would break away them. I organize a wedding for them instead."
They observed their marriage. They celebrated for seven days and seven nights. And the prince and his new wife settled in the court of the pagan king.
And they lived there a life of the newly weds, until a day, when the prince started to yearn for his home. He remembered his has a father and mother, the king and the queen. His wife noticed something was wrong, and asked: "What's the matter, my dear husband?" "Oh, dear wife, we should go home, to check the things there, I can not keep quiet here, until I don't know what's with my old folks."
So they decided to go home, they got gold in their purses from the pagan king and a permission for the ferrymen to sail them cross the water. There were new ferrymen there, young ones, instead of the old sailmans, who the prince met on his way to the pagan king's land. They took their places on the board and the small boat started to float on the sea.
The prince fell asleep. He was sailing on a boat in his dream aswell. He dreamt there was a rope at his feet, which he took and thrown towards the land. And in his dream this rope turned into a dry road. He woke up. And he realized there was really a rope at his feet. He threw it out of the boat, and it turned into a road. He left the boat, told them to wait him there, and ran on this path right to the land of the Blackamoors. When he reached their land they closed in on him and dragged him in front of their king. The king ordered his soldiers not take the captive to the scaffold, but only punish him the following way: "Take him in front of the church, and put a lash beside him. Everyone, who passes should whip him twenty-one times with the lash. Make him bear this for one day." Than spoke up the Blackamoor Queen.
"Hey man, our people are all black, and this one has white colour! Make him merry our daughter!"
"You are absolutly right!" Replied the king. "So, will you marry our daughter?"
"Yes, I will." The prince couldn't choose anything else to answer, because he was afraid they would kill him otherwise. So they observed the wedding, and he became the husband of the Blackamoor Princess.
But there was a law in that country, that if a member of a married couple dies, they bury the consort of him or her aswell.
And it happened that the wife of the prince died soon after their wedding. They prepared a coffin for the princess and for him aswell, and brought them to the cemetery. There lied all the deads and those miserables who were imposed upon God with force. When the prince heard the bang of the closing gate after the leaving mourners, he pushed up the cover, and climbed out of his coffin. The graveyard was surrounded with a huge wall. Finally he found an oak-tree which was taller than the wall. He climbed it, jumped down on the other side and escaped from the land of the Blackamoors on the path which transformed of the rope.
The boat with ferrymen and the daughter of turkey-herd woman was still waiting for him at the end. They carried on with the journey and sailed the prince and his wife to the cost, where the prince once came from.
They started to wander through valleys and hills. The prince's wife was pregnant, and it was more and more arduous for her to walk. They went till afternoon, when she asked the prince for a rest. They settled on the green grass, the prince embrassed his love, and she banded her head into his leap, and fall asleep. But she didn't just fall asleep, her soul flew away, and left her body. The prince didn't notice it, he didn't move for a long time, not to wake up her. He became anxious only, when the clouds turned red on the edge of the sky. "Wake up darling, we must go on. Come, we can not stay here for the night." He cried. But his wife did not move at all. Than he realized, that she is dead. He, himself almost died of a broken heart, he cried and sobed. So, what shall he do? Where should he take her? He took her on his shoulders, and started the road in the darkness of the night.
When he reached a village, he went into the cemetery, and there he entered into a charnel house. He tore the skirt of his wife into two parts, layed one part under her, and covered her with the other. He closed the door, and went home to his parents on his own. He yielded to fate, that his wife died, he has noone to look for anymore. He turned bitter, and he did not long for anything.
However one day, he decided to have a look round in the town. As he was walking on the sideway, he discovered a café, and opposite to it a brothel, with twelve gaudy whores in it. As he passed by they were laughing, giggleing, showing off, and misbehaving in the window. The prince never saw such kind of folks before, he curiously drew near the window to peek inside. One whore notices him, and suddenly she snaps the prince's hat, and runs indside with it.
"Oh my dear God, she has stolen my hat! What sort of freak is this? Why doesn't she leave alone my hat?" - said the prince, and he entered the brothel. Inside he met a fat lady. She was sitting all day in the anteroom of the brothel, she was brooding all day, as she didn't have family. She was the owner of the brothel.
"So, what's the matter, your majesty?"
"As I was passing by, and one of the women has stolen my hat. My royal hat." Replies the prince. The fat lady shruged away. "Enter, and ask for it!"
When the prince entered, he had no time to say a word. Nothing like: Why did you take my hat? or Give me mey hat!, they didn't let him speak. They circled him and started to caress him and fondle him. And they highly detained him: "Sit down, sit down sit, down!
And they were slobbering him. He did not know what to do. When his wife died, he took it a rule, that he will not be with other woman. But as he ended up on this place, and these women turned his brain, he commanded various things to these ladies.
During this, the lady in the anteroom, the owner of the brothel, ordered a cart to the village of Derzs for pálinka. They set out for the drink with the cart. As they passed by the cemetery, where the prince burried his wife, the lady heart some yowling. She made the cart stop. The coachmen and the lady hoped off the cart and searched for the source of the noise in between the graves. But they haven't found any living creature.
