Bereczky Erzsébet (szerk.): Imre Madách: The Tragedy of Man. Essays about the ideas and the directing of the Drama (Budapest, 1985)
dr. Ferenc Kerényi: A Dramatic Poem from Hungary to the Theaters of the World
Become the yeast to make man’s spirit still Ferment and deviate! - But never mind, Man shall return to me; and if you find The very man you wanted to destroy Will keep on bearing beauty, greatness, joy — Your punishment will then become eternal. Given these preliminaries, the Lord’s last sentence — now immortalized in Hungarian - does not seem a meaningless appendage, a cheap slogan uttered out of sheer pity: I told you, man, Struggle and trust!... Be always confident! To sum up the reasons for the Tragedy s undiminishing success on the stage, it can be stated that this dramatic poem, bound in time and yet eternally topical, presents a permanent challenge to directors, scenery designers and actors which outlasts centuries. Studying the responses to this challenge, that is to say, the Tragedy’s history on the stage, a short history of culture or history of styles is obtained, focusing on the many different interpretations of the work. It must be remembered, however, that the Tragedy is, above all, a director’s drama, even if the audience — quite understandably - remembers first and foremost the faces of Adam, Eve and Lucifer. Masterpieces can be read in many different ways. This is attested to by the stage history of the Tragedy as well. When the Tragedy was presented for the first time, for instance, it’s visual aspect was emphasized; this dramatic poem was presented as a production of the typical folk theatre. Imre Madách was still alive when in 1863 a popular illustrated weekly informed the public that the second theatre in Hungarian intended to stage the Tragedy. In those times everyday practice made little distinction between the work of the director and that of the actor. György Molnár, the director mentioned in the announcement, had started his career as a strolling player but later worked as a stagehand in Paris. There he learned tricks of the 18
