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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. + 94e