Finally the lady discovered that it is coming from one of the charnel houses, she peeked through the keyhole, and she saw that a newborn baby on the stomach of her mother, she was the one, who gave the noise. She called the coachmen, they broke the lock on the door and entered the charnel house. The fat lady never had family, nor children, the only people who belonged to her were the twelve loose persons. She decided not to go anywhere else, not even to Derzs for pálinka, she whiped up the child and returned with it to the brothel.
The prince left the house at that time already, but frok, that day, he reurnjed there to time to time.
The fat lady took care of the little girl, who she found at the cemetery, as if she was her own child. She brought her up until the age of twelve. When she found her in the cemetery, she found a necklace on the neck of the dead mother, and she took it, and when the girl became enough old to wear it, she gave to her.
One day when the prince was in the brothel, having pleisure with the whores, the fat lady noticed to her adopted child: "Oh, my daughter I am have been running a brothel for more than 20 years, but I never had so fine guest as this one, who's at our house today."
"Who is that, mummy? Let me have a look!" But her step-mother was opposed to her wish.
"No, my daughter, you must not go there, you are not like those!"
"But, mummy, I don't want to go inside, just to peep from the door. I come back, right away."
"Allright, that's okay." Acceded the lady.
As she opened the door of the room, all looked upon her. The prince looked there aswell, and the little girl's face called his wife to his mind. She looked exactly like her wife, she was so beatiful. He pushed off the loose women, and run after the girl, right to the fat lady.
"Who was the one, who came to our room?"
"That's my little daughter, indeed."
"And how much do You ask for letting her come to me? I only want to speak some words with her, and to have a drink together."
The corpulent proprietress of the brothel became shocked at that. "How do you think, I would let my own little daughter to you? You have those twelve girls for you! You want my precious child? Don't even dream about it!"
"You get as much money, as you would like for that! Beleive me, it is worth for you." Tried to convince her the prince.
And the fat lady wondered, how shrill the royal person is. "One can not get rid of him. And if he falls in love with the girl? He might even want to merry her..." She turned to her: "My little pearl, do you pay attention to the words of this noble person? Would you be willing to spend some time with him?"
"If you would let me go, I would be willing to do it." Replied the girl.
The prince and the girl entered into a room. They set down on two sides of a table. The prince opened a bottle and they drunk from two glasses, which were there, on the table. The conversation started hardly, the prince asked qustions like: "Who are you?" "How are you?" Nothing important.
Than suddenly he noticed the necklace on the girl. "How fine neclace you have! It is beatiful!"
"I should thonk so! I inherited it from my mum." Answered the girl.
The prince could turn his head away. He kept repeating: "How beatiful it is, how beatiful it is!"
As they were talking with each other, he strached his hand and took the pendant of the necklace. He opened it, and inside he found the photo of his wife! Rejoicing suddenly warmed the cockles of his heart. He embrassed the girl, his daughter.
"My dear child, look upon me, I am your father!" And he took her hand, and ran with her to the proprietress. "She is my child, not yours. You took her from that charnel house!" He cried. "I recognize her after her necklace, there is my wife's coloured photo in the pendant of it!"
The lady jerked back the little girl to herself. "It is not your daughter, majesty! I brought her up, took care of her, she is mine!"
"But she is not yours, I tell you! She is my descendant, indeed! Tell me, how much money you want for giving food and giving her clothes till now."
"I don't want your money, I do not part with her."
The quarreled, and brawled, but they could not come to an understanding. "Let"s go to the courthouse. They will decide who shall get her!"
So they went to the lords of the law, where the prince explained his story, and asked them to judge the child to him. The adjudicator has known the well the proprietress of the brothel, and he knew that she doesn't have family. He decided that the girl should be raised by her father, and he let the woman ask for the expanses of the nurture of the child. Only God knows how big sum she asked for. The prince took his wallet and paid her.
And than he said to the girl: "Come, my daughter, let's go home!"
But the girl shook her had. She took the hand of her fathers hand, and led her to the cemetery, where her mother was lieing in the charnel house, where she was found. And there the daughter of the turkey-herd woman was not dead! She was only hidden form conciousness. When the prince and his daughter entered, she sat up, took her golden comb, and started to comb her haie with it. And than suddenly she sprung up, and ran out from the charnel house; her joy was so high that she didn't know what she is doing! She was so happy that she sees the white-world again, and her husband, and her daughter. They embrassed and kissed each other.
"Where do you take me, my husband?" Asked the wife of the prince.
"I take to the palace of my father!" Answered the prince.
But his wife sad to this: "Listen to me, I do not go there, not even to the area of your father's palace! Take me anywhere, but there I don't darken the door!"
She didn't mention, what did her mother in law and father in law do to her, that they sold her, but she was not willing to go to their palace.
"I do not go to your father. I follow you everywhere, exept for that place!"
And so the prince led them to a city. He bought a house, there was a big room in that house, and they lived there happily ever after.

