Oldal 124 [124]
OCR
FROM IDOL DESTRUCTION TO IDOLATRY can also be classified as part of a series of plays that the National included in its repertory for explicitly political purposes from 1949 on, and “Endre Marton directed within this socio-political horror, this strict obligation disguised as aesthetics, the worthless new Hungarian, Soviet, Chinese and other plays he was forced to”.°” This time, however, as Marton emphasized in an interview, he did not have to “stage a standard play”, but a unique work, “every word of which is an authentic document”.°** Thirdly, this premiere was also greatly anticipated, since the foremost theatre of the country was greeting the Lenin centenary, a highly important event of state socialist culture with it. And as reviewers stated (even beyond the obligatory praise), it was not “mired in formalism, but showed the substance of things"? with admirable, “polemic novelty”,°* with “revelatory” dry documentarism.°”° After “the religious fog of myth-building” it was a performance that “cut to the heart”.°” Fourthly, the production of Chapters on Lenin at the National was not quite a world premiere, since the Universitas Együttes had performed the same work in a different formation back in 1967. (The version performed at the National Theatre was dated 1969 and published in Gyurkö’s volume, collecting all his plays, TV and radio scripts in 1984.) No doubt, the most important antecedent was this performance of the Universitas Egyiittes at the University Theatre (Egyetemi Szinpad), directed by Eva Mezei as commemorative program for the 50" anniversary of the 1917 Russian revolution. It presented an alternative image of Lenin compared to the one established two decades before,°”® and although it was not directly oppositional, it was still saturated with dissenting activism."" When the National Theatre’s premiere three years later made 59: S Léner: Pista bácsi, Tanár úr, Karcsi, 122. Marianne Gách: Együtt éljük át a lenini gondolatot. Gyurkó László új színpadi művének próbáján, Film Színház Muzsika, Vol. 14, No. 16, 18" April, 1970, 4. Pál E. Fehér: Fejezetek Leninről. Gyurkó László dokumentumoratóriuma a Nemzeti Színházban, Népszabadság, Vol. 28, No. 96, 25* April, 1970, 7. Miklós Almási: A demokrácia gyakorlása. Gyurkó László: Fejezetek Leninről, Kritika 8:7 (1970), 38. Endre Varjas: Alkalmatlan alkalmiság, Élet és Irodalom, Vol. 24, No. 20, 174 May, 1980, 13. Vera Létay: , Ha tisztelni akarjatok...”, Elet és Irodalom, Vol. 14, No. 18, 2"4 May, 1970, 13. This alternative image was created by Gyurkö’s Lenin, October, a “historical essay” first published in 1967 (almost atthe same time as the commemorative program at the University Theatre was held) and later in many editions. It was based on previously ignored documents and sought to nuance the complex image of the man behind the “great Bolshevik”. In a radio interview, Gyurkö stated that “I wrote my first essay on Lenin [in 1963 and then he put it at the beginning of the 1967 book] because I was not satisfied with the poster face that I was shown over and over again about Lenin. I was interested in his personality in the first place.” Szombat délután. Radio broadcast at 16.34 on 18" April, 1970. Transcript for the Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute, Budapest. We cannot ignore the fact that Gyurkö wrote his play in a form typical of the structure of the literary evenings at the University Theatre. Istvan Nanay points out that from the late 1950s on the University Theatre produced special literary programs in which “poetry, prose, documents and music were combined, strengthening and counterpointing each other, and 59. “© 594 59: a 59 a 59 Ss 59: 06 59 6 «12 +
