KORNIS, MIHÁLY – KÁDÁRNÉ BALLADÁJA
KORNIS, MIHÁLY – KÁDÁRNÉ BALLADÁJA
The Ballad of Mrs. Kádár.
(2000. Monodrama in 1 part, prose. Characters: 1 woman)
The Ballad of Mrs. Kádáris a selection from the public statements of the famous politician’s wife, edited in a poem-like form. János Kádár and Mária Tamáska: the frail people, from inside and out. It is a beautiful run through of their lives, about how the woman, as a companion, saw the famed politician, the acting man. The Ballad of Mrs. Kádár is based on an interview preserved on a magnetic tape, which had been transformed into literature, offering the viewpoint of a supporting character in the big drama of politics. The dramatic peak is the point when Mrs Kádár realizes instinctively that his husband had been released from Rákosi’s prison in the coat of Gyula Kállai and the coat becomes the friend “Gyufa” rather than Kádár. In the narration of the wife of the party leader the last half century becomes a horribly petty absurd, where we get a glimpse of how it is to be the wife of a victim of somebody else’s tyranny, who then steps unsympathetically over the victims of his own tyranny.
Mihály Kornis was born on 1 May 1949 in Budapest. He received a directors’ degree from the Acdemy of Theatre and Film. He spent two years at the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár, then quit directing altogether and became a writer. He was employed by the Hungarian Radio, was a playwriting grantee of Vígszínház, later became the dramaturge of the theatre. He wrote Körmagyar (Hungarian Rondo) for Vígszínház, which presents the state of society in the 1980’s, based on Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde. Before the premiere his play Halleluja caused a big scandal, which was staged by the National Theatre in 1981, under the leadership of Gábor Zsámbéki. The play was banned by the cultural leadership of the times. Later, the same play received the prize for the best Hungarian play. In the 1990’s he turned more towards writing prose, his fame rests mostly on his journalist activity in different magazines.