"As I heard it, I told it so."

Into Great Silence

A film by a German filmmaker, Philip Gröning. It is on border of a documentary film an a meditation guide, it can be both at the same time. Gröning made almost a 3 hours long film about Chartusian monks. One of the most characteristic feature of this order is, that they should speak as little as possible. Normally they do not speak, if they have important things to discuss, they write notes each other, and they only contact each other with loud words, if it is unavoidable. Beside this, there are rooms in the monastery, where it is forbidden to speak in any cases. They eat the meals on their own, exept for some community occasions. On Sundays during the lunch which they eat together one reads during the meal, and afterwords they have an hour to chat freely with each other, that's the only occasion for that each week.
The story of the film is interesting; he waited for the permission to shot this film for 15 years. Finally he lived together with them (undertaking their rules, and lifestyle) for several months, and shot the material completly himself.
When working with it he did not use music, you can only hear the original sounds, the recurring sound of the bells, the prayers, the sounds of the monks' different activities.
It is edited in a way, that on one hand you realize the passing time (it starts in wintertime, and ends in wintertime again), and the monks' repetitive actions in this passing time, and on the other hand you get to know more and more aspects of their lives there. He brakes the film with qoutes mostly from the bible, which are also recurring several times in the film (the one, which I remember the most is: "O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived"- from Jeremiah 20:7) and also with live portraits of the inhabitants of the monastery. It seems that he has asked them to stand right in front of his camera for several moments. It is very very beatiful to see these monks dressed in their white clothes mostly in front of a totally white background, looking into the camera or moving their eyes around.
I understand the intention to create a film, which transfers the sense of this life, and by letting the audience experience the athmosphere, giving a key to understand the meaning of it.
It is interesting to read to interview with Gröning on the website of the film, he draws a parallel in between the devotion of these monks and a devotion, what an artist makes in his life in order to be concentrated on his work.
The only thing, which I didn't like in the film was ,that I didn't understand why he chose to use shootings, which were not sharp. For me, without them, it would work much better.

