Post by Valancy on Jul 10, 2009 12:22:16 GMT -5
Cia just posted her excellent review of Vámpírok Bálja (the Budapest Tanz der Vampire) and you should read it if you didn't already. But since I also tend to write crazy detailed reviews of performances I see, I figured I'd post them here. This June I saw the show four times, approximately once a week. In this thread I'll post reviews for all of those performances as I get around to writing them. So far I have a full review of the first performance of the summer. I'm not yet sure if I will review the rest in a bunch or as three separate reviews, but whichever I'll do, I'll post the result here when I'm ready.
I and my friends saw the summer premiere on the 5th June. We were supposed to have the full first cast (including premieres of new Rebecca and some new solo dancers), but in the last couple of days before the show many of the cast were changed and we suddenly had a new Sarah, Alfred, Magda and Koukol as well, so that the only non-ensemble cast who had actually played the roles before were Krolock, Abronsius, Chagal and Herbert. Everyone performed great, but the mood of the whole cast was a bit nervous until little by little, all the new ones showed that they did fine in their important scenes and the audience loved them, and towards the end of the second act the mood became absolutely amazing. It was a really awesome theatre experience.
The production remains amazing, everyone is so real and into it, the costumes are gorgeous. The sound equipment still sucks loads and they have problems keeping the mics on at the right times, and the orchestra could be better though they also just suffer from the sound equipment. There are problems with the theatre smoke, now like many times last winter there was too much of it and it kept rolling to the audience as well. I spent most of Carpe Noctem hiding behind my fan though I was sitting in the 8th row. I don't know how the actors can breathe, sing and act in that. Luckily the other times I saw it they had it much better under control. The set design is absolutely gorgeous, Kentaur is a genius, but the sets are a bit wobbly and the theatre is almost breaking down, which is such a pity. One awesome thing about the upcoming Vienna production is definitely that Kentaur gets to design the sets and the costumes with a proper budget and a newly restored theatre with good technical equipment.
Now the cast reviews.
Krolock - Egyházi Géza. He was amazing once again. I don't know how that man constantly keeps on finding even more depth, volume and colour to his voice. You really mustn't think that the way he sounds on the official cast recording is anything like the way he sounds now, he's miles better now. His voice is absolute perfection for the part, and his acting is great, too. He makes very much his own Krolock instead of copying anybody else, and he clearly has fun with the part and is really charming. His Krolock makes me think of those learned gentlemen who wanted to know everything and would probe into the secrets of the world including secrets they shouldn't look into and find eternal life, and then found it, and then begins to discover it's still disappointing and frustrating. Though he's not too angsty a Krolock; in fact I love it how he's often got this awesome grin on his face, most of the time his Krolock is having lots of fun, and he's also having fun in Tanzsaal. He doesn't just strut about being a cold and proud noble lord, even if he's the nobleman and the lord of the castle he's still having a party with his friends and enjoying himself. With the lively, bouncy Herberts this production has, it goes very nicely together because you can see that the father used to be like that, too, and while he's had to become more gentlemanly and dignified when he got older, that bubbly, fun-loving boy is still somewhere inside him and you know where Herbert got it from.
I like it that he really seems to care about Sarah and have great chemistries with whoever Sarah he plays with, being really strongly attracted to her even as he goes about his dark seduction game. He's very intense and touchy-feely with his Sarahs, but at the same time still gentlemanly. I love the almost-kiss he gives in the ball, though with Dóra he didn't do it as much as usually, probably because he's not used to playing with her. But their chemistries were otherwise good.
