Post by Mrs Vindecco on Nov 15, 2011 1:46:50 GMT
I have now sent copies of Mima to everyone that requested a copy. As yet I have not read it but I thought I would share the following essay with those who are interested in Mima. It's quite long but I think gives you a rough idea of what the play is all about as well as giving an honest account of the Belasco production that featured Dwight as Alfons. I typed this quickly so apologies for any errors.
The following excert is from Hungarian Drama in New York 1908- 1940 by Emro Joseph Gergely pges 17-23
In Molnar’s fantastic satire “The Red Mill, adapted by David Belasco as “Mima”, Satan is paradoxically confounded in his own realm by man. Molnar’s prospectus of the piece suggests its fanciful method and satirical-intent. “Every human mood enters into the dramatic action- some humorous, some serious, some fantastic in the extreme. The … scenes are strung together in mutual action and while this is a play of Hell in Hell, it nevertheless is a morality play.” This kernel of morality around which the elaborate theatrical situations are built is the incorruptibility of man: no matter how depraved he becomes, the last spark of virtue can never be entirely extinguished and will flame up at the most unexpected moment to save him. Hell’s chief engineer, Magister, has invented a “psycho-corrupter” that he claims, will in the course of an hour transform the best specimen of mankind into an evil doer. To test the machine before the Devil and his court, Magister, after some difficulty, finds a thoroughly good man on Earth- Janos, a simple peasant- and kidnaps him from his cottage door for the purpose. The machine rapidly breaks down every virtue Janos possesses. He gambles, commits adultery, lies, attempts to kill his fellow man in duel, denies his wife and unborn child, betrays his constituents in politics, floats worthless stocks, marries and betrays a virtuous young lady for her wealth and finally with merciless hardness is abut to cause the death of the woman who has betrayed him. Just thenshe mentions that once, in a virtuous moment, she sent a dried-up violet to his mother. Janos is touched and forgives her. This remenant of goodness in him at that moment of his deepest sinfulness confounds Magister and the intricate corrupting machine falls into ruins. Freed from its power, Janos joyfully goes back to his faithful wife, waking up at his rustic cottage as though from a dream.
The features of the play are its quality of fancy, despite its apparent realistic theatrical paraphernalia, it penetrating excursions into the criticism of life, and the undercurrent of silent laughter beneath the serious morality theme.
Even in the reading one cannot escape the overwhelming presence of manufactured theatrical realism. This is of twp kinds: the frank use of mechanical contrivances to establish the infernal setting and the creation by the playwright of an intricate dramatic structure calculated to produce sharp effects. The stage setting as described to the directions includes the orchestra pit, from the depths of which the Satanic Majesty and his court watch the performance of Janos, Mima and the puppets. In the first of the two parts into which the play is divided, the actions of Hell’s inhabitants, which forms the framework of the play, takes place on the front part of the stage before a black curtain, this curtain parts for each scene, permitting a glimpse, into an earthly life drama- Magister’s hunt for a good man. In the second part, the backing is a red curtain behind which an enormous and elaborate machine- the psycho-corrupter, smokes, sparks and rumbles. This structure is large enough to contain sixteen separate scenes, each which is to be revealed, as Janos and Mima adventure proceeds by the opening of some part of the machine. Moreover, as the devils’ workshop from time to time interposes itself between the scenes to keep alive the illusion of puppetry, controlled by Magister, the machine belches fire, grinds noisily, emits organ music and the ringing of church bells, and in the end bursts into a wild, discordant noise representing its own disintegration. In keeping with this concrete realism is the other theatrical element, the playwright’s less tangible contribution of an intricate dramatic structure, produced with an eye always on the creation of sharp effects. The characters themselves in number and in designation furnish the material for a substantial background: forty named players, including ten human beings, sixteen puppets, and fifteen devils, along with numerous minor manikins and fiends constitute the dramatis personae. Molnar never allows the humans interest in any of the earthly scenes, either in those representing the search for a good man or in those representing Janos’s progress into sin, to gain control of the action. Not only does Molnar establish at the beginning the reality of the psycho-corrupter, through the Magister’s minute exposition of its manufacture and of the construction of the puppets, but he also cunningly dehumanises his heroine, Mima, who mechanically rehearses her role of many moods, with an effect not unlike the overture of an opera. Moreover, some inhabitants of hell always interrupt the drama of mankind performed before them at a psychological moment to forestall the danger of counter illusion; sometimes this interruption takes the form of a casual remark, but more often it constitutes a complete predominance of devil activity- the stoking of furnaces, the checking of machine gadgets or the manipulation of light beams on the puppets.
