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Ferenc Molnár (1878-1952) - Pseudonym of Ferenc Neumann | |
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Hungarian-American playwright, director, novelist, short-story writer, and journalist, whose reputation reached its peak between the wars. Molnár wrote in all about 42 plays, in which he combined realism and romanticism, cynicism and sentimentality. His earliest works show the influence of the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler. Much of his life Molnár spent away from his native country; he died in New York. Molnár's novel, The Paul Street Boys (1907), is among the most popular books in Hungary. "It can be claimed that Molnár never wrestled with destiny, unlike the heroic struggles of the major playwrights: somehow he too seemed to be a victim of the cult of illusion so characteristic of the pseudo-Victorian Hungarian society. In Molnár world atmosphere is everything, and it would be difficult to substantiate social realities from his always amusing, unpredictable, and occasionally artistic dialogues." (Lóránt Czigány in The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature, 1984) Ferenc Molnár was born in Budapest as Ferenc Neumann into a well-to-do Jewish family. His father was a famous physician. At the age of eighteen, Molnár started a career in journalism and then studied law in Budapest and Geneva. He joined the editorial staff of the Budapest newspaper Budapesti napló and changed his German name, to be known as a Hungarian writer, which he was. After writing a number of short stories Molnár published at the age of twenty-two his first novel, AZ ÉHES VÁROS (The Hungry City). Molnár's early plays were comedies, such as A DOKTOR ÚR (1902) and JÓZSI (pub. 1904). In 1907 he gained fame as a novelist with A PÁL UTCAI FIÚK (The Paul Street Boys), a engaging story about two rival boy's gangs on the streets of Budapest. The gangs share the same grund, a vacant plot, an "open country, grassland and the great plains," as Molnár himself described it. "It is a spell of freedom and boundlessness, this plot of ground that is hedged about by a rickety fence on one side, and by rearing walls stabbing skywards, on the other." In the story a weak little boy, ErnQ Nemecsek, shows his devotion to his gang and sacrifices himself for it. Molnár's depiction of the young people's psyches is expressed in poetic style, drawing parallels between gang life and the contemporary problems. AZ ÖRDÖG (1907, The Devil), taking its central idea from Faust and dealing with marital infidelity, was staged in New York a year after its Hungarian premiere. The work established his fame as one of the leading dramatists of his day. Molnár great invention was to bring on the stage a mysterious character, The Devil, who manipulates the characters and can anticipate their thoughts. LILIOM, perhaps Molnár's most enduring play, failed first but it soon soon gained international success. It was produced in 1909 and become later familiar as the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel (1944). Earlier also the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) had thought of setting it to music. Molnár wrote the play after his first wife upbraided him for slapping their daughter, and the event become a key to the play, in which it was justified. However, according to a family source this story is an untrue gossip, although Molnár and his wife did have episodes of domestic violence. Molnár had separated from his wife before their daughter was born, and they never lived under the same roof. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Pirandello, and George Bernard Shaw, but with his own touch of wit and grace, Molnár fused in Liliom naturalistic scenes with mystical symbolism. Liliom, a barker and a bouncer, is the main attraction at the Widow Muskat's carousel in the Budapest City Park. Mrs Muskat is jealous of the young housemaid Julie, and when Liliom defends her, he is fired. He moves with Julie in the home of a relative. Liliom is warm-hearted but he has a quick temper. He suffers because he cannot work at the carousel and in his anger he strikes Julie. After an unsuccessful robbery Liliom commits suicide. Two "heavenly policemen" take Liliom to a celestial court. Liliom refuses to admit his love for Julie and shows no regret for his sins. He is sentenced to sixteen years of Purgatory for ill-treating his family. In the last scene Liliom appears Julie and their daughter disguised as a beggar. When his daughter Lujza refuses his gift, a stolen star, he strikes her in desperation. The girl asks the mother if it is possible to have been hit hard and yet feel as though one had been caressed. Julie guesses the identity of the stranger, and Liliom is taken away as a hopeless case by two detectives. "It is possible dear - that someone may beat you and beat you and beat you, - and not hurt you at all," says Julia. During World War I Molnár served for a year as a war correspondent. His reports were published in book form in 1916 under the title EGY HADITUDÓDITÓ NAPLÓJA (The Diary of a