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THE DRAMA OF INCOMPLETENESS DECLARED TO BE COMPLETE of the plot,"" considering the ideological rivalry (de Sade vs. Marat) more crucial than the factual opposition (inmates vs. nurses, the oppressed vs. the oppressors). Conseguently, the play was understood as a clash of opposing theses: (extreme) individualism vs. (intense) collectivism. Stressing that "in its innuendoes and analogies it is about very topical issues”,’!% reviewers translated it in view of the present" as an ideological debate between the capitalist and the socialist world." Since de Sade seems to be right," they all highlighted that the playwright had changed the ending of Ihe Death of Marat, "following the productions of his play in various European capitals, which were dubiously staged in some places." The first version of the play was published in the anthology of modern German dramas in 1966, but the version played at the National Theatre differed from it, “perhaps less in its text and more strongly in its approach. The Death of Marat on stage is more obvious in its worldview than The Death of Marat on page. Meanwhile, Peter 518 Cf. “Many people have already noticed the strange phenomenon of more and more plays dealing with fools, and their setting is often a mental hospital. Let us think of The Physicists, Diirrenmatt’s play at the Vig Theatre. [...] Artists living in a modern bourgeois society are reminded by numerous phenomena of the real world of the conditions prevailing in mental hospitals. Peter Weiss uses this setting in this sense.” (Bernath: Nézétéri jegyzetek, 28.) — “The asylum as a setting is symbolic. It tries to set up a world out of joint in its desperation, ambiguously, of course." (Szombathelyi: Marat halála, 2.) — “This strange, closed world is not far from reality — it brings the extremes of reality gone mad to the stage.” (Féldes: Nagy mű, nagy előadás, 25.) — László Kéry saw an alienation effect in the setting, stating that the inmates’ “confinement, their suffering, the brutal rules applied to them become a very effective expression of ‘normal’ social repression, the suppression of revolutionary movements and the class domination of the bourgeoisie”. (Kery: „Tanuljatok lätni”, 8.) (zs.i.): Szinielöadäs az elmegyögyintezetben, 2. Gäbor Mihälyi and Peter Molnär Gäl stressed the relationship of de Sade’s figure to existentialism, referring to the fact that 20'* century French philosophers made the Marquis fashionable when they were looking for predecessors, and he got into Weiss’ play through them. That is why the journalist of Uj Ember wrote: “Marat and his supporter, Jacques Roux, the monk-turned-socialist agitator, and even Duperret, the moderate revolutionary, speak as if they believe in something despite their disappointment. The Marquis de Sade, on the other hand, not only denies the former revolutionary in himself, but turns away from everything and does not believe in anything anymore. [De Sade] is nihilist and a forerunner of passionate atheism, anticlericalism, Social Darwinism, total dictatorship and fascism, rather than a representative of individualism.” Endre Szigeti: Szent vagy vadallat?, Uj Ember, Vol. 22, No. 16, 17 April, 1966, 1. — Catholic periodicals heavily criticized Weiss’ “ideological comedy” or “political musical” (Ibid.) and the weightlessness of the debate in it, pointing out that although Marat and de Sade “stand on two poles of the dialogue, they do not confront each other dramatically, they just speak side by side, like two narrators” (Ibid.) and “usually tell each other only abstract theses”. Karoly Doromby: Színházi krónika, Vigília 31:4 (1966), 271. 518 Cf. László G. Szabó: Bírál a postás néző, Postás Dolgozó 11:3 (1966), 3. 519 After all, "he is arguing with his own characters" (Gábor Antal: Történelem a színpadon. Peter Weiss drámái Budapesten, Ország-Világ, Vol. 10, No. 7, 164 February, 1966, 25.); "Marat, locked in a bathtub that becomes his pulpit" (Szigeti: Szent vagy vadállat?, 1.), is also his creature, and "the direct development of events [...] would not justify Marat objectively on their own either" (Földes: Nagy mű, nagy előadás, 24.). 520 Zsugán: Az egyetlen választás, 2. 516 517 + 110°
