Oldal 272 [272]
ANDRÁS VISKY
Meanwhile, it turns out that everything that happens under the table is
visible to the viewers, so it must be acted out (for example, preparation of
the props must be made part of the performance, including the snake, etc.).
The forbidden apples are raised into the flies — they will not be managed by
the actors; we give up the dwarfs’ props in the Athens scene; the circus-like
mechanisms of hands and feet are dropped from the scene (it would be truly
impossible to drill their handling in the time available); there are scenes where
the absence of masks requires a new mise en scéne, for example, the Athenian
scene, etc., etc.: an astounding volume of changes, which Purcarete, paying
attention to the production’s language, handles coolly, like someone who can
no longer be surprised by anything in theater.
MARCH 2, 2020
After yesterday’s dispute about Lucifer’s drive — whence, where, why, how [?]
— that I had provoked in the discussions following the full rehearsal, today
Purcarete returns to the topic. Yesterday I felt that the actors had lost the
production’s path, especially the Lucifers, who propel the scenes. They actu¬
ally carry the “story,” or human “history,” somewhere, but the problem is that
it’s not quite possible to know why. What do they want? Purcarete summa¬
rizes where we had ended up yesterday: Lucifer wants to prove to Adam that
there is no salvation in history and thus, the life to which God had called him
into existence is meaningless. Except that the consequence, I continue, is that
Creation itself would collapse, because following the Fall, it is the promise of
Salvation that keeps the created order alive: this is what shines at the center of
Life, giving it its rhythm and pulse, because “For from him and through him
and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever,”** I quote the letter to
the Romans in alarm. Therefore Lucifer would derail this because he stands
on the ground of pure rationality, whatever it might mean, or rather, on the
ground of science, whatever this too might mean, whence, so he thinks, he
can dislodge God’s rule. The positivist science-eschatology taken to its limit
renders the God story unnecessary because the solution is “coming” soon, and
that is a scientific, or what is worse, technological question: there is nothing
else we could await.
Where the eternal ’Nay’ his foot shall set,
The world shall at his treading crumble yet.*
88 Rom 11:36.
59 Madach: Ibid. (trans. J.C.W. Horne), 6. Translator’s note: Horne translation cited here, not the
Szirtes, as it hews closer to the original’s literal meaning, especially in Lucifer’s boast that he
will topple God’s world.
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