Picasso Point
Hajós utca 31 [map]
Pest Centre, Opera (M1), 3 min
Entertaining, Mr Sloane? Well, eventually.
Equus productions debuted last spring with an enterprising and gripping version of Equus, which caught me happily off-guard. (Review here.) This time out, Rhett Stevens has a stab at Joe Orton's 1964 black comedy, Entertaining Mr Sloane, about a lodger, a landlady, her brother and a murder or two.
Staged in Picasso Point's brick basement, the venue is not ideal, and a stage flanked by the audience on either side was the first suggestion that pragmatic solutions would outweigh inspired choices.
With only four characters and no restrictions on nationality, you might think that casting would be a doddle. Not so. With the original Sloane - controversially, middle-aged and black - pulling out midway through rehearsals, and the director standing in as Kemp, it's a miracle that there's anything to review.
Sloane, like Equus before it, has recently enjoyed a West End revival, although its suitability for a budget Budapest production with an international audience is rather more questionable. Equus was a weird story but crucially, it was extremely visual. Sloane, on the other hand, is a lot more dependent on the script and is set in a house on the edge of a rubbish tip. The action in Act I was so fast and furious that whenever my view was obscured, I was content to stare at the back of the head in front of me until I could see again.
So even without a slightly jittery start and a mistimed doorbell - the hallmarks of amateur theatre anywhere - the slow-paced, dated and anglocentric script made the struggle all the more palpable. Modernisms were added but mentions of contact lenses, joyriding and boxer shorts couldn't drag it into the present.
While I certainly didn't want to see a "Carry On Mr Sloane", I did feel that a bolder interpretation of the characters would have given the first act a greater sense of purpose. Sylvia Llewelyn's Kath was the strongest performance, based largely on an Are You Being Served? era Wendy Richard. Daniel Hall's delivery had a certain Michael Caine chic, while Rhett Steven's Kemp hinted at Buster Merryfield, without exploiting its comic potential. With no English archetype to reference, Béres Miklós, undisputable star of Equus, was left a little adrift.
Fortunately, Orton's script picks up in Acts II and III, as the wretched characters reveal more of themselves. It's also more liberally peppered with insults and quips and gradually, the audience's uncertainty gave way to wry smiles and the odd guffaw. The final curtain was accompanied by enough enthusiasm for the cast to bow twice, but the applause was polite rather than rapturous.
So Equus' second production just about keeps them on track, and remains the only opportunity you're likely to get to see challenging English theatre in Budapest. However, it does highlight that, in theatrical terms, 45 years is a long time and 1000 miles is a long way.
The last two performances will be held on Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th May at 19:45. Details here.
Andy Sz.
Equus productions debuted last spring with an enterprising and gripping version of Equus, which caught me happily off-guard. (Review here.) This time out, Rhett Stevens has a stab at Joe Orton's 1964 black comedy, Entertaining Mr Sloane, about a lodger, a landlady, her brother and a murder or two.
Staged in Picasso Point's brick basement, the venue is not ideal, and a stage flanked by the audience on either side was the first suggestion that pragmatic solutions would outweigh inspired choices.
With only four characters and no restrictions on nationality, you might think that casting would be a doddle. Not so. With the original Sloane - controversially, middle-aged and black - pulling out midway through rehearsals, and the director standing in as Kemp, it's a miracle that there's anything to review.
Sloane, like Equus before it, has recently enjoyed a West End revival, although its suitability for a budget Budapest production with an international audience is rather more questionable. Equus was a weird story but crucially, it was extremely visual. Sloane, on the other hand, is a lot more dependent on the script and is set in a house on the edge of a rubbish tip. The action in Act I was so fast and furious that whenever my view was obscured, I was content to stare at the back of the head in front of me until I could see again.
So even without a slightly jittery start and a mistimed doorbell - the hallmarks of amateur theatre anywhere - the slow-paced, dated and anglocentric script made the struggle all the more palpable. Modernisms were added but mentions of contact lenses, joyriding and boxer shorts couldn't drag it into the present.
