Resisting Peter Weiss: A Non-Marxist Adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial for the Late 1970s

Szilágyi, Zsófia Emma (2024) Resisting Peter Weiss: A Non-Marxist Adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial for the Late 1970s. THEATRON: SZÍNHÁZTUDOMÁNYI PERIODIKA, 18 (4). pp. 50-60. ISSN 1418-9941

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Abstract

My study on János Szikora’s 1978 staging of The Trial seeks to explore the factors that contributed to the growing prominence of neo-avant-garde theatre-making and a kind of counterculture in the National Theatre of Pécs at the end of the 1970s. Additionally, it examines how the production caused such a stir that it eventually led to an actual lawsuit. Szikora’s ideas about his production were so resolute that, despite having Peter Weiss’s dramatised version available, he and Géza Morcsányi chose to create their own adaptation instead. Szikora (according to his own statement) aimed to preserve the diversity of impressions evoked in readers by Kafka’s novel. However, a journalist from Népszabadság twisted the director’s words, claiming that Szikora was essentially “reproaching” Weiss for his Marxist interpretation of Kafka.

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