Oldal 144 [144]
THE SHIFTING POINT OF FEAR AND TREMBLING
that had been emerging under the surface of comedy in order to make the
audience feel terror "as a kind of spiritual reality"."" Referring to the feudal
conditions of tsarist Russia and to the autocracy of Nicholas I,"ő most critics
identified terror with the fear of the representatives of an ancient regime in
the past, afraid of being inevitably summoned sooner or later."? However, a
significant reference to the production in 1989 by the director Imre Csiszár
(sometime leader of the National)"9 lets us suppose that the unbearable
anxiety in Tovstonogov’s mise-en-scéne made spectators experience another
time as the main force that coerces the characters into these ridiculous leaps. However, we
understand this only in the last scene, when the Mayor, Ferenc Kallai shouts at the onlookers,
‘What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourselves.’, and all of a sudden, we realize
that no one is laughing, neither on stage nor in the auditorium. At this moment, the function
of a series of ‘amusing’ scenes can also be grasped, and we comprehend why our laughter
has been suppressed by the gloom of the situation or by the topicality of today’s overtones
of some gestures. This dichotomy, the unfolding of the Gogolian fantasy, belongs to a layer
that we have previously not been aware of.” After all, “The Government Inspector has always
appeared to us with only one face so far, mocking the bureaucrats.” A revizor — Tovsztonogov
rendezésében. Miklós Almäsi’s program on Petöfi Radio, at 20.40 on 16" March 1973.
Transcript for the Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute. — Cf. also “Tovstonogov, the
theatre director from Leningrad, staged two productions at the National, doubling Gogol’s
satire. [...] Performances of The Government Inspector have been scratching only the surface
of contemporary Russian society so far. [...] They have got to the play’s comic epidermis,
at most to its satirical dermis here and there, but not more than some millimeters deep.
Tovstonogov penetrates under the skin and even gets past the fat layer.” Bela Mätrai-Betegh:
A revizor. Tovsztonogov Gogolj-rendezese a Nemzeti Szinhäzban, Magyar Nemzet, Vol. 29,
No. 65, 18'* March, 1973, 11.
Major: A revizor, 13. — Cf. also “Tovstonogov explores and follows the physiology, metaphysics
and even mysticism of terror, its very objective, organized structure, its hierarchy.” Matrai¬
Betegh: A revizor, 11.
Like the weekly Tiikér did and Leningradskaya Pravda in view of the Soviet premiere.
As if the play revealed the “anti-world” (the Mayor and his company) before the Bolsheviks’
takeover, which world could only be swept away by revolution: “Gogol knew well that the real
government inspector would not come in Nicholas I’s Russia. In fact, he came only eighty¬
one years after the completion of The Government Inspector in 1836. The righteous fear of
monstrous lords had lasted until 1917.” No author: A revizor, 2. — “The real government
inspector was actually the revolution...” Roxin: A revizor — a Nemzeti Színházban, SZIM
Hírlap 10:10 (1973), 7.
The new manager of the National Theatre, Imre Csiszár claimed in 1989 that "the other
tradition to be preserved is the representation of foreign classics from Shakespeare and
Moliére to Brecht. Not because they are all parts of school curricula, but because they
may tell us more and better about our situation in Hungary today than a contemporary
Hungarian drama. I remember, as it was not that long ago, when Tovstogonov [sic] came
to Hungary to stage The Government Inspector. It was actually a copy of a production in
Leningrad, but I have never seen a theatre performance more Hungarian than that. It was so
much about us, about our problems, about our ridiculousness, about our cowardice [...] that
perhaps the best Hungarian drama at that time was Gogol’s play. It is a matter of staging.”
Judit Csáki: , Nem igazgatni: rendezni szeretném a Nemzetit." Beszélgetés Csiszár Imrével,
Kritika 27:9 (1989), 29.
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