While I certainly didn't want to see a "Carry On Mr Sloane", I did feel that a bolder interpretation of the characters would have given the first act a greater sense of purpose. Sylvia Llewelyn's Kath was the strongest performance, based largely on an Are You Being Served? era Wendy Richard. Daniel Hall's delivery had a certain Michael Caine chic, while Rhett Steven's Kemp hinted at Buster Merryfield, without exploiting its comic potential. With no English archetype to reference, Béres Miklós, undisputable star of Equus, was left a little adrift.
Fortunately, Orton's script picks up in Acts II and III, as the wretched characters reveal more of themselves. It's also more liberally peppered with insults and quips and gradually, the audience's uncertainty gave way to wry smiles and the odd guffaw. The final curtain was accompanied by enough enthusiasm for the cast to bow twice, but the applause was polite rather than rapturous.
So Equus' second production just about keeps them on track, and remains the only opportunity you're likely to get to see challenging English theatre in Budapest. However, it does highlight that, in theatrical terms, 45 years is a long time and 1000 miles is a long way.
The last two performances will be held on Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th May at 19:45. Details here.
Andy Sz.
Műcsarnok, until 17th May
Dózsa György út 37 (Hősök tere) [map]
Pest, XIV, Hősök tere (M1), 2 min
Without a doubt, "Mi Vida - From Heaven to Hell", the exhibition on loan from Spain’s MUSAC in León, is the show to see in the city at the moment. In fact, it’s one of the best I’ve seen here, or anywhere for that matter. The title of the show is spot on. Not a strict divide between paradise and the burning netherworld, it concerns itself with all that lies between the two: life.
From large video works and performance art, to photographs, installations, and paintings; strangely, it all links up under the umbrella of “human discourse,” unlike another group show happening in Budapest at the moment. From familial turmoil and oddities (see Jesper Just and Tracey Moffatt), to sexual and surreal (see Marina Abramovic and Pipilotti Rist), to war and human destruction (see Cristina Garciá Rodero and Thomas Hirschhorn); the ugly and the beautiful are shown side by side in immaculate curatorial fashion.
If the attendance at the opening is any indication of the importance of Mi Vida, then the fact that you could barely move speaks volumes, and some recognizable names don't hurt either. One might expect with 36 artists and over 100 pieces, there’d be plenty of duds. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, artists like Canadian heavy-hitter, Marcel Dzama, are that bit more accomplished but the lesser works are more than just filler.
Dzama’s small-scale ink and watercolor drawings are surrealist and comic book-esque. They are without background or contextual objects allowing the fantastic characters’ peculiar actions to fill the empty space. The paintings of re-worked Polaroids in Enrique Marty’s “La Familia” are equally imaginative. The color and technique is devilish, violent and unsettling, evoking something reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
While Dzama and Marty’s works play primarily in the realm of the bizarre, the large-scale photo capturing destruction on a road in Kabul by Luc Delahaye, brings the exhibition back into the realm of reality: the pain of personal loss that lies behind the camera’s main focus. Meanwhile, Tomas Hirschhorn’s massive installation entitled United Nations Miniatures, may appear comical on the surface, before the stark reality behind the miniaturization of so many indistinguishable war atrocities sets in.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. An entire room (blatantly marked 18+, so kiddies beware!) is dedicated to Serbian artist, Marina Abramovic’s “Balkan Erotic Epic.” Here Abramovic questions the presentation of “information” by documenting obscure, sexual agricultural rites. Despite their patent absurdity, they remain somehow convincing. The video of the women in traditional garb running around in the rain flashing their genitals and breasts to the sky, and the one of the naked men frantically thrusting into the soil are guaranteed to amuse, at the very least.
Also following a comedic line, is Candice Breitz’s “Mother” – the distillation of six famous motherly roles in Hollywood films. Each mother, including actresses Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, is given her own screen in a pitch-black room where they are arranged in a stadium-like semi-circle. Everything around them is digitally removed, blackened out, focusing the attention on their emotions. The repetition of noises, snivels, and moans showcases the spectrum of motherly emotions in a span of just 13 minutes.
The presentation of much of the work is inventive and follows with the “on the cutting cusp” execution and feeling of the show. This is most evident in the presentation of Wolfgang Tillmans’ photographs, which are strewn about the wall in an erratic but calculated fashion. Some are massive, high-hanging and framed, others are small and simply taped, un-matted, to the wall in a series.
