Tragedy

Can the complexity and philosophical dramatics of Madách’s text be expressed by a music-dance-movement-visuals-movie toolkit and an abbreviated text, or will the piece be inherently doomed in the spirit of Lucifer’s cold logic and nit-picking argumentation?  British writer, poet and philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote his most famous work, the dystopical novel Brave New World, in 1931. The novel plays out in a distant imaginary future with a perfectly organised society, a science-based caste system, free will rooted out by methodical education, serial partner-swapping sexuality instead of families, slavery made bearable by the use of the perfect drug called “soma”.  It was the study of Huxley that led Árpád Könczei to the work of Imre Madách. In Madách’s time, London was the most developed power in Europe, or even in the world. However, Madách did not finish his most famous work with the London scene, that is, with his own present, but looked further into Adam and Eve’s future. The Phalanstery, the Space and the Eskimo scenes are all pessimistic prophecies foreboding the fall and destruction of man. We think that Madách’s lines we use in the dance-theatre drama are still valid: “Man has become more powerful than God.” (the Pharaoh) “Don’t you think / That nationalism was a petty concept? The whole world is a single nation now.” (Lucifer) Adam, with his feet on the ground, answers: “I’ve one regret: the nationhood ideal, / Which could have survived and been adapted to / The scheme of things, even as they stand.” Indeed, the new scheme of things, the brave new world is taking shape now, reusing the nice promises and grand slogans of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!” Brainwashing, as prophesied by Huxley, can herd the masses into pens or phalansteries once again by these never implemented buzzwords. By this performance of the Tragedy, Könczei intends to provide some food for thought. By the means of dance, he asks questions about the relationship between man and woman, about the connection between the individual and the masses, about faith, love, freedom, competition, phalanstery existence, and tries his best to find the answers as well.