Seite 115 [115]
OCR
ENDRE MARTON: THE DEATH OF MARAT, 1966 "to stand for Marat as well as for acting for a collective”.*** This was attributed to the director’s achievement:** to the portrayal of the two protagonists, on the one hand, and to that of the crowd, on the other.*?’ Certainly, Marton destroyed conventions with casting itself," but it was considered more important that the Hungarian Marat and de Sade were “completely novel figures” as György Kálmán and Imre Sinkovits "were playing a drama much different" from the one in the plays productions abroad." György Kálmáns Marat did not seem insane, i.e. he did not seem like Marat played by a patient with a paranoid psychosis, and since Imre Sinkovits’s de Sade also seemed healthy, the spectator “forgot about the spectacle built into the spectacle at times”, and had the impression that “the real Marat was arguing with the real Marquis De Sade”.**? While in most Western productions Marat was said to be played as an “evil toad” or a “bloodthirsty and individualistic revolutionary”, the staging at the National Theatre was praised for making the tribune’s not always convincing truth far-reaching and showing “Marat the hero” with a crystal clear interpretation.*” In an interview, Kalman mentioned the surprise of his performance, how a madman could be “so sublime, so pure and shining like a holy image”,°* but this portrayal was essentially the director’s invention. It was Marton’s mise-en-scéne that made Marat victorious in the ideological duel of the protagonists, and when on 4" April and 7 November the regime was raising heroic monuments all over Hungary that ended up in the Memento Park in Budapest or in junk shops after 1989, Marton’s mise-en-scéne made Kalman raise a statue for Marat, “the pure 535 Varga: Marat halála, 2. 5% For example, by Ernst Schumacher, a German theatre historian and critic, visiting Budapest and having been interviewed as a personal acquaintance of Peter Weiss and one of the most thorough critics of his works. He said that Marton made it clear that “there was only one solution for the individual: [...] to be a revolutionary by all means.” (zs.i): A budapesti előadás nyilvánvalóvá tette, 2. Cf. “The nurses crush the rebellion at Coulmier’s order, but the stage image, resembling David’s heroic paintings, indicates that people can be killed, but the idea of revolution cannot be defeated. [...] As a result of staging, de Sade’s guidance is diminishing until he becomes a spectator, not a director of his play. [Marton was right] to remove the grotesque traits from the portrayal of the great revolutionary. Marat sits in his bathtub with a statuelike stiffness, which gradually almost transforms into the pedestal of the memorial of the great man." Mihályi: A kegyetlenség szinhazatdl, 617. Cf. “We are used to Sinkovits’s playing stronger, more robust and healthier heroes, and Kalman’s playing the more differentiated, intellectual and morbid characters. Marton is now casting the other way round, giving both of our great actors the opportunity to play one of the best performances of their lives.” Zsugan: Az egyetlen választás, 2. Sz. Szántó: Marat és De Sade, 5. Kéry: , Tanuljatok látni", 8. Sz. Szántó: Marat és De Sade, 5. Dersi: Marat győzelme, 7. Sas: Tisztázni az ember rendeltetését, 6. a 537 538 53 © 540 54 BE 542 543 e 113"
