Bereczky Erzsébet (szerk.): Imre Madách: The Tragedy of Man. Essays about the ideas and the directing of the Drama (Budapest, 1985)
Endre Gellért: "I hear, I hear the coming epoch's song"
ENDRE GELLERT „I HEAR, I HEAR THE COMING EPOCH S SONG” Some Problems in the Direction of The Tragedy of Man The Tragedy of Man is a drama in verse. It follows from this that direction should endeavour to give it a dramatic production and at the same time convey the poetic beauty of the verse. If a director doubts the possibility of effective staging, he will either use Adam and Lucifer each as a mouthpiece and put on the Tragedy „in the spirit of poetry”, or else, because he does not think it is dramatic enough, will want to turn it into a spectacle, something like a show or revue. Both solutions do damage to the inherently dramatic quality of the epic. The aim of the present direction is to depict the struggle about which Madách wrote — the struggle between the Lord and Lucifer, and between Lucifer and Adam — as sharply as possible in a sweeping series of dramatic conflicts that make up the plot. Dramatic conflict on the stage is always condensed into struggle between people. Earlier productions also managed to convey the struggle between the Lord and Lucifer. But even today we often come across the misconception that this struggle takes place only in the so-called „frame” of the Tragedy, namely in the first three scenes and the last scene, and we hear suggestions that directors should stress the dream-like nature of the historical scenes even if it dims the struggle that is evident in the visions of the dream. This concept puts Lucifer outside the plot during the dream series, as if he were just hovering trascendentally above the scenes, merely commenting on the events as some kind of responsive wizard who takes it upon himself to explain the magic. This interpretation is anti-drama, anti-Tragedy, and anti-Madách. In Madách’s view the struggle is taking place between the Lord and Lucifer for man. In the dream scenes a very human Lucifer strives to achieve his goals in an unending duel, trying to prove the senselessness and vanity of life. Not only Adam and Eve but also 41
