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A BITTER FARCE OF LOSING POLITICAL IDEALS
IMPACT AND POSTERITY
Kerényis King John had an influence not on the plays subseguent history
of reception,°® but on the image and style of the National Theatre, almost
unchanged in the following 20 years." The production received three
nominations for The Theatre Critics’ Prizes and ran about 100 performances
over five seasons. At the time of its opening it almost accomplished Laszlé
Vamos’s artistic creed: “to stand for our national past and our present-day
Hungary without waving flags nationalistically, and to be internationalists,
to embrace the world without copying fashions, without bowing”.*”” However,
this objective, echoing the slogans of Gyérgy Aczél’s cultural policy, was
modified during the regime change, and the characteristic that King John
ironically turned all its “statements” upside down, had not become widespread.
Furthermore, slightly stylized acting and the occasional suspending of realism
began to tend towards a mannered and unreflected way of performance.
In spite of all these changes, the 1980s, which had been largely determined
by Imre Kerényi’s mises-en-scéne, were even permeating the productions of
the Pesti Magyar Theatre, led by Istvan Igldédi at the turn of the millennium.
Tamas Koltai noted that “a double vision of history began to prevail at the
National” after King John. According to this vision, “world history is a joke of
clowns and Hungarian history is a fate tragedy"."" This statement is certainly
disputable because of the deepened tragic overtones of King John. But if we
accept it, we can draw a direct line from King John to the cultural policy and
perception of history of the 2010s, actively developed by Imre Kerényi as well,
and taking shape in the Memorial to the Victims of the German Invasion at
Szabadsag Square, Budapest. This memorial was, in fact, raised to a Hungary
bounced as a “little ball of great politics”#® and forced to sacrifice (only)
because of that. This is, of course, an indisputably false attitude.
805 Diirrenmatt’s adaptation has been staged only three times in Hungary since the production
of the Castle Theatre. It was staged by István Szőke in Békéscsaba in 1994, by László Bagossy
at Örkény Theatre, Budapest in 2011, winning The Theatre Critics" Award for Best Director,
and by Attila Keresztes in Nyíregyháza in 2013.
In the 1985-1986 season, “in order to save the cost of new sets”, two history plays by
Shakespeare (Richard II and Henry V) were also played in the set of King John, which Tamäs
Koltai criticized for “building a cycle in an inorganic, artificial way”. Koltai: Ujranézé, 45.
807 Vamos: Gondolattéredékek, 211.
808 Koltai: Újranéző, 45.
80° The Bastard refers to the innocently killed boy, Arthur Plantagenet, with this phrase.
80
a
6
+ 162 +