Festival at Pennabilli

Twenty-third note

The Theatre Ensemble of Sepsiszentgyörgy is here in Budapest. They perform 4 or 5 times different plays, the Yvonne aswell, which I have followed the rehearsals of. Yesterday we watched with Bence a solo performance of a young actress, which I have heard about from her, but haven't seen, because she did'nt play it during the two months, while I was there.
She was the only actor, who was there from the ensemble yesterday, but I met with some of the crew: one of the stage manager womans, who's laughter is strong like a lion's roar; Olga, an always smily tire-woman, who introduced herself to me like this: "I'm Olga from the county..."; a property woman; some technicians and stage hands. It was so much pleisure to see and meet with them, to hear their usual (and actually very lousy) signal at the begining of the show, asking you the switch off your mobile.
I am looking forward so much to see how far did they get with the Yvonne since the premier, when I last seen it, and meet them. They are going to play it tonight in the studio of National Theatre.
They told me they are going to renew one of the plays, which tehy used to play a few years ago, and which were famous about, happy to hear, that I can see a version of The Miracle (A csoda - it is an adaption of Tamási Áron plays, who is a Transylvanian playwright and the nominal of their theatre.) Maybe we could visit the town after our summer workshop, what do you think? I definatly one to go and see, but to go with you to Taize is maybe more tempting.
Wednesday we are going with Zsófi and another girl to Pennabilli, a small village in Italy for a street theatre performance. Just a few days, on next Tuesday we are returning already. Hich-hiking again. But this time not alone. God bless.

Twenty-second note

I have seen an interesting performance, full of energy of young people, students from high school. It was something unusual, unexepcted from a high-school group, I like they have the braveness to leave the path of high-school theatre groups. Their leader is guy nearly my age, which I think is also great for them, and for him aswell. It is not a routin for him how to lead a group like this, how to work with them without text, based mainly on confronting them with themselves.
When one has no routin, of course it takes longer time to reach results, and of course he makes mistakes, but these mistakes are useful, and they are signs of true intention.
Before and aftrewards I had some beers with friends, and friends of friends.
We are busy organizing the international workshop. Lot of questions. I invited another girl, Dorka, who studies directing in Transylvania to lead the workshop with me. It would be inspiring to create something together but with different aspects off different leaders. The idea is, that each person works with each leader, and at the end we put some scenes together in one work demonstration.

Twenty-first note - Chalk Circle in your town

The Chalk Circle Theatre (Krétakör) will be on tour on the Festspillene i Bergen with their play, The Ice on the second and third of June.
It is a tough and cruel performance based on a contemporary russian novel. It is not directed by their leader, but by another young director, who already worked with them before.
Probably one of the last chances to see the ensemble together, because from the next theatre season they are going to alter and probably to split.

Poem by János Pilinszky

The soil is not soil.
The number is not a number.
The letter is not a letter.
The sentence is not a sentence.

God is God.
Flower is flower.
Tumour is tumour.
Winter is winter.
Relocation camp is a pale
territory with an uncertain form.

One day workshop at Vestjyllands Højskole (methods)

About the workshop which Olga and I led at the school.
My main goal was to get to know a little bit the people, who attended the workshop, and to show some ideas, some exercises to them, so they can get to know a little bit my way of thinking and working. And to awaken some searching for the reason for doing theatre today.

One of the exercises was that I asked them to create scenes, when they are suprising us. They were working in couples.
This execise can open you towards creativity. We are all waiting for a suprise, beacuse we all know that this was the exercise. What can still be suprising in this situation?
Suprise is an important tool of an actor. Breaking the expectations. When one expects something to happen, and this expectation brakes, does not come true, he can get suprised, and his attention rises.

After each exercise I encoureged the participants to give comments on each other's work.
I am asking the group to express with words what they have experienced (and not to judge if it was bad or good). I find it very useful, because on one hand the spectators have to find words for their experiences (and translating an experience into language means that you are shaping it, and it can help you to remember it later), and on the other hand it can be useful feedback for the creators - what did my spectators get out of what I have shown. Maybe they thaught about something completely different, what I wanted to show. Maybe they didn't understand, what I wanted to be understood.
In these converstations I am also just a member of the group, who gives his own comments. Sometimes of course I need to pay attention to speak at last, not to affect other's way of expressing their experiences.

