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ENDRE MARTON: KING LEAR, 1964.
"disorder"," and then at the end of the 1970s into a “catastrophic condition”.*”
The recording of King Lear reveals these tensions in the first place, in contrast
to the favorable critical reception ten years earlier.
DRAMATIC TEXT, DRAMATURGY
As the textual cuts were insignificant, and the performance was utterly based
on the text (more precisely, on the classical translation of Mihály Vörösmarty),
we cannot speak of dramaturgical work in the usual sense,*“° only a reading of
the play that is concretized in the staging.“ Regarding the latter, the findings
of the reviews are grouped around two components: the interpretation of the
title character, which is different from earlier versions shown in Hungary,
and the highlighting of Lear’s relationship to power as a factor of his tragedy.
Marton’s mise-en-scène did not echo “the old approach to Lear”,*” it did not
join the (neo)romanticist tradition of those who staged the relationship of the
faltering, wretched, persecuted old man and his evil daughters as a drama of
ingratitude. The Lear of Lajos Basti “was far from emphasizing the helpless,
pitiful old man (as so many had done it earlier so many times), he was a
powerful, dignified monarch instead, who was tyrannical in his character and
Janos Komlés with the subtitle, These young people today! The parody became the opening
performance of the Mikroszkóp Stage on 13 October, 1967, only two weeks after the revival
of the National’s production, in which Major was playing Gloster.
The word is used by Dr. Dezsé Malonyai (Head of Department at the Theatre Department of
the Ministry of Culture) in a reminder of a conversation he had with Endre Marton on 12"
February, 1971. Cf. Zoltan Imre — Orsolya Ring (eds.): Szigorúan bizalmas. Dokumentumok
a Nemzeti Színház Kádár-kori történetéhez, Budapest, Ráció, 2010, 168.
48° Cf. Tamas Koltai’s remark in his review on Péter Léner’s book mentioned above. “When
[Endre Marton] felt it was a disaster to be replaced [as manager of the theatre], the National
was in a catastrophic condition. (This is my statement, not Léner’s.)” Tamas Koltai:
Keresztutak, Népszabadság, Hétvége, Vol. 73, No. 167, 18*-19" July, 2015, 10.
#0 In a description of the Theatre History Collection at the National Széchényi Library about
the document SZT MM 15.484, the director’s copy of the play is mistakenly considered
to be “amended by the dramaturg’s, Eszter Tatar’s comments”. However, the 1964 playbill
of the production does not mention a dramaturg and there is no sign of such work in the
production. According to her own words, Eszter Tatar was involved in the rehearsals as “an
all-sort aid”, far from dramaturg, but rather as an assistant director or “maitre de jeu”.
441 The approximately 110-year-old translation was revised by Dezsö Meszöly, which resulted
in a “conscientious and precise cosmetic operation”. (Gyarfas: Epiilé szinhaz, 8.) In 1986, at
the request of the National Theatre of Pécs, Mészély retranslated the play, but he used a great
number of solutions from his 1964 adaptation, which wanted to “prolong the stage life of an
old translation. I think, it has been achieved, as all subsequent Hungarian performances of
Lear also used this renewed Vérésmarty text (for almost a quarter of a century) in various
theatres, indoors or open-air and even on screen.” Dezsé Mészöly: Új magyar Shakespeare.
Fordítások és esszék, Budapest, Magvető, 1988, 227.
42 Fencsik: , Lear szerepével", 2.
43
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