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INTRODUCTION
that can be set against the well-known interpretation of the play as a simple
farce and a satire of country life in 19"* century Russia. Tovstonogov saw this
“plus” in global and cosmic fear as well as in fantastic realism conceived as the
principal characteristic and the main style of the production. Turning up as
a manifestation of the Mayor’s and his corrupt officials’ viewpoint obscured
by utmost fear, the strange and the visionary thrust the play into infernal
circles and presented the plot as the dance macabre of conscience. However,
fear in the background of an autocratic regime made different interpretations
possible, and the production involuntarily let spectators experience the
unbearable anxiety of the 1970s in Hungary too.
The following chapters examine two mises-en-scéne by Imre Kerényi. In his
1984 King John Dirrenmatt’s historical pamphlet came to life as the drama
of losing political ideals, both mockingly exaggerated and tragically deepened.
Although it was full of farcical overtones, the performance did not diminish the
tragic outcome of the story: death and total disillusionment. These made the
realization, stemming from the reference to the spectators’ own situation, even
more insufferable: the loss of hope for any kind of betterment of the state and
the social order. “This shameful tale of history” became poignantly amusing
denial of the possibility of any reforms in the 1980s (said to be a second period
of reform in Hungary), in short, dismay at the feasibility of socialism.
The 1985 production of Stephen the King raised the topic of patriotism,
already important in King John as well, and turned it into social issue. Two
years after the “theatrical folk festival” or “open-air demonstration” on which
the extremely popular film (at least in Hungary) was based, the National’s
production was the first theatre performance of the rock opera. The mise-en¬
scene approached the work from the issues in Shakespeare’s history plays and
focused on the struggle of the title hero, in whom “the moral being confronts
the man of realpolitik”, in order to make an allegory out of the situation
displayed by the rock opera, not so much to connect it with the present, but
rather to show it as the fate of Hungarian national history. But the uncertainty
surrounding the interpretation of Stephen’s underscored sacrifice made for
the consolidation of power also confronts us with ambiguous topicality.
The last two chapters focus on productions of classical plays at the Katona
Jézsef Theatre, which became the leading theatre company in the 1980s. Its
paradigmatic Three Sisters (1985) powerfully conveyed the feeling that “we
cannot live here”, and while Olga, Masha and Irina were mentioning Moscow
all the time, the overriding plainness of this feeling did not really make the
audience associate with their neighboring country in the East. This highlights
the paradox that Tamäs Ascher and some other directors frequently made
hidden criticism about the Kadar regime through Russian dramas that were
otherwise preferred by the regime. In this case, through the present-day social
sensibility of Chekhov’s play. Ascher’s staging had become an achievement of
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