From hungary-report-owner Wed Oct 18 17:01:17 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id RAA03824; Wed, 18 Oct 1995 17:01:17 -0700 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id RAA03808; Wed, 18 Oct 1995 17:00:44 -0700 Received: from bruner@isys.hu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-report@hungary.yak.net (3806) Received: from kingzog.isys.hu (KingZog.iSYS.hu [194.24.160.4]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA03800 for ; Wed, 18 Oct 1995 17:00:16 -0700 Received: from [194.24.161.10] (bruner.dial.isys.hu [194.24.161.10]) by kingzog.isys.hu (8.7.Beta.11/8.7.Beta.11) with SMTP id AAA24733 for ; Thu, 19 Oct 1995 00:59:29 +0100 (MET) X-Sender: bruner@mail.isys.hu (Unverified) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 00:55:42 +0100 To: hungary-report@hungary.yak.net From: bruner@isys.hu (Rick Bruner) Subject: Hungary Report 1.24 (Part II) Sender: owner-hungary-report@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: hungary-report@hungary.yak.net Hungary Report 1.24, continued ============= FEATURE STORY Forgotten drama of Broadway playwright revived as musical By John Nadler Copyright (c) 1995 Many of the works of Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar (1878-1952) possessed an appeal that brought success on New York's Great White Way. Molnar's "Liliom" became the smash Broadway musical "Carousel," and later the US 1956 film of the same name. Molnar was famous for light, hopeful, and upbeat comedies. In 1923, however, Molnar departed from the optimistic, and showed his true Magyar dark humor in staging the drama "The Scarlet Mill" (or "The Devil's Tragedy"). A brooding exploration of human vice, the play is set almost exclusively in Hell. The production created it's own purgatory. The stageplay bombed with audiences of the day and was never produced again. That is, until now. After 70 years of oblivion, Budapest's Madach Theatre recently resurrected "The Scarlet Mill" into a new incarnation: it is now an electrifying musical, replete with rap, techno, folk, and classical styles. And it's drawing Hungarian audiences and international attention. "If you consider what a flop this play was before, just the audience reaction to it now shows that this version works," explained Peter Linka, an Australian-born actor who is translating the musical into English. "It's a huge effort. It's a huge success." "The Scarlet Mill" is selling out in Budapest. A representative of New York theatrical interests recently traveled to Hungary, and left with CD recordings of the musical's soundtrack and a promise to bring this Molnar incubus to the American stage. The upshot: a failure in the 1920s, the revised musical version of "The Scarlet Mill" appears perfectly suited for the '90s and could mark Molnar's return to Broadway. But why is this forgotten script now garnering attention? The time is ripe. Considering the popularity of the book and movie "Interview with the Vampire," Francis Ford Coppola's film "Dracula," Kenneth Branagh's current version of "Frankenstein," the undead seem to be experiencing a rebirth in modern cutlure. And its theme is "timeless," mused composer Tibor Kocsak. "Most of Molnar's work can transcend to the modern day. This play was not successful originally because audiences were not expecting this type of thing from [Molnar]. They were expecting something much lighter." Light "The Scarlet Mill" is not. The musical opens in Hell where a ranking demon, the operator of a machine (or mill) able to compel anyone to sin, is given an assignment from none other than the wife of Satan. The task: find the world's most virtuous man, and compromise him. Ultimately, these devils find human virtue personified in a simple Hungarian peasant. The peasant is kidnapped, and driven by the "mill" to transgress. Respect is paid to the original play by retaining its uniquely Hungarian symbols: references to cabbage dishes (kaposzta), Austro-Hungarian cavalry officers and Transylvanian shepherds. But the production transcends these parochial Hungarian icons by the power of its music which includes rap and techno styles. "Rap is very condusive to prose," explained composer Kocsak. "It's descriptive. I used rap to emphasize Hell." The compatibility of Molnar's 70-year-old prose with modern music has bred an eerie theory. According to some, it is as if fate had ordained Molnar to write "The Scarlet Mill" in the 1920s as the first step in a collaboration that would be completed 70 years later. As a stageplay, "The Scarlet Mill" had been doomed. Its long monologues confused audiences. Not surprisingly, acting students at Budapest's Academy of Dramatic Arts were assigned passages of the play as speech exercises. Then at a Molnar festival