The tyrannical and lustful Alessandro de’Medici keeps Firenze in fear. His favourite is the educated and talented Lorenzaccio decides to teach him – because of it he puts on the mask of evil. But it is not so easy to perform the evil one.

Lorenzino de’Medici, a historic figure is the main character of Alfred de Musset’s play, which he wrote in 1834, it took place in the renaissance Firenze. He was mockingly called to be Lorenzaccio, because of his lazy life style, and he became popular, because he cleverly killed the cruel Alessandro. The prince notices Lorenzaccio’s cousin-sister, the moral Caterina, his lecher also helps him to get his relative, but at the time of their love, he was not waited by the woman, but by Lorenzaccio’s sword.

The romantic play with so many characters, has a story, which runs on more lines, and shows different aspects of relationship to power and dictatorship. The Strozzi family has an important role in the story: Louise Strozzi becomes the victim of a revenge history, his death makes his brother organise a conspiracy, and makes his father leave social life behind forever. We can meet marchioness Cibo – who becomes the prince’s lover, to make him understand things and choose a moral life – and the marchioness’ brother in low, the cardinal Cibo, who misuses his role as a confessor and uses the woman’s cheating to make his political role progress. Lorenzaccio, the thinking, Hamlet-like figure, finally accepts, that the murder of the prince has no use, as the petty political gams are still going on, and everything remains the same. But he also realises, that he has been changed in this lecher life, so if somebody performs the immoral one, he will become immoral after a while.

According to the story, at the time of killing Lorenzaccio covered Alessandro’s mouth, who bit his finger. Lorenzaccio pulled a glove to his bleeding hand, but the wound, as a very valuable ring, made him remember, his bloody act until his death. The play does not mention the glove at the time of killing, but the motif appears many times in the text. The old Strozzi tells once about Alessandro, that he threw his bloody and vine covered gloves into the face of Firenze. Alessandro, when he is preparing for his meeting with Caterina – as he would feel something in connection with the assassination – thinks about whether to put on his gloves of love or of fight for the occasion.

The gloves, which are the most important symbol of the performance by Sándor Zsótér, bring many types of association in it. They perform the play in the corner of a room, in the middle of the place a table stands, on it there are many stuffed and sewed red gloves. This pile of gloves is set and property at the same time: they can lay on time, they can hide under them, and if the characters put the pocket of gloves on their head, or put them on, they can become frightening or funny monsters. But there are pink rubber gloves too, which can be stuffed or blown up, and can be pulled on head, hand and any other parts of their body. Lorenzaccio sacrifices Alessandro with gutting him, like a pig: with great effort he pulls out rubber gloves under his dress. During the performance, the red colour is dominant, and the different shades of it, from cyclamen to dark red, from the point of view of both the costumes by Mari Benedek (frilly skirt, tracksuit, nylon housecoat, nun’s veil and so on) and the other properties too (rose, gladiolus, plastic watering can).

Lorenzaccio is a complex personality, his character is masculine and feminine at the same time. He loses his conscious during the first act, then he shakes, and the prince treats him as a coward one. At the same time, between Alessandro and Lorenzaccio there is a very confidential connection, they call each other treasure and nice ones. In connection with the key figures of the play and Lorenzaccio, we can notice many similar characteristics, so we can see them as the main character’s versions of figure, his different personalities. Lorenzaccio has some artistic talent, that is why, the meeting with the painter, with Tebaldo is very important for him, there is something from the marchioness Cibo’s ideas too, from her intention to save the world, as he is characterized by the Strozzi family’s wild and resigned nature too. That is why, it is a wonderful idea, that five actors perform the performance, which is reduced to sixteen characters; Ákos Orosz is the only one, who performs only the main character.

The actors can change between the roles with wonderfully easily, with punctual performance, however, who arrives to the performance without the knowledge of the play, they have to concentrate well, even if they follow properly that outline of the story, which we get before. Zoltán Lendváczky performs the female figures with a little bit of irony, in Ádám Tompa’s performance of Alessandro has at least the same amount of femininity and irony too. Ákos Orosz is the loud rebellious one, he is a cheeky, wild man, and the love-seeker, terrified boy. On the windows of the room we can see pages, torn from artistic albums, on which we can see renaissance paintings and sculptures. Those, who do not perform in the following scene, get into the back lines, and stand in poses, similar to the vivid sculptures from these papers. Éva Bakos and Kamilla Fátyol are crocheting persistently with their red strings, as they would be the present descendants of Moiras, then they ruin with the same persistency those, which they have finished.

The happenings on stage, which are connected to the text more or less, can create a well-known Zsótér-like world, where the relationship between the spoken word and action can be very distant too: lyrically beautiful, funny and sometimes forced. If they take out a sword in the text, they move gladiolus here; when Lorenzaccio’s mother talks about the ghost of his son that she sees, the others are humming the music of Ghostbusters; the renaissance painter makes tattoos in the performance and then Catherina, while she is watering the plants, carefully waters the flowers on the edge of her dress too. In one of the most beautiful scene of the performance, Lorenzaccio prepares for the murder, by holding a red rose in his hand, and does his “make-up” with the flower of love.

They perform the play in one act, shortened the play into the two third of the original one. The most significant change is in the last scene. Lorenzaccio, in case of Musset, was said to be a traitor, a bounty was put on his head, and he was stabbed. In the performance, the fast chosen new prince, Cosimo de’Medici tells his speech, while the others are hidden in the back corner, behind the gloves. The bit red pile is similar to a dragon with moving mouth. It is similar to a machine or a puppet, which is moved by the others, as it is unable to live alone, it has not got face or voice. We can hear again the music of the Ghostbusters. The ghostbusters seem to be the only one, who can clean Firenze from the dirt. Lorenzaccio is not presented in the last scene, he simply walks out of the stage, He leaves demonstratively everything here, but he can never take off the red gloves from his hand.

Orsolya Kelemen, Revizor Online, 2009

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)