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ENDRE MARTON: THE DEATH OF MARAT, 1966
drama" and the intellectual duel of the title heroes were more exciting than
the plot.°® They pointed out that in spite of all facts it was not specifically
the French revolution but “revolution itself that came under scrutiny in Peter
Weiss’ play”.°° This is because the inmates’ longing for freedom in the asylum
of Charenton is fueled by “wrongful detention and arbitrary repression”, as
it is known that those who were to be eliminated without trial because of
the socio-political danger they posed were also locked up there.*'° Despite
the author’s contemporary attitude, critics felt Biichner’s influence more
significant in the play than that of Brecht.°'! They claimed that in spite of his
indirect representation, Weiss tried to confront the cause and impact of
the revolution similarly to Danton’s Death. But they immediately added that
in the mid-1960s it was already “the historical consequences of the Great
October Revolution” that were to be faced,°!? and The Death of Marat could
speak to the present because there were several phenomena behind the drum
fire of dialogues that had been philosophically generalized and “that mankind
had been experiencing since 1917. Many of our century’s fundamental
contradictions had come to light, with the only option that resolves them, the
passion for change of the masses.”’!*
In this context, either with a simple or a more sophisticated explanation,
several reviewers underlined the importance of the asylum as the place
507 Itis unconventional, even though “Marat’s wordsin the drama are not fictitious, but based on
notes of historical credibility, and became the living forces of the revolution.” Béla Matrai¬
Betegh: Jean Paul Marat üldöztetése és meggyilkolása... Peter Weiss drámája a Nemzeti
Színházban, Magyar Nemzet, Vol. 22, No. 31, 64 February, 1966, 9.
Cf. Földes: Nagy mű, nagy előadás, 24.
Matrai-Betegh: Jean Paul Marat, 9. — The author “surveys revolution from an ideological
perspective [...], as a category of social philosophy”. Ibid.
510 Péter Molnár G.: Marat-Sade. Jegyzetek Peter Weiss drámájának nemzeti színházi
bemutatöjäröl, Nepszabadsäg, Vol. 24, No. 43, 20'* February, 1966, 7. — The longing
for freedom means revolutionary temper as well, “with which the revolutionary play is
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symbolically represented as a eulogy for the revolution because of their indignation over
their detention”. Ibid.
Cf. “The flamboyant form” of “one ofthe great examples of post-Brechtian folk theatre” has
its dramatic antecedent “in Danton’s Death, not in The Days of the Commune”. Ibid.
5 Gabor Mihalyi derived this indirect representation from the author’s ambivalent distancing,
i.e. from his intention “to show his different position, his enthusiasm as an outsider, his
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doubtful reservation by a Pirandellian ‘play within a play’. [...] the idea of seeking salvation
and the meaning of revolutionary action appears in a spectacle of fools on de Sade’s stage. But
the comedy played by madmen wears the ceremonial robe of sacral theatre. As the mystery
with its elevated subject is actually a show of fools, it turns into its own parody.” Gabor
Mihályi: A kegyetlenség színházától a politikus színházig, Nagyvildg 11:4 (1966), 615-616.
Ibid., 614.
54 F.: Marat halála és A helytartó, 7. — The debate ofthe two title heroes “is full of the tension of
our age: the justification for the meaning and emphasis of the play comes from the present,
not from the past". Tamás Dersi: Marat győzelme. Peter Weiss művének bemutatója a
Nemzeti Színházban, Hétfői Hírek, Vol. 10, No. 6, 7" February, 1966, 7.
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