PSYCHE AND THE MIRROR

On Erzsébet Gaál’s Organizing a Funeral

Abstract

The theatre of the Avant-garde, that worked outside of the framework of state-socialism, was just as obliged to face the problems of constructing realism as those artists working in an officially approved environment. In my paper, I analyse the linguistic automatisms and schematisms, marked by the terms of reality, realism, and mimesis, through the philosophical and theatrical works of Derrida and Gaál. It is commonplace that theatrical communication often associates the concept of l’Autre with the phenomenon described by Artaud as Double: the actor is related this way to the role, transfiguration to impersonation, character to personality, repetition to self-sameness, etc., while the dynamic, ever-changing boundaries of stepping into a situation and stepping back from it are bound by unusually strong rules. I believe that Erzsébet Gaál’s 1989 Nádas-premiere presents us with real inventaire, that reveals the transgressive nature of the moment of the regime-change with the creative exploratory gesture of constructing and exhibiting the Other, seeking out and constituting the Alter-ego.