Interview with Sylvia Llewelyn, the guest actress of Pornography

A.K. You have already mentioned to me that Mike Kelly and Matt Devere trained you as an actress...

S. L. Yes, there was an acting course here at the Merlin about five years ago when I started living here. I stopped watching TV because I could not understand Hungarian. So I started coming to the theater to English performances. I saw them in about five different shows. One night, there was a piece of paper on the chairs which said “acting course” and I really hated myself for not being able to speak in public.

A. K. So you were not an actress before. Why did you come to Hungary?

S. L. Because my mother is Hungarian. She returned back to Hungary when the war came to the end and I came back with her.

A. K. And you joined the course and decided to start acting. Was it because of the impression of Matt and Mike made on you?

S. L. Yes. I remember, the very first speech. They told me: “you have to write a speech” and somehow I would have never thought of that. But I like to act if I have a really good script. I cannot work like Alexis who is an improvisation actor – exceptional – I am terrible at it. So I like a good script.
I started writing. The biggest thing was that I started writing from that moment and I kept doing that. So the acting is to enrich my writing skills.

A. K. Is this the first time you have acted with them in a performance?

S. L. Yes. But I have played in Merlin because after the two theater courses with Matt and Mike, I did a third course. There was a Scottish comedian here and she ran a course and I told Matt and Mike that I would like to do comedy – which is very difficult – and she trained me as a comedian. So I did my first performance.
I am very fond of Merlin because I did my first performances with the boys, then I did another course when we wrote the material. Then I did the playboy bunny girl at a Stand-up Comedy – I really loved that. Then I wrote two materials because I could jump between Hungarian and English. It is not that I could speak Hungarian, but I could speak the things I could find funny. And then I did a gangster's moll from Chicago.

A. K. We have already talked about Matt and Mike. What about the other actors? Have you played with them before?

S. L. I had not met Alexis and I had not met Sophie but she was performing a play I was doing. I did a production at the beginning of the year in Hajós utca in the Picasso Point. I did a comedy there in which I had to lead. Sophie was performing at the same time, she was doing the performance called Édes Hús.

A. K. You told me that you prefer a good script rather than improvising. What about Pornography? Is it a strong script?

S. L. Yes, I think it is so well-written. But what I want to say is I am not sure the British people would like this script - although it is a good script - because it is not showing them in the best light. So I am not sure it would be that popular, but it is a very good picture of the reality.

A. K. Do you think it is sarcasm?

S. L. Laci (László Magács, the director of Pornography) says it is not a funny piece. But we have something what we call black humor and I think, this is kind of black humor. And British people do like sarcasm. Although my friends last night did not think there was any humor and Laci does not want humor. Anyway, this is a difficult genre and in my other performances the people did not laugh at first. But later, as we became better, they started laughing.

A. K. It is set in 2005 when the London bombings happened. You had already lived here, in Hungary. How much did all the happenings affect you?

S. L. I lived half the time in London and half the time in Budapest, I still do. Six weeks here and three weeks there.
I was actually here in Budapest when it happened. The first thing I heard… There was a friend rang me and she said: “are you in Budapest or London”. In fact, I work in Liverpool Street once a week when I am in London. So I could have been just going to work that day. So she asked me “where are you, in Budapest or London?” and I said “Budapest”. She was like “That is fine, there was a bomb...” Then I saw reports on the internet but I did not really see Hungarian television. My friends were very affected by it. Especially the one who works in those areas where these bombs happened. Then I had phone calls from friends saying “Why have not you checked that I am OK?” and then I felt bad... The biggest thing of the stories I heard from my friends was that they had to walk home. I was in London at Christmas. There was a big snow. The biggest snow they have ever had, and English people cannot cope with snow. The whole transport system came to a standing stop. I walked home on Millennium night. It is very rare when London comes to stand. All my friends were talking about the walking. It might have taken them six hours to walk home. But everybody was doing that.

A. K. That actually sounds like something that makes connection between people – although it is a negative thing.

S. L. Yes, that was comradely. The “British Agree”, you know, this feeling, the connection. That was lovely about my character; she makes a connection. It does not take much for us, elderly people, to be nice to a neighbor or a stranger.

A. K. So you like your character, right?

S. L. I think she is a very good character. She comes out to the world; she is an interesting character. I think she is a generation now: she is picturing the older generation.

