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A BITTER FARCE OF LOSING POLITICAL IDEALS figure and all Shakespearean Queen Mothers”.’”” They praised Zoltan Nagy for the Cardinal’s dressing and undressing (when John offered England to the Church in his exasperation) as a scene of clownery in all sincerity.’”* They also mentioned Zsigmond Fülöp as Philip, the needy King of France, who was “carrying on with power politics with lip blush and eye shadow”.”* But the restraint of the ironic approach and the nuances of ensemble acting were badly damaged during the long series: Tamas Koltai, who reviewed the production for a second time, four years after the opening, noted that “the production has already disintegrated in a frightening way”.”* STAGE DESIGN AND SOUND The strong atmosphere of the production was created not so much by the costumes representing a past era but by Attila Csikds’s relatively simple scenery and the cold lights.’” The background of the performance space was closed by a wooden plank as a castle wall with crenels, a winged door in the middle and stairs on both sides leading to the walkway. “A smooth floor” was spreading in front of the battlements, “like an icy surface”,”’ with a ramp leading to the depths of the proscenium, and pieces of furniture (a round dining table, some seating, a wooden tub, etc.) were only temporarily pushed into the empty space. The accentuated materiality and form of the elements of the set simultaneously evoked Peter Brook’s mises-en-scéne of Shakespeare’s tragedies and Giorgio Strehler’s mises-en-scene of the Bard’s history plays." Their simplicity and functionalism did not reinforce Zsuzsa Borsi’s costumes, which suited the historical milieu. 792 Mészáros: A korszerűtlen ésszerűség, 7. Almási: Példabeszédek, 7. Mészáros: A korszerűtlen ésszerűség, 7. Koltai: Újranéző, 45. Cf. “With a slight exaggeration, the Castle Theatre has been agonizing for many years, looking for its own possibilities. But at long last, it has a production now that is typical of this space and can become inseparable from this building. It is important that after so many inorganic sets, independent of the possibilities and features of the building, after so many superficial designs, the performance space of King John is indeed the result of the challenge provided by this particular stage." György: Fejezet a zsarnokságról, 8. Takacs: ,Egy Pembroke az eredmény!”, 6. Specifically, Brook’s King Lear, which had a guest performance in Budapest in 1964 and Strehler’s two-evening production of The Game of the Powerful, staged in Milan (1965), Salzburg (1973) and Vienna (1975), and based on the first Henriad. On the stage of King John, the “throne” seemed as simple a stool as it had been in Strehler’s staging, and “there was something insincere in the production, which somewhat reminded spectators of a poor circus; the slightly ridiculous king, the fearsome, yet buffoon-like Powerful, who are as fearful as wild animals in a circus”. Giorgio Strehler: Az emberi szinhdzért, trans. Gitta Kardos — Maria Lajos — Andras Schéry, Budapest, Gondolat, 1982, 375. 79: “© 79 a 796 79 Ss 79 06 s 160"