Yet, vivid and overwhelming as these mechanical contrivances are, the play processes a spirit of fancy that seems to give the whole a tone of harmony and life. The very concept of the relationship between Hell and Earth is in itself boldly imaginative. Accentuating this is the fantastic composition of the psycho-corrupter, reminding one of the contents of a witches’ caldron. A sample from Magister’s enumeration of its contents will suffice;
In it iron, brass, nickel, silver, tin,
Glacier ice and phonograph –recorded curse,
Canine stomach juices, cable, stone and paint,
Painted pictures, mornings and evenings beautiful…
The listing goes on for many lines. The original is in free verse, the rhythm of which minimises the encyclopaedic effect, producing grotesqueness but not absurdity. Similar is the explanation of the composition of the puppets- souls and bodies captured on earth, with brains, virtues, vices, hearts and passions promiscuously interchanged, deleted, or added; they are kept on ice and are animated and controlled by light beams. A strange mixture, this is, of pseudo-science and the rapid shifting of the earth scenes, which one must view with childlike faith. The rustic happiness of Janos and Ilonka is poignant and real; the tempestuous career of wickedness that Mima and Janos follow has a remarkable vividness, considering the short space of time at the dramatists command. But the appealing feature of the play is the dream tone that not even the noisy yells of the devil break. Characters shift without regard for time, space, or logic; Ilonka, for instance, belongs to the Earth world yet she walks through the scenes between Janos and Mima like a ghost. We are not surprised when the last scene finds Janos waking up a little late for supper beside his cottage door.
It is doubtful if even this pervading fancy would save the play from being a mere theatrical manipulation of characters, situations, and properties were it not for the criticism of life implied in the theme expressed in various ways. Faith in the divine spark in man’s hidden weaknesses constitute a two fold comment. The men rejected by Magister in his search are guilty of hypocritically covered sins: the self-righteous schoolmaster who flies into a wrath over a dish of pea soup, the soulful poet of noble emotions who becomes a sensual animal with his mistress, the perfectly conventional clerk who is kind to an old man only until the latter unknowingly violates a petty regulation, the politician who gets only far enough to disclaim, “Citizens, I, who spent my whole life in politics…” The characters and the forces contributing to Janos’s corruption are thinly but sharply etched gamblers, social parasites, duels, political campaigns, speculators, divorces, husband-hunting heiresses, and in general the low motives underneath the pleasure-mad whirl of city life. Yet with all the elements of evil in our civilisation held up to criticism, the piece is not entirely a morality play. A certain cynicism is apparent in the very extremes of the two main characters, bordering at times on the ridiculous. The virtuous Janos climbs a tree to escape the pursuing, amorous countess; and Mima’s collection of vicious qualities is as obviously artificial as Janos’s thick layer of goodness. Nor can Molnar refrain from breaking into a serious situation with a mocking smile. At the moment of the great victory of man over the infernal machine, in the closing scene of the play, Janos stands triumphantly upbraiding the presumptuous devils, when he suddenly asks “Where’s my hat?” And even more disillusioning is the cry of Malacoda, the last words of the play, “Twenty million years of my life would I give for a little Rakot Kapostzta (Hungarian country dish of layered cabbage).
This particular dish happens to be one of the few definitely Hungarian elements in the play. The mention of Mount Gelert (outside Budapest), use of Hungarian money (pengos) and the singing of a political campaign to the tune of an Magyer folk ballad practically complete the native materials. Janos and Ilonka are, of course, peasants but their virtues are heightened to such an extent that they do not really represent Magyer peasantry but are rather caricatures.
David Belasco’s adaption changed the play in three significant respects . It prepared the drama for the American audiences; it expanded the already mechanical, theatrical features of the original and it definitely sacrificed the subtlety and dignity through several departures.