Sarah - Stróbel Dóra. It was interesting to see her as Sarah. I'd adored her Magda this winter, and I think I still like her better in that role, but she was also a good Sarah. I've never seen an interpretation like that. In some way she and Zsanett are a bit similar in that they're strong, capable, smart Sarahs who know they <i>want </i>what happens, but in other ways they're in the opposite ends of the scale. Zsanett's Sarah is very flirty, playful and coquettish, has lots and lots of sexual desire for Krolock and in general lots of desires she wants to fulfill and therefore is fine with being a vampire. Dóra is not as flirty, but she's very strong and determined. She's more like a dreamy goth girl who decides she wants to be the Queen of Darkness, and <i>that</i> is why she wants the vampire guy (though it doesn't hurt he's hot, either). She's not just <i>tempted</i> by darkness, she consciously wants it very much. You could even imagine Sarah having somehow planned everything that happened because she wants it so much. She doesn't accept darkness in order to get her freedom and desires fulfilled, the darkness is what her desires are about and what she wants her freedom for. She clearly has lots of awesome dreams about what she'll do when she gets what she wants.
She has a really beautiful and voluminous voice, one of the most wonderful I know, but sometimes her mic was turned on too low, which was annoying. She had a wig that didn't quite fit her, and so she didn't look quite as cute and girlish as other Sarahs, but she's still very pretty. She had very interesting and intense chemistries with Géza, with her whole "Oh yes I want to be your Queen of Darkness" thing. She definitely felt like a match for his Krolock. She and Ádám as Alfred probably hadn't had much time to practice together and their interactions weren't as good as they could have been, but their interpretations went well together.
I got the feeling that Dóra was quite scared and frozen, not having played the role of Sarah for a long time (if she ever played it in an actual performance before this) and so she wasn't performing quite to her full potential. But she was still really good, interesting and unusual Sarah, and her voice is amazing. See her if you get a chance. In later performances she should be even better when she's a bit more used to it again.
Alfred - Pásztor Ádám. Another Hungarian Alfred wonder boy ("another" referring to the fact that I also fell in love with the 20-year-old Mihálka Gyuri when I saw his Alfred last winter). This is their fourth Alfred, was performing the role for the first time in his life, and he's about 19 years old (or 20, I'm not sure which because recently I found a source that said 20 but from other info I'd calculated he should be 19... anyway, young). And he was great. Sure, you could tell he was new to the role: he didn't have nearly as much detail in every little scene as someone like Sánta László who is very experienced with the role, and he was obviously lacking routine. But considering it was his premiere, he'd been changed in just a day or two ago, and I expected him to be scared stiff, he was absolutely wonderful. Nervous, certainly, but very good. He's already got a strong interpretation of Alfred that is compelling and interesting and his own.
He's definitely the right type for Alfred, sweet, cute, tiny, fragile-looking but with some edge nevertheless. Alfreds should be cute rather than pretty, and while Ádám is pretty too, he's still so much cute that it works. His hair is dark and straight and kind of floppy, not the typical Alfred hair but it's okay, and he's got huge pretty brown eyes the size of Disney cartoon animals' eyes which make his expressions very noticeable. His voice is beautiful and sweet, and promisingly strong and melodious. He still had some difficulties especially with the lowest parts of Für Sarah, but I can tell that when he has more practice he will be awesome. His voice is already really really good, and he can articulate clearly and his voice is well audible all the time and he can act well with it. The colour of his voice is perhaps reminiscent of Mihálka Gyuri's voice though not quite as full, with enough personality that it definitely fits an Alfred.
His Alfred is very young, in fact in that respect I like him even better than Sánta Laci, who perhaps feels too much like he's an already older guy playing a young boy, whereas Ádám feels very truly boyish. He's not a stupid Alfred, which is one of my important standards for good Alfreds, I hate it when they're stupid. The comedy and the story of the character should not come from him being stupid but clueless, scared and insecure. Alfred is the most human and real of all the characters in the story, with a good actor he's the character <i>we</i> all are: one with good intentions and dreams but not the ability and courage to do what he should to fulfill this dreams, incapable of fighting the huge odds he's up against but still trying his best with genuine heart. We laugh at him, but it should be so that in laughing at him we laugh at ourselves, not at some dumb guy fooling around and not having more than two brain cells.