A. K. Back to reality. When did you first go back to London after the bombings?

S. L. The next week.

A. K. Did you feel fear?

S. L. No. But friends of mine were frightened to go on the tube.

A. K. At the same time there were two other happenings: the Live8 concerts and the announcement that London got the Olympics. In the performance, your character is quite negative to these things. Why?

S. L. I think – perhaps – because she has such a lonely life on her own that has made her a bit anti-people, anti-things.

A. K. And she does not really have any connection with the people.

S. L. No, she does not, actually, I have never thought about that, but it is true, because the others connect but I do not connect with any of them.

A. K. Except one part, when she finds a barbeque party and asks a total stranger to give her some chicken.

S. L. I do like that part because you can see from that part that the people in London have got this great comradely feeling: when anything happens British people are suddenly friends with everybody in the street and that is lovely; when a negative thing turns to a very positive thing. But when people get older they get a little bit grumpy about things... that is life...

A. K. What was your reaction to the happenings? Did you have similar negative feelings as your character does?

S. L. No, I loved all the music. I think everything that is for charity is good even though perhaps these pop stars have been accused of doing it for their faces rather than really for change. But I think that is their job if they can do that.
And the Olympics, I think it is good for London, a fantastic thing. The people in London are very excited about it, I think it is going to bring a lot of visitors but it could just be very- very expensive for the country. The people will pay for it – I think – in the end.

A. K. You have been living here in Hungary for almost five years now. Are you going to move back to London or you already count Budapest as your home?

S. L. I feel very half-Hungarian, I want to spend more time here, I love being more here now. But I will go back to London on Saturday because I go back and forth. I love the cultural life here. I think the cultural life in Britain is not good anymore because it becomes so elitist so I feel it is going downhill in England. In a way, that has played a reflection on that, they just watch television and the internet.

A. K. Do you act there?

S. L. I do artistic things in Hungary so it has been lovely to me to actually start doing artistic things and getting paid for it. It is nice to become a professional artist. I did not imagine I was going to be an actress, because I paint, I design, I was at the Vamp Show on Sunday, I worked all day because I design necklaces from buttons. In England, I have an antique button-business, so I go back on Saturday and I do ten shows. In London, I am famous for selling buttons. I have a collection of antique buttons and I sell them at Vintage Fashion Fair in London, in a famous market.
I thought I would go for an audition in London but I would like to do comedy; and I was going to produce something, and then this came up, so this was lovely that I was thinking that ever since I studied with Matt and Mike it was a fear and I wanted to keep it up. But now, I was not nervous last night at all. Laci keeps telling me “Of course because I am enjoying myself” but I like to enjoy myself. And I think we are a good team here because I’ve known Matt and Mike for five years and they know me very well. They were good teachers. I could have had a professional job straight away after the first course but I went to BBC Radio Theater Group – it is two years now. At the moment, they are producing my second play I wrote - not for money yet. They will just give it to Hospital Radio. So when I go back now I will go to the BBC and hopefully it will have been edited.
Now I wrote my last play - it is in the whole way of my building here - which is very Alfred Hitchcock: it all goes on in a lift with a psycho killer and an American woman.

A. K. There are a lot of different things you are doing now; what is your ambition?

S. L. I would like to write a play that they perform here.

A. K. Have you already started something?

S. L. Yes, I have started it but I cannot talk to Laci about it until I have acted at least five times here. Then I can talk. Actually, I am writing plays all the time...

A. K. So what is your play about?

S. L. I cannot tell you before I tell Laci, but I think it would be good for the Madhouse.

A. K. Is that a comedy?

S. L. No, it is not. It is a love story.
I was also trained as a film script-writer by a film company here, in Hungary, and I wrote a woman war movie. Even though I like comedy and I wrote a comedy, they said: “try something different”, so then I wrote a war movie - which could be adapted for a play. I can tell you about this one: my mother was a Hungarian designer and she was here in the Second World War and then she was here through Communism and she escaped in 1956. Since my mother was a fashion designer, the whole movie goes on in the workroom of women. So it is fifteen years of Hungarian history just from the women's point of view. You can see how the women cope with different things. I think, that one could even be a play.




Kaptay Annamária