The Americanisation involved only one radical change- the writing of scenes eleven t fourteen of Part Two of the original. In Molnar’s episodes of the scenes, Janos discovers about a year after the marriage to Mima that the child she bears is not his but Alfonses; Mima divorces Janos and marries Alfons. Janos follows the couple to Monte Carlo where he finds that Mima has been unfaithful even to her new husband, who is jailed with embezzlement in trying to supply her with funds. She persuades Janos to marry an heiress and with the money thus acquired return to her. He meets Mima afterwards in a café and while apparently drunk, overhears her planning with Alfons to murder him for the money he obtained. In Mima’s bedroom Janos foils the attempt and thus gains an advantage to dictate his terms- he allows Alfons to flee and is about to send Mima to the guillotine when she appeals to the one spark of goodness left in him. Belasco’s sequence follows a less intricate pattern to the same end. Six months after his marriage to Mima, Janos, his fortune gone, follows Mima, who has deserted him to Monte Carlo. There she has become a street walker, having gambled away her money and been robbed by Alfons. The latter appears and suggests that Janos play the injured husband role, batter down the door when a Prince has Mima in his bedroom and blackmail him for a substantial sum. Janos does so and collects a fortune but accidentally hears Mima and Alfons plotting against him in the garret room. The café scene is entirely omitted. From here the action is generally the same. The substitution of blackmail for the marrying of an heiress was the main concession to the American audience, for the sake of plausibility. The deletion of the episode concerning Mima’s child by Alfons seems to indicate a desire for propriety as so the changes in Mima’s speeches. Her remark that she has had “no man for ten days” becomes “it’s springtime”, and her reference to “Washing diapers” is changed to “rocking the baby”. Yet the adaptor made no attempt to purify the dialogue; in fact some suggestive spots are even accentuated, such as the adjutant’s erotic remarks about peeping into people’s houses. To Molnar subtle, cynical humour Belasco added a sprinkling of the more obvious American puns such as Magister’s apology to Satan for Mima’s profane “You can go to the devil.”On the whole, however the play retains much of it’s original flavour, it’s universal materials needing no extensive Americanisation.
One may note a tendency towards the burlesque, especially in the scene depicting Janos’s political campaign, which Belasco expands with action such Mima’s undignified kicking of Alfons for biting her hand and lines such as ridiculous “Ah, do be the king of finance” almost destroy the illusion.
All these changes mark the play with Belasco’s characteristic stamp of the spectacular, the theatrically effective. The American adapter, however, found enough mechanical paraphernalia in the original to call forth his enthusiastic phrases, “I consider (Mima) the greatest of the brain children f Ferenc Molnar… the stupendous work of producing Mima… one of the happiest and most soul- fitting of my career… building the vast machine… consulting authorities of America, Europe and the Orient… for costuming designs.”
His machine certainly was the latest development in mechanical ingenuity, and his interpretation of the play was governed rather by this realistic aspect than by the symbolism of the original. In the Hungarian original, the delicate thread of fancy barely survives the double barrage of stagecraft and design; in the American version not even the satire fares well amidst the clatter of the puppet’s babble, the red mill’s rumble, and the numerous exits and entrances. The strongest impression made on the audience who saw Belasco’s production was that of confusion. The machinery practically killed the play.
The following excert is from Hungarian Drama in New York 1908- 1940 by Emro Joseph Gergely pges 17-23
In Molnar’s fantastic satire “The Red Mill, adapted by David Belasco as “Mima”, Satan is paradoxically confounded in his own realm by man. Molnar’s prospectus of the piece suggests its fanciful method and satirical-intent. “Every human mood enters into the dramatic action- some humorous, some serious, some fantastic in the extreme. The … scenes are strung together in mutual action and while this is a play of Hell in Hell, it nevertheless is a morality play.” This kernel of morality around which the elaborate theatrical situations are built is the incorruptibility of man: no matter how depraved he becomes, the last spark of virtue can never be entirely extinguished and will flame up at the most unexpected moment to save him. Hell’s chief engineer, Magister, has invented a “psycho-corrupter” that he claims, will in the course of an hour transform the best specimen of mankind into an evil doer. To test the machine before the Devil and his court, Magister, after some difficulty, finds a thoroughly good man on Earth- Janos, a simple peasant- and kidnaps him from his cottage door for the purpose. The machine rapidly breaks down every virtue Janos possesses. He gambles, commits adultery, lies, attempts to kill his fellow man in duel, denies his wife and unborn child, betrays his constituents in politics, floats worthless stocks, marries and betrays a virtuous young lady for her wealth and finally with merciless hardness is abut to cause the death of the woman who has betrayed him. Just thenshe mentions that once, in a virtuous moment, she sent a dried-up violet to his mother. Janos is touched and forgives her. This remenant of goodness in him at that moment of his deepest sinfulness confounds Magister and the intricate corrupting machine falls into ruins. Freed from its power, Janos joyfully goes back to his faithful wife, waking up at his rustic cottage as though from a dream.
The features of the play are its quality of fancy, despite its apparent realistic theatrical paraphernalia, it penetrating excursions into the criticism of life, and the undercurrent of silent laughter beneath the serious morality theme.
