For forty-eight years László Marton has been a member of the Vígszínház (Comedy Theatre of Budapest), as director, theatre manager and principal director. For forty-eight years he has been attached to one building, one company, one theatre. Despite directing frequently abroad and receiving several invitations to manage theatres outside Hungary, he has stayed faithful to the institution with which he has been affiliated since 1968.
It is undeniable that the Vígszínház, built in 1896, occupies a special place in the history of Hungarian theatre. Throughout its 120-year existence it has, irrespective of the prevailing political system, consistently represented bourgeois values, and has been a worthy rival to the Nemzeti Színház (National Theatre). It has been managed by such charismatic figures as Mór Ditrói, Dániel Jób, Zoltán Várkonyi, and László Marton, among others.
Yet at first László Marton wanted to be a conductor. Under the influence of his stepfather, Dr Károly Klimes, a neurologist who had graduated from the Academy of Music, he initially prepared for a musical career. In the end, however, he applied to the directing course of the Színművészeti Főiskola (College of Theatre Arts) [now: University of Theatre and Film Arts], where he was not admitted. He spent a year at the József Attila Theatre as assistant director to István Egri, then, at his mother’s wish, completed one year of studies at the Faculty of Law of Eötvös Loránd University. Yet he did not abandon his plan of becoming a director. Eventually he was admitted to the College, where he became a pupil of Kálmán Nádasdy. In Marton’s view this large-scale artist and teacher primarily “taught us how to think […] We were given a vast amount of practical work and he mercilessly insisted that from third year onwards we should assist major directors. In this way there was not a single leading director in Hungary for whom I had not worked as assistant.”[i] (Zsuzsa Hullan)
As a director, Zoltán Várkonyi exerted the greatest influence upon him. It was Várkonyi who engaged him at the Vígszínház after seeing his diploma production of Ernő Szép’s Május (May). “From the very first minutes, László Marton presented the powerful panorama of Ernő Szép’s one-act play with extremely meticulous care, informed affection and a thorough command of the period, and then, with consistent psychological delineation, depicted the encounter between the would-be suicide and the young girl. Their dialogue, poised between irony and drama, is not only a feat of acting but also a directorial tour de force.”[ii] (István Gábor)
Although, according to the critics, László Marton left the Academy as an already fully-fledged director, Várkonyi for a long time did not give him a free hand in choosing plays. He believed that one must first learn the craft, and the best way of doing this is to direct many and varied productions. The first play chosen freely by Marton was Képzelt riport egy amerikai popfesztiválról (lit. An Imaginary Report on an American Rock Festival), based on a text by Tibor Déry and set to the music of Gábor Presser. It was at this time that the process of self-reform within the Vígszínház, initiated by Várkonyi, began. As an excellent theatre director, Várkonyi saw clearly how great the need was to widen the repertoire, since the regular audience of the theatre was drawn mainly from the older generation. In the 1972/73 season three productions, one each by István Horvai, Zoltán Várkonyi and László Marton, indicated the direction that was to determine the Vígszínház’s programme policy in the years that followed. The classical repertoire was represented by Chekhov’s Három nővér (Three Sisters), directed by Horvai, contemporary Hungarian drama by A holtak hallgatása (lit. The Silence of the Dead) by István Nemeskürty and István Örkény, in a production by Várkonyi. An original and enduring venture was the staging of the Popfesztivál (lit. Pop Festival), which employed the beat music of the period and was set in an American environment while addressing Hungarian problems. The director recalls it thus:
“… that Vígszínház had very firm pillars: Várkonyi’s productions, A holtak hallgatása (lit. The Silence of the Dead), then the Örkény plays, including the last one, Pisti a vérzivatarban (lit. Pisti in the Bloodstorm), István Horvai’s Chekhov productions, Ványa bácsi (Uncle Vanya) and Három nővér (Three Sisters), Dezső Kapás’s Vörös postakocsi (The Red Mail Coach), and it was into this that we burst. We fitted in, but in such a way that we strengthened these pillars. We spoke about ourselves, about our own youth, but also about our times and about the theatre.”[iii] (Katalin Róna)
