Oldal 113 [113]
OCR
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. 52! S 52. o a 52 à 52 S + 111 +