Even in the reading one cannot escape the overwhelming presence of manufactured theatrical realism. This is of twp kinds: the frank use of mechanical contrivances to establish the infernal setting and the creation by the playwright of an intricate dramatic structure calculated to produce sharp effects. The stage setting as described to the directions includes the orchestra pit, from the depths of which the Satanic Majesty and his court watch the performance of Janos, Mima and the puppets. In the first of the two parts into which the play is divided, the actions of Hell’s inhabitants, which forms the framework of the play, takes place on the front part of the stage before a black curtain, this curtain parts for each scene, permitting a glimpse, into an earthly life drama- Magister’s hunt for a good man. In the second part, the backing is a red curtain behind which an enormous and elaborate machine- the psycho-corrupter, smokes, sparks and rumbles. This structure is large enough to contain sixteen separate scenes, each which is to be revealed, as Janos and Mima adventure proceeds by the opening of some part of the machine. Moreover, as the devils’ workshop from time to time interposes itself between the scenes to keep alive the illusion of puppetry, controlled by Magister, the machine belches fire, grinds noisily, emits organ music and the ringing of church bells, and in the end bursts into a wild, discordant noise representing its own disintegration. In keeping with this concrete realism is the other theatrical element, the playwright’s less tangible contribution of an intricate dramatic structure, produced with an eye always on the creation of sharp effects. The characters themselves in number and in designation furnish the material for a substantial background: forty named players, including ten human beings, sixteen puppets, and fifteen devils, along with numerous minor manikins and fiends constitute the dramatis personae. Molnar never allows the humans interest in any of the earthly scenes, either in those representing the search for a good man or in those representing Janos’s progress into sin, to gain control of the action. Not only does Molnar establish at the beginning the reality of the psycho-corrupter, through the Magister’s minute exposition of its manufacture and of the construction of the puppets, but he also cunningly dehumanises his heroine, Mima, who mechanically rehearses her role of many moods, with an effect not unlike the overture of an opera. Moreover, some inhabitants of hell always interrupt the drama of mankind performed before them at a psychological moment to forestall the danger of counter illusion; sometimes this interruption takes the form of a casual remark, but more often it constitutes a complete predominance of devil activity- the stoking of furnaces, the checking of machine gadgets or the manipulation of light beams on the puppets.
Yet, vivid and overwhelming as these mechanical contrivances are, the play processes a spirit of fancy that seems to give the whole a tone of harmony and life. The very concept of the relationship between Hell and Earth is in itself boldly imaginative. Accentuating this is the fantastic composition of the psycho-corrupter, reminding one of the contents of a witches’ caldron. A sample from Magister’s enumeration of its contents will suffice;
In it iron, brass, nickel, silver, tin,
Glacier ice and phonograph –recorded curse,
Canine stomach juices, cable, stone and paint,
Painted pictures, mornings and evenings beautiful…
The listing goes on for many lines. The original is in free verse, the rhythm of which minimises the encyclopaedic effect, producing grotesqueness but not absurdity. Similar is the explanation of the composition of the puppets- souls and bodies captured on earth, with brains, virtues, vices, hearts and passions promiscuously interchanged, deleted, or added; they are kept on ice and are animated and controlled by light beams. A strange mixture, this is, of pseudo-science and the rapid shifting of the earth scenes, which one must view with childlike faith. The rustic happiness of Janos and Ilonka is poignant and real; the tempestuous career of wickedness that Mima and Janos follow has a remarkable vividness, considering the short space of time at the dramatists command. But the appealing feature of the play is the dream tone that not even the noisy yells of the devil break. Characters shift without regard for time, space, or logic; Ilonka, for instance, belongs to the Earth world yet she walks through the scenes between Janos and Mima like a ghost. We are not surprised when the last scene finds Janos waking up a little late for supper beside his cottage door.
It is doubtful if even this pervading fancy would save the play from being a mere theatrical manipulation of characters, situations, and properties were it not for the criticism of life implied in the theme expressed in various ways. Faith in the divine spark in man’s hidden weaknesses constitute a two fold comment. The men rejected by Magister in his search are guilty of hypocritically covered sins: the self-righteous schoolmaster who flies into a wrath over a dish of pea soup, the soulful poet of noble emotions who becomes a sensual animal with his mistress, the perfectly conventional clerk who is kind to an old man only until the latter unknowingly violates a petty regulation, the politician who gets only far enough to disclaim, “Citizens, I, who spent my whole life in politics…” The characters and the forces contributing to Janos’s corruption are thinly but sharply etched gamblers, social parasites, duels, political campaigns, speculators, divorces, husband-hunting heiresses, and in general the low motives underneath the pleasure-mad whirl of city life. Yet with all the elements of evil in our civilisation held up to criticism, the piece is not entirely a morality play. A certain cynicism is apparent in the very extremes of the two main characters, bordering at times on the ridiculous. The virtuous Janos climbs a tree to escape the pursuing, amorous countess; and Mima’s collection of vicious qualities is as obviously artificial as Janos’s thick layer of goodness. Nor can Molnar refrain from breaking into a serious situation with a mocking smile. At the moment of the great victory of man over the infernal machine, in the closing scene of the play, Janos stands triumphantly upbraiding the presumptuous devils, when he suddenly asks “Where’s my hat?” And even more disillusioning is the cry of Malacoda, the last words of the play, “Twenty million years of my life would I give for a little Rakot Kapostzta (Hungarian country dish of layered cabbage).
