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REMEMBRANCE OF A LANDMARK IN THEATRE HISTORY
9930
coffin”” or "white hell"? The tone of lighting and the colors of Györgyi
Szakácss costumes became darker as the acts became gloomier. (In the last
act, for example, only Tuzenbach wore a bright suit, though he was preparing
for a deadly duel.) Conseguently, the scenography corresponded to the
interpretation of the play, and exposed "a well-thought-out and consistently
realized conception""? and sound effects, which dominated the tradition
stemming from Stanislavsky, were provided only with striking restraint.
The use of space was following the shifts of moods, and due to its realism,
it was expanding into emblematic images only in exceptional moments. Such
an image was the initial group composition of the three sisters “in the halo of
the backlight”, in front of the rear window.” The beginning of the production
was lively and upbeat, with Olga, Masha and Irina advancing on piano music
by Debussy. And such an image was the last one, also with the three sisters,
but without a halo now, in convulsive hysteria. We must highlight the famous
scene with the spinning-top from the first act too, which nevertheless did
not transform into a symbol (providing cognitive surplus on a higher level of
meaning), but into a visual synecdoche, offering emotional surplus instead.
Therefore, it was not taken out of the series of events, but only stopped (for
a photograph as well, taken by Rode and Fedotik in the meantime), so that
the long process of waiting, “exceeding the spectator’s margin of tolerance,
and the actual spinning of the spinning-top would make stage time relative
for a while”.*** Other noteworthy images of the production did not transcend
stage events either, which events led from almost idyllic situations to real
stalemates, the unusual detonation of the inner charges of the figures, and the
inexorable consequences of the end." In other words, as the nearly musical
precision of the structure was described by a critic, the production led from a
“lively, cheerful prelude” in crescendo, via “a slow and slightly sleepy andante”,
followed by a rondo furioso with the image of a broken family, to the allegro
con brio movement, full of the motif of farewell.°% Overall, the visual and
auditive world of Three Sisters could be defined “as a progressively rising arc
of emotions and a gradually darkening arc of moods”.?*”
930 Koltai: Csehoviádák, 13.
931 Barta: Három nővér, 9.
Nánay: Változatok a reménytelenségre, 13.
István Takács: Csehov — csehovul. A Három nővér a Katona József Színházban, Népszava,
Vol. 114, No. 4, 6 January, 1986, 6.
Pályi: Színházi előadások Budapesten, 541.
Cf. Mészáros: , Hát hova tűnt minden", 11.
Barta: Három nővér, 9.
937 Heltai: Rímelések, 724.
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