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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 MatraiBetegh: 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 508 50 © 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 51 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. 51 w + 109 +
