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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. 932 933 934 935 936 « 186 +
