Oldal 104 [104]
THE FINAL PERFORMANCE OF THE OLD NATIONAL THEATRE
Intense verbality, the beautiful arrangement of tones provides the performance’s
framework, despite the completely diverse styles of the actors. The performance is
well rounded.*”
STAGE DESIGN AND SOUND
The influence of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s guest performance
was most visible in the external elements, in the stage design, which was
“monumentally grim””* and created “a feel that was both ancient and
modern”.*” Josef Svoboda’s stage setting, operating with abstract spatial
components and appearing more architectural than representative, was a real
curiosity in the context of the contemporary expectations of the audience. It
did not comply with the traditions of the Lear-performances of the previous
decades (staged by Béla Both, Antal Németh and Sandor Hevesi before him),
which were “chronicler-orchestrated”, revealing a “historical and fairy-tail
splendor”.“ The essentially empty stage was divided by “metal cubes, open at
the bottom”, that descended from above (in different configuration for each
scene), and “cold spotlights” emanated from them or from between them that
cut the darkness of the stage into parts.*”” Acting proceeded “between these
smooth, powerfully simple arrays and below the closed lights bursting from
the columns moving up and down”,*” but the scenery (albeit no one mentioned
it regarding the 1964 premiere, the recording clearly shows it) lived a virtually
independent life.” Not simply because it had neither illustrative nor
interpretive functions, but because, in the spirit ofthe visual habits ofthe very
pictorealism that Svoboda just tried to eradicate, the extras (torchbearers,
473 Nádas: Nézőtér, 16.
44 Antal: A Lear kirdly, 24.
#5 d.t.: Lear király, 2.
176 Gyárfás: Épülő színház, 8.
Nagy: A magyar Lear királyról, 9. — The reviewer makes it clear that these are "more
reminiscent of the metal sheets in the English production than they should be", nevertheless
they are "lucky tools for rapid scene changes". (Ibid.)
Hámori: Lear király, 6.
The reason that the TV recording confronts us with a completely decayed performance may
be the disappearance of the freshness and the rhythm of the ten-year-old mise-en-scéne. In
terms of the visuals, the disintegration can be due to the fact that the production planned
for the Blaha Lujza Sguare building was forced to be played in different spatial and technical
conditions. (First in the provisional home of the National Theatre in Nagymezö Street, then
in their permanent theatre building on Hevesi Sandor Square.) If we compare the only scene
photo of the 1964 performance, which spectacularly shows the proxemic composition of
“the rings of lights and the ponds of shadows” (Gyarfas: Epiilé szinhaz, 8.), with the small
place and neutral lighting effects that can be seen in the TV recording, it becomes clear that
there was barely anything left of the well-conceived images over time.
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