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THE SHIFTING POINT OF FEAR AND TREMBLING
cast, the premiere achieved enormous success and had a long-lasting effect
on further mises-en-scéne of Gogol’s comedy on Hungarian stages. Artists of
the National Theatre found it unusual that the Russian director had arrived
with a complete scenario. He intended to stage his 1972 The Government
Inspector at the Bolshoi Academic Gorky Theatre with a Hungarian cast,
not as a copy — as journalists were eager to state — but “on a par with his
production in Leningrad”. The outstanding event of socialist culture was
preceded by Tovstonogov’s former visits to Budapest, first alone, then with
his company. On 7' November, 1957, a year after the “Hungarian tragedy”
(Ferenc Fejt6), Optimistic Tragedy opened at Petéfi Theatre. Károly Kazimir,
a committed socialist put Vsevolod Vishnevsky’s play on stage, “one of the
first Soviet dramas in Hungarian theatres” after 1956.°° The production was
born ina sticky political situation — and to top it all for the 40" anniversary of
the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution — under Tovstonogov’s artistic supervision.*“
The Russian director revisited Budapest in 1969 with his Leningrad production
of Gorky’s Philistines, which most critics compared to Peter Brook’s King
Lear shown in the Hungarian capital five years before."
661 It took more than two months to prepare for the premiere. Actors who did not play in other
productions were rehearsing in the evenings too and even cancelled their extra-theatre
duties “to concentrate only on this task”. (f.f.): Félelem és fantasztikum, Esti Hirlap, Vol.
18, No. 46, 23"! February, 1973, 2. — Tovstonogov stayed in Budapest only for the first and
last two weeks of the rehearsal process and he spent most of the first two weeks analyzing
and rehearsing the opening scene. In the intervening period, his assistant, Y. Aksyonov was
working with the actors. A letter written to the governor of cultural life, Gyérgy Aczél,
by Istvánné Király, who was the director’s interpreter and Hungarian aide, reveals that
the extraordinary situation provoked a great deal of resistance from the members of the
company. One of the distinguished members of the company, Adam Szirtes, for example,
rejected the role assigned to him, since he felt it too small and “unworthy” of him. Facing
Tovstonogov’s method, Lajos Basti and (according to Endre Marton, the manager of the
National Theatre) even “the majority of the actors led by Ferenc Kallai” were thinking of
a similar action too. (Imre-Ring: Szigorúan bizalmas, 181.) In her letter, Istvánné Király
actually denounced Endre Marton because of his alleged "anti-Sovietism", claiming that
"his aim is to destroy the production in order to prove that the work of the Soviet director is
worthless". (Ibid. 183.)
Gábor Mihályi: Tovsztonogov-Latinovits, Gellért-Tovsztonogov, Nagyvilág, 18:5 (1973),
775. — Cf. also “The production in Budapest is not a copy of the production in Leningrad,
but its application to Hungarian theatre, taste, temperament and to the personalities of the
actors.” Molnar G.: Tovsztonogoyv, 7.
Molnar G.: Tovsztonogov, 7.
The official aim of the production was summarized by Peter Molnär Gäl in his 1973 article
dedicated to Tovstonogov, claiming that the staging of the sailor’s tragedy by Vishnevsky
was “an important chapter in the emotional consolidation after the counter-revolution”.
According to him, “purifying catharsis rarely soothes social convulsions so effectively”. Ibid.
Vera Létay, for example, considered “the lyrical and ironic counterpoints” in Tovstonogov’s
Philistines as “real artistic miracle”. She also noted that “we had met one of the giants of
the theatre of our time". Vera Létay: A polgármester, Élet és Irodalom, Vol. 17, No. 14, 7*
66.
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