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THE TRAGEDY OF MAN AS THEATRUM THEOLOGICUM (A DRAMATURG’S DIARY)
still needed are the “living stones,” whose numbers, however, are continu¬
ally dwindling. In its every gesture, Timisoara is a collection of fragments;
my heart constricts from these spaces, and its atmosphere of the mausoleum
depresses me, but I drive the thoughts away, since the auditorium was packed
for my appearance tonight.
Three of us at dinner at the Scotland Yard gastropub in Savoy Street. I’ve just
arrived in Timisoara, on this evening. Until now, for me only an unfamiliar
and at times frightening city’s theater and company existed. All that it takes
is a single face, a look or an unexpected exchange of words for one to arrive,
finally, and to feel not only the work but also the community of the people
who will see the production.
FEBRUARY 6, 2020
“Théâtre à l'ancienne,” says Purcarete, “we need something like that. Raised
voices, mild pathos, a slower rhythm. Dispozitie barocda,” he says.**
At the break, the actors come over to me and flood me with their affection
because of the conversation and reading last night; they also tell Silviu what
happened. Now I bathe a little in their lovely regard.
It’s worth noticing that in the scene set in Byzantium,” it is not Eve through
whom the story turns, while Adam longs not for a “new path” but a “new life”
at the scene’s conclusion: it is a strong change of emphasis in the text. It is
indubitably the deepest point of the Tragedy, the symmetric pair to the ice
age tableau? that horrifies Adam so terribly. Here, Adam seriously doubts the
sense of continuing the experiment called history, and it seems as if this is
related to Eve, or more precisely to her absence: she who, rejecting the sensual
life, finds the fulfillment of her own life in the cloister.*° The Byzantine scene is
the triumph of Luciferian logic, since murderous impulses are released within
the religion of love. Yet Lucifer fails to triumph: it seems as if he himself is
surprised by the undisguised evil of the “human race.” Madach is unable to
digest the bloody, self-annihilating history of Christianity: he feels they have
tricked him, indeed, cuckolded him. I feel his feeling. Of course, I realize that
it’s more difficult for a Catholic.*”
With respect to the “baroque frame of mind,” mention is made of Péter
Esterhazy, whom Purcarete met personally at our house, during the rehearsals
Dispozitie barocä (Romanian): a baroque disposition.
54 Madäch: Ibid., Scene 7.
55 Madäch: Ibid., Scene 14.
Eve is an active participant in many ofthe scenes. In Scene 6 (Rome), she was a courtesan; in
Scene 7, she becomes a nun.
The author is a member of the Calvinist Reformed Church, where the existence of evil is
perhaps more easily digestible as an element of predestination.
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