The Birth and Death of a Character
Reviews from Krystian Lupa’s Persona. Simone’s Body, which premiered on February 13th at the Dramatyczny Theater in Warsaw. The author makes Małgorzata Braunek’s creation the crux of the text, analyzing the various levels of her role: from her references to Elżbieta Vogler in Bergman’s Persona, through the biography of Braunek herself, to Maja Komorowska’s “unwitting” participation in writing the script, the latter being the actress who was originally meant to play the role of Elżbieta. The original form of the play is also subjected to analysis. The author does emphasize, however, that the performance seems incomplete.

The Character Has to Take Root

Julia Kluzowicz’s interview with Małgorzata Braunek on her role as Elżbieta in Persona. Simone’s Body. “My character was created outside of psychoanalytical delving. She wasn’t created from my knowledge, she just found her way into me – and to tell the truth, I don’t know when,” says Braunek. She also speaks of how she began her collaboration with Lupa, of her kinship with Elżbieta Vogler from Ingmar Bergman’s film, and of the importance Simone Weil’s philosophy had for her.

Regions of Negotiation. Factory 2, Persona. Marilyn, Persona. Simone’s Body

Marcin Kościelniak’s text concentrates on the condition of the actor incarnating himself into a real character in Krystian Lupa’s three most recent productions. Stating that “Delving into the biography (…) led to dragging on-stage what was real, honest, and true in the actor,” the author points out the fluid boundary between the real and the imaginary – fueled by both the director and the actors. Analyzing the aesthetic of the play, the actors’ creations, the particular scenes, Lupa’s statements and the scandal surrounding the premiere of Simone’s Body (the actress’s mutiny during the premiere) and making reference to the theater of Jerzy Grotowski – he indicates the difference between Marilyn and Simone’s Body (in this article Factory 2 functions as a context – a field of experimentation and a breakthrough moment in Lupa’s work with actors).

Audience Up for Exchange

Monika Kwaśniewska’s interview with Leszek Kolankiwicz on Krystian Lupa’s Persona series. The main subject of the conversations are the thespian creations of Sandra Korzeniak (as the titular protagonist of Persona. Marilyn) and Małgorzata Braunek – who are fundamental, to Kolankiewicz’s mind, in either play. Kolankiewicz analyzes the roles of the two actresses, indicating their diametrical difference in the resources they use and their tasks as actors. He reads both plays, however, through the common device of Antonin Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty. Professor Kolankiewicz also notes the conflict between the director and one actress, Joanna Szczepkowska (in the role of Simone), and adds a third figure – the Warsaw public.

The Dictionary of Krystian Lupa. The Director’s Perspective

An attempt to create a glossary of concepts applied by Krystian Lupa in his reflections on the theatre. The author chooses what are, in her opinion, the most important and most frequently used words in the director’s repertoire, based on his writings (e.g. Utopia and Its Inhabitants, or Utopia 2. Penetrations) and statements, and then assembles them through personal intuition and a string of associations, so that they illuminate and complement one another. In describing and explaining the various notions, she goes back to their etymology, trying to give the reader the meanings these words hold for Lupa, and the ways they are used in practice in the process of creating his plays.  

Corpses, Automatons, Monsters

A conversation transcribed between Paweł Dybel and Łucja Iwanczewska that took place during the first panel of the Witkacy. Transhumance series. The interlocutors speak of Witkacy’s psychoanalytical “entanglements.” Therefore both the dramas as a whole, and individual scenes, motifs and characters are analyzed through Freud, Kristeva, Lacan, and Segal… Witkacy’s approach to concealed aggression toward the father figure and the incestuous desire for the mother (Dybel calls it anti-Freudian), as well as sexuality, the body and language, gender, and social norms are all examined… The interlocutors circle around the category of “transhumance” in the title, showing its interpretive potential in the context of the posthumous life of a character (living corpses), fluid and changing sexuality, and the relationships between body and language in Witkacy’s work.

