Abstract
Hungarian author and dramatist
The bloodied cast of Julius Caesar, directed by Róbert Alföldi, at Budapest’s Vígszínház theatre in 2014
Credit: Daniel Dömölky
From the beginning of the 19th century, Hungarian theatre-goers have considered William Shakespeare to be the most popular Hungarian author. At first, he was translated from the German version, but later the greatest Hungarian poets of the Romantic era, Mihály Vörösmarty, János Arany and Sándor Petöfi, translated him directly from English.
Yet, with the exception of a handful of extraordinary performances, in times of political repression in Hungary, cultural figures did not censor Shakespeare. They censored through Shakespeare.
Hiding behind his name and works, theatre managers engaged in self-censorship. When they were too afraid to deal with current topics, they would turn to the safety of Shakespeare or Anton Chekhov, who were both deemed acceptable. I am a fervent admirer of the two literary giants, but I must admit that in today’s Hungarian theatres they are used as tools of evasion.
All sorts of startling, supposedly original, ideas have been tried out on stage – swapping scenes around, splicing in works of other authors, using modern weapons or motorcycles – but these innovations have very little to do with Hungarian reality, or with what Shakespeare may have really meant. Critics praise the performances, or pan them, and the profession makes believe that something important has happened.
One of the most highly anticipated recent performances was Julius Caesar by prominent director Róbert Alföldi at Budapest’s largest theatre, the Vígszínház, in 2014. Alföldi was previously director of the National Theatre, during which time some critics reviled him for being gay and demanded from him greater reverence for 19th-century romantic nationalism. When his contract at the National Theatre was not renewed in 2013, quite a few actors left in protest. Yet, unfortunately, his recent Julius Caesar did not satisfy any overarching political expectations: it did not criticise the rulers of Hungary enough, nor did it pander enough to the conservatism of theatre regulars. Despite containing a few fine ideas, the play had a rather short run.
Throughout the 20th century, dictators were readily depicted in eastern Europe through Shakespeare’s plays. In the 1955 revival of Richard III at Budapest’s National Theatre, spectators were reminded of the machinations of Mátyás Rákosi, Hungary’s Stalinist dictator. Tamás Major, then director of the National Theatre, assumed the play’s title role. The production had premiered in 1947, when Rákosi was not yet a dictator. In the intervening years, one or two actors had passed away, a few had joined other companies, but the rest of the players and the staging remained the same. However the audience’s reaction in 1955 was different: the scrivener’s lines in the sixth scene of act three were greeted by wild applause, an outburst which had not been noted in 1947.
Scrivener: … Who is so gross That cannot see this palpable device? Yet who so bold but says he sees it not? Bad is the world and all will come to nought, When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.
It is said that Mihály Farkas, then minister of defence, ran up to the director’s office and took offence at seeing the audience demonstrating against Rákosi’s régime. To which Tamás Major supposedly responded: “I must say, Comrade Farkas, that only you could come up with such idiotic nonsense.” A wise dictator pretends not to notice any of this. Tamás Major remained as director, and the audience was happy to see the dictator and his system in a light that contemporary authors wouldn’t dare describe.
Richard III was staged in Kaposvár which had the country’s very best theatre at the time. This was 1982. The superb actors wore camouflage military uniforms, and the action took place behind prison bars. At the end of the performance, Richmond’s speech was broadcast on closed-circuit television to the auditorium. A talented extra played the role of the obnoxious figure, but that wasn’t why charges were brought against the production, they were brought because the Earl of Richmond wore dark glasses. A few weeks earlier, on 13 December 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of emergency in Poland. For health reasons he wore sunglasses every time he appeared in public.
László Babarczi, the director of the play, was reprimanded. He defended himself by stating that the actor did not wear sunglasses. After he was reported, the actor did indeed stop wearing them. Babarczi also argued that they began rehearsing the drama before the Polish putsch – the play had been added to the season schedule and approved by the ministry of culture. Later, the stage manager of the theatre, Tamás Ascher, had this to say: “It made no difference if he was wearing dark glasses or not. That wasn’t the problem. Our mistake was thinking that every takeover [of power] works this way. But this one served neither the future nor justice itself. What it served was a base conspiracy. This was the crux of the matter.” Our forebears in eastern Europe bequeathed to us the same lesson, in a German aphorism: Es kommt selten was besseres nach (What follows is rarely better).
Audiences acknowledged with some satisfaction that the Earl of Richmond – who becomes Henry VII – is going to be just as debased as the recently murdered Richard III. For once, the audience did not long for an idyllic ending – it wanted to see the truth. The unique staging of the play would have had an effect on the spectators even if no dictatorship had been established in Poland.