Only the work of American photographer, Ryan McGinley is largely underwhelming. McGinley has become highly regarded as a young photographer in the past ten years, and Műcsarnok’s promotional posters boast that his work is included in the show. However, to me, his photos are highly self-indulgent and lack any real discourse: it’s just American youth in the desert, nakedly basking in their parents’ trust fund.
Mi Vida is a show that is exciting for its presentation and near-flawless execution, and also for the subjects that are tackled within. The most poignant trends in the contemporary art world lie within the walls of Műcsarnok at this very moment. Get there at any cost before the show closes on the 17th of May!
All photos courtesy Műcsarnok, except the topmost.
Jacob P.
From large video works and performance art, to photographs, installations, and paintings; strangely, it all links up under the umbrella of “human discourse,” unlike another group show happening in Budapest at the moment. From familial turmoil and oddities (see Jesper Just and Tracey Moffatt), to sexual and surreal (see Marina Abramovic and Pipilotti Rist), to war and human destruction (see Cristina Garciá Rodero and Thomas Hirschhorn); the ugly and the beautiful are shown side by side in immaculate curatorial fashion.
If the attendance at the opening is any indication of the importance of Mi Vida, then the fact that you could barely move speaks volumes, and some recognizable names don't hurt either. One might expect with 36 artists and over 100 pieces, there’d be plenty of duds. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, artists like Canadian heavy-hitter, Marcel Dzama, are that bit more accomplished but the lesser works are more than just filler.Dzama’s small-scale ink and watercolor drawings are surrealist and comic book-esque. They are without background or contextual objects allowing the fantastic characters’ peculiar actions to fill the empty space. The paintings of re-worked Polaroids in Enrique Marty’s “La Familia” are equally imaginative. The color and technique is devilish, violent and unsettling, evoking something reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
While Dzama and Marty’s works play primarily in the realm of the bizarre, the large-scale photo capturing destruction on a road in Kabul by Luc Delahaye, brings the exhibition back into the realm of reality: the pain of personal loss that lies behind the camera’s main focus. Meanwhile, Tomas Hirschhorn’s massive installation entitled United Nations Miniatures, may appear comical on the surface, before the stark reality behind the miniaturization of so many indistinguishable war atrocities sets in.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. An entire room (blatantly marked 18+, so kiddies beware!) is dedicated to Serbian artist, Marina Abramovic’s “Balkan Erotic Epic.” Here Abramovic questions the presentation of “information” by documenting obscure, sexual agricultural rites. Despite their patent absurdity, they remain somehow convincing. The video of the women in traditional garb running around in the rain flashing their genitals and breasts to the sky, and the one of the naked men frantically thrusting into the soil are guaranteed to amuse, at the very least.
Also following a comedic line, is Candice Breitz’s “Mother” – the distillation of six famous motherly roles in Hollywood films. Each mother, including actresses Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, is given her own screen in a pitch-black room where they are arranged in a stadium-like semi-circle. Everything around them is digitally removed, blackened out, focusing the attention on their emotions. The repetition of noises, snivels, and moans showcases the spectrum of motherly emotions in a span of just 13 minutes. The presentation of much of the work is inventive and follows with the “on the cutting cusp” execution and feeling of the show. This is most evident in the presentation of Wolfgang Tillmans’ photographs, which are strewn about the wall in an erratic but calculated fashion. Some are massive, high-hanging and framed, others are small and simply taped, un-matted, to the wall in a series.
Only the work of American photographer, Ryan McGinley is largely underwhelming. McGinley has become highly regarded as a young photographer in the past ten years, and Műcsarnok’s promotional posters boast that his work is included in the show. However, to me, his photos are highly self-indulgent and lack any real discourse: it’s just American youth in the desert, nakedly basking in their parents’ trust fund.
Mi Vida is a show that is exciting for its presentation and near-flawless execution, and also for the subjects that are tackled within. The most poignant trends in the contemporary art world lie within the walls of Műcsarnok at this very moment. Get there at any cost before the show closes on the 17th of May!
All photos courtesy Műcsarnok, except the topmost.
Jacob P.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
