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FROM IDOL DESTRUCTION TO IDOLATRY
ENDRE MARTON: CHAPTERS ON LENIN, 1970
—to>
Title: Chapters on Lenin. Date of Premiere: 21“ April, 1970 (revived on 4"* May,
1980). Venue: National Theatre, Budapest. Director: Endre Marton. Author:
László Gyurkó. Dramaturg: Erzsébet Bereczky (1980). Acting coach: Eszter
Tatár. Set designer: Mátyás Varga. Costume designer: Judit Schaffer. Company:
National Iheatre, Budapest. Actors: Gábor Agárdi, Katalin Berek, Mariann
Csernus, Vali Dániel, Zsigmond Fülöp (replaced by László Szacsvay in 1980),
Vilmos Izsóf, Ferenc Kállai (replaced by Róbert Koltai in 1980), Magda Kohut,
Tamás Major, István Pathó, Mária Ronyecz, Ildikó Sólyom (replaced by Zsuzsa
Farkas in 1980), Gyula Szersén, Ottó Szokolai, László Versényi.
CONTEXT OF THE PERFORMANCE IN THEATRE CULTURE
The National Theatre’s production honoring the 100" anniversary of Lenin’s
birth made an icon of the public sphere out of the image that was created with
iconoclastic intent during the sixties by leftist thinkers and non-mainstream
theatre workshops. One of the manifold predecessors of the 1970 production
was the author’s previous play Electra, My Love, the National Theatre
premiere of which in 1968 - four years before the legendary production of the
so-called Twenty-Fifth Theatre (Huszon6étédik Szinhaz) and six years before
one of the best films of Miklés Jancsó — "created a new playwright"."?? László
Gyurkö’s work, recreating a classical story along contemporary questions,
is indivisible from the spirit of ’68, from the Western-European search for
the “alternatives of contemporary revolutionary thought”.’” It is closely
intertwined with his work Chapters on Lenin, where the “conflict between
Electra and Orestes transforms into the often tragic conflict between Lenin
and his comrades, Lenin and the alternatives”.**! Secondly, Chapters on Lenin
58° Tamas Tarjan: Kortarsi drama. Arcképek és padlyarajzok, Budapest, Magvető, 1983, 296.
5% Ibid., 295.
591 Miklós Béládi — László Rónay (eds.): A magyar irodalom törtenete 1945-1975, Vol. 3.2,
Budapest, Akadémiai, 1990, 1129. — The relevant chapter of this handbook, now ideologically
passé, discusses Electra, My Love as “not only one of the high points of [Gyurké’s] oeuvre,
but also a peak in the development of socialist drama after the Liberation [1945]”. Ibid., 1127.
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