at the drama school in March 1994, a few of these scenes were performed. In the audience were key members of the Madach theatre company. "We all came out of there with our hair on fire," Peter Linka recalled. "Someone said, 'Wouldn't it be better if this were a musical. You wouldn't have to speak these words. You could sing them.' It was a great idea." The Madach theatre seized the opportunity. Beginning last summer, director Imre Kerenyi, composer Kocsak, and lyracist Tibor Miklos attacked the original script. Lyricist Miklos trimmed and honed the writing, but fought to retain Molnar's flavor. Kocsak composed a score. Kerenyi rebuilt the second act. In the final moments of the musical, our hero -- the compromised peasant -- is forced by the mill to commit the most heinous of crimes: murder. But in the end, good prevails. And this, despite the musical's devilish backdrop, is the true moral of the story. "The last scene tells us that no matter how evil a person gets, there is still a pebble of goodness in him that evil cannot conquer," said Kocsak. With evil so prolific in the nearby Balkans, it is no small wonder this is a theme Hungarians in the 1990s can finally and readily appreciate. =================== NO PARLIAMENT WATCH Tibor Vidos was unavailable to submit his latest column due to our delays in preparation of this issue. His column should appear again with the next issue of the Hungary Report. ============= READER UPDATE Rick says goodbye, introduces Krisztina and Jennifer Thank you, patient readers, for all the positive feedback you've steadily provided since I launched the Hungary Report last April. The time has come, after five years of my living in Budapest, for my Hungarian wife and I to return to the United States, and in a mater of days we're moving to San Francisco. It's been great, but it's been long enough. This does not, however, spell the end to the Hungary Report. Thanks to sponsorship from the iSYS internet service provider , two journalist friends of mine, Jennifer Brown and Krisza Fenyo, will continue writing the Report on a weekly basis. Jennifer , a native of Whitefish, Montana (USA), has spent three years living in Hungary and recently went freelance after a year writing for the Budapest Business Journal. Kriszta , a Hungarian national, is a third-year Ph.D. candidate at Glasgow University and a researcher for the BBC and the Wall Street Journal. From October 30, the Hungary Report will resume weekly distribution. I will continue to stay in touch with the Report from California, so you haven't heard the last of me yet. I can be reached in the future at the e-mail address <74774.2442@compuserve.com>. Cheers, --Rick =========== FINAL BLURB The Hungary Report is free to readers. To subscribe, send an email message to the following Internet address: hungary-report-request@hungary.yak.net containing (in the body of the message, not in the headers) the single word subscribe Conversely, to stop receiving Hungary Report, simply send to the same address (in the body of the message) the single word unsubscribe Please note: all mailing lists suffer from frequent "error" addresses. If we have problems with sending to your address more than one week in a row, we may remove you from the list. If you haven't received the report for more than one week, feel free to enquire directly to Rick Bruner <74774.2442@compuserve.com> (but please wait for at least a week, as we're also occassionally late in getting the thing out sometimes :) * * * Back issues of The Hungary Report are available on the World-Wide Web http://www.isys.hu/hrep/ and via FTP ftp.isys.hu/pub/hrep/ * * * The entire contents of The Hungary Report is copyrighted by the authors. Permission is granted for not-for-profit, electronic redistribution and storage of the material. If readers redistribute any part of The Hungary Report by itself, PLEASE RESPECT AUTHORS' BY-LINES and copyright notices. Reprinting and resale of the material is strictly prohibited without explicit prior consent by the authors. Please contact the authors directy by email to enquire about resale rights. * * * For information on becoming a corporate sponsor of The Hungary Report, contact Rick E. Bruner or Steven Carlson. Feedback is welcome. Rick E. Bruner, Creator <74774.2442@compuserve.com> Steven Carlson, Publisher Jennifer Brown, Co-editor Krisztina Fenyo, Co-editor Tibor Vidos, Columnist * * * For its briefs, The Hungary Report regularly consults the news sources listed below -- for information about subsriptions, contact them by email: The Budapest Business Journal <100263.213@compuserve.com> Budapest Sun <100275.456@compuserve.com>; Budapest Week <100324.141@compuserve.com>, and Central Europe Today (free online) . ================ END TRANSMISSION