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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 collected 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 Joanportrayal, 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 National Theater’s approach in the earlier Alféldi version. He wanted to present to Budapest theatergoers a Joan that embodied both the saint and the demoticnational 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 presence 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 situation, Ukrainian-Russian theatrical training, Slavic knowledge-system, stronger self-identity
