13th Madách International Theatre Meeting

According to the “astro-mythological” interpretation by Gábor Pap, Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man) by Madách reaches its nadir in the axial Paris scene (Scene 9), the apocalyptic judgement situation of the Libra decan of Aquarius, which, however, does not appear on the everyday level but as a vision, as a dream within a dream.

If I manage to stay on my own in the “lion’s cave” of the castle in Sztregova, I always attempt the impossible: I am trying to imagine, to fathom, to experience how, for thirteen months, Imre Madách was receiving the impulses to write his work.

As can be seen from the bibliography of translations compiled by Mihály Praznovszky and published in the volume titled Madách Színről színre (Madách Scene by Scene), there are basically three variations to encounter on the title of Madách’s The Tragedy of Man: one is “the tragedy of mankind” (in English, Polish, Russian, Romanian and Danish) or “the tragedy of the human” (in Norwegian, Italia and Russian) or the “human tragedy” (in Finnish); then the “sad human song” (in Armenian), “the destiny of man” (in Japanese); and the “vision of Adam” (in Hebrew)

Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man), born at the end of the period of general despair over the fall of the 1848–49 Revolution and War of Independence and at the beginning of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise bringing about a decade of development, is the most well-known work of Hungarian dramatic literature abroad.

Csíksomlyói passió by the National Theatre in Budapest premiered in the Csíksomlyó mountain saddle on August 18, 2018.

In professional theatre circles, it is now a commonplace that in the post-dramatic era the classic conflict between heroes disappeared from the stage, and with it, the legitimacy of the dramatic dialogue also ceased to exist.

The Tragedy of Man on Hungarian stages for 140 years. Selection from the photo archive of the Hungarian Theatre Museum and Institute (OSZMI)

Towards the end of The Tragedy of Man, Adam, the first man, encounters the survivors of humanity – beyond the concluding catastrophe of world history, beyond the destruction of the natural environment, and also beyond a wave of population explosion that already equals extinction.

Imre Madách (1823–1864) started to work on the final version of his ‘dramatic poem’ of humanity in his very remote home, Alsósztregova, in 1859, exactly ten years after the defeat of the Hungarian war of independence.

What makes this classic of Baroque Spanish drama topical? What is the difference between film and theatre? What makes the Theatre Olympics special? These are some of the questions we asked of the British creators of Life is a Dream, a production coming to MITEM from Madrid. This performance staged by director Declan Donnellan and stage/costume designer Nick Ormerod is also about whether we can tell the difference between dreams and reality.