Ádám's Alfred seems like a reasonably intelligent and even thoughtful boy, very dreamy, just not capable of putting his dreams and thoughts into practice, and too clueless, innocent and afraid to cope with everything that happens. While he's sweet and innocent, he's also deliciously corruptible and definitely has a bit of a wicked edge that doesn't get out consciously but is still there and then gets out in the end when he turns into a vampire. He makes one hot vampire!Alfred, fangs look good on him. His reaction to Krolock's words in the end of the first act was interesting, he definitely seemed to be temped and seduced by Krolock's words, feeling called by the darkness and the forbidden even as he knew he should have fought against it. He was very sweetly cluelessly in love with Sarah, though he and Dóra had some problems interacting very well - I doubt they'd had time to practice together much or at all. They went really well together, though, I felt that if those two characters had had time to get to know each other properly they'd have been good friends and Dóra's Sarah definitely could have cared about his Alfred, it was just a question of the actors not being used to playing with each other. In the end they clearly had so much fun together as vampires, they had such an awesome "Now we're going to suck out all their blood and PARTY!!!" attitude and they definitely wanted to suck <i>our</i> blood, they were very bloodthirsty towards the audience. Hee.
Ádám's Für Sarah was lovely, he definitely changed during the song and tried to make himself brave enough to do something for his love. I liked it that, unlike Gyuri (whom I otherwise love very much but this one thing bothers me), he didn't start showing off his voice too quickly in Für Sarah but instead sounded genuinely scared and insecure at first and only began to convince himself gradually and sounding brave near the end. He was so cute when he'd finished the song and the audience EXPLODED into huge, enthusiastic applause and screams, and he stood there grinning happily and then skipped away like an excited puppy when the Professor called him away. He'd clearly been very nervous until that scene, but after he saw that he could do his solo and the audience loved him, he relaxed a lot and was even better in the rest of the scenes. In the crypt scene, while he couldn't yet do as much comical detail as Sánta Laci who's so familiar with the role (for example, Ádám forgot to be scared by the sound of the Professor dropping the bag on the floor), he was still loads of fun. He played very scared and sweet, and I've never heard an Alfred scream that loudly at the sight of Krolock and Herbert in their coffins (he also got everything out of screaming at the end of Einladung zum Ball when he sees Krolock in Sarah's bathroom). It was hilarious. And he already had a lot of funny interaction with the Professor.
In Wenn Liebe in dir ist he was adorable... And he had great chemistries with Pirgel Dávid there. I really thought that if the Professor hadn't come with his umbrella things would have ended up interestingly... and Alfred wouldn't have minded that much after all. I got the feeling that the guy being a vampire was a problem, but Alfred was sort of attracted to him anyway. Dávid was quite gropey and they were very intense in rolling on the floor. In "Sie Irren, Professor!" I loved how he reacted to Krolock's disappearance, poking the Professor in alarm and trying to talk to him. And generally he had lots of cute little details everywhere in his performance and felt real and adorable. In Tanzsaal I loved it how he nervously waved his fan in front of his face like crazy, how he couldn't really keep up with the vampires' dance movements, etc. And like I said he was entirely lovely in the end when transformed into a vampire.
I really hope I'll be able to see him play Alfred some time again when he's gotten more used to it. If he was this great in his first show, I can't wait to see what he's like when he gets more practice. I'll be keeping an eye out for this boy.
Professor Abronsius - Jegercsik Csaba. Not much new to say about him - I can rarely say much detail about the professor though I absolutely adore him if the actor's good, like Csaba is. He's adorable and fun as always, and keeps on adding cute little details to his performance. He was so cutely enthusiastic in Wahrheit, especially when he goes around being impressed that everyone is joining his song and checks on each of them in turn, and he's always hilarious with Alfred. He must have had a cup (or ten) of some extra-strong coffee, he was having hugely much fun in every scene. Loved him very much.