The way in which Marton, in connection with this play, reflects on the company and on the stage work of the actors reveals much about him and about his directorial style. He saw the significance of Popfesztivál in the attempt to realise a new, different theatrical endeavour – what is known as ensemble theatre, or, as he calls it, ‘selfless theatre’. Its essence is that the members of the company, regardless of their artistic status and of the size of the part they play, should shape their roles on stage with equal intensity. They should, as it were, selflessly, and with humility towards one another and the production as a whole, concentrate on bringing the performance successfully into being. It was perhaps this working method, too, that contributed to the explosive success of Popfesztivál, and to the fact that the company, keen to preserve its traditions, accepted and embraced this contemporary musical play. This genre was to become a prominent feature in the later course of László Marton’s career. His affinity with music is unmistakable. This was confirmed by the theatre’s dramaturg, Zsuzsa Radnóti, who, after numerous collaborations, described the director of spoken drama as an excellent connoisseur of musical dramaturgy: “It is his instinctive ability to understand the musical genre. As he himself puts it, he knows exactly where a song is needed and what it should be about. He senses precisely where the points are at which one can insert a song without bringing the action to a halt – so that the song is not a mere ‘number’, but a dramatically functional organic part of the whole.”[iv] (Katalin Róna)
Marton’s next production was Molière’s A nők iskolája (The School for Wives), with Judit Halász and Iván Darvas in the leading roles. A play that had hitherto been regarded distinctly as a comedy was interpreted by the director in a more enigmatic and darker key. Arnolphe, traditionally portrayed as a decrepit old man, was played by Darvas, in the full strength of his powers. On a stage broken up by bars, the tyrannical protagonist lives a life segmented according to the very Laws he himself has laid down, and fails to see that he cannot shut his ward away from the outside world. The interpretation of the play did not prove easy to take in. “It puts the ‘maturity’ of its audience to the test, as well as their human sensitivity, for what is disclosed in Darvas Iván’s Arnolphe comes from the very depths of the soul. We become party to secrets – and secrets that are not easy to bear – and we cannot say that they have nothing to do with us. The true depth and sincerity of Darvas Iván’s fearsomely beautiful performance lie in the fact that, in Arnolphe’s self-destructive lust for power, his cruelty and self-centredness – with which he would buy his own peace and happiness at the price of others’ helpless yearning – he lays bare the everyday, recognisably human element as well.”[v] (Erika Szántó)
The critics did not greet the production with full enthusiasm. They failed to understand the dance interludes performed by Miklós Köllő’s mime company, and regarded Arnolphe’s on-stage death by hanging as superfluous. Nevertheless, this was one of the most decisive productions of László Marton’s later career. One performance was seen by a group of Finnish theatre professionals, who invited the director to Helsinki to stage the play at the Finn Nemzeti Színház (Finnish National Theatre). What is more, the invitation specified that he should reproduce the Vígszínház production as closely as possible. This marked the beginning of a series of guest productions in various parts of the world. He has since worked abroad on more than fifty occasions, most frequently in the United States of America, at the Actor’s Theatre in Louisville, and in Canada with the Soulpepper company in Toronto. He has also directed in Germany, Ireland and Israel.
It is interesting that over the years he has staged certain plays several times, both at home and abroad. In one interview he explained this by saying that his directing is always guided by the desire to be authentic, sincere and committed to the message of the work. If he is able to work under the constellation of these factors, then a miracle may come into being. If not, he trusts that there will be another opportunity. He does not take up a play for a second or third time for the sake of convenience, but because he is dissatisfied with the result. The reason for such repetitions is therefore his professional perfectionism, which impels him to attempt, again and again, to grasp more fully the ideas embodied in a work.
In 1977 the Vígszínház premiered Jó estét nyár, jó estét szerelem (lit. Good Evening, Summer; Good Evening, Love), a musical based on a novel by Endre Fejes, with music by Gábor Presser. In the wake of a successful novel and film it may have seemed bold to present the same story on stage, but the director and the dramaturg, Zsuzsa Radnóti, clearly wished to highlight a different strand of the narrative. In this production the playing area acquires particular importance. Its creator was Miklós Fehér, László Marton’s regular set designer, who in this case constructed a set suitable for cinematic-like dissolves. “In László Marton’s conception Jó estét nyár… is a tragedy, almost in the classical sense of the word – a tragedy of fate for the boy in the dark blue suit. This in itself is no revelation, for reading the novel it is also apparent that the decisive factor in Fejes’s work is not so much the cinematic arrangement of the scenes as the inner cohesion that is in fact the preserve of drama.”[vi] (Tamás Mészáros)
In Marton’s reading, the protagonist does not commit his tragic transgression by the act of murder – he is almost dragged into that. His real crime lies in the fact that his desires are far beyond his possibilities and he is incapable of resigning himself to this. In the leading role, Géza D. Hegedűs proved the director’s equal partner, not only playing but entirely inhabiting the figure of the naive young man who is determined to attain his aspirations at all costs. Gábor Presser’s songs supplement the dramatic text coherently, providing a musical counterpart to the overarching concept of the production.
