Molnár, Ferenč

Molnár, Ferenč [ Ferenč Neumann] (1878–1952), Hungarian playwright, and one of the best known outside his own country. He first attracted attention with some light-hearted farces in which he exploited the humours of Hungarian city life. These were followed by a variation on the theme of Faust, The Devil (1907), which a year later was seen in translation at two theatres in New York simultaneously. His best known play is Liliom (1909), a failure when first produced in Budapest but a success on its revival some 10 years later. It was seen in New York in 1921 (London, 1926), and was used as the basis of the successful musical Carousel (1945). Among Molnár's later plays, several of which starred his third wife, the Hungarian actress Lili Darvas (1902–74), were The Guardsman (1910), which in 1924 provided an excellent vehicle for the Lunts in a production by the Theatre Guild; The Red Mill (1923), seen in New York in 1928 as Mima; and the Cinderella-story of a Budapest servant-girl's romance, The Glass Slipper (1924). The Play in the Castle (also 1924) showed his mastery of sophisticated comedy, as did Olimpia (1927). (The former was seen in New York in 1926 as The Play's the Thing in an adaptation by P. G. Wodehouse and at the National Theatre in 1984 as Rough Crossing in a translation by Stoppard.) In The Good Fairy (1931) he reverted to his former whimsical vein with the adventures of a romantic usherette in a Budapest theatre. In 1940 Molnár, who had emigrated some years before to the USA, where he died, became an American citizen. His success abroad for a time militated against his acceptance in Hungary, where his work was largely ignored, but after his death a reaction set in; a revival of Olimpia at the Madách Theatre in 1965, with Lili Darvas, set the seal on his growing reputation, and many of his plays have since been revived in Budapest.