From Her and Against Her – Mothers as Imagined by Witkacy and Sade
“With both authors (...) we are dealing with a struggle to free oneself from the shelter that the mother figure makes a monstrosity – she yokes, deforms, distorts and sticks the subjective cast of her children into the symbolic structure of family relations, tied with the metaphor of all-encompassing maternal presence.” Łucja Iwanczewska defends this thesis in her text pertaining to the work of Sade (The 120 Days of Sodom, The Misfortunes of Virtue) and Witkacy (The Mother), various interpretations of their works (e.g. P. Klossowski, The Father and the Mother in the Works of Sade), and the psychoanalytical theories of Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva.

The Shoemakers: Giving Rise to the Cynical Subject

Andrzej Leder uses The Shoemakers as an example to present the transition from the modern emancipating subject to the contemporary cynical subject, one that is frozen and immobile. Following in Lacan’s footsteps, he claims that in The Shoemakers Witkacy distributed his view of human subjectivity through a range of characters, and ultimately showed the triumph of the cynical subject, represented by Irina Zbereźnicka.

Transhumanation as Transhumance, or: Scattering Witkacy’s Ashes

Ewa Domańska begins her text by defining some notions: transhumance and transhumanation. She then proceeds from the idea of “crossing beyond the human,” or transhumanation, through extreme experiences, to the processing of human remains of shifting ontological status. The opportunities provided by the study of a dead body are here illustrated by the history of Witkacy’s remains. To this end Domańska traces their complex and mysterious fate, proving the weight attached to Witkacy’s remains for cultural and political reasons. The author also suggests looking at this case from the perspective of the remains as organic.

Post-humanist Reconfigurations of the Body

The subject of this text is contemporary transformations in the perception of the human body, and the status of mankind in the community of earthly creatures. Focusing on the multitude of points of reference, concepts and practical creations of exponents of the new theory, Monika Bakke claims that at present we are less dealing with post-humanism than post-humanisms. She backs up her thesis by describing three different concepts – the vision of the body as a community of various organisms; life that is modified, or even biotechnologically produced; prostheses that alter/increase the capacity of the human body – and the affiliated examples of bio-art.

Democracies

Piotr Kosiewski’s interview with Artur Żmijewski. The conversation’s point of departure is Żmijewski’s series of films of various demonstrations, protests, and pickets under the collective title Democracies. Żmijewski speaks of the connections between demonstrations and democracy, of his method of making these films, his inspiration from “YouTube” films, and the position he chose while doing the filming. Kosiewski also inquires about two new works: They and Selected Works, devoted to the “ordinary” lives of “ordinary” people. The conversation inspires a discussion about politics and political art.

Artur Żmijewski in Search of the Naked Life

Karol Sienkiewicz describes the work of Artur Żmijewski as a project in search of naked, real life, to explode the boundaries of art. On the basis of the artist’s most recent work, such as Selected Works or Democracies, he indicates Żmijewski’s new regions of exploration. Summing up, Sienkiewicz states: “Żmijewski’s basis is pragmatic, focused on the effect,” and he thus adopts “modernist postulates, linking art to other discourses, such as that of science,” while “he treats galleries and museums as places to swap opinions and to debate.”

The Artist Doesn’t Know Everything about Himself and His Work

Piotr Kosiewski’s conversation with Zbigniew Libera about the first retrospective exhibition of Libera’s work in Warsaw’s Zachęta (2009/2010). The talk covers a cross-section of the artist’s work (including his collaboration with and inspiration from artists of the Polish avant-garde of the 1970s, the experience of the “airdrop culture,” his work as critical art, how photography is perceived in the media and in art, and the motif of repetition). Kosiewski inquires about specific works by Libera (including Positives, Album, Masters, and Lego) in the context of the critical art tradition, the artist’s work as a curator, the “cold war” between art and society, and the state of Polish contemporary art.

The Artist Does (Not) Have to Explain (Himself). Zbigniew Libera and Schisms.