Chagal - Pavletits Béla. Like the above, awfully good as always, a bit more detailed and fun once again, and very hyper and energetic. Probably they'd had the same coffee. And I think all the experienced members of the cast were playing super-intensely to make up in the case the new ones would be frozen and stiff. Or they were just spurred by the energy of the nervousness they felt about so many new ones being on the stage at the same time. Anyway, Béla is one of the only actors who can make Chagal's character genuinely funny and likeable despite being slimy. He's soooooo much fun, and he's the only one with whom Eine schöne Tochter ist ein Segen doesn't feel like a filler but is a fun song.
Magda - Sári Éva. I liked her lots! Waaaayyy better than Timea, and almost as good as Dóra (whom I saw as Magda last winter). Éva's got a nice, powerful voice, and she is, um, naturally very very gifted to be Magda. No need for push-ups like Timea. Acting-wise I really liked her. She was a tough, real, fresh country chick, and very expressive and lots of fun. Extremely flirty with Alfred in Wahrheit, it was cute. I <i>loved</i> how she acted Tot zu sein ist komisch, she did it very dark and intense, it's rarely been that impressive. She was kind of traumatized and scared but also very angry and bitter. Very powerful. She was a lot of fun in the crypt scene. She was clearly having an awful lot of fun in this role and had lots of ideas of what to do with it, and she'll be even better when she gets more practice. She and Pirgel Dávid's Herbert had loads of fun in the final song and seemed to have lots of contact with each other, whereas I've never noticed him and Timea interacting much.
Herbert - Pirgel Dávid. As always, I adored him in this role. He's got so much personality in it. His Herbert is bratty, bouncy, intensely jealous of anyone else getting attention than him, but adorably cheerful about everything fun such as getting to dance. He's really cute and fun with Alfred and he tends to steal the attention in Tanzsaal by being so "Gah, I'm so not impressed! Geez, why does my Dad make such a show of biting some silly girl! OMG, her dress is really shiny, I hope it's not prettier than my outfit! It really is very pretty, nuts. Well, I have nice embroideries, don't I? That counts, too. I'm sure I'm just as pretty as she is. OK, can we dance already? Whee, dancing!!!!" His voice is very soft and pretty, suitable for Herbert.
Rebecca - Csóka-Vasass Kinga. She was having her premiere, too, and she was really good. Tough and real and human. Not quite as good as Dobos Judit, but then, it was her first time. I liked her much. I like how they do Rebecca here, they make her into a real character, and she's sympathetic, not just a laughing stock, and she seems to really run the inn while Chagal does the talking.
Koukol - Szentirmai Zsolt. Much better fitted for this role than for Nightmare Solo. His voice is too rough and unpretty for Nightmare Solo, but he's good as Koukol. Not as much fun as their first cast Koukol, but fun nevertheless.
The dancers and the ensemble - Most of the dancers were now new compared to what I'd seen, only the excellent Nightmare (dream Sarah) Taródi Szilvia remained. She's absolutely great as always. The new Roten Stiefel dancers seemed to be a bit clumsy in handling her and it will probably be a while before they're up to the level of Rákász Dániel. I much liked the new Black Vampire (Nagy Csaba, I think), I didn't miss Ákos at all like I'd expected to. He was very convincingly dark, scary, sexy and fierce. And his body is very strong and muscular, but not in a too built-up way, just very healthy and strong and sexy. He didn't wear a vest, instead he was shirtless with black body paint emphasizing his muscles. I didn't like the new White Vampire too much. Or probably there was nothing hugely wrong with his dancing and acting, but his looks were distracting. His hair was waaaaayyy too short - it's going to look ridiculous when he's supposed to present Sánta Laci's Alfred, but it didn't look too convincing with Ádám either. It looked like he'd pretty much had a shaved head a month or two ago and hadn't had time to grow out his hair more than this, it was awful. And his make-up is all wrong, too white with too much dark around the eyes so that he looks like a scary vampire monster right in the beginning, instead of Alfred. Someone needs to give him a wig and fix his make-up.