An other exercise was that I asked them to make their partner do something without using language, or explaining him with pointing at things or body language. The task is that you have to create a situation on which your partner reacts naturally with doing, what you want to make him do. This act should come as a reflex on your actions.
These were the tasks:
Make me laugh.
Sing a song.
Do the opposite of what I am doing.
Take something out of the room.
Tell a story.
Suprise them.
Take another person to the other side of the room.
Close your eyes. (for a longer while, not just a wink)
Proove, that you like them.

I did with them the transformation of drawings exercise aswell, which I did with you aswell. When they have to choose one of a series of abstract drawings and transform this picture into a sequence of movments. Others have to guess afterwards, which drawing you have chosen.

I had a list of words with me aswell, which are describing different qualities of theatre, and they had to choose the 3 most important for them.
These were the words (I write in brackets, how many votes did one get): emotions (6), story (6), liveness (4), sincerity (4), attention (4), interaction (3), visuality (2), encounter (2) music (1), dance (1), sentences, suprise, imitation, contrast, newness (those, which do not have number, did not get any vote).
There were 11 people voting: 1 from New Zealand, 3 from Poland, 1 from Hungary and 6 from Danmark - 9 girls and 2 boys, mainly in their twenties, one of them was around 50.

The last one and half hour they spent with making scenes in small groups of 3 or 4. I asked them to find something which is disturbant for them in the smaller or bigger world around them, in the community of which they are a part of. A problem, which they can not solve, but which they would really like to, if they would have the power to do so. And they had to make a scene out of this problem.
At this last part there was a group, which made an amazing scene. They were working with the problem of facing with myself, finding my role, my goals, searching for the answer of the question "who am I". They disappeared, we looked after them for a long time. Time was running, we were getting close to dinertime, we wanted to show the scenes to each other. We have found them finally, they were still not ready, they were in a big discussion. I was afraid, that they haven't got further than just discussing theoretically about the problem. But they did finally a beatiuful-beatiful scene. They found 3 big (higher than a person) mirrors on wheels. They started as something very personal, very everyday like with the mirrors, like looking their bodies in them, combing their hair, etc. After a while all these movments became a dance, they started to climb on the mirrors, to push them around in the room. They attached their bodies to the mirrors, as moving them, and we could see ourselves, and other parts of the room turning around in these big glass surfaces. They took their time. The wheels were squeaking while moving in different rithms. At the end, one of them, the boy suddenly left his mirror, than the girl next to him left her own mirror, and reached the backside of his one, and the boy walked out from the room.

Uncle Vanya

Marvelous performance in Kolozsvár (Cluj Napoca - in Transylvania) of the play of Checkov directed by a Romanian director; Andrei Şerban. The sense of his love of the space around us. Genius ideas are the most simple solutions. Strike of a genuis is to explore them.
First we sit on the edge of the stage facing the round shaped auditorium. The actors are sitting scattered in the rows. Here takes place the first act. They climb, jump, run and balance around in the whole space, over the balustrade of the chairs, up on the banister of the balcony... There's a dance at the end, which describes with few sharp gestures the relations between the characters. Afterwards Sonia and Vanya stayes seated in the rows, all lights fade, exept for the lightbulbs of the huge chandelier in the middle. It slowly starts to descend right above Vanya. It is not a fluent movment, it jolts as the machinche is making it come down.
It stops in a little distance above him. First the yellow lightbulbs go out, and there's only the cold blue light of a round neon just above him, and finally it fades aswell.
Light comes back, and Sonya and Vanya are showing us, we should enter the stage.
During the second, third and fourth act we are seated in the middle of the big stage. The flies above stage is enthrallingly high. All the space has athmosphere of an enormous workshop, a place where people do their work, with the raw materials: ropes, iron tubes and other constructions, spotlights, and walls made of bricks. They play around us: at the edge's of the stage on small platforms, in the glass cabin of the stage-manager (with a stong red curtain on the backwall of the cabin), above on the technician's balconies (there are two balconies above each other in around 25 - 40 meters high), on the small backstage; and between us: all chairs are in a distance from each other - the actors walk in between them several times, in most of the cases they were telling monologues there.
The backstage is curtained off at the begining of the second act, you do not expect that something will happen there aswell. Later, suddenly you hear it starts to rain over there. They pull up the curtain, you can see a small model of a house surrounded with mud. The rain is falling here, it is illuminated with cold lights coming sharply from certain directions - creating a big shadows on the faces, when the actors enter into this mud. There are shelves behind, they are divided into small boxes. On some of them files, and some others - as you can discover later - live doves. On the performance, which I have seen they started to move in the best moments, when their wing-beat supported the meaning of the actor's sentences in a batiful, poetic way.
When actors go into this backstage, they get covered with mud, and wet from the humidity of the rain.
It is played in Hungarian (by Hungarian actors), but everything is subtitled in Romanian. Even the begining and the ending of each act is projected. There are tv-screens everywhere around showing all subtitles, all the time.
Elena, the wife of the professor turns her speach into different languages, mostly English, and sometimes French and German aswell. Others take over from her, an answer her in the language, what she used: to please her, to be ironic with what she have said, to show they have same accomplishments, as she does.
The whole evening carries irony and beauty at the same time. Deeply lived situations, but a distance from each event. The close and empathic relation to the situation and story of these people, but a show being in theatre all the time.
At the end the safety curtain mounts, and actors leave to the auditorium to bow. They are playing, standing up in different places of the auditorium to bow - more and more behind, they even go up on the balcony and slowly disappear behind a row of chairs. We - the spectators - are standing up on stage and applauding for the actors, who are waving for us in the auditorium.

