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A BITTER FARCE OF LOSING POLITICAL IDEALS
are usually highlighted."" Compared to the pretext, the "only additional
information” is “the gesture by which the king ‘bestows rights’ on his people",
i.e. the Magna Carta, most commonly referred to along with John Lackland,
and this is only “morally vile manipulation”.”” Imre Kerényi recognized both
the experience of the 20th century”” and Jan Kott’s conception of Shakespeare’s
history plays”? in Diirrenmatt’s historical perspective. He sought to make
spectators feel not only the ridiculous but also the painful aspect of the
playwright’s malice, as he thought that “contrary to, let’s say, an adaptation
like King Ubu, [the play] preserves the tragedy of this historical process as
well”.754
The driver of the play’s interpretation, i.e. “the bloody charade of the cycle
of power” had become evident even before the pantomime that started (and
then closed) the production, at the sight of the program, which displayed a
profane symbol, namely a meat grinder swallowing a caricature-like army of
both sides, and both kings have the other’s family members and relatives killed without batting
an eyelash, they are talking amiably, conjuring up a relationship of kinship through a marriage
of interests, opposing or submitting to the pope’s demands, which are also motivated by power
and not at all by the command of religion, or they are thinking of a ruse on each other, lying
and breaking an oath, without the slightest remorse. The fact that John dies at the end of the
game does not stem from this contrast. He is poisoned by one of his most loyal men.” Ibid.
Cf. King John is “a very entertaining play, in the truth of which we are gladly bathing. [...]
Dürrenmatt’s story is rather ambivalent and seeks to display the seemingly complicated,
otherwise very primitive mechanism of political machinery, explaining carefully that the
driving forces of these machines are hardly the ‘happiness and future of my people’, but
rather ignoble practices and impromptu killings, which promise quick success.” Karoly
Bulla: János király, Film Színház Muzsika, Vol. 28, No. 47, 24* November, 1984, 4. — „It
is an evil play, Dürrenmatt says about King John in his notes attached to it. You might as
well call it a hideous one. [...] History play? Market play! [...] Marcell Benedek noted that
the ladies of the royal family are quarreling about power like market-women. Dürrenmatt’s
entire power struggle between England and France, with the pope’s indirect involvement,
is only immense marketing, which means politics in the dictionary of the sardonic Swiss.”
Tamás Koltai: Kicsontozott kiralydrama. Diirrenmatt-bemutat6 a Varszinhazban, Új Tükör,
Vol. 21, No. 49, 2"! December, 1984, 28.
Endre Varjas: Újrajátszva (Replay Dürrenmatt!), Élet és Irodalom, Vol. 28, No. 46, 16'*
November, 1984, 13.
Cf. “This comedy is characteristically a 20th-century one, since it is the offspring of historical
consciousness, reflection and comparison. Therefore, it is the equivalent of the consciousness
which considers its own terrible and ‘evil’ story as a general feature of history as a whole, and
only tolerates it as such." Péter György: Fejezet a zsarnokságról, Színház, 18:1 (1985), 7.
"For Dürrenmatt and Jan Kott, history does not really have either a purpose or a development,
but there’s a so-called Grand Mechanism instead, [...] and it ruthlessly subdues all kinds of
wills, all sorts of aspirations, and in fact, the heroes always set off somewhere from the
starting point of the drama and get back to the same place.” Mentioned in Láttuk, hallottuk,
a program on Pet6fi Radio at 10:45 a.m. on 5 November 1984. Transcript for the Hungarian
Theatre Museum and Institute.
754 Ibid.
755 István Takács: ,Egy Pembroke az eredmény!” Diirrenmatt Janos kiraly-ätirata a Varszin¬
házban, Népszava, Vol. 112, No. 268, 15* November, 1984, 6.
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