Bot Gábor (nowadays also second Krolock) makes a gorgeous-sounding Carpe Noctem solo singer. Like him very very much. I don't really get why they never use Mihálka Gyuri for the other solo singer, though, considering he's listed in the role, has one of the greatest voices I know, and the other two who aren't Gábor can't sing in tune and sound ugly. They're one of the few bad things about the production. The ensemble are fantastic in general, I'm in as much squee about them on a whole as I am about the named characters, they're having so much fun and they're such excellent singers, dancers and actors.
I and my friends saw the summer premiere on the 5th June. We were supposed to have the full first cast (including premieres of new Rebecca and some new solo dancers), but in the last couple of days before the show many of the cast were changed and we suddenly had a new Sarah, Alfred, Magda and Koukol as well, so that the only non-ensemble cast who had actually played the roles before were Krolock, Abronsius, Chagal and Herbert. Everyone performed great, but the mood of the whole cast was a bit nervous until little by little, all the new ones showed that they did fine in their important scenes and the audience loved them, and towards the end of the second act the mood became absolutely amazing. It was a really awesome theatre experience.
The production remains amazing, everyone is so real and into it, the costumes are gorgeous. The sound equipment still sucks loads and they have problems keeping the mics on at the right times, and the orchestra could be better though they also just suffer from the sound equipment. There are problems with the theatre smoke, now like many times last winter there was too much of it and it kept rolling to the audience as well. I spent most of Carpe Noctem hiding behind my fan though I was sitting in the 8th row. I don't know how the actors can breathe, sing and act in that. Luckily the other times I saw it they had it much better under control. The set design is absolutely gorgeous, Kentaur is a genius, but the sets are a bit wobbly and the theatre is almost breaking down, which is such a pity. One awesome thing about the upcoming Vienna production is definitely that Kentaur gets to design the sets and the costumes with a proper budget and a newly restored theatre with good technical equipment.
Now the cast reviews.
Krolock - Egyházi Géza. He was amazing once again. I don't know how that man constantly keeps on finding even more depth, volume and colour to his voice. You really mustn't think that the way he sounds on the official cast recording is anything like the way he sounds now, he's miles better now. His voice is absolute perfection for the part, and his acting is great, too. He makes very much his own Krolock instead of copying anybody else, and he clearly has fun with the part and is really charming. His Krolock makes me think of those learned gentlemen who wanted to know everything and would probe into the secrets of the world including secrets they shouldn't look into and find eternal life, and then found it, and then begins to discover it's still disappointing and frustrating. Though he's not too angsty a Krolock; in fact I love it how he's often got this awesome grin on his face, most of the time his Krolock is having lots of fun, and he's also having fun in Tanzsaal. He doesn't just strut about being a cold and proud noble lord, even if he's the nobleman and the lord of the castle he's still having a party with his friends and enjoying himself. With the lively, bouncy Herberts this production has, it goes very nicely together because you can see that the father used to be like that, too, and while he's had to become more gentlemanly and dignified when he got older, that bubbly, fun-loving boy is still somewhere inside him and you know where Herbert got it from.
I like it that he really seems to care about Sarah and have great chemistries with whoever Sarah he plays with, being really strongly attracted to her even as he goes about his dark seduction game. He's very intense and touchy-feely with his Sarahs, but at the same time still gentlemanly. I love the almost-kiss he gives in the ball, though with Dóra he didn't do it as much as usually, probably because he's not used to playing with her. But their chemistries were otherwise good.
Sarah - Stróbel Dóra. It was interesting to see her as Sarah. I'd adored her Magda this winter, and I think I still like her better in that role, but she was also a good Sarah. I've never seen an interpretation like that. In some way she and Zsanett are a bit similar in that they're strong, capable, smart Sarahs who know they <i>want </i>what happens, but in other ways they're in the opposite ends of the scale. Zsanett's Sarah is very flirty, playful and coquettish, has lots and lots of sexual desire for Krolock and in general lots of desires she wants to fulfill and therefore is fine with being a vampire. Dóra is not as flirty, but she's very strong and determined. She's more like a dreamy goth girl who decides she wants to be the Queen of Darkness, and <i>that</i> is why she wants the vampire guy (though it doesn't hurt he's hot, either). She's not just <i>tempted</i> by darkness, she consciously wants it very much. You could even imagine Sarah having somehow planned everything that happened because she wants it so much. She doesn't accept darkness in order to get her freedom and desires fulfilled, the darkness is what her desires are about and what she wants her freedom for. She clearly has lots of awesome dreams about what she'll do when she gets what she wants.
