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THE TRAGIC OF “VITAL HATRED” GABOR SZEKELY: THE MISANTHROPE, 1988 o> Title: The Misanthrope. Date of Premiere: 11° November, 1988. Venue: Katona Jézsef Theatre, Budapest. Director: Gabor Székely. Author: Moliere. Translator: Gyorgy Petri. Dramaturg: Géza Fodor. Set designer: Csaba Antal. Costume designer: Gyorgyi Szakacs. Company: Katona Jozsef Theatre, Budapest. Actors: Gyorgy Cserhami (Alceste), Dorottya Udvaros (Céliméne), Gabor Maté (Philinte), Géza Balkay (Oronte), Agnes Bertalan (Eliante), Erika Bodnar (Arsinoé), Zoltan Varga (Acaste), Janos Bän (Clitandre), Jözsef Horvath (Du Bois), Frigyes Hollósi (Basgue), Olivér Csendes (Guard). CONTEXT OF THE PERFORMANCE IN THEATRE CULTURE The Misanthrope was created during the period of outstanding international successes of the Katona Jézsef Theatre, as the last mise-en-scéne by Gabor Székely there, who managed the company from 1982 to 1989. It exemplifies the professional perfectionism and latent political character of the Katona’s productions staged in the “Székely era”: the determination of a theatre which did not avoid social problems and dared to analyze them in the public sphere, as sensitively as possible, in order to influence collective thinking about them. Shortly before the regime change, at the end of a decade far from revolutionary, it made moral corruption going hand in hand with social degradation the subject of “doublespeak”, judging our social conditions through a tolerated classic, mostly appealing to overtones, in the robe of historicist staging.?** The vitality of the pronouncement and the intensity of °44 ‘There was a reviewer who defined the subject of Alceste’s vehement hatred (in a rather clichéd way) in “a world that swept away all ideas, ideals, opinions and beliefs". (Erika Szántó: Karzat, Képes 7, Vol. 3. No. 49, 3 December, 1988, 43.) Others pointed out more precisely that the production was about “the most pressing problems of our individual and social actions” (András Barta: Alceste, korunk hőse, Magyar Nemzet, Vol. 51, No. 309, 294 December, 1988, 9), "the decay of our mental health" (Tamás Koltai: Újranéző, Képes 7, Vol. 4, 14, 84 April, 1989, 43) and “the consensus on opportunism" (Miklós Almási: Szeressétek az embergyűlölőt!, Népszabadság, Vol. 46, No. 285, 304 November, 1988, 7). Tamás Tarján also made it clear that "György Cserhalmi plays Alceste, while he plays hundreds and hundreds of figures of contemporary Hungarian intellectual and public life". Odi et amo, Színház 22:2 (1989), 22. s 189 +
