Seite 100 [100]
ENIKŐ SEPSI
RITUALS OF SELF-EMPTYING, EATING,
AND SUPPER IN NOVARINAS WORKS
A recurrent scene in Valére Novarina’s works is that of communal eating —
the supper — just as the central recurrent theme is the consumption of words.
It is a biblical theme, on account of the Last Supper too, and aside from this
it also represents the dynamic opposite of self-emptying. In the chapter on
Valére Novarina and Janos Pilinszky, entitled “The theater of unselfed poetry,”
we mentioned the importance of the God-emptiness anagram [Dieu-Vide] in
Novarina’s oeuvre. That explication is only reinforced by his lines about the
spatial composition of Un Coup de dés [A Throw of the Dice], and the influence
exercised upon him by empty spaces: “At the age of 18, I experienced a par¬
ticular enlightenment when I read an extensive study of Mallarmé’s A Throw of
the Dice: all of a sudden in the Sainte-Genevieve Library, I found myself in the
depths of the drama of word and body. At the intersection of opposites: at the
intersection of the page’s two dimensions and the bodily, extensive aspect of
the stage." Ihe beckoning emptiness of presence is the fundamental paradox
not only of Novarina’s conception of God but also of his entire oeuvre. Just as
does God, so the actor empties himself, retreats: it is not the actor who acts
but the word that acts through him. The Swiss literary and theatrical histo¬
rian, Marco Baschera, sees the same enactor of ritual in the Novarina-actor
and the priest: the priest also disappears during the ritual’s final act, the dis¬
tribution (blessing) of the Eucharist. According to Baschera’s analysis, while
the priest disappears so that the believer can unite with Christ in taking the
bread (Host), he speaks Christ’s words, thus effectively doubling Christ: He
becomes simultaneously the body in the bread and the word in the priest’s
mouth.” According to Leigh Allen’s excellent analysis, the Novarinian actor
is simultaneously impersonal speech and the one who eats.”’ The actor is also
doubled: sometimes he is a body and at other moments, an absentee (absence,
hole, etc.). The actor is thus a Christ-imitator, which is why he “walks on wa¬
ter” in Pendant la matiére [During the Matter], while he seeks his equilibrium
or becomes the embodiment of the Passion, part of the story of suffering. In
Espace furieux [Enraged Space], he says: I am Gods theater: the place of the
drama of divine speech that we hear.‘
#5 Evelyne Grossman: Artovarina. Un théâtre résurrectionnel, in ©. Dubouclez (ed.): Valère
Novarina: Une poétique théologique?, Littérature 176 (December 2014), 88-96, 91.
Marco Baschera: Le transsubstantiation et le théâtre, in E. Sepsi (ed.): Le théâtre et le sacré
— autour de l'oeuvre de Valère Novarina, Budapest, Räciö Kiadö -— Eôtvôs Collegium, 2009,
60.
Leigh Allen: Le rituel de la (s)cène dans quelques pièces de Valère Novarina, in ©. Dubouclez
(ed.): Valère Novarina: Une poétique théologique?, Littérature 176 (December 2014), 63.
18 Quoted by Leigh Allen: Ibid., 63.
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