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THE DRAMA OF INCOMPLETENESS DECLARED TO BE COMPLETE as the opening at the National. Both the genre and Martons mise-en-scéne were approached from the issue of novelty, discussing The Death of Marat (its long title was shortened and the production was usually referred to this way) together with the Budapest premieres of The Investigation, a dramatic oratorio by Peter Weiss and The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth.*” At the time of a boom of documentary dramas (and let us not forget that Marat’s utterances in the play are also based on writings of the historical Marat), these seemed to be “exciting political plays”,**! even if they focused on a “strong ideological message” too. But they were certainly more exciting than previous stage works on industrial and agricultural production, full of stereotypes of all sorts. Their structure differed from realist dramaturgy and required a new way of staging, with which official theatres began to experiment (rather moderately, of course) in the first half of the 1960s, mostly under the auspices of epic theatre. However, since Hungarian theatre could not really assimilate avantgarde traditions, Brecht, usually understood rather superficially, only caused confusion among theatre people and spectators for some time and provided no methodological alternative to the domestic version of a way of performance coming from Stanislavsky.*” The Death of Marat was born during a combat between Endre Marton and Tamas Major, which was gifting the atmosphere at the National for twenty years. The previous premiere of the theatre was Coriolanus in an adaptation by Brecht, staged by Major and Eszter Tatar, but Marton tried to be more Brechtian than his colleagues, and his production of Weiss’ play was indeed the first to make “mental theatre”? widely understandable. Although this was not analyzed at the time, it was 490 The Investigation was first performed by the Art Ensemble of the Hungarian People’s Army, directed by Tamás Török, and The Deputy was staged by Karoly Kazimir at Thalia Theatre. The Investigation, which Endre Marton regarded as the “logical continuation” of The Death of Marat, the second part of a “gigantic trilogy” (G.P.: Szamvetés és eléretekintés, Film Szinhaz Muzsika, Vol. 10, No. 51, 23“ December, 1966, 9.), was also set on stage by Tamas Major at the National Theatre on 27" January, 1967. However, the German writer’s trilogy was never produced and The Death of Marat was not part of it. Weiss was working on a contemporary version of The Divine Comedy from 1964 to 1969 and The Investigation was intended to be its third part. The first part, Inferno was written in 1964, found in his heritage and published in 2003, eleven years after his death. Its world premiere was in 2008. The second part of The Divine Comedy remained only a plan. 191 F.L: Két közéleti dc-áma bemutatója Budapesten, Keletmagyarország, Vol. 23, No. 55, 6 March, 1966, 9. 192 The unstable foundations on which the comprehension of so-called “modern theatre” was S based, and all that was mingling in it, are exemplified by Läszlö Kery’s claim that in the first half of the 1965-1966 season, shortly before the opening of The Death of Marat, “the best productions came from grotesqueness, new satire, alienation and attempts to adapt epic theatre in general”. Läszlö Kery: „Tanuljatok lätni”, Élet és Irodalom, Vol. 10, No. 7, 128 February, 1966, 8. 193 Imre Sinkovits’s expression. Cf. Gyérgy Sas: Tisztázni az ember rendeltetését. De Sade és Marat párbeszéde — a Fészekben, Film Színház Muzsika, Vol. 10, No. 11, 18* March, 1966, 7. + 106 +