This dramatic, musical current, reflecting the problems of the age, was strengthened by the 1982 production of Kőműves Kelemen (lit. Mason Kelemen), a rock ballad created jointly by Imre Sarkadi, Levente Szörényi, János Bródy and Csaba Ivánka, with powerful choreography by Ferenc Novák. Staged in the intimate space of the Pesti Színház (Pest Theatre), the production hit the audience with explosive force. Contemporary critics saw the main virtue of the direction in the work of the ensemble and in the taut style of performance. Marton – who by this time had been chief director of the Vígszínház for three years – was praised unanimously in all the reviews. “With Kőműves Kelemen he continues, at the Vígszínház, the tradition of the musical productions he has directed there; the credit for having created this genre now definitely belongs to him. The two most important pillars of his direction are the dramaturgy of the lighting and the choreography. With the lighting, with a single shaft of light, he can reveal characters, inner human events, psychological processes, unfolding them against the backdrop of Miklós Fehér’s jet-black and then, in contrast, black-and-white set.”[vii] (Tamás Tarján)
Tamás Koltai, in his review, emphasised the fortunate conjunction of the rock-ballad genre and the characteristics of ensemble theatre.[viii] The collective representation of a shared consciousness brings with it a certain intellectual surplus. The twelve masons form a kind of representative sample, embodying a crowd and concentrating within themselves the impact of mass psychosis and the workings of its mechanisms. It is striking how the director is able to treat the chorus, which largely has no individual roles and is almost faceless, akin to the chorus of Greek tragedy, both as a group and as a set of individuals. In casting, moreover, he always strives to choose those who best serve his own directorial concept, regardless of whether the convention associated with a given role might dictate otherwise.
Naturally, he did not stage only musical works in this period. It was at this time that he directed the première of János Székely’s historical drama Vak Béla király (lit. King Béla the Blind), followed by Shakespeare’s Szentivánéji álom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). The former presented the greater challenge for the director, since Székely’s work is rather a sequence of episodes depicting historical situations than a coherent drama. By exploiting precisely this loose structure, however, László Marton succeeded in bringing close to the audience the author’s view of power, embedded in a historical tableau. Szentivánéji álom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) may be described as a traditional theatrical production, although movement played a major role in this staging too, thanks to Miklós Köllő’s choreography, which endowed the actors with extraordinary lightness. The director wove together the various strands and moods of the play with a sure hand.
In 1985 István Horvai retired, and in the director’s chair he was succeeded by László Marton. His artistic policy continued along the path laid out by Zoltán Várkonyi: tradition and modernity remained the Vígszínház’s most important values. In this spirit he sought to construct a programme structure that would appeal to the widest possible strata of the audience. In 1988 he staged A padlás (lit. The Attic), a musical fairy-tale by Gábor Presser, Dusán Sztevanovity and Péter Horváth, for the youngest age group. In this production he employed modern technical devices that were still unusual in Hungarian stage technology at the time. The play has retained its success unbroken ever since. Those whom this production introduced to the world of theatre at the time of the première now bring their own children for the same purpose.
In accordance with tradition, the Vígszínház staged primarily classical and contemporary Hungarian and foreign plays. It was important to ensure a permanently high level of attendance, and the large auditorium of the parent theatre was best suited to this. It was therefore here that productions likely to appeal to a broad public were presented [Ferenc Molnár: A farkas (lit. The Wolf); Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Az öreg hölgy látogatása (The Visit); Arthur Miller: Az ügynök halála (Death of a Salesman); László Szilágyi–Béla Zerkovitz: Csókos asszony (Kiss Me Lady)]. More experimental productions, which could naturally find success only with narrower audiences, were staged at the Pesti Színház [Sławomir Mrożek: Tangó (Tango); Eugène Ionesco: A különóra – A kopasz énekesnő (The Bald Soprano and The Lesson); János Székely: Caligula helytartója (Caligula’s Governor)]. The Házi Színpad (Studio Stage), created during this period, provided a home for solo evenings and even more specialised productions [Samuel Beckett: Az utolsó tekercs (Krapp’s Last Tape); Bertolt Brecht: Baal].
The Vígszínház did not feel the impact of the crisis in playwriting that occurred in the 1990s. This artistic and literary stagnation was connected with the political changes of 1989–90, since the state power that the artists could oppose in unison ceased to exist. The themes of literary works also changed: issues affecting society as a whole were replaced by more personal topics concerning smaller circles. The popularity of the Vígszínház, however, did not decline – and in this László Marton played no small part. The theatre’s programme policy remained unchanged: the display of bourgeois values was and remained the standard.