As a literary adviser at the Kaposvár theatre, I agreed with the ending they chose, and 10 years later in a book of mine entitled Doubling in Shakespeare’s Plays I dealt with this very theme. A number of scholars, David Bevington, for instance, Thomas James King or Richard G. Mansfield, believe that in the Elizabethan age actors in leads never played dual roles. As far as I am concerned, in Shakespeare’s dramas, even the protagonist can play another role within the same production. The same actor can be both Julius Caesar and Octavius – what’s more, this could be the very essence of the tragedy of Julius Caesar. A dictator can be done away with, but the dictatorial function, once it’s established, can never be abolished. In Richard III, which was written earlier, nothing prevents an actor from playing both Richard’s and Richmond’s part. In fact, the long scene near the end of the play, in which the ghosts talk now to Richard, now to Richmond, highlights the play’s dramatic power. We’re watching a bit of buffoonery. One minute the chief clown puts on his crown, and pretty soon he takes it off. When both are on stage, Richard has no lines. They engage in a little swordplay, then run off. In that era, substitution was a typical solution on stage. Richmond’s speeches invariably have a double meaning, but if the same actor plays Richard, his words are even more equivocal.
Since then there has not been such a well-timed staging of Richard III. Most performances of the play indicate that there is an arch-villain with one or two helpers, and the rest are victims. There isn’t a single production in which Richard III is only one cynical murderer among many such characters, even though Shakespeare strongly emphasises this state of affairs in the first scene. After the coronation, a child-like page is quick to round up professional killers, as requested by the king, though the page did not learn the ropes in Richard’s reign, but well before, during the War of the Roses. The logic of war lives on, it’s never-ending – this was Shakespeare’s unalterable experience.
In 1962, six years after the Hungarian Revolution, a memorable new production of Hamlet opened in Budapest. Emulating Laurence Olivier, Miklós Gábor also wore a black, tight-fitting suit. Before the revolution, the well-known Hungarian actor had spread Stalinist dogma. The revolution shook him up, and from then on, he kept repenting. His Hamlet, from today’s perspective, seems rather mannered. But at the time, the whole country recognised itself in the actor’s vacillations, in his inner struggle. As a high-school student, I, too, was deeply moved.
Tamás Major playing the title role in Richard III at Budapest’s National Theatre in 1955. Audiences were said to have drawn parallels with Mátyás Rákosi, Hungary’s Stalinist dictator
Credit: Wellesz Ella
In early November 1984, the Kaposvár Theatre made a guest appearance in Moscow, presenting Hamlet. I based the dubbed text on Boris Pasternak’s Russian translation, from which the Russians had expunged Ophelia’s naughty little ditties. Our production was precise, but cool. It wasn’t a great hit at home either, even though it could boast a bunch of good thoughts. Director Tamás Ascher had come up with the idea that the mousetrap scene should be followed by a completely silent one, in which the actors were chased out of the Danish royal court. In Kaposvár, this little interlude depicted succinctly and effectively the relationship between artists and the powers that be.
That year, at Moscow’s 7 November military parade, the airshow of fighter planes was cancelled. At this point the struggle between the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the hardliners had not yet been resolved, and the bigwigs were afraid that a bomb might be planted on Red Square. The Hungarian actors, who didn’t speak Russian, nevertheless felt the tension, and our somewhat sluggish home production unexpectedly became shot through with the atmosphere of the moment. I hadn’t seen anything like it before or since. A receptive group of people in the audience somehow rearranged the production. Gábor Máté played Hamlet, and all of a sudden he gave one of the strongest interpretations I’ve ever seen. The first night the house was three-quarters full, but the next day there were long queues at the entrance. It seemed as if the entire Soviet avant-garde were trying to push their way in. During the performance a dozen comrades in suits and ties were nervously running around the lobby with earphones in their ears and the Russian text of Hamlet in their hands, trying to figure out what could we have added to that play to make it so popular all of a sudden, and what could they have banned if they had paid more careful attention.
In the past 30 years, censors in Hungary have not interfered with Shakespeare’s texts. The censors considered Shakespeare an uninteresting author; some of his plays or excerpts from his dramas were compulsory reading in high school. Even then they found them flatly boring. From time to time, theatres that shine in oppositionist roles can send timely political messages. Fake blood flows amply on the stage. In Shakespeare’s time they poured sheep’s blood from goatskin. Nowadays the censors, while dozing off, smile over such silliness, and in their secret reports they probably write: “passé”.
The main question has nothing to do with censorship. Our theatre language in the middle of the 20th century became more and more visual, while Shakespeare’s language is more auditory. To change textual theatre into pictorial theatre is extraordinarily difficult. Which doesn’t mean that it is impossible. In the theatre, anytime, anything is possible.
Translated by Ivan Sanders.
