az élet színháza
Mika Myllyhao
Chaos
hungarian translation by
Yvette Jankó-Szép
work in progress premiere of the K.V. Company and PanoDrama
with:
Alice Müller
Kata Bartsch
Böbe Bodor
Ágnes Kaszás
Zsuzsa Száger
Marianna Szalay
Anna Szandtner
Nóra Diána Takács
Krisztina Urbanovits
dramaturg and producer:
Anna Merényi
director:
Aleksis Meaney
premier:
2009. March 16., National Theater
photo: Eszter Gordon
photo: Eszter Gordon
Myllyaho's second and darker comedy, Chaos is written for three women, also in their thirties.
Emmi and Julia are sisters, the younger Emmi a journalist, the older Julia a psychologist, their best friend Sofia is a schoolteacher. Sofia's school is about to be closed, Julia is starting an affair with a schizophrenic patient, while Emmi - in the middle of a custody battle - is on antidepressants she gets from Julia and against better advice drinks on it. All are on the verge of breaking down one way or another and no wonder that they end up in jail one night.
Rarely are plays written about women today by a man with such sensitivity, such rambunctious humour and wit.
In this workshop, which was supposed to be led by the author Mika Myllyaho, who had to cancel on short notice due to health conditions, and was substituted by Aleksis Meaney, his long-time collaborator, following PanoDrama's concept nine outstanding Hungarian actresses in their thirties rehearsed the scenes of the Chaos for a week, at the end of which a ninety minute cross-section was shown to an enthusiastic audience at the National Theatre.
photo: Eszter Gordon
PanoDrama's concept of workshopping this wonderful dark comedy for three with nine women has proved a hit in Hungary, so now we have repeated the exercise with a group of German actresses in the framework of Nordwind Festival. The one-week workshop was co-led by the Swiss translator/director Martina Marti, who has been living and working in Finland for years and PanoDrama's founder Anna Lengyel. The most interesting lesson we learned was how similarly Finnish and Hungarian people seem to approach a Myllyaho-play, taking their cue from the situations and the characters which the Finnish playwright is so famous for, while the initial German approach seemed to regard these texts more as only that, wanting to work against the situation, but then quickly got the hang of the playwright's special sense of humour.
The presentation was fairly full in the foyer of HAU1 and the audience enjoyed the evening clearly.
Nordwind Festival focuses on Nordic theatre and as such has a Finnish focus in common with PanoDrama. A Smeds-evening shed light on the brilliant director and playwright Miss Lengyel worked with while still at Krétakör.
photo: creative-city-berlin.de
German translation by:
Eeva Bergroth and Martina Marti
with:
Judica Albrecht
Johanna Falckner
Katharina Hauck
Nicola Hecker
Simone Henn
Nicole Janze
Claudia Schwartz
Verena Specht-Ronique
Claudia Steiger
workshop led by:
Anna Lengyel and Martina Marti
workshop Presentation im HAU,
1st October 2009