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ENDRE MARTON: THE DEATH OF MARAT, 1966
Weiss has made Marat’s truth more serious and victorious. [...] In this way, the
representation of the masses of the revolution has been given greater weight,
and in the penultimate scene people almost shake off the shackles of madness
and grow into revolutionaries on stage.”**’ This was considered essential so
that the debate between Marat and de Sade would not remain undecided,
and it would not be possible for the spectator to side with de Sade, only with
Marat, who impersonated the idea of revolution, and whose aspirations, “as
999 522
Weiss put it, ‘lead directly to Marxism”.
It was also particularly emphasized that the new version, written for the
theatre in Rostock, was in fact required by the development of the writer’s
worldview. Weiss not only followed the internal logic of his play, drew its
conclusion and made it even more obvious within the play itself, but also
“acknowledged the futility of life without behavioral engagement”.* He
realized that “real freedom lies in the commitment to the cause of humanity,
of socialism”.** The fact that Weiss “got to the acceptance of revolutionary
thinking from the politics of the third way [scolded a lot at that time] when
writing the play", was presented as evidence of the ideological progress of
Western intellectuals. Ihis explained the second versions being no longer
"a skeptical bourgeois puzzling over the revolution", but a "firm position in
favor of the real revolution of the Fourth Order".?? Although Imre Sinkovits
and Gyorgy Kalman were almost shouting at the audience, when “the hyenas of
the revolution were lashed”,*”’ the opinion leaders ensured that the spectators
521 Földes: Nagy mű, nagy előadás, 25. — In fact, Peter Weiss did not change the text much,
“only one new scene was inserted between the penultimate and the last scene, which had
some commentary on the historical drama played by the inmates”. (Mihälyi: A kegyetlenseg
szinhäzätöl, 614.) This scene had changed the portrayal of Marat’s assassin, Charlotte
Corday too. She is “not in the least sacred, not a tool of Sade, but a tool ofthe Gironde, a
misguided youngster, who does not realize that her lofty phrases help the reaction.” (Ibid.,
616.) “The first version ends with the inmates cheering the asylum, Napoleon, the empire,
the revolution and the copulation before sweeping away Roux, a more ardent supporter of
the revolution than Marat, who tries to hinder them. The procession escalates into a frenzied
dance, and the desperate Coulmier forbids to end it while Sade is laughing triumphantly.
In the new variant, the people’s march falls into the apotheosis of the revolution, and the
inmates take the institute cap off their heads with Roux as their leader. They are not crazy
anymore, they are prisoners in a riot, who demand their freedom.” (Ibid., 617.)
(zs.i.): Szinielöadäs az elmegydgyintézetben, 2. — So, according to Läszlö Kery, this second
version already contains “a clear message uniting a tangle of contradictions, and the truth of
socialism getting on with a convoluted web of debates, attacks, doubts and denials.” (Kery:
„Tanuljatok lätni”, 8.) Istvän Zsugän also stated that “the writer responds unmistakably:
revolutionary action is the only modern and ethical, in fact, the only possible human
behavior”. (Zsugän: Az egyetlen választás, 2.).
Mihályi: A kegyetlenség színházától, 614.
524 Tbid.
525 (zs.i): A budapesti előadás nyilvánvalóvá tette... Német kritikus a Marat-ról, Esti Hírlap,
Vol. 11, No. 48, 26" February, 1966, 2.
Matrai-Betegh: Jean Paul Marat, 9.
Sas: Tisztázni az ember rendeltetését, 7.
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