I have seen this performance with big luck and a lot of benevolence of very kind actress. We were hitch-hiking from Saint George (Sepsiszentgyörgy) with Bence till Cluj, we were longing to see this performance, because we heard very good comments about it. I got the phonenumber of an actress, Péter Hilda, who was working at Saint George, but now she is at Cluj, and acting in this performance. There is double cast, that evening Hilda was not playing. She made some calls for us to get some places for us, but they told her, there is no chance. The seats are limited, and there were already extra chairs for that night. But still we met in front of the theatre, and she was leaving no stone unturned to fit us in. I have met her once before. And in the last moment we got the last seats. She got a chair aswell, and stayed. She said, she loves this performance so much, that she can not leave it, if she is there.

Methods in making theatre - part one

You asked me to write down some of the exercises, what we have worked with during our rehearsals in Denmark, and later in Hungary.
I was hesitating a bit, because I don't have a completly worked out system yet.

But I can tell some of the exercises, what I have. I think it is more important to understand the reason of them, than the exact way how one or another goes.

One of the most important fields what you have to work with is what you are paying attention to. Let's call this focus.

You can only be free in your work, when you are focusing on right things.

When a beginner enters to a rehearsing workshop usually he can not focus well. He is worried about others watching him, he is busy to produce something. But he is not focusing on what he wants to produce, just on the will of producing something.

Put a chair on the stage and ask a beginner to walk towards the chair from a certain point and sit down, and than stand up and leave the stage on a certain point. He will have difficulties managing this very simple task.

Everyone can walk, shout, cry, breath deeply, look in another's eye, smile, be angry, laugh, make breaks in between his actions, but at the begining it seems impossible to do these things while other's are watching you, and you are aware of this attention, moreover you are doing these things to be watched.

This is the abstraction in theatre. Each of your actions have two goals. When you are not doing theatre you are shouting to express your anger. When you are doing theatre, you are shouting to express your anger and to be observed at the same time.

You need to have to be in two states at the same time, one in the state of the emotion, what you want to express, and another is the cool-headed controller of the whole situation.

One of the most difficultest things, what a percussionist has to learn is to move separatly his hands end feet. It is complicated.

In percussion you have to make divison between the parts of your body. In acting you have to divide mental things.

Time is an important component in avoiding the wrong direction of focus. It means one has to have patience when studying the work in theatre. But to get more and more used to the situation that your actions are being watched is just the first step in the work with focus.

You have to learn what to focus on. These are parallel processes. You will drop to focus on excrescent things, which are obstacles in your work, when you start to find new things to focus on.

Humility. You need to be patient and curious. Your curiosity needs to be stronger than your desire to reach accomplishment.

What to begin with?

On my opignion you have to get in touch with the tools what you are using when you are acting.