Katarzyna Fazan’s text is an insightful overview of two Warsaw exhibitions: Schisms at the Center for Contemporary Arts, devoted to Polish art of the 1990s, and Zbigniew Libera’s solo exhibition at Zachęta. The author describes and analyzes both the works presented and the concepts of the exhibitions. The finest attribute of the Libera exhibition, which the author rates quite highly, is the way the artist’s biography is brought into sharp relief in his work. Moreover, it is the author’s opinion that the exhibition allows us to gauge the significance of the art of the 1990’s, which was scrupulously prepared by the changes of 1989.      

Warlikowski’s Streetcar: Elegy and Horizon

A review of Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Streetcar, which premiered in Paris. The author of the text – Georges Banu – rates the treatment of the text, the creations of actors Isabell Huppert and Andrzej Chyra, the set design, and the music for the performance quite highly. He also attempts to define what is distinct in Warlikowski’s theater, and calling attention to his evolution, he claims that the director has now found himself at a decisive moment in his creative path, comparing him to such directors as Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, and Peter Brook.

In Elysian Fields 

Renata Derejczyk interviews Piotr Gruszczyński – the textual advisor for Streetcar, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. Gruszczyński reveals the fascinating process by which the play was created. He also speaks of the sources of the production, of Warlikowski and Isabell Huppert’s shared fascination for the work of Williams, of the new translations of the text (in French and in Polish), of the process of creating the script (fragments of other pieces, such as Plato’s Banquet, were added to the text), of the main protagonists and of the relationships that join them.

 

Polish Canata

A review of the opera The Oresteia by Iannis Xenakis, directed by Michał Zadara, and produced at the National Opera in Warsaw. Tadeusz Kornaś first describes the contents of the program and the libretto, written in part by the director himself, then leads the viewer through the parts of the performance. Though he does not agree with Zadara’s historical concept, which involves taking the action of Aeschylus's tragedy to post-war Poland (the various parts are situated in: 1945, 1956, and 1971), he greatly admires the theatrical form of the whole.

Violetta von Tesse

A review of the opera Traviatta directed by Mariusz Treliński, produced at the National Opera. The title of the text is also the key to interpreting the main protagonist, whom this performance models on Dite von Tesse, “a queen and restorer of old-world boulvaresque.” The development of the character, from a courtesan who is dependent on her lovers to an artist willfully leading a profligate life, is in the present author’s opinion a factor that makes the intentions of the play’s protagonist less legible. Though Treliński’s staging is fairly traditional, Targoń particularly appreciates the stage solutions and the general effect of the production, which are amply described in this review.

Wives, Mothers, Butcher and Swine

A review of the play Migraine directed by Anna Augustynowicz and based on a text by Antonina Grzegorzewska, produced by the Współczesny Theater in Wrocław. The text concentrates on the relationships between Grzegorzewska’s drama and its literary foundation – Singrid Undset’s short story Motherhood. Describing the numerous shifts and changes, the added characters, the plot lines and language, Monika Kwaśniewska analyzes the way in which contemporary feminist and gender notions are written into this story from the early 20th century.

Trapped by an Image

A review of Maja Kleczewska’s play Babel at the Polski Theater in Bydgoszcz. The author of the review starts with a brief outline of Jelinek’s text – still unpublished in Poland – emphasizing its non-theatricality, and the distrust it contains toward of any sort of discourse. This point of departure allows the author to make a basic accusation: “Kleczewska lacks precisely this urge to dismantle and to undermine, this basic distrust for her medium of choice.”

Słowacki in the Theater of the Imagination

A review of Piotr Cieplak’s Fantasy at the Miejski Theater in Gdynia. Piotr Cieplak’s play is placed in the framework of a radio broadcast. Its goal, according to Monika Żółkoś, is to submit Juliusz Słowacki’s drama to the stage test, to find out the transferability of his language. Although the critic notes the risk involved in such a project, as compared to the other events for Słowacki Year she sees this work as very necessary. Particularly given that both the play and the text emerge from this experiment triumphant.

