Oldal 156 [156]
OCR
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 Varszinházban, Népszava, Vol. 112, No. 268, 15* November, 1984, 6. 750 75 752 75: 0 a
