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A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION BECOMES A LASTING LESSON the Vidam Theatre to be transformed into “a satirical theatre, for ‘killing by ridiculing’, instead of playing farces”.”” Soviet literary criticism also favored satirical literature and “Malenkov suggested at the 19" Congress of the Soviet Party that ‘we need Soviet Gogols and [Mikhail Saltykov-]Shchedrins who burn out of life everything that is negative, rotten and poisonous with the fire of satire’””.””° However, several reviews disclosed that different parts of the text in Orpheus could not be seamlessly interwoven, and although “the components from which the author built the libretto are good in themselves, but having been thrown together, they decrease each other’s impact and value”.””” According to the requirement of the unit of style, the supposed mixing of genres seemed to be problematic too: “Orpheus and Wall Street, Offenbach and fight for peace, operetta and cabaret, heroism and our familiar jokes from Pest”.** Although it was acknowledged that the director had indeed had a difficult job with the revised Orpheus, Apathy’s achievement was deemed as unsatisfying as that of Hamos.””? Decades later Margit Gaspar declared that the management of the theatre had had no intention of giving the production “an anti-religious tone”, but Apathy “had started a counteraction”: “When I saw Jupiter in a white shirt with a halo around his head at the dress rehearsal, I started to scream and made him take it off. I was to blame too, of course, because I hadn’t watched it before.”*°° The disappointment about the mise-en-scène may have been increased by those phrases that allowed as much reference to the contradictions of the Communist regime as they advertised from its ideology.*” Obviously, “doublespeak” could not have 29 a Korossy: Szinhäziränyitäs, 102. Peter Hämori: Gondolatok a proletkult neveteshez. Gertler Viktor Ällami äruhäza és kora, Hitel 29:3 (2017), 73. — Source of the words by Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov: A Központi Bizottsäg beszämolöja az SzK(b)P XIX. kongresszusänak, 1952. oktöber 5. Budapest, Szikra, 1952, 72. Antal: Orfeusz, 7. 298 Tbid. 2° Cf. “[...] we are not satisfied with the mise-en-scéne either. It does not have an easy job, as it has to move a series of identical figures in an operatic Greek landscape in the first act, in a Wall Street-Olympus cabaret in the second, and in a spectacular Underworld operetta in the third.” Ibid. Venczel: Virágkor, Part 2, 39. For example, the minister of the underworld asks if Jupiter will not find out that some of the brimstone mines are being kept from him. After all, he is omniscient. But Pluto replies, “It’s just propaganda.” (Act 2, Scene 8) When their secret is revealed, the minister repeats, “I told you he was omniscient!” Pluto says, “Hell, he isn’t omniscient. He’s got spies.” (Act 2, Scene 18) When John Stix writes a petition for Jupiter, but the chief god does not respond, he notes that he does not understand why the creator of the world is so proud when “between us, the result is not very successful. It’s full of schematism.” (Act 3, Scene 1, 7.) When Jupiter announces that the captured Orpheus and Eurydice will be judged by an “independent court”, Pluto asks, “Who will that court be made up of?” And Jupiter says, “Of the two of us.” (Act 3, Scene 2, 2.) In: Orpheus. Promptbook, Typed manuscript, Location: Budapest Operetta Theatre. Since page numbering in the promptbook starts again per scene, the numbers in parentheses after the citations apply to acts/scenes/page numbers. 296 29 S 30 s 30 +68 +