You have basicly three tools.

Your body.

Your partner(s).

The space.

(There is one more indispensable component in theatre: audience, and you have to learn to focus on this component aswell, but it comes later.)

You can only work with things, which are familiar to you. So I advise exercises, which help you to sart to get to know these tools.

Some exercises. Your body.

Connect your movements with your breathing. Stay still while inhaling and imagine one movement, and realize this movement while exhaling. Do this movement exactly as long as you are exhaling.

Imagine a movement while inhaling, and when you exhale realize the opposite of it. For example, you are standing and you imagine that you will sit down, but than you spring up. (Let's call this the contra-movement.)

Imagine a movement, and realize both, first one third of the contra, and than the whole original movment. Try to find a very concrete goal for yourself. For example walking across the room and shuting the door. Realize this series of movments with this method; imagining every single part of your moving, move only during exhalation, and do the 30% of the contra and the whole original movement aswell.

Write down extrem situations from your own experiences. Situations which effected your body (aswell). For example when you fainted, when you were drunken, you had an operation in hospital, state of high fever, a sexual act. It is very important to write only about physical phenomens, do not write about what you were thinking, or what were your emotions, strictly narrow down your sentences to describe how your body was behaving in these situations.

Maybe you will find it to difficult to remember any of these kind of situations, than for the beginning choose something from everday life, and try to write down how you are eating, how you are smoking, gonig down the stairs, having a shower, etc. Write down as many things about your body in these situations as possible. What are the positions of your body parts, how they move, when they move slowly, when fast, how are you breathing, where are you looking at, which of your mussels are relaxed, which are in tense. Do you feel pain? What kind of pain. And so on.

When you feel you have collected as many sentences of one situation as possible try to feel tha state(s), what you have described in your body. Do not act it out. Close your eyes and try to find the feeling inside. Than make one still picture which can describe the whole situation. This picture is to describe what you feel, and the goal is not to explain to the audience in a very concrete and understandble way what was the situation exactly. They do not need to know, if it was an operation for example, they need to get the feeling what you want to express. If you are doing well they might feel something similar in their bodies. Ask them to describe what they have experienced.

The Daughter of the Turkey-herd Woman - fifth part

The prince did not go back to his parents, neither to the house of the Jewish family. He went right a way to the seacoast, he wanted to cross the waves. But he haven't found any boat or canoe, or any means of transport on the coast. He waited there for a month looking out for someone, who can take him across the water. Than suddenly he saw a boat on the horizon, approaching him. There were two sailors in it. As they reached the coast, and they started to anchor, he cried at them: "I want to cross the water." "Oh, we cannot sail anyone cross the water, it is even forbidden for the bird to fly over. That is the command of the king."
"If you refuse to take me, I'll kill myself into the water." And he prepared himself to jump down from the rocks.
Than one old sailor says to the other: "Listen, they might kill us, if we sail him across, but we are both old, look at him, what a pity if his young life ends. Let's take him." "Come and jump in!" Said the other one to the prince. They started to row with him across the water.
The daughter of the turkey-herd woman was closed in separate room, guarded strictly by armed soldiers. When the boat reached the bank, the prince went to her room directly. The soldier in the door warns him: "Stop." He stops for a second, but than makes some steps again. "Stop!" Says the soldier. "Otherwise I'll shoot at you." But his words were bigger, than his braveness, he didn't dear to pull the trigger. The prince stepped up to him. "What are you doing here?" "I'm watching over the fiance'e of the king. She is locked up in this room, so she cannot escape."
"How foolish you are, soldier." Replied the prince." "How much do you get for this?"
"I do not get a penny, this is my duty, I'm a soldier."
"You are certainly fool. Why do you waste your precious time watching over her, without getting any money? Come let's play cards instead."
The soldier shook his head. "I do not have money for that."
"I'll borrow you some. Come on!" He gave half of his gold to the soldier, and they started to play. The prince was a big card player, he could even win the stars from the sky with playing cards, but he let the soldier win. "Listen soldier, if we continue this game, you'll win so much money, that you will not know what to do with it. But this is nothing compared to what you get, if you do a service for me. Will you?"
"What would it be?"
"Take this cup of wine, and take it to her. You'll get this big amount of money, if you do this for me."
"I can do this, this is nothing."
The prince threw his ring into the cup of wine, and the soldier took it to the daughter of the turkey-herd woman. When she started to drink it, the ring hit her teeth, she looked at it, and she realized who's it was.

