Seite 110 [110]
THE DRAMA OF INCOMPLETENESS DECLARED TO BE COMPLETE
(demonstrated by the inmates, and the nose of the director of the asylum
continuously rubbed in it) to the holders of power in the 1960s. Yet Marat’s
question, “why is it such a terrible crime to demand 500 guilty heads if we save
the lives of 500,000 innocent people?”,°° was a hidden question of the period
of consolidation after 1956 in Janos Kadar’s regime. The play’s basic question,
“what can we say about the Revolution under the Emperor, and how?”°® could
also have given rise to a way of understanding not intended yet possible in the
light of the current political establishment. Although the National Theatre’s
production did not necessarily have the simplistic approach stressed by the
press, it did not reinforce any readings of rebuke or lamentation either, so it
cannot be considered as an antecedent of the legendary 1981 production in
Kaposvar, and it did not overstep the boundaries of officiality.
DRAMATIC TEXT, DRAMATURGY
Contemporary criticism provided detailed guidance for the “correct
comprehension” of the play’s interpretation concretized in the production,
extracting Weiss’ debate drama (discussed in longer columns than the show
itself) into a thesis drama. With the exception of Uj Ember and Vigilia, all
periodicals called the play one of “the strangest and most significant” dramas
of the century,°™ which belonged to the family of “great dramatic poems, like
Faust and The Tragedy of Man”.®*® The parallels with The Tragedy of Man*°®
were also relevant from the point of view of the National’s repertory, since
Imre Madach’s famous play, directed by Major with leather clothes on actors,
had its premiere a year and a half earlier, and Adam, Eve and Lucifer were
played by the same actors as de Sade, Corday and Marat. Critics were keen
to recognize that The Death of Marat was an unconventional historical
502 Quoted in (zs.i.): Szinielöadäs az elmegyögyintezetben, Esti Hírlap, Vol. 11, No. 23, 28"
January, 1966, 2.
Geszti: Charentoni szinjaték, 8.
5% Ibid.
505 F.: Marat halála és A helytartó, Fejér Megyei Hírlap, Vol. 22, No. 49, 27 February, 1966, 7.
506 This parallel was echoed by some critics simply following the leitmotifs of the era, while
others sought to deepen it. Cf. “[The Death of Marat also] interrogates the purpose and
meaning of human progress deeply and responsibly, ponders the value of social change,
asks about the prospects of mankind, but already on the basis of the historical dilemma
of socialism and the imperialist bourgeois world, the reality of today”. Ibid. — “The play
resembles The Tragedy of Man [...] because its framework has a dramatic influence on the
scenes in it. The framework and the inner scenes are tightly interconnected, with a back-and¬
forth effect. Adam is dreaming, but his vision is not valid objectively because he is dreaming
what Lucifer makes him dream. Likewise, for Weiss, the history of the French revolution is
not entirely valid, for the Marquis sees it as such.” Molnar Gal: Rendelkezéproba, 145-146.
503
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