Martyr - A self-confessed fanatic, or a siren for lethargy?
In times of personal despair, one reaches for various ways to mute, purify, or replace the pain experienced. There are many such ways. The genesis of such helpful practices goes perhaps as far back as Antiquity. The question is: what to choose?
In his misery of adolescence, the young student Benjamin, victim of a dysfunctional family and surroundings of social disinterest, reaches for an alternative method other than chemical or sexual addiction: faith. Faith, whether in something or someone, may not immediately mean a bad thing, but neither is it harmless. It depends on how we interpret the new interest.
Mayenburg’s text, Martyr, thematically captures not only the eccentric, attention-seeking student in an environment of ignorance, selfishness, and hypocrisy, but explores the boundaries of religious belief that can lead to fanatical or anarchistic tendencies. The provocative and comic tone of the text, where social tolerance meets religious fundamentalism, recalls a war between two camps - the student as manipulative leader and his epigones, against the biology teacher.
The creative team of the Slovak production of Martýr from the Academy of Performing Arts has placed this religious-atheistic duel in an ambivalent setting: a school classroom, a gymnasium, but also other, inherently indeterminate locations. The ambiguity, and at times disorientation, of the space was emphasised by actors’ chases between the ground floor and the first floor of the theatre. This physical activity was also a distracting element, causing only by redundancy; the musical sections used were similar in quantity, and sometimes thematically nonsensical or shallow.
One could ask whether these movement sequences were one of the reasons why the production was lengthy. It is perhaps pertinent to note that Mayenburg’s text, which is high quality, provocative, comic, and full of meaning, could have been better adapted, if necessary cut, if only to avoid thematic overload or sporadic repetitiveness (or perhaps a short intermission would have been helpful).
The message was clear, but the course leading up to it could have been without so many digressions. But even considering these technical problems, mostly arising from the length of the play, there were many fine acting performances that artfully interpreted and perceived the potential for sub-textual and situational irony, passionate verbal dynamics, and a provocative look at religious faith.