She has a really beautiful and voluminous voice, one of the most wonderful I know, but sometimes her mic was turned on too low, which was annoying. She had a wig that didn't quite fit her, and so she didn't look quite as cute and girlish as other Sarahs, but she's still very pretty. She had very interesting and intense chemistries with Géza, with her whole "Oh yes I want to be your Queen of Darkness" thing. She definitely felt like a match for his Krolock. She and Ádám as Alfred probably hadn't had much time to practice together and their interactions weren't as good as they could have been, but their interpretations went well together.
I got the feeling that Dóra was quite scared and frozen, not having played the role of Sarah for a long time (if she ever played it in an actual performance before this) and so she wasn't performing quite to her full potential. But she was still really good, interesting and unusual Sarah, and her voice is amazing. See her if you get a chance. In later performances she should be even better when she's a bit more used to it again.
Alfred - Pásztor Ádám. Another Hungarian Alfred wonder boy ("another" referring to the fact that I also fell in love with the 20-year-old Mihálka Gyuri when I saw his Alfred last winter). This is their fourth Alfred, was performing the role for the first time in his life, and he's about 19 years old (or 20, I'm not sure which because recently I found a source that said 20 but from other info I'd calculated he should be 19... anyway, young). And he was great. Sure, you could tell he was new to the role: he didn't have nearly as much detail in every little scene as someone like Sánta László who is very experienced with the role, and he was obviously lacking routine. But considering it was his premiere, he'd been changed in just a day or two ago, and I expected him to be scared stiff, he was absolutely wonderful. Nervous, certainly, but very good. He's already got a strong interpretation of Alfred that is compelling and interesting and his own.
He's definitely the right type for Alfred, sweet, cute, tiny, fragile-looking but with some edge nevertheless. Alfreds should be cute rather than pretty, and while Ádám is pretty too, he's still so much cute that it works. His hair is dark and straight and kind of floppy, not the typical Alfred hair but it's okay, and he's got huge pretty brown eyes the size of Disney cartoon animals' eyes which make his expressions very noticeable. His voice is beautiful and sweet, and promisingly strong and melodious. He still had some difficulties especially with the lowest parts of Für Sarah, but I can tell that when he has more practice he will be awesome. His voice is already really really good, and he can articulate clearly and his voice is well audible all the time and he can act well with it. The colour of his voice is perhaps reminiscent of Mihálka Gyuri's voice though not quite as full, with enough personality that it definitely fits an Alfred.
His Alfred is very young, in fact in that respect I like him even better than Sánta Laci, who perhaps feels too much like he's an already older guy playing a young boy, whereas Ádám feels very truly boyish. He's not a stupid Alfred, which is one of my important standards for good Alfreds, I hate it when they're stupid. The comedy and the story of the character should not come from him being stupid but clueless, scared and insecure. Alfred is the most human and real of all the characters in the story, with a good actor he's the character <i>we</i> all are: one with good intentions and dreams but not the ability and courage to do what he should to fulfill this dreams, incapable of fighting the huge odds he's up against but still trying his best with genuine heart. We laugh at him, but it should be so that in laughing at him we laugh at ourselves, not at some dumb guy fooling around and not having more than two brain cells.
