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GABOR SZEKELY: THE MISANTHROPE, 1988
overture to Tannhduser at the beginning, influenced the sense of atmosphere,
but the slight creaking of the floor proved to be more important from the
point of view of acoustic effects. As in Ascher’s Three Sisters, the first three
acts of which took place on an upper floor of a house, the creaking suggested
the porousness of the walking surface and the structure that included it.
IMPACT AND POSTERITY
Although The Misanthrope was one of the paramount productions of the
Katona Jézsef Theatre in the 1980s, it saw relatively few (in fact, only 47)
performances, compared to other notable productions. The reason for this
lies not so much in the impact of the events of 1989 (the regime change), or in
the loss of the ideotextual power of the mise-en-scéne, but rather in the fact
that Gábor Székely and György Cserhalmi left the company at the end of the
1988-1989 season, after which the production lived only for six months (until
March 1990). Itwas only taken on tour to Moscow, but foreign theatre-makers
and journalists saw it in Budapest as part of a professional meeting. Szekely
received The Theatre Critics’ Award for Best Director and Gy6érgyi Szakacs
for Best Costume and The Misanthrope was almost unanimously described
as “masterful”,’” “fantastically good”, “100% theatre”? The Katona’s
production and Petri’s new translation drew attention to Moliére’s play, which
had been previously staged only three times (all on Odry Stage) following its
1971 production with Miklós Gábor and Edit Domján. However, in the last
three decades it achieved some two dozen shows, directed by Tamás Ascher
(Kaposvár, 1991), Gábor Tompa (Cluj, 2000) and Árpád Schilling (Krétakör
Theatre, 2004) among others. Gábor Zsámbéki, who managed the Katona
Jözsef Theatre from 1989 to 2011, also left his position with The Misanthrope,
similarly to his predecessor. Zsámbéki started his mise-en-scene where
Szekely had finished: on the bare stage, so that his Alceste, choosing to leave
society, would end up homeless, locked in just a few square feet of trash,
totally destitute, albeit in freedom...
972 Barta: Alceste, korunk hőse, 9.
973 Koltai: Újranéző, 43.
974 Tamás Barabás: A mizantróp, Esti Hírlap, Vol. 33, No. 279, 254 November, 1988, 2.