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ENDRE MARTON: THE DEATH OF MARAT, 1966 mass even fifteen years after the fall”.°° As a result, apanorama was offered by a detailed background with a wide range of simultaneous events,°°! which was reinforced by the spectators’ facing an open stage, when they entered the auditorium. Little by little a repository of pathologies was being built on the stage.* Later, the interval did not interrupt stage events either, as the punishment of the patients were being continued then.** The production created a fearful atmosphere with the sight of the staff ruthlessly hitting the crowd with batons,** which added some not-so-intrusive sensuousness to intense thoughts. This sensuousness was increased by the set too, designed with a taste for fine art” and using attractive elements with such economy » 556 that “the attraction of the play should be the debate of worldviews”. Consequently, the mise-en-scène did not seek either spectacular symbolism or historical authenticity,’ but rather sought to penetrate ideas and develop such a “harmonious system of the stage and the thoughts”*** that minimizes the chance of misunderstanding. 550 Ibid. 551 Cf. “The novelty of Marton’s mise-en-scéne is the director’s superior reign over the stage space, [...] he fills every square inch of the stage with life.” Molnar Gal: Rendelkezöpröba, 147. Cf. “A fool is tying the rope of his apron on his grey [...] robe. He is tying it with the strange, monotonous, rhythmic movements of manic depressives for the third, fifth, fiftieth time. He is tying and untying, as if to knot the thread of his broken mind with resurgent hope. Over and over again, our eyes wander to this poor unfortunate standing alone on the open stage. We have been struck by the play’s abhorrence, even though the performance has not yet begun, the auditorium is just getting ready [...]. But the stage is already alive: up there, behind the proscenium, the inhabitants of the asylum of Charenton are doing their daily routine and cleaning the large bathing room. Down here in the auditorium, we are slowly gathering, meanwhile we are transformed by this beginning, by this idea of the director. We are not in Budapest, not in 1966, but in France, and we are part of an invited audience, summoned to Charenton by the directorate of the asylum to see a play. [...] We, spectators, are not only onlookers, but also participants in this performance.” Geszti: Charentoni szinjaték, 8. 553 Endre Marton said that “Peter Weiss writes that Coulmier, the director of the asylum, shouts forcefully at the crowd. I thought it was too little. Someone who is only humming a revolutionary march will be sadistically punished on our stage. These sick souls are punished during the interval, squatting at the behest of normal people in a crazy world and holding their hands up. Until the passage of historical times..." Lelkes: A sokdimenziós színpad, 12. Szombathelyi: Marat haldla, 2. — It is worth noting the stage use of batons, five years before Tamas Major’s Romeo and Juliet. 555 Cf. “We no longer see the chorus representing the crowd, we just hear their defiant, revolutionary song from behind the backdrop. Then fists, convulsive, gripping and stretching hands show up in front of it. The director’s idea turned the background into a powerful visual composition: the sight of protruding hands increases the striking power of the revolutionary 55. DS 55. > song several times.” (zs.i.): Szinieldadäs az elmegyögyintezetben, 2. 556 Sas: Tisztázni az ember rendeltetését, 7. 557 Cf. "Those who wish to recognize complex emblems in this drama are as disappointed as those who wish to see the history of the French Revolution." Gábor: Színházi figyelő, 236. Mätrai-Betegh: Jean Paul Marat, 9. — Cf. also “We called the premiere of the National Theatre of epochal importance, since it is the first, full-fledged performance of such a complex intellectual drama on Hungarian stages.” Dersi: Marat gy6zelme, 7. 55. œ