Twentieth note

I'm going home soon. Home? Sometimes I wonder what is home for me? We talked about this question and worked with it last summer in our workshop, and a even before, a little bit, in Denmark.
What is important in the home? People, who are close, safe place, ability to be understood, and understand others?
I have seen a performance of students, I was amazed by the devotion and humility what they have in their work, and I was shocked at the same time. Their leader used to be an actor in the theatre, where I am studying now. People, who know him from the theatre say, the performance talks about his questions, and problems.
I was wondering, how much distance one has to take from his private life, and private questions, when he is working. Of course, you can only talk about things, which are important for you, but you have to make some steps backwards to have a more general view. Otherwise it becomes your personal therapy, and You misuse your company and the audience, who comes to see you.

About the Way

You have to know, that you have to find the Way.
The Way will not look for you.

Does anybody know, how is this quote from Gurdjieff literally?

Lost language

Lift your arm. She lifts. How big is this mountain for a skier. It takes a long time to arrive to the valley. He has to be careful, not to be too fast, because he is alone. No one can help him, if he gets lost in the snow.

I am folding a hat from the glass of my window.

I nail the smoke of my pipe to the wall.

I breastfeed the asphalt.

I hide the flames of the bonfire under my underwear.

I wrap carefully my last night's dream into a cloud. Big package tough.

I cry under water.

Nineteenth note

Back in Budapest, an intermission in the rehearsals in Transylvania. I am reading Ödön von Horváth plays. Greatly written bitter dialogues, which slowly build up a story. People, who are struggleing, and keep making wounds on each other. This is the way they are only able to interact with each other, this is how they are able to express their pain. He was half Czech, half Hungarian originated, and he lived in Vienna, Austria, and wrote in German.
One track on the CD of Magnus's band (the Blood Sweat Drum 'n' Bass Big Band) perfectly matched to one of his plays; Kasimir and Karoline, a story about a young couple, who splits up. If I would make a performance or a film out of this play, I would definitely use this music.

And a cruel and fantastic Romanian movie: 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days. As minimalistic as possible, one camera (sometimes in the hand), no music. All in behalf of telling a story of an illegal abortion in the Romanian dictatorship, in the eighties.

Eighteenth note

I dreamed about two female lions this night. We escaped from them into my room with my mother and my oldest brother. I was holding the door, but they were stronger, they pushed it in, ran a circle in the room, made some wounds, and they went out. We tried to make a barricade, so they won't come in again, and a little later we moved back to my brothers room, because it was easier to close his door. My father was outside, and we tried to worn him with some form of telecommunication (maybe phone) to be careful.

I am in Romania, and I am participating on the rehearsals of a play about an encounter of a girl, who does not speak and a royal court. I do not have any duty on these rehearsals, I am only here to listen and to watch. The theatre is the one, where we have been together at the end of last summer, and where you were waiting with me for the director. The evening before, we had been in another town nearby, on the lecture of the Danish lama, and after on the party with him, in a discotheque. Than we slept in that big open garden, which seemed for the first glimpse abandoned, but after putting up our tent, you noticed some clothes hanged out on a rope, and in the morning a woman came out from the house and looked at us in a frightened way. We both haven't slept a lot, it started to rain, and you ran out to fix the tent. When we were waiting at the porter's lodge of the stage door, you fell asleep lying on some chairs.
This town is very small, everything is very close to each other, which I enjoy a lot. I rented out a room from a young girl, who is teaching art in several schools of the town. My room is almost empty, except for some plastic dolls in the corner, and her drawings on the walls, a lot of big nudes. This apartment is about 10 minutes walk from the theatre. The atmosphere of a theatre in a small town reminds me a little bit the experience, which I had at Odin. The mystery of big and untouchable actors disappear, and theatre becomes a profession, as normal, as anything else.