During his directorship the Vígszínház was renovated in 1993–1994. For the duration of the reconstruction the company was housed in the Sátorszínház (Tent Theatre) erected beside Nyugati Railway Station. These constrained circumstances further strengthened the cohesion of an already close-knit ensemble, and, in Marton’s view, the loyalty of the audience also helped them greatly. He himself ‘breathed together’ with the drying plaster; there was not a corner, a piece of stucco or a silk tassel in the theatre that he did not personally inspect. In 1994 the theatre reopened with a production of Pál Békés’s Össztánc (All-dance), directed by László Marton. “Össztánc became not only a production that welded the company together, but also one that reconnected the audience, and indeed the whole of Budapest, to the renewed theatre. The new building and the opening production acquired symbolic significance. For opening productions are like first love – we shall always remember them. And Össztánc is just such a one.”[ix]
His work has been praised not only by the Hungarian but also by the international professional press. In addition to prestigious Hungarian awards, he has received several foreign distinctions. Twice a production directed by him has won the most important prize in Canadian theatre, the Dora Award. In 1992 the Vígszínház’s production of Chekhov’s Három nővér (Three Sisters) received the award for best production. In 2000, for his staging of Chekhov’s Platonov, he was awarded the prize for best director, and in 2001, unusually, the production itself also received the distinction. In 2004, in Ireland, his staging of Henrik Ibsen’s A vadkacsa (The Wild Duck) earned him the prize for best director.
In the 2000s he continued to direct many highly successful productions both at home and abroad. Among these one may single out Elsötétítés (lit. Blackout) by György Spiró (première: 2 February 2002); Legenda a lóról (The Story of a Horse) by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Mark Rozovsky (première: 11 November 2002); and István Örkény’s Pisti a vérzivatarban (lit. Pisti in the Bloodstorm) (17 December 2004).
In 2008 he did not stand again for the post of director. The diverse and excessive administrative tasks distracted him and even deprived him of many opportunities to direct, so he thought it was time to pass on the baton. However, he remained the theater’s chief director and a member of the teaching staff at the college. He continued to work steadily, and at last was able to try opera directing as well [Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A varázsfuvola (The Magic Flute), Vígszínház, 25 December 2009; Richard Wagner: Lohengrin, Magyar Állami Operaház (Hungarian State Opera), Bartók Béla Nemzeti Hangversenyterem (Béla Bartók National Concert Hall), 9 June 2011].
He still works abroad a lot, but he always returns to the Vígszínház. For he has been a member of this theater since the beginning of his career, and his values as a director correspond to the style that has developed at the Vígszínház over time. Tradition and modernism characterise both his productions and his theatre management. He saw it, and still sees it, as his task to provide high-quality entertainment and to shape the tastes of the audience, so that the Vígszínház may remain one of the most important institutions of Hungarian theatrical culture.
[2016]
[i] Hullan Zsuzsa: víg szín házon belül, ÍrásMűvek Kiadó, Bp., 2012. 201. oldal
[ii] Gábor István: …, Magyar Nemzet, 17 February 1967
[iii] Róna Katalin: Szent István körút 14. – Volt egyszer egy Vígszínház (lit. Szent István körút 14. – Once Upon a Time There Was a Comedy Theatre) , Népszava – Szép Szó, 10 October 1998, VI. oldal
[iv] Róna Katalin: Szent István körút 14. – Volt egyszer egy Vígszínház (lit. Szent István körút 14. – Once Upon a Time There Was a Comedy Theatre), Népszava – Szép Szó, 10 October 1998, VI. oldal
[v] Szántó Erika: Arnolf új arca – A Nők iskolája a Vígszínházban (lit. Arnolf’s new face - The School for Wives in the Comedy Theatre), Színház, 1974. 2. sz. 23. oldal
[vi] Mészáros Tamás: Jó estét nyár, jó estét szerelem (lit. Good Evening, Summer; Good Evening, Love), Magyar Hírlap, 16 November 1977, 6. oldal
[vii] Tarján Tamás: Színház, összefogódzva (lit. Theatre, Hand in Hand), Népszabadság, 4 March 1982
[viii] Koltai Tamás: Hinni mindenáron – A Kőműves Kelemen a Pesti színházban (lit. Believe at all costs – Mason Kelemen in the Pest Theatre), Új Tükör, 28 February 1982
[ix] N.N.: On Össztánc on the website of Vígszínház.