Ádám's Alfred seems like a reasonably intelligent and even thoughtful boy, very dreamy, just not capable of putting his dreams and thoughts into practice, and too clueless, innocent and afraid to cope with everything that happens. While he's sweet and innocent, he's also deliciously corruptible and definitely has a bit of a wicked edge that doesn't get out consciously but is still there and then gets out in the end when he turns into a vampire. He makes one hot vampire!Alfred, fangs look good on him. His reaction to Krolock's words in the end of the first act was interesting, he definitely seemed to be temped and seduced by Krolock's words, feeling called by the darkness and the forbidden even as he knew he should have fought against it. He was very sweetly cluelessly in love with Sarah, though he and Dóra had some problems interacting very well - I doubt they'd had time to practice together much or at all. They went really well together, though, I felt that if those two characters had had time to get to know each other properly they'd have been good friends and Dóra's Sarah definitely could have cared about his Alfred, it was just a question of the actors not being used to playing with each other. In the end they clearly had so much fun together as vampires, they had such an awesome "Now we're going to suck out all their blood and PARTY!!!" attitude and they definitely wanted to suck <i>our</i> blood, they were very bloodthirsty towards the audience. Hee.
Ádám's Für Sarah was lovely, he definitely changed during the song and tried to make himself brave enough to do something for his love. I liked it that, unlike Gyuri (whom I otherwise love very much but this one thing bothers me), he didn't start showing off his voice too quickly in Für Sarah but instead sounded genuinely scared and insecure at first and only began to convince himself gradually and sounding brave near the end. He was so cute when he'd finished the song and the audience EXPLODED into huge, enthusiastic applause and screams, and he stood there grinning happily and then skipped away like an excited puppy when the Professor called him away. He'd clearly been very nervous until that scene, but after he saw that he could do his solo and the audience loved him, he relaxed a lot and was even better in the rest of the scenes. In the crypt scene, while he couldn't yet do as much comical detail as Sánta Laci who's so familiar with the role (for example, Ádám forgot to be scared by the sound of the Professor dropping the bag on the floor), he was still loads of fun. He played very scared and sweet, and I've never heard an Alfred scream that loudly at the sight of Krolock and Herbert in their coffins (he also got everything out of screaming at the end of Einladung zum Ball when he sees Krolock in Sarah's bathroom). It was hilarious. And he already had a lot of funny interaction with the Professor.
In Wenn Liebe in dir ist he was adorable... And he had great chemistries with Pirgel Dávid there. I really thought that if the Professor hadn't come with his umbrella things would have ended up interestingly... and Alfred wouldn't have minded that much after all. I got the feeling that the guy being a vampire was a problem, but Alfred was sort of attracted to him anyway. Dávid was quite gropey and they were very intense in rolling on the floor. In "Sie Irren, Professor!" I loved how he reacted to Krolock's disappearance, poking the Professor in alarm and trying to talk to him. And generally he had lots of cute little details everywhere in his performance and felt real and adorable. In Tanzsaal I loved it how he nervously waved his fan in front of his face like crazy, how he couldn't really keep up with the vampires' dance movements, etc. And like I said he was entirely lovely in the end when transformed into a vampire.
I really hope I'll be able to see him play Alfred some time again when he's gotten more used to it. If he was this great in his first show, I can't wait to see what he's like when he gets more practice. I'll be keeping an eye out for this boy.
Professor Abronsius - Jegercsik Csaba. Not much new to say about him - I can rarely say much detail about the professor though I absolutely adore him if the actor's good, like Csaba is. He's adorable and fun as always, and keeps on adding cute little details to his performance. He was so cutely enthusiastic in Wahrheit, especially when he goes around being impressed that everyone is joining his song and checks on each of them in turn, and he's always hilarious with Alfred. He must have had a cup (or ten) of some extra-strong coffee, he was having hugely much fun in every scene. Loved him very much.
Chagal - Pavletits Béla. Like the above, awfully good as always, a bit more detailed and fun once again, and very hyper and energetic. Probably they'd had the same coffee. And I think all the experienced members of the cast were playing super-intensely to make up in the case the new ones would be frozen and stiff. Or they were just spurred by the energy of the nervousness they felt about so many new ones being on the stage at the same time. Anyway, Béla is one of the only actors who can make Chagal's character genuinely funny and likeable despite being slimy. He's soooooo much fun, and he's the only one with whom Eine schöne Tochter ist ein Segen doesn't feel like a filler but is a fun song.
