On the stage: the stressed and continuous appearance of the personalised time. A strange, statue-like figure is going step-by-step – the beginning and the end of his movement remain unknown for us. (When we arrive at the auditorium he has already been going on, and he has not finished it when we leave the place after the performance.)

In Weöres’ play: this is the era of the formation and recognition of time; the way from the timeless existence up until the life with fixed end. It is a mythological story about the bitterness raised by the knowledge of time (the knowledge of our own finite), the unavoidable loss of the ancient completeness. “The life is going on, it cannot stop in the half way, you cannot tie it with kisses or strings."

Weöres’ oratorio drama: the free poetic transformation of the first pages of the Mythology written by Apollodorus, which is about the ancient gods’ fight and the beginnings of first humans’ life. The meaning of the title is the “fight of gods”: Kronos killed his father – Uranos, the first god – then ate his descendants, that there would not be anybody against his power. The baby Zeus has managed to escape with the help of Curates, and after growing up, he kills his father. That way the lifeless life, the era of Uranos has been changed by the lively life, by Kronos’, than by the era of sense, by Zeus’. “Then he is pushed into gloom by a better one, the existence can grow above completeness that way.” The play is a brilliant work, which can form Aeschylus-apocrypha with the form of a drama, into which the author built in pagan, folk-art imitations too.

The performance: the free adaptation formed into an important vision of Weöres’ play, to its story, independently from the era and place, music is composed (László Sáry’s, with the performing cooperation of Kornél Mogyoró and Zoltán Gavodi), it contains Hungarian folk-music imitations too. In connection with the staging, the expressive tools of the eastern (Japanese, Chinese) performing art are strongly used: the stylized playing method, movements, and visual effects.

The director, Zoltán Balázs and the group of the theatre together with the guest stars did not believe – which is mentioned many times by the experts - , that the young writer’s play, the Theomachia is not suitable for stage. As Weöres turned towards the myth, to give sensual form for the ideas, the performers formed the same way the language of the performance, which is made of many lines, to be able to give sensual forms for the lines of the poem. (To evoke different cultures together it is a form, which is very loyal to the writer, as Weöres was interested in not only one circle of myth, but in the universe shown in different myth.) They are brave enough to sacrifice the important part of the text on the altar of non-verbalism: some parts are missing, some of them are changed a lot: the Curates who have not got their senses yet, and Kronos who is mad because of the fulfilment of his fate, tell the words backwards, they use a special non-existent language that way. (It belongs to Weöres too, if you like it that way.)

Kronos, by Ilona Béres, rules the black-red-white world of the performance. She is standing in the middle, motionless up until the end of the performance. A bunraku-like mask covers her face. She can build only on her voice and artistic vibe, but her performance has enormous power that way too. He is commanding, terrifying and then just pitiful. Gabriella Varga is using just stylized gestures, shows perfectly the blindness, the ageing and the inside power of Gaia who is coming back from an underground exile. Erzsébet Soltész with impressive knowledge of dancing shows us Typhon (the namesake of typhoon), his fight against the pretender of the new world.

An imaginative, exciting performance was made on the stage of the Bárka Theatre. However the staging effect of the performance – at least according to the writer of these lines – was under the poetic effect of the literary work. The reasons for it can be the not always evident showing of the story, the length of some parts, which test the audience’s attention, and the references, which are ununderstandable, confusing sometimes, and they are against the text itself. Besides the earlier ones, the merit of the performance is the fact that it leaves the fight of gods in its eternity, and does not turn into an actual political parabola about the tyrants who come one after another, and who think that their power is forever.

Adrienne Dömötör Adrienne, Zsöllye, 2004

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)