Testőr

Testőr is a play by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár [1] (1878-1952).

The original text

Translations and adaptations

Translated into English as The Guardsman, a comedy in three acts by an unknown translator for a unsuccessful Broadway production in 1911.

Translated by Grace L. Colbron and Hans Bartsch, and turned into an acting version by Philip Moeller, as a vehicle for Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Performed by The Theatre Guild on Broadway in 1924, Published, with a foreword by Theresa Herburn, in New York by Liveright, 1937.

Other translations have been done by Frank Marcus (Eyre Methuen, 1978), Richard Nelson (2013), and Bonnie J. Monte (2015).

In the latter two translations , the translators seek to rectify the farcical approach usually given the play.

Nelson, speaking of his version (performed by The Kennedy Center, 2013), says that instead of being the "lively drawing room comedy" that it so often plated as, it is actually a very personal work which "skips along the edge of madness, and never quite falls off"[2]. In her production with The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey of 2015, translator/adaptor/director Monte (working from a literal translation by Gábor Lukin) restored the play to its original setting of Budapest and also sought to highlight the work's tragic undertones, stating that "[W]hether The Guardsman is more an agonized comedy or a very funny tragedy is up to each viewer"[3].

Adapted to film starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in 1931, and the plot used in the film of The Chocolate Soldier.