Magda - Sári Éva. I liked her lots! Waaaayyy better than Timea, and almost as good as Dóra (whom I saw as Magda last winter). Éva's got a nice, powerful voice, and she is, um, naturally very very gifted to be Magda. No need for push-ups like Timea. Acting-wise I really liked her. She was a tough, real, fresh country chick, and very expressive and lots of fun. Extremely flirty with Alfred in Wahrheit, it was cute. I <i>loved</i> how she acted Tot zu sein ist komisch, she did it very dark and intense, it's rarely been that impressive. She was kind of traumatized and scared but also very angry and bitter. Very powerful. She was a lot of fun in the crypt scene. She was clearly having an awful lot of fun in this role and had lots of ideas of what to do with it, and she'll be even better when she gets more practice. She and Pirgel Dávid's Herbert had loads of fun in the final song and seemed to have lots of contact with each other, whereas I've never noticed him and Timea interacting much.
Herbert - Pirgel Dávid. As always, I adored him in this role. He's got so much personality in it. His Herbert is bratty, bouncy, intensely jealous of anyone else getting attention than him, but adorably cheerful about everything fun such as getting to dance. He's really cute and fun with Alfred and he tends to steal the attention in Tanzsaal by being so "Gah, I'm so not impressed! Geez, why does my Dad make such a show of biting some silly girl! OMG, her dress is really shiny, I hope it's not prettier than my outfit! It really is very pretty, nuts. Well, I have nice embroideries, don't I? That counts, too. I'm sure I'm just as pretty as she is. OK, can we dance already? Whee, dancing!!!!" His voice is very soft and pretty, suitable for Herbert.
Rebecca - Csóka-Vasass Kinga. She was having her premiere, too, and she was really good. Tough and real and human. Not quite as good as Dobos Judit, but then, it was her first time. I liked her much. I like how they do Rebecca here, they make her into a real character, and she's sympathetic, not just a laughing stock, and she seems to really run the inn while Chagal does the talking.
Koukol - Szentirmai Zsolt. Much better fitted for this role than for Nightmare Solo. His voice is too rough and unpretty for Nightmare Solo, but he's good as Koukol. Not as much fun as their first cast Koukol, but fun nevertheless.
The dancers and the ensemble - Most of the dancers were now new compared to what I'd seen, only the excellent Nightmare (dream Sarah) Taródi Szilvia remained. She's absolutely great as always. The new Roten Stiefel dancers seemed to be a bit clumsy in handling her and it will probably be a while before they're up to the level of Rákász Dániel. I much liked the new Black Vampire (Nagy Csaba, I think), I didn't miss Ákos at all like I'd expected to. He was very convincingly dark, scary, sexy and fierce. And his body is very strong and muscular, but not in a too built-up way, just very healthy and strong and sexy. He didn't wear a vest, instead he was shirtless with black body paint emphasizing his muscles. I didn't like the new White Vampire too much. Or probably there was nothing hugely wrong with his dancing and acting, but his looks were distracting. His hair was waaaaayyy too short - it's going to look ridiculous when he's supposed to present Sánta Laci's Alfred, but it didn't look too convincing with Ádám either. It looked like he'd pretty much had a shaved head a month or two ago and hadn't had time to grow out his hair more than this, it was awful. And his make-up is all wrong, too white with too much dark around the eyes so that he looks like a scary vampire monster right in the beginning, instead of Alfred. Someone needs to give him a wig and fix his make-up.
Bot Gábor (nowadays also second Krolock) makes a gorgeous-sounding Carpe Noctem solo singer. Like him very very much. I don't really get why they never use Mihálka Gyuri for the other solo singer, though, considering he's listed in the role, has one of the greatest voices I know, and the other two who aren't Gábor can't sing in tune and sound ugly. They're one of the few bad things about the production. The ensemble are fantastic in general, I'm in as much squee about them on a whole as I am about the named characters, they're having so much fun and they're such excellent singers, dancers and actors.