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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-enscene 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 «18 ¢
