Page 155 [155]
A THEATER PLAY FROM A CONCERT PIECE; POETRY AND RITUAL IN THE GESAMTKUNST WERK?
B. Shaw, in his own skeptic style, showed us an infinitely profane and human
Joan, the Girl’s character was devoid of every mythical aspect that she had col¬
lected throughout the centuries [...], while at the end of the play, Claudel and
Honegger’s heroine goes to heaven.” It is important to note that this review
incorrectly draws conclusions about both Shaw’s and Claudel-Honegger’s Joan¬
portrayal, solely based on the two plays’ different approaches. Shaw’s work
definitely depicts a natural, naive, and innocent, yet determined and layered
Joan, although this depiction cannot in any way be called either “religious”
or “profane,” especially as the drama gives a new perspective of Saint Joan’s
connection with sacrality: on a textual level, the work refers to the bishop of
Beauvais’ (Cauchon’s) attempts at condemning Joan of Arc, as he recognizes
signs of an antitype of “Protestantism” in the pious girl, as she contacts God
based on her impulses, without the involvement of a priest.!” So Vidnyänszky
did not distance himself and his play from Shaw’s play but rather from the Na¬
tional Theater’s approach in the earlier Alféldi version. He wanted to present
to Budapest theatergoers a Joan that embodied both the saint and the demotic¬
national heroine. When approaching the topic on a literary or a theatrical level
it is generally important to decide whether each particular author wants to
interpret Joan of Arc’s sacrifice within a sacral setting or not: Claudel chose
the former, so he and Honegger distanced themselves from the approach that
demystifies the figure of Saint Joan, similarly to Voltaire and Anatole France
in their treatments of the theme."
Like Claudel, Vidnyanszky knew the importance of emphasizing the pres¬
ence of the supernatural and miraculous in the Saint Joan story — that the
Maid of Orléans acted through divine inspiration via Archangel Michael, Saint
Katherine, and Saint Margaret — and this principle shows in the complex
symbol system of his staging of Joan of Arc at the Stake. However, in order to
fully understand the play’s complex theatrical language, and through this its
connection to the issues of rite, the impacts that shaped the author’s mindset
and worldview (leading up to his Joan premiere as well) need to be examined.”
Attila Vidnyanszky graduated as a Hungarian History teacher in Ungvar,
after which he graduated as a theatrical director in the Kiev National I. K.
1° Rechtenwald: Ibid.
17 George Bernard Shaw: Szent Johanna [Saint Joan], trans. Géza Ottlik, in XX. Századi angol
dramdk [Twentieth-Century British Drama], Budapest, Európa, 1985, 419.
Released in Hungarian, the comprehensive Claudel volume includes a study by Albert
Gyergyai, finding an opposition between Anatole France’s and Claudel’s art from a literary
historical point of view, as while — so he says — the former is the most famous representative
of the “macerated French prose of the Eighteenth century,” the latter is the exact opposite
due to his linguistic richness and complexity. Albert Gyergyai: Paul Claudel, in Andor Guthy
(ed.): Valogatas Paul Claudel miiveibél [Selection of Paul Claudel’s works], Budapest, Szent
István Társulat, 1982, 13.
“Vidnyanszky’s world concept and habitus is a pack of experiences based on his minority situ¬
ation, Ukrainian-Russian theatrical training, Slavic knowledge-system, stronger self-identity