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
director’s trade and familiarized himself with the use of modem possibilities of staging. This very first announcement already contained one aspect common to the Tragedy s entire history on the stage, both in Hungary and the world. The Tragedy has only been staged successfully when a director has risen from the ranks who is able to and willing to undertake the adoptation to the stage of a work which has already been accepted by literary circles, using means particularly suited to the stage. For this reason, all attempts taken by actors before 1883 are valued as mere curiosities. The first real staging of the Tragedy was undertaken by Ede Paulay (1836—1894), manager and director-in-chief of the Budapest National Theatre. By the time this former strolling player became the manager of the National Theatre in 1878, he was already well known as a tranlator of literary works from several languages and had acquired first-hand knowledge of theatrical life in England, France, Germany and Italy. Paulay was a follower of the theatrical company of George the Second, Prince of Meiningen. This company, which had given performances three times in Budapest before the staging of The Tragedy of Man, introduced new objectives to the theatre throughout the world; it introduced the school known as „meiningenism”, advocating historical authenticity. Paulay shared the Meiningenists’endeavors to stage works of high literary value; he also followed them by ensuring the artistic and historical authenticity of the scenes, and in the careful elaboration of the crowd scenes. All these means, taken from the arsenal of Meiningenism, were great assets in the success of the Tragedy. Yet, Paulay did not forget the characteristics peculiar to the development of Hungarian theatrical art either: Influenced by these individual characteristics, he represented a unique variant of Meiningenism.x The Hungarian theatre, which came into being at the end of the 18th century, was aimed at preserving and popularizing the Hungarian language. Even in the second half of the 19th century, in the era of stonebuilt theatres and the professional training of actors, exemplary elocution on the stage was still deemed the most effective means of achieving this goal. In xOne such Hungarian peculiarity has its roots in the history of the theatre in Hungary. 19
