Oldal 95 [95]
ANITA RÁKÓCZY
represent "a certain kind of unverifiability and manipulation,"? the unnerving
experience of being watched. However, at the same time, the appearance of the
boy still brings an element of hope, proof that the connection that Vladimir
and Estragon are waiting for has been established, through a TV screen —
which might seem peculiar at first, but given that the play takes place in an
entirely echoless space where God has abandoned mankind, traditional ways
of reaching out do not function anymore. As the dramaturg of the production
Andras Visky argues, the “sacred” announces itself exclusively through
blasphemy and is altogether unrecognizable. He points out, “God has gotten
beyond the boundaries of addressability; human language does not remember
the means of approaching the Divine anymore.”** While the TV set creates a
distance, alienation in the Brechtian sense, it brings the boy and thus Godot
closer to us at the same time. In Tompa’s opinion,
All of Beckett’s dramas are survival games. This is what we all play. For if every
single moment we were aware of the fact that we will die, life would become
unbearable. Beckett is fighting with God. He is blaming God for not intervening
immediately. If you exist, interfere, act now! Not at the Last Judgement. [...] For
Beckett, God is in the dock because there is no present time redemption.”
Act II closes with three sources of light in the darkening stage before the
blackout: Estragon’s shoes downstage center, the moon in the darkening sky,
and the random dot pixel pattern of static displayed on the TV screen.
PLAY: ALL ABOUT LOVE
Tompa’s direction of Play ([Jatek], Thalia Theatre, New Thalia Studio,
Budapest, 2003) opens with another “cold medium”**: a moment after revealing
the three empty urns that almost fill the entire stage, a montage of love scenes
from emblematic movies and silent films from the twentieth century begins to
be projected on the backdrop screen of the stage. For the first eight minutes,
fragments about longing, fulfilment, temptation, seduction, desire, and loss
are shown in rapid alternation, with overwhelming force, to the background
Kerékgyártó, György: Egy színházi előadás nem ad válaszokat [A Theatre Production Does
Not Give Answers], Népszava, 3 February 2003, 12.
András Visky: Art Vital. The Theatre of Prophet Ezekiel, Conference paper delivered on 8
May 2015, Religion and Art Conference, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church
in Hungary.
25 Ichim: Tompa Gábor, 109.
26 Nagy, András: Beckett — Múlt időben, 10.
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