Słowacki in Pieces

Paweł Schreiber reviews Paweł Wodziński’s Słowacki. 5 Plays. A Historical Reconstruction, presented at the Polski Theater in Bydgoszcz. The performance is made up of five plays by Juliusz Słowacki (Mazepa, The Dream of Silver Salomea, Prince Marek, Horsztyński, and Kordian), and is meant to survey the selected works from the point of view of post-colonial theory. While successful at times, the play shows the critic that combining Słowacki’s dramas into one coherent whole is a daunting and nigh impossible task. 

Against Our Own Weaknesses

Joanna Walaszek’s text is a review of Peter Brook’s 11 and 12, whose Polish premiere took place on January 16th in Wrocław. The author compares Brook’s latest play with Tierno Bokarem, which was shown a few years ago in Poland. Both plays tell the same story of the life and death of a Sufi master from Mali against the backdrop of quarrels between Islamic faiths, but in different ways.

The Exploding Stage

A review of After the Rehearsal, directed by Luk Perceval. The text’s point of departure is the growing popularity of theatrical adaptations of Ingmar Bergman’s films for the German stage. Irmer covers the characteristic attributes of Bergman’s style and Perceval’s artistic biography, and presents the evolution of his use of the camera in the theater. He concludes that After the Rehearsal is the beginning of a new phase in the work of this artist, who recently became director of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg.

Ithaca, Hades, All Inclusive
A piece from the “European Odyssey” project organized by six theaters from the Ruhr Basin – the cultural capital of 2010. The author of the text gives a wide description of the circumstances and organization of the project, which involves a journey through the six cities of the region where the plays are being presented. She then briefly reviews each of them (in order: Areteia, script and director: Grzegorz Jarzyna, Der elfte Gesang: script: Roland Schimmelpfenning, director: Lisa Nielebock; Perikizi: script: Emine Ozdamar, director: Urlich Greb; Sirenengesang: script: Peter Nadas, director: Roberto Ciulli, Odysseus, Verbrecher. Scheuspiel einer Heimkehr: script: Christoph Ransmayr, director: Michael Gruner), indicating their varied takes on Homer’s Odyssey.

At the Very Core of the Myth

A German reviewer – Federicke Felbeck – describes two premieres by Polish directors that recently took place in her homeland: Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat by Mark Ravenhill at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus directed by Jan Klata, and Areteia at the Schauspiel Essen, directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna. The author describes and analyzes the plays, highly rating both productions, and pointing out the different perspectives adopted by the directors as compared to the most recent productions by German directors.

 

The Tall Tale of the Krakow School

Jan Michalik traces the process whereby the myth of the “Krakow school” came to be in the writings of the texts of Polish theater authorities, and undermines it by showing its flimsy basis in documents. He dismisses the popular opposition between the Krakow school and the Warsaw theater of stars. He also takes account of repertoires and the specific style of Krakow’s actors.

The History of the Polish Theater. Vademecum of Health and Beauty

This text by Katarzyna Duniec and Joanna Krakowska is a critique of the way theater history is written in Poland. Summoning the reflections of Sławomin Świątek, the authors claim that the greatest problem in the Polish study of theater is its treatment of theatrical facts from the past as aesthetic, not historical. As a positive counter-example they mention two plays – "The Brigade of Karhan the Knife-grinder" and "Poor Theatre" by The Wooster Goup, which to their mind carry out the premises of Heyden Whit’s new historicism.

Montmorency’s Meager Justification

Agnieszka Marszałek’s polemic with these theses, taken from the text The Ailments of the Polish Theater. The author argues that the postulates of Duniec and Krakowska’s text were accepted at least a dozen years ago, and have since been realized. Marszałek opposes the positive examples presented by Duniec and Krakowska in the form of plays and the writings of Whit (among others) to research practices in which the methods postulated by the author result less from philosophy than from a sobriety of thinking and the thoroughness of the researcher herