Not all questions written down. – Interviewer: Lorenz Hippe

Boga 1

– What was your first memory of the project?

That was a calling on the website. And also I know the workshop leader by person. We were in contact before. She was running the place. She was organizing camps for children for summer. One summer my son was visiting it. It was a one-week-camp. They were building some things together. He likes to build things. When she started to make a space for bicycle repair we were volunteers. We were building walls, craft. Later he was visiting the bicycle repair project. This workshop with special intention. I was interested in it because I am attached as a mother and also as a person myself.
(…)

– Are there any points in this workshop what was worth doing it? What did you take out of it?

When I was joining it, I thought, what can I give in to it? As an actor, as a social paedagogic. Also as a mother. Today I tried to do my best in many circumstances. The result, the treasure in it were the other people. Working together as a team with quite simular but different backgrounds. That we put it together. That we made it. It worked.

– Can you describe what did you want to give into the project?

My energy, my knowledge, my experience, my curiousity, everything I have about this topic.
When I was a child there was a point in my life that I had lost the attention of others. Attention of my parents, attention of my caretakers. In my memories I see my childhood as I should see down and shut up. It was quite hard to live with it. I have an early memory, when an old lady was asking what I would like to do when I would be a grown up. And I answered: I want to be an actress. And they were laughing. Later in my life I found that I have lost the attention. Not special attention, but attention. And the world turned into a very bad place. Where I had to switch into survival mood. Half of my life, after my 40th birthday I started to learn much more about my special needs. This attaches to a hard situation. My mother was dying of determinal illness. She was I don’t know 62. Then I thought I don’t want to do the same way. She was working in her life in many fields but surpressing her feelings and not working on her self-knowledge. It was another style. She was another generation and she had no skills to live together with her things. I wanted to do it in another way. So I wanted to learn more about myself. More about the family heritage. And to change the way and do it differently. So this was part of that I had directly chosen another way to live. I did make mistakes on my way because I did not have a good role model. I only had bad models. I wanted to do it different and there were no models personally. People on media, imaginary people. My friends are in a same situation as me. We are different. (she laughs). I know many artists. I have been to the theatre for more than twenty years. And they are different too. Also I have been working in an art in education, there are different people too. And now I work in a social institution for almost eight years now and they are different too. Another kind of different. So it´s everywhere. (She laughs). Making art is a very good thing. If anyone is interested if anyone shows attention. Showing your play listening to music watching your art if you do sculpture or any other visual things. But people with serious illness or serious problems are a very different thing to give attention for them. Back to the topic of the project special attention special needs that many children today have special needs and now we started them not to label as a bad child. In my childhood everyone was a bad child. Yes, we were bad. Now we may say that we have special needs and still the society cares as we made it in the play for one character we don’t care about them. It´s to much. They just want to have more attention. And normal children don´t get the attention. I think everyone should have attention as a human being. In normal or even in different. We shall give attention to each other.

– The story of your play is about a boy who has been kicked out of the theatre group. What would you say would be the solution in this kind of situation? What could the mother do?
(…) What is your advice?

In the play there are mothers who are against her. There is one person who is a supporter. To her child and for herself. She can take him to another school if it is needed. She can try to strengthen up herself as a parent and her son as a boy to live together with the situation. I think it is a very personal thing. So I cannot give a common advice. But only personal. Me as a professional I know advice are not valid. So there are no advices.

– What can the character do? If we develop a new scene how could it go?

We made the end to an open ending. Because we invited the audience to give their opinion. Shall we leave? Or moving to another topic: inclusivity.

– What do you think? Is it better for the son to stay in the school or leave? What do you think? In the play?

I cannot make myself very apart from the character because my child has got special needs too.
I have four children and all of them have special needs. Two times with my daughters we did switch school because of bullying. Not from parents but from other students. And also because the educators, the teachers, the school system was not good for her. With my boys we did not change the school because they were not so tight. With my girls we did change the school because of her and another daughters personality and to get better education and to be with more safety.

– Looking back do you think it was a right decision for your daughters? All in all?

From my point of view yes. My older daughter she is now in teacher´s college. Sie said in the school she switched to there were wonderful teachers. And she wanted to be a teacher. My other daughter, she is a real artist. She is a very very strong person. I support her to be an artist as she likes to be.
She switched school because the school she was attending was to lazy and she is very very smart.
She asked me to find another school. To have better final exams. Because she is definitly to a university. She is going to study education and she needs good finals. She is collecting all the points in the exam. She made already her finals and then she will start to build up her portfolio. So yes, it was a good decision from the point of education in which I believe firmly. I am quite strict about it too. Even with a school that has to be paid for it. A private school.

– This is an European project. Looking back what would you say did work and what would you change for the next time?

I think it is very good that it has an international background because it brings more views into it.
I am open for other cultures. I like when people add their experiences. And their colours. So they give more to the work. Looking back to it I think it could be better if we meet you before. I don´t know in which way we could have. But in that way we could have learned more from each other. We were working for more than a year know and it would very good to have met you before. To exchange experiences and see the process of yours.

– Is there anything else to ask or to tell?

I would want to tell that I was taking part voluntarily in my free time on weekends and after workhours. For me it was a plus. My family got used to it that I am spending my time with it. I asked them to watch the play and for their opinion. It was a good journey if I may say. It was a different type of work that I do weekdays. Another type of creative work. I enjoyed it.

– Could you take any experience in your daily work?

Last year we made a spectacle where I work and it was so successful that we had to do it two more times in the autumn one time in the winter. And now after this summer we have to make it again.
So more experiences from the theatre I can work into the play. With different people. We are casting and recasting for the play. And they have special attention, they need special attention.

End of first take.

Boga 2

– The groups were very different? What was the advantage that they were different?

Your group were young people. It had fresh energy. I liked it very much. They were playing cool.
They were strong. Working very good together. On the stage and in their individual things.
Like someone who has courage to do. And also strength to do it. This kind of art. And we our group we are grownups. Mothers with special children. We are more … depressed if I can say (she laughs). But full of experiences we can share.

– You have responsibilities in your life. A job, families… They don´t have a family, a job, all of these things. They have their university but they are not in this kind of responsibilities as you are. So it´s very brave to do a project like this being in responsibilities. Which was the reason why in Jena we couldn´t find people like this because they don´t have time. Even the students found it hard to have time. Three hours four hours rehearsals. It was difficult to get them together. And there are just four of them.

It´s get better to the family. This is a psychological matter that a mother should be well. If I get to know myself better and I see other mothers we feel that we are not alone and support each other and also we have seen each other´s children because we invited them to the premiere. They came and saw us playing. Later they told us their opinion. It was quite a support.

– Will the contact to the others continue after finishing the project?

I think this project changed our lives. Not just contact but values and connection. A little pride that we made it. Under several circumstances. We were changing the roles so we not just know one role. So yeah. We made it. I think we shall be proud.

– Thank you very much.
Zsuzsa

– What was the moment you started it? The very first beginning of this project? You invented it. What was the seed, the first time you were thinking about the project?

This was outside of the project. When my son was six years old. It was 2018. My plan was… my idea came from my experience at the school at my son´s class. It was an emotionally strong experience to me. It is completely simular to what was in the play. One boy had to leave the class immeadetly.
Not my son. My son, I felt that he will be the next one. (…) My son got into a really bad position in his class.

– When did you start to think about the project?

I first wanted to make a film about this experience. A sort of documentary with this class, with these people, with this boy who got sent away with his family. But the people in the class were not open at all. And this family was also not completely close but not really willing to speak. So I thought I need other subjects so it is not only about this person. I heard about other cases. So I thought that we make a soziodrama-group. People who have some experience with this situation. Playing and talking and meeting and discussing their stories. And that was the first. Language will be part of this project as a film. We have the material and this was the film.

– So this was the second step? Giving the idea to another group who has got similar experiences?

Yes. Then I called specialists, who are specialised in the soziodrama-method and also cinematographer. This was not an Erasmus-Project but a volunteer project. Everybody worked for free. For the sake of the subject. Because they also found it important. Something that is happening under the surface. Nobody is talking about. Some people had really bad experiences. Because getting into a community where they after getting after a point because of the problems of their children were looked upon and treated in a very bad way. And the schoolsystem does not have a good solution to protect these families because actually this helps the schoolsystem. The anger of the parents that throws away the problem of families from school, solves their problem. But it doesn´t.

– When did it change from film to theatre?

I always wanted to make theatre. It was a good excuse to make theatre which I wanted for a long time. In the previous year I was part of the forum theatre project and it seemed to be a good way to make theatre. Then I learned some other methods. So it became a mixture of methodology. I would say that the strongest part of this performance is the experience of the actors. They are so authentic. They don’t need to act. Every time it touches them. It is also difficult. But for the audience it is such a strong identification with their roles, with their parts. You can see how important they are.
They don’t have to be played. And they want to talk about it. Which is really great. Because this is a minority. And there is majority. It is strong and against them. This is strong to say. But after all they are.

– One can find the arguments of those people in the play. “We don´t want to have our children in danger. We don´t know what those children will do.” (…) Their argument is to protect their children.

Yes. Without those children time can be saved, energy can be saved, attention can be thrown into other things. If we start dealing with those children it takes time, money, effort, yes, it is costy.
If you decide to go with the inclusion it is a costy thing. (…)

– There is a development in society where you pull out what is difficult. (…)

What is really sad, that our performance started a bigger discussion in the Hungarian newspaper.
I wanted the public to speak about this. So I wrote to the newspapers to see the performance. And one of the major liberal newspapers-writers came and wrote a very provoking writing. Positive about but really negative about the other parents. The newspaper title is provoking to be bad. They just used words that give the impulse for the reader to open. The title was: “What happens the average of shit goes down when some mothers start their action.” Getting to action. Which can be taken very badly. There were three parts of this article. And in the third part the newspaper writer was giving place for the other party which would have been perfectly ok if they wouldn´t mix it with the bullying which this article did. They said that bullying is bad and that we have to find bullying… It is not the same.

– Ok. There was a discussion. But the discussion was in the way reproducing the bullying? What did you didn`t like in the article? I didn´t get this right.

In the article the parents of the “normal children” were speaking up. Bullying was mentioned.
As something that happens to their children. And, yes, we have to make actions against bullying.
But if we talk about it in the same time, then it makes it equal. So these problem children are the bullies. But it´s not true. And very often, they get bullied.

– Was there a discussion after the article?

The psychologist who was interviewed in this article wrote to me. We know each other. I told her this is my problem and we should continue in this discussion and make it clear the differences. We should come up with solutions. If possible. But I don´t like this mixing. But it didn´t happen. I hope we can find time and space in September.

– Ok. now it is August 24 and we are in Germany. Just today was the premiere on the festival. Looking back on the project what would you say you succeeded in the way you wanted the project and what parts you might have done different if doing again.

The interaction with the audience I would maybe ask another specialist to ask. Because I was doing that part. Maybe I am not the best in it.

– To ask somebody who is a specialist in this field to support you?

Yes. One part did turn out very bad. The other time it wasn´t that bad but could have been better. There will be a performance in a big theatre in September and I would like to be that one a very good performance so I ask somebody to do the interaction. There will be one more performance in a school, one more festival in August. And one Performance in Szeged where one of the players lives.

– What was the benefit of making an international project? As there is no international topic you could have done it on your own?

You know in Hungary everybody thinks outside of Hungary things must be better. I was really curious how the German education system solves this problem. And now I can see it is a human problem.
It is not only the system. So you might have a different system. But from the human part is the same. And it is very interesting, what answers the German education system gives.

– Did you get answers to this question?

There is still one part I am ancious to see is the questionnaire. It is about the parents-interaction with the school. I think that is our topic. If we are not talking about “problem children” or “non problem children” it is the way school treats the parents. How they think it is a partnership. We are taking care, we are the professionals and you are the users only. So I am curious to the results. (…)
If I consider what has happened until know. In the German group as I see there were young people who I would say are the children in our topic. And in our group there were the mothers. It would have been nice to be together more and to work together more to have this opportunity. But because of some problems we had in our group and the delay of the project it didn´t go as it was planned. Now we met and it was a very important meeting. I think it surprised my group. Your group surprised my group. We learned a lot. The surrounding. The context where we met. The festival. The freedom of the festival. The free spirit of your people. The answers and solutions, the theatrical freedom also is something that we have learned. There was another meeting where only the trainers were here. We learned some forumtheatre methods and it will be interesting to use one day.

– Is there anything else you want to tell, what you think might be interesting for the documentation?

I chose the organisation (Freie Bühne Jena) because of its experience in theatre. It wasn´t that the people of the two organisations were similar. It would have been much easier that way. For example if our organisation is a school and your organisation is a school this would be an easy way. But in this way we were specialists in different ways but didn´t have the participants we had looked for.
In Budapest a big city it was easier for us as in Jena which is a smaller city. Less people. And also different involvement in the problem. I am really happy that Jena is a university town and we could find young people who are interested and it is important for young people to feel solidarity but also it is their own experience as they went to school. They had some experiences which are similar and that experiences come from that lifetime. Their openness and possibilities in their future carrier maybe this project adds something. I don’t´ know how many people think that it is a good way to go in a social field to work as a social helper but in Hungary it becomes less and less popular.
The salaries are stuck in the eighties. The helpers are in the level of the people who they help. So less and less people are involved. EU has this solidarity project and therefore it was good that young people are involved. So this is a project for adults. But the young people are almost on their way. They start their professional carrier.

– On of them is a professional already. They are not all the same age. Ok.

As I saw children were really open to your performance. It is a tale. A fairy tale. It is about our topic. So maybe the audience can be children.

– Yes. There are two parts. The performance-part and the story-part. There will be a meeting. I hope they are going to perform in the grammar school. I think the production of the forumtheatre is finished and can be take place in a school. As they are students they are busy with the things they do. (…) If you do this you can collect more experiences with different audiences. On the other hand we have the performances and also Alexandra´s performance what we could not show today. (…) Maybe we could do the performances somewhere else. I think this also can be reproduced on other occasions. Both parts are very different, so maybe it is better to perform both parts in different places and times.

I really liked with C. that he had to change the plan. Something didn´t work out so he could change.

– During the performance it was their decision. We gave advice but they could decide. With the collective performance it was different. Anne was the director, I was advising and they were advising each other but Anne would make the decision. It is good to be prepared like this in advance. If a crisis is coming you know who is going to take decisions. And that is why C. could decide. I gave him the advice to open it so that we can see what he is drawing. Otherwise we don´t know what he is doing. (…) But he said, no, I am not taking the advice, I want it like this. And we said ok. Then he could decide during the performance maybe they are friendly and know I could turn. He turned because he decided to do so. This is important for this kind of performance. You don´t do what somebody tells you to do but you do it on your own because you are the artist. The performer is the artist. And the action of the artist is the art. That´s performance. It is not being an actor. You are not an actor.
You are not acting something which is based on a play. But you act something you want to do.
Which is sometimes not easy for us. If you are thinking like a director. You see it from outside. Maybe it would be better to show the picture. Just to get a better image for the audience. But he is not hitting my advice. Because he is the artist. I can´t control him. Maybe I could try to but it is not meant to be.

It was also difficult for me. We began from an equal level. Everybody was giving their own stories. They wrote everything together. We made the form of the performance together. For this festival I made changes which affected the group. It was late. It was not practised. (…) It was difficult to find time. We had a premiere on first of May, a second performance in June, now in July. In between I didn´t have the time so I made the changes last weekend. The language check had a mistake. It was corrected but I used a not corrected version. So everything was a little bit last minute and difficult to take.

– I think one could see your ideas very clearly. Open it up to the public so that they can be a part of it. Not just after the show but during the show. Which was quite a change. To bring it more to the audience. Which in a way happened. Because they participated a lot. Which they wouldn´t have if you would not have opened the structure. In your former structure they would just have to see it and maybe participate afterward. But now you opened the structure for participation and for that you had to open and sometimes destroy the closed structure of the story. To the point where you allow the audience to stop the actors. Which is really revolutionary to do. You take the conductor out of you hands it to the audience. They don’t know the play. They don´t know the story.

They made an effort to understand what is happening on the stage. Which would never happen if they were not in the part of the conductor.

– The story was not that clear to the conductors I think. So they found some formal elements. They said maybe we stop the actors and give it to the orchestra. At first the actors didn´t react. They continued playing. Because it is closed. It is not open. It is like a movie. A theatre with a forth wall.
At the end they stopped. But they looked a bit embarrassed.

At the sixth scene the actors started to destroy the play. Telling one sentence as she was the chorus. Which she wasn´t.

– They lost their track?

They had the experience that the scenes were long. And they could feel that it should be finished earlier. And try to solve this and starting to destroy the structure. But it gave some experience.
It showed something. Which can be corrected. We can work with it further if we want. For sure they were much louder. With all the expression and voices they became louder. Which was like a problem that we had before.

– Ok. I like it. Maybe if you come back to the structure you had maybe this experience gives you something which you could not have before. Sometimes if you do an experiment and you say ok we are not doing it like this a second time. But the experience of the experiment will change the first version. Even if you do it exactly as you did before. Because you see they know that there is another possibility. I could do something else but I am doing this.

There was a problem that we had. One of the actors is not so good at learning by heart. The other actor is not so good at improvisation. They are in the same scene. We had this problem every performance. “I can´t follow her.” – “I can´t memorize”. Today they had to get that scene into an order that they can follow each other. And had to know even if they are not saying the same words where they are. The meaning. Understanding the meaning of it. And still having like anchor points that have to be said. Which I was telling them earlier. But I never had the time and the chance to go through what are these anchor points. So that you can rely on. You have to get to that point. It doesn´t matter in what way.

– I sometimes work with professional actors as well. They couldn´t do it. And they would refuse to do it. Because they feel unsecure and it is unprofessional to do so. To have such a freedom. Because as a professional actor you can do everything one says you to do. So if you have the freedom like that they don’t know what to do. They feel unsecure because they think it is not good. They are not sure that what they do is professional. So they start on in a way being unsecure non professionals never do. Because they feel unsecure at the first time. So they find more space, become more vivid if they got space to show up because they don´t know what they are doing anyway.

But we have started from improvisation. That is how we came to the play. And then we lost that fluency. And that current events. (…) And I feel that now we might go back to it. I hope we can go back to it.

– I liked that they were very concentrated. You could see that they can bring up the story. If you understand of course what they are saying. It can be like a chamber play. In a nutshell this structure of bullying. But in this openair situation it would be maybe more likely to give them more space with their bodies. It is more like a movie. In a movie you would let them be and move the camera. So they can concentrate on speaking and the camera would sort of move around and do the movement. This would work I think.

Last time we tried to add movements. The space was changed. (the talk has been interrupted). Our place is long. The audience was sitting in rows and they couldn´t see. Then I changed the audience to two sides and the play was in the middle. So to fill the space with movements. Which was a different way of acting. Another level. To speak and move at the same time. Before it was no movement just standing and sitting. Coming in going out. With these added movements another dimension came. When we are building it it would be good to think that it is adding and not destroying. Because it also changed some things for people who don´t like changes.

– If you memorize what was the appointment. If you take away the appointment you might lose the character. If you have the character on its own so that you can react in any time in any situation. And if there are two of them they have to decide who is moving who. Highstatus and lowstatus. Highstatus is going to move the others. Lowstatus is going to be moved by the others. This can change all the time. If somebody interrupts like she did she is in a highstatus because she moves us. And I let her do that. But than I come back and say “We are almost finished.” And then I move her. She says “ok ok”. If you find these kind of situations, they are sitting on the swimming pool area or in the school whatever and there are these small moves who is going to move the other person. If he says “Sit down.” And he is refusing it or he is doing it or whatever. This can look very realistic. Because in reality one is moving all the time. To move the other person. We try to have the same status because it feels nice to talk to a person with the same status. But there are always small movements. If you find this kind of status-ballet you can find the movements. You don´t have to add them from outside. They can find them themselves. If they are not playing status it looks like that they are not moving. Because they are not changing. They think their character is the same from the beginning to the end but it is never. It is all the time like this.
Is the director coming back?

– In this project there was money in it. He got paid. The project ends, we come back to normality again. We have to work by ourselves. If we find money we can invite (him again).