This particular dish happens to be one of the few definitely Hungarian elements in the play. The mention of Mount Gelert (outside Budapest), use of Hungarian money (pengos) and the singing of a political campaign to the tune of an Magyer folk ballad practically complete the native materials. Janos and Ilonka are, of course, peasants but their virtues are heightened to such an extent that they do not really represent Magyer peasantry but are rather caricatures.
David Belasco’s adaption changed the play in three significant respects . It prepared the drama for the American audiences; it expanded the already mechanical, theatrical features of the original and it definitely sacrificed the subtlety and dignity through several departures.
The Americanisation involved only one radical change- the writing of scenes eleven t fourteen of Part Two of the original. In Molnar’s episodes of the scenes, Janos discovers about a year after the marriage to Mima that the child she bears is not his but Alfonses; Mima divorces Janos and marries Alfons. Janos follows the couple to Monte Carlo where he finds that Mima has been unfaithful even to her new husband, who is jailed with embezzlement in trying to supply her with funds. She persuades Janos to marry an heiress and with the money thus acquired return to her. He meets Mima afterwards in a café and while apparently drunk, overhears her planning with Alfons to murder him for the money he obtained. In Mima’s bedroom Janos foils the attempt and thus gains an advantage to dictate his terms- he allows Alfons to flee and is about to send Mima to the guillotine when she appeals to the one spark of goodness left in him. Belasco’s sequence follows a less intricate pattern to the same end. Six months after his marriage to Mima, Janos, his fortune gone, follows Mima, who has deserted him to Monte Carlo. There she has become a street walker, having gambled away her money and been robbed by Alfons. The latter appears and suggests that Janos play the injured husband role, batter down the door when a Prince has Mima in his bedroom and blackmail him for a substantial sum. Janos does so and collects a fortune but accidentally hears Mima and Alfons plotting against him in the garret room. The café scene is entirely omitted. From here the action is generally the same. The substitution of blackmail for the marrying of an heiress was the main concession to the American audience, for the sake of plausibility. The deletion of the episode concerning Mima’s child by Alfons seems to indicate a desire for propriety as so the changes in Mima’s speeches. Her remark that she has had “no man for ten days” becomes “it’s springtime”, and her reference to “Washing diapers” is changed to “rocking the baby”. Yet the adaptor made no attempt to purify the dialogue; in fact some suggestive spots are even accentuated, such as the adjutant’s erotic remarks about peeping into people’s houses. To Molnar subtle, cynical humour Belasco added a sprinkling of the more obvious American puns such as Magister’s apology to Satan for Mima’s profane “You can go to the devil.”On the whole, however the play retains much of it’s original flavour, it’s universal materials needing no extensive Americanisation.
One may note a tendency towards the burlesque, especially in the scene depicting Janos’s political campaign, which Belasco expands with action such Mima’s undignified kicking of Alfons for biting her hand and lines such as ridiculous “Ah, do be the king of finance” almost destroy the illusion.
All these changes mark the play with Belasco’s characteristic stamp of the spectacular, the theatrically effective. The American adapter, however, found enough mechanical paraphernalia in the original to call forth his enthusiastic phrases, “I consider (Mima) the greatest of the brain children f Ferenc Molnar… the stupendous work of producing Mima… one of the happiest and most soul- fitting of my career… building the vast machine… consulting authorities of America, Europe and the Orient… for costuming designs.”
His machine certainly was the latest development in mechanical ingenuity, and his interpretation of the play was governed rather by this realistic aspect than by the symbolism of the original. In the Hungarian original, the delicate thread of fancy barely survives the double barrage of stagecraft and design; in the American version not even the satire fares well amidst the clatter of the puppet’s babble, the red mill’s rumble, and the numerous exits and entrances. The strongest impression made on the audience who saw Belasco’s production was that of confusion. The machinery practically killed the play.
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