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ANDRÁS VISKY FEBRUARY 2, 2020 Were continuing the rehearsals after a long — nearly two week — break. Work on the text, interpretive conversations, dressing alcove, mirror play. I approach the relationship between the large and the small by bringing Caravaggio’s art into the discussion. Michelangelo’s fresco of the martyrdom of the apostle Peter and Caravaggio’s canvas in Santa Maria del Popolo are two different interpretations of the world and two different views of God. Caravaggio places the god question preferably in the intimate sphere of the individual: the great redemptory events play out inside the theatrical black box of the soul. Michelangelo’s historical picture is a cosmic story of the divine, while Caravaggio’s definition of history would sound like this: industrious male backside business. An enormous, infinitely ridiculous male backside, stuffed into orange-yellow pants, dominates Caravaggio’s canvas: it is the composition’s brightest surface. Purcarete composes the Caravaggio painting into the Roman scene.** As a matter of fact, the entire scene builds on the imagery of a world in pandemic: we are all equal when facing the plague because it spreads not from outside but from within the soul’s most hidden, darkest alleys. I’m writing a song lyric (or at least compiling it, assembling rhythmic formulas) and hand it over to Vasile Sirli, who is working together with Enikő Eder on the songs. That’s Enikö! An omniscient actor: she coaches using the electronic keyboard, warms up the cast’s vocal chords, explains the prosody and confidently scans the verse for the non-Hungarian-speaking composer; she performs her Eve scene (Athens, Scene 5), she provides musical accompaniment for the scenes, and if needed, she also serves as conductor. She is an omniscient actor composed of many kinds of noble material, knowing the numerous aspects of her craft; she’s not merely an “A-a-ah-tist.” FEBRUARY 3, 2020 Silviu gets stuck when he cannot remember the exact term for the white linen that covered Christ. Typical: for him, precision is no mere metaphor. At the end of the Roman scene, the miracle of baptism “elevates” her: could this be the key to the scene’s coherence, the resurrection? “Why does Eve rise?” I ask Purcarete. "Because were in theater,” he responds. One must strive for simplicity in the theater and one mustn’t ID everything. The rehearsal halts: he cannot continue it without the masks, he says, everything in the performance seems too realistic, and in addition, at this close range, this assumed, overly expansive performing is becoming continually 38 Madach: Ibid., Scene 6: ancient Rome in time of plague. + 244 +
