Tamás Koltai

Talking About the Politically Actual

Zsigmond Móricz: Rokonok (Relatives) - Úri muri (Gentlemen's Fun)
György Spíró: Az imposztor (The Impostor)
Howard Barker: Scenes from an Execution

 

Zsigmond Móricz, the outstanding Hungarian novelist of the first half of the twentieth century, captured the workings of an oligarchy abusing its power in public administration so well that his book Rokonok (Relatives) has lost none of its relevance to this day. The alternatives open to a newcomer determined to put things right have not changed much since the date of publication (1932). Today's Kopjássy - this is the name of the central character, a newly appointed public prosecutor in a small town - faces the same dilemma that confronted his archetype in the novel. Swim with the tide or fight it - this is the crucial question, and the thorough discussion of this dilemma proves to be just as important as the portrayal of corruption. The latter is a textbook example of a town's elite abusing its influence, and the "fight or swim" predicament is a valuable one from the viewpoint of dramatic adaptation. Móricz himself used a double-barrelled model: in addition to scrutinising the state of municipal administration, he was extremely thorough in drawing Kopjássy's human portrait. It is hardly surprising that soon after the publication of Rokonok people realised the book's potentials as a drama. The first stage adaptation was by the author's daughter, Virág Móricz.
Over the years the novel has given birth to several dramatic versions. Since the late 1970s, the most successful adaptation - the one that has stood the test of several revivals - was by director László Babarczy. With time, the conceptual framework used in the novel changed, as did the political superstructure of the social system known as "socialism". But nothing changed regarding the fundamentals. What was formerly called a big swindle turned into unlawful profit making in the post-war years; an inducement became known as a backhander; and a consortium became known as lobbying. Although mayors were a thing of the past (the fashion was for "Council Chairmen" instead), and opposition became a redundant notion in a one-party system, things were done in much the same way as in Móricz's novel. The programme of one of the revivals could not resist the temptation to quote passages from a Party paper of the time, which talked of "the necessary fight against corruption in public administration". Then, the late 1980s brought the "change of political system", and history once again converged with the world portrayed by Móricz, with parliamentary democracy, the world of banking and endless opportunities to exploit power. Today, Rokonok plays in the political framework that existed at the time the novel was written: the "Bermuda Triangle" of corruption, nepotism and career building. In fact, the depth of the changes is comparable to that associated with the reorganisation of an office, as described in the novel. The seating arrangements have been altered: those who sat on the left now sit on the right and vice versa. During one performance in 1999, the audience roared out on hearing the word "mine". In the novel one of the "relatives" offered to sell to the town a large supply of prime-quality brown coal; and indeed the sample material, one freight car of brown coal, was found to be of excellent quality. It turned out later that he had bought the sample from the best mine of the region, while the coal from his mine, which he offered for sale at the same price, was of poor quality. At the time of this particular performance the press was running reports about the strange dealings taking place in the family business of the then prime minister - a mine...
The latest revival of the play was directed by Géza Bodolay of the Hungarian section of the State Theatre of Nagyvárad (Oradea) in Romania. The director, who, in Hungary, holds the position of manager/senior director of the Kecskemét Theatre, has a reputation as a combatant and provocative person, known for his adaptations of literary material. Although he did use Babarczy's adaptation, he cut down on the realistic details and added more ironic comments. The play's structure is provided by the recurring motifs from the overture of Beethoven's König Stephan, which seem to underline, with some sarcasm, the meeting of Eastern and Western cultures just a few months before accession to the EU. The stage set depicts "Balkan" conditions, yet leaves no doubt that the references to corruption at the highest levels apply to the Western world, too. Doubled up in a show of humility, men dressed in business suits escort the "big-timers" in a brisk march rhythm set by the music. One of them is running up and down carrying a head of cabbage in an ugly metal bucket of the kind normally used in restaurants to ice the champagne. This is an ironic reminder of the central character's clichéd programme speech, in which he informs his audience that his main ambition is to make sure that "We get to have our cake and eat it" (the corresponding Hungarian proverb has cabbage instead of cake). This recursive gimmick illustrates the production's superficial wit, which had a mixed reception. Rumour has it that some teachers actually discouraged their pupils from seeing the play, denouncing it for its frivolous treatment of a Hungarian classic.

