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ANDRÁS VISKY
for Victor." The plan was for them not only to meet each other but also to
discover each other. Not forgetting, of course, the calculated opinion that
the theatrical realization of the Esterhäzy dramaturgy requires a Purcärete.
It was a glorious evening, perfectly prepared Argentine steaks and Italian red
wines underscored the cultural interchange. I also invited Sirliand Buhagiar
so that the creative team could be at least nearly complete (it could not be
complete in the absence of Helmut Stürmer). A psalm of forgiveness was the
order of the day, and before the supper I read it aloud in Hungarian and Roma¬
nian, but also in English and French, and of course the dazzling conversation
proceeded in both Hungarian and Romanian. The following day, I purchased
the Esterhazy volumes available in Romanian, among which was hidden his
“Rubens and the Non-Euclidean Women” (Rubens si femeile neeuclidiene. Patru
dramolete).°? “You, who creates non-Euclidean theater, must be familiar with
the dramaturgy of self-commentary, whose closest relation is the theater of
Tadeusz Kantor.” The encounter in Cluj was followed by one in Budapest af¬
ter Purcarete’s production of As You Like It at the National Theater, not at the
premiere but on the second night. There was no follow-up; human things come
to an end. We all come to an end.
FEBRUARY 7, 2020
The text resonating from the doppelgangers and the gestures of the masked
actors (the non-speaking ones) present us with the image of two separate theat¬
ers. For the time being. Can we make it through to the discovery of the gestural
language and its detailed refinement, I ask myself — and not just myself. In any
case, the gestures of action do not point in the direction of realism because, in
this case, the text remains purely a voiceover, and the production splits apart
into at least two performances.
He stands in the empty space, two tables and nothing more; he stands mo¬
tionless as if beholding interior images. He’s not simply thinking but appears
to sense the entirety; his hands move at times, sketching out gestures. He
rearranges the tables, but the spatial relations hardly change at all. He spends
an unreal amount of time this way, standing stock still in the space.
“I find the old [original] texts much more appropriate to the stage, simply
because the words arrive from another time and in doing so, they filter through
and reflect from the culture’s mirror and consequently, they possess greater
weight and purity. I contend that the farther the text comes from, the more
58 Roger Vitrac (1899-1952): French surrealist dramatist; Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir [Vic¬
tor, or Power to the Children], 1928.
Péter Esterházy: Rubens és a nemeuklideszi asszonyok. Három dramolett [Rubens and the
Non-Euclidean Women. Three Mini-dramas], Budapest, Magvető, 2006.
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