War Correspondent). His accounts also appeared in the New York Times, although Hungary belonged to the enemies of the Allies. The warmhearted book records human goodness and solidarity in the middle of the horrors of war. When Molnár visited the United States with his wife in the 1920s, he was honored with a dinner dance, at which guests included Gershwins and Vanderbilts. Among his plays in this decade was JÁTÉK A KASTÉLYBAN (1926, The Play's the Thing), which followed a Pirandellian theme of reality and illusion through a discussion of how a play should be written. A HATTYÚ (1921, The Swan), a comedy about a girl being groomed to marry a prince, was filmed in 1956 with Grace Kelly. In OLIMPIA (1928) Molnár assailed the cruelty of aristocracy toward the common man. Molnár's play The Good Fairy (1930), had a recpectable run on Broadway. Its film version from 1935, directed by William Wyler, and starring Margaret Sullavan and Herbert Marshall, was written by Preston Sturges, who wrote for it a new beginning and damped down the play's observations on marital infidelity. Sullavan played a beautiful and naive young woman, who disrupts the lives of three men. The film was a smash hit. It was remade in 1947 as I'll be Yours. "It is a pity, that there are not more Fontannes, Lunts and Molnárs to help out the screen, for then this medium of entertainment would be in a far higher plane." (Mordaunt Hall in The New York Times) In 1940 (according to some sources 1936) Molnár moved to the United States, where he had a number of plays published and produced. His plays were known for nasterly theatrical technique and their sparkling dialogue which at the same time expressed a sense of humanity and decency. He held court in his suite at the New York Plaza Hotel, and continued writing, but he did not speak much English. In Hungary his plays were not performed during the Communist period. Molnár died on April 2, in 1952. Because of a superstitious fear that in preparing a will he would hasten his death, Molnár died intestate. He was married three times, first briefly and unhappily with Margit Vészi, secondly to the actress-singer Sári Fedák, who became a Nazi, and thirdly to the actress Lili Darvas. In the Communist Hungary Molnár's works were viewed with suspicion long after his death. Even in the 1980s Attila Tamás wrote in A History of Hungarian Literature (1983): "He had great talents as a dramatist, but he lacked the appreciation of the noble human values necessary for true greatness." P.G. Wodehouse adapted Game of Hearts from a text by Molnár, and also The Play's the Thing. Tom Stoppard adapted a Molnár play, Rough Crossing in 1985, and The Guardsman was adapted for radio in 1947 by Arthur Miller. Several of Molnár's plays and novels were adapted for the screen, among them No Greater Glory (1934), a tale of of schoolboys and their war games, Liliom, filmed three times, and The Swan, filmed two times. Billy Wilder's satirical film One, Two, Three, about Coca-Cola, a raging capitalist, and Communism was based on Molnár's play EGY, KETTP, HÁROM from 1930. Wilder made the film in Germany. Originally Molnár's single act play took place in the office of a frenzied capitalist, Mr. Norrison, but Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond practically left none of the dialogue intact in their screenplay. Norrison's young female houseguest, Lydia, the daughter of an important banking client, announces that she is going to marry a Socialist taxi driver. The cabbie, Anton, is turned into a nobleman before the day is through with the help of tailors, barbers, and shoe salesmen. "It must be very wonderful, sir, to be as you are and have almost all mankind at your disposal," says Norrison's aged servant. He answers: "But as regards mankind, after what was just done here, I think mankind - or as you so carefully put it, almost all mankind - should damn well be ashamed of itself." For further reading: World Authors 1900-1950, vol. 2, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); Szinház az egész világ by M. Sárközi (1995); Ferenc Molnár and the Austro-Hungarian Fin de Siècle by I. Várkonyi (1992); Ferenc Molnár: A Bibliography by E.M. Rajek (1986); McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama , ed. by Stanley Hochman (1984); The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature by Lóránt Czigány (1984); A History of Hungarian Literature by István Nemeskürty et al. (1983); Ferenc Molnár by C. Györgyey (1980); Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, ed. by Jean Albert Bédé and William B. Edgerton (1980); 'Molnár Ferenc színpada' by P. Nagy in Iradalomtörténet 1 (1978,); Molnár Ferenc by I. Vécsei (1966); A magyar iradalom története, vol. 5, ed. by I. Sötér et al. (1965); Krétarajzok by E. Illés (1957); Companion in Exile by Ferenc Molnár (1950); Masters of the Drama by J. Glassner (1940) - Suom.: Molnárilta on suomennettu mm. romaani Parooni (1907) sekä näytelmiä. - For further information: The Play's the Thing - Liliom, dir. by by Frank Borzage (1930) Selected works:
Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008 |