Gentlemen's Fun (1928), another of Móricz's novels, was adapted for the stage in the 1930s by the writer himself. The novel is a ruthless masterpiece. The play, which he rewrote several times, is a pallid salon piece grafted onto a folk operetta, which simultaneously demonstrates the author's skills in condensing the storyline and the contemporary theatre's proclivity to iron out conflicts and focus on entertainment. The novel paints a naturalistic as well as metaphorical picture of early-twentieth-century Hungary as a backward country. The story is set in the puszta, the Great Hungarian Plain, where "there is mud, dust and putrid air", and where well-heeled peasants, landowners constantly boasting of a thousand years of glorious history, army officers and scoundrel gentry engage in drunken revelry to the sound of Gypsy violins. Zoltán Szakhmáry, a hero who deserves a better fate, tries to keep away from this "great Asiatic carousel" and "high-class stable" (these, too, are Móricz's expressions). He runs a model farm, introducing foreign farming methods - as well as heart and mind - into the land of languor. "Here Hungarian despair wrestles with the future", he remarks in the style of the great symbolist poet Endre Ady, a contemporary and friend of Móricz's. Naturally, he is destined to failure, as lonely heroes invariably are. In his despair he takes refuge in a peasant girl's love. And when he is disappointed in that, too, he finds all his dreams shattered and ends his life with a bullet.
Since then, several further adaptations have been produced, some of them bringing some sort of success to their directors, but most flopping dismally. Nowadays, everyone tries to do away with the original milieu, which appears distinctly archaic, attempting instead to grasp the essence of the play through stylisation and condensation. The words "Csárda to the Horseman" appear in mirror-writing over the entrance facing backstage in director Bertalan Bagó's production at the Zalaegerszeg Theatre. What was a drowsy tavern in Móricz's novel becomes a modern "catering establishment" - what Hungarians now call a pub. The wall and the swing door are made of wood, and the bar stools imitate saddles. This is a typical commercial environment, familiar from contemporary experience. The guests are welcomed in the foreground by folk musicians. The illusion of buzzing flies is created by the tremolo of the violins, reinforced by the silent turning of the heads of the customers who are sitting on the stools. The guests drink imaginary beer in a coordinated choreography. The original characters are turned into contemporary types. The wealthy peasant, who raised pigs in the novel, becomes a successful entrepreneur. The sophisticated civilities of Móricz's gentry are transformed into the bonhomie of the business crowd. The dusty and muddy farmhouse, which was the original scene of the drunken revelry and accompanying Gypsy music, here becomes the interior of a hunting lodge. The casual, nonchalant group choreography of the "great Asian revelry" takes the form of an ironic rite rather than the usual naturalistic carousing. At the climax, the participants return to the stage dressed in historical Hungarian costumes, which smell of mothballs. This is a satirical critique of nationalist frenzy.
Not every component or character of the original work can be mapped onto contemporary life, which gives the production a somewhat hybrid character. But at least it tries to pick out the elements from Móricz's oeuvre which still have a message for the contemporary audience.

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Significantly, Baker's play, which had already been staged in Hungary, was recently also revived by the Madách Kamara theatre. Both plays explore the same phenomenon: the artist's relationship with the authorities. Scenes from an Execution illustrates what it is like when the authorities want to have a made-to-order culture. Galactia, a sixteenth-century Venetian painter, depicts the Battle of Lepanto in an "unpatriotic vein". The historical fresco is lacking in national pride. Those still standing show little enthusiasm for holding the flag, while those already fallen have their faces distorted, and their mutilated limbs are mixed up with those of the enemy. This is unacceptable in the eyes of the authorities who commissioned the work: a battle cannot be portrayed as a slaughterhouse when the authorities want to celebrate their own ideology through the painting. Therefore, the painting - history - must be repainted.
The play's premičre happened to coincide with the "repainting" of a hero's death in a state-financed historical film with the largest ever budget in the history of Hungarian cinema. Although it is true that the hero, Count István Széchenyi (the greatest figure of the Reform Age in nineteenth-century Hungary; the creator of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of the Chain Bridge over the Danube, an economist and racing fanatic, a cosmopolitan and diarist) ended his life by committing suicide in an Austrian mental home, as every Hungarian schoolchild knows, this was an unacceptable blot on the Roman Catholic/national ideal. At least according to the actor who played him, and whose unique brand of religious ideology and close friendship with the then prime minister were both publicly known. Thus in the film, Széchenyi does not commit suicide. This only goes to show that there is justification in reviving Barker's play in Hungary. It was one of history's strange jokes that the premičre came between the two rounds of parliamentary elections in Hungary, and actually coincided with the day on which people attending a mass demonstration organised by one of the parties chanted nationalist slogans attributed to the historical personalities featuring in the play. Incidentally, in the play Galactia is ordered to use more of the colour orange in her paintings, as it conveys optimism. Orange also happens to be the colour of the above-mentioned Hungarian political party. Pál Mácsai, who directed the production, confessed to having been unsure whether to leave this reference in the text. He was worried that people might think he was the one who had put it in. In the end he left it in. The audience laughed. One week later the party in question lost the election. The production was invited to the national theatre festival held in the summer of 2003.
So, history does sometimes deliver the punchline.

Tamás Koltai
editor of Színház, a theatre monthly, is The Hungarian Quarterly's regular theatre critic.