It’s time to laugh

Debrecen – It’s an evening when everything gets confused. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to have fun with the stupidity of others? Criticism.

At such times, as we approach the end of December, we feel strongly that not only is the year terribly tired, but so are we. It’s been a long period from January to now, and while we still have a few days off inside, there’s no chance we’ll take it all out. Even before our spiritual eyes, the image floats that cabbage and fish are being prepared at home for dinner, but the files are piled up on our desks. we want nothing more than to sit back – and relax. And not at home, on the ruins of baking and cooking.

Photos: András Máthé / Csokonai Theater

But in a theater, in nice clothes, in the company of those who want to have fun like us. This is a natural human need. As is that

the long future is expected to have a good laugh. Without any special and sublime goals.

Look out of our heads, grin at the jokes, and enjoy the fact that now you have no real bet on anything. We just want to feel good.

This year, the Csokonai Theater has been (also) looking to satisfy this elementary desire. A comedy by Francis Veber, Balfácán, presented in 1993, is a returning guest on stage. (It was no coincidence that a film was made of it in 1998, which was screened in Hungarian cinemas entitled Dilisek’s Dinner.)

It was staged in Debrecen by Bocsarnikovsz, whose productions (Lear, Don Quixote, Oz) never allowed the viewer to go home without feeling like he was part of a real theatrical experience. Nor has it turned out any different now – though the fact is that Veber isn’t Shakespeare, and that Oz is built into our thinking quite differently than this real comedy.

What was fresh, fresh and tender for almost thirty years, like fresh vegetables, is now more reminiscent of a kind of traditional seasoning that we can add to soup in this regard, it won’t spoil it. The story of Balfacán for dinner is that some friends compete for who will take the bigger balfas to their dinner together. Pierre (Artúr Vranyecz) is very much preparing for the evening to present his friends’ new “composition”. But a small accident happens to him: his waist is pinched, he gets stuck with his wife, and when he arrives at the guest (János Mercs) – the hopeful champion of the balphasians – everything is on top of his head. But on a level he could not have imagined in the nightmares of a reputable Parisian publisher.

The theater of the CSIL, or Csokonai Literary Laboratory (also known as the IPK), is an excellent venue for this comedy. The set is simple (and decorative): the living room of an apartment in Paris, everything happens there. (I admit fragmentarily, it reminded me a lot of the world to be honest.)

The story is definitely not happening these days. Based on the costumes, the hairstyles at the time when a tax officer could smoothly go to the job site with a shoulder-length injury. There are no mobile phones yet, the actors are tormented with a push button device.

What younger viewers may not remember too much – this is not the age of the internet, not the age of mobile phones. In return, however, we can confidently say that just as Good Friends couldn’t be playing these days, this story wouldn’t work today either. There would be no misunderstandings, no confusion like here. If someone wants to find someone or something today, they’ll talk to their cell phone, search for it on Google, write to their friends on Facebook or Messenger, or talk to the group I heard in Paris. of course, the unacceptable and substandard comments as well) – but that would be another comedy.

Balfácán still works for dinner after almost three decades, because – quite prosaic and simple – it is based on good dialogues and fun scenes. He doesn’t want to be more than that. Here we will not know ourselves, we will not face laughing because we are just like that. (We are not like that: at most they are even more so… But it is a completely different category.)

Pierre, Artúr Vranyecz in the role of a damaged publisher and Richard Kránicz, a small but still high-tax tax officer in his own profession, play a hit.

The elegance of Hella Tolnai, who plays Christine, is quite French, and in the role of nymphomaniac Marlene, Vivien Edelényi is just as much as the role expects of her. István Papp is a versatile actor, he also has a sense of comedy, which is possible in the skin of Pierre’s friend Leblanc. Just as János Mercs delivers the performance we have become accustomed to, it is good in anything, it brings good: but here the emphasis is on performance, I did not feel the elementary laxity that characterizes the play of Vranyecz or Kránicz. His figure is alive, his gestures are in place, he is crazy enough, annoying and timeless enough, the jokes are pouring in on him and he is independent of him. The one with whom it is difficult to start is the figure of the doctor, Dr. Archambaud. Even if the white spit is taken up by Árpád Bakota, we really don’t really understand what I’m looking for here when he doesn’t add anything to the story that we wouldn’t know or know from anyone else. (For example, from Your Majesty.)

The performance is still good, it turns off enough – even if it’s a little long, because three hours isn’t easy to comedy through. We enjoy being so light in the evening, we can laugh.

More photos, full casting information, at the latest when they can see the show here on the Csokonai Theater website they find.