Magyar Hírek, 1987 (40. évfolyam, 1-23. szám)
1987-04-05 / 7. szám
ISTVÁN ÖRKÉNY Győző Határ's first performance at Nyíregyháza The first performance of his play is always a special occasion for an author, especially if it is the first produced play by a man of seventy two who has written some thirty. When, a few years ago, at a conference of I he Mikes Kelemen Circle in Holland, Győző Határ, one of the most versatile Hungarian talents in the West or anywhere gave me his collection of plays Sirónevetó (Crying and laughing), I kept asking: is it possible to write only for the desk drawer without the hope of producing the plays on stage?! “I have lived in London since the end of 1956” he said. “The New Wave of the English theatre, Osborn, Pinter, Wesker, Hampton and the rest were in their heyday around the time of my arrival. I attended a performance every night. Some eight hundred of my criticisms were printed or broadcast by the BBC. I had no contact whatever with the Hungarian theatre.” In Győző Határ’s plays dream and reality, wisdom and irony mix. “His writing is like a huge cultic building erected by the imagination of mortals wanting to compete with the gods in the very middle of never-never land” said György Görnöri, who teaches in Cambridge in an address he gave recently at the Vienna Congress of Hungarian Studies with Győző Határ’s plays as his subject. The two-actor chamber play A patkánykirály (The Rat-King) was produced by the Móricz Zsigmond Theatre of Nyíregyháza. A young member of an invading army, a mere boy, seeks refuge in t ho airraid shelter of a French peasant woman in the first days of the Normandy landing. The deserter is mortally afraid of the court martial, so much so that he stays there for many years even after V-E day. The vulnerability and sourness of his existence lead him to develop his own mode of living, his life-surrogate plays in the cellar with the woman, who is considerably older then himself. Years later the third world war breaks out, Erzsébet Goal and Károly Safranek in "The Rat-King” the Earth becomes a single prison camp, where our hero is the only freeman, a marauder who trusts only his weapon. The nuclear death of the world means the beginning of a new life to him. The Rat-King ready to emerge as the leader is shot by his mistress. History, this staggeringly powerful tragicomedy suggests — is but a stupid burlesque, nobody can escape the absurd logic of events. The writer excels in the virtuosity with which he handles his native language, which he not only guards, he is also an innovator. Győző Határ’s novel, Pepito and Pepita was published by Szépirodalmi Kiadó simultaneously with the first performance of The Rat-King. As the blurb states: With this volume the publishers introduce Győző Határ to the public of Hungary. ÁDÁM BALÁZS The Nyíregyháza Theater ONE-MINUTE STORIES THOUGHTS IN A CELLAR The ball bounced through a broken window and dropped into the basement passages. One of the children, the fovu’teenyear-old daughter of the porter, went limping down after it. Poor creature, a tram had run over one of her legs and she was happy when the others allowed her to retrieve their balls. The basement was dim, but she caught a glimpse of something stirring in a corner. “Pussy!” called the peg-legged porter’s daughter towards it. “What are you doing here, pussikins?” She picked up the ball and hurried off as fast as she could. The old, ugly ill-smelling rat—mistaken for the kitten — was dumbfounded. Never before hed anyone spoken to it like that. Up to that moment everyone had abhorred it or pelted it with bits of coal or run from it in horror. That was the moment when the thought first came to it of how different everything would have been had it been born a cat. Or even better, it went on imagining — we are all so insat iable — what if it had been born the wooden-legged daughter of a porter ? But that would have been too beautiful. That the rat could not imagine. ART AND THE ILLUMINATING EXPERIENCE Victor T. the painter was shot into space. He was not the first painter. But he was the first passenger. He was away for six days. When he was half way he asked which would he rather see: the rings of Saturn or the spots on the sun. He didn’t really mind, he said. Then the sunspots — maybe they would be more interesting to a painter. “May be,” he said. Upon his return T. sat bored and wrapped in stubborn silence among the reporters in the Losmoport Restaurant. He refused to answer their questions and kept his eyes fixed on an orange one of the reporters had just peeled. In a few week’s time, however, a great change took place in his pictorial approach. In his celebrated still-life paintings of olives and biliard balls (his “olive-green” period) the first oranges appeared. In his old age he also started to paint lemons and finally even eggs, but the orange was never absent from his canvas. It was then he became a great painter. MEMOIRS OF A PUDDLE It rained all day on March 22nd, 1972, and I collected myself in a very delectable place. I might as well give the exact location: in front of No. 7 Dráva Street , Budapest (the capital of Hungary), 13th district, where there is a pothole in the pavement. I was living there, ticking over. Many a man stepped into me, then looking back they cursed me, swore at me, and used harsh words which I am loath to repeat. I was a puddle for two days, taking the insults lying down. It is common knowledge that the sun shone again on the 24th. Oh, the paradoxes of life! I dried up when the weather turned fine! What else shall I say? Did I do all right? Did T make a fool of myself? Did I perhaps fall short of the expectations of the people at 7 Dráva Street ? Not that it makes any difference, really, but all the same it would be nice to know, if only because after me puddles will go on collecting there. We live fast, our days are numbered, and while I was spending my days down there, a new generation sprang up, vigorous and ready for action^all of them ambitious potential puddles and they bothered me with importunate questions as to what they might expect in that promising pothole. But all in all 1 “puddled” for a bare two days and all this allows me to say is that the tone of life is abusive; that Dráva Street is damned windy; and that the sun is forever shining when it has no business to, but at least you don’t have to trickle down the drain pipe. Oh boys, what holes, what depressions! Burst pipes! Sagging roads! These are great things nowadays! All you young people, listen to me, forward to Dráva Street! THE GREAT MARCH Once upon a time a long time ago there was an egg. This egg left home to see the world. It went and went till it saw King Arthur. The king asked the egg: “Where to, where to, my good friend ?” “I’m going to see the world.” “Wait a minute, and 1 shall come with you.” “The egg rolled, the king jogged along. They met helf-a-bicycle. “Where to, where to, my good friend?” It asked the king. “I’m going to see the world.” “Wait a minute, and I shall come with you.” The egg trundled, the king jogged along, half-a-bycicle went like a hoop. They came across Tweedledum And Tweedledee. “Where to, where to, my good friend?” — he asked half-a-bycicle. “I’m going to see the world.” He went with them too. They went and went till they saw Bert Brecht coming towards them. He stopped and asked: “Where to, where to, my good friend Tweedeldum and Tweedledee?” “I’m going to see the world.” “I am too, let’s go together.” He hummed and hawed a little, then he got into line. They had gone a long way when they saw Takariko Kirivi, the Japanese table-tennis champion coming towards them. “Where to, where to, Bert Brecht, my good friend?” the bespectacled champion asked. “I’m going to see the world.” “Wait a minute and I shall come with you.” The egg in the front, then King Arthur, then half-a-bycicle, then Tweedledum and Tweedledee, then Bert Brecht and last but not least Takariko Kirivi, the bespectacled tabletennis champion. They are going and going, on and on. They are going and going, and never a word is spoken. And if they haven’t died yet, they are still going, even now. Translated By L. T. ANDRÁS 31
