The poetics of agon

Abstract

The case study explores the poetics of judgment, suffering, competition and the reversibility (or irreversibility) of fate in poetic theatre through Attila Vidnyánszky’s production of Agón. The director places brutality, death and confrontation with the sins of humanity at the centre of the performance, using the means of Artaud’s theatre of cruelty, based on the music and text by Péter Pál Józsa. Through the use of a language that he calls poetic theatre, Vidnyánszky depicts the historical and moral struggles of humanity: the collective sins of mankind, events of war and history, from antiquity to nuclear catastrophe. The Gesamtkunst staging is inspired by the spirit of Lucifer’s rebellion, the desire to destroy man, to eradicate himself, integrating both the martyrdom of the Forty Martyrs of Sebeste and the burial of Christ, which is typical of contemporary thinking. The performance can also be interpreted as a Madách paraphrase, because at the end, next to the man and woman entering the stage, there is a child who (perhaps) can bring about the reversal of humanity’s fate, and who (perhaps) will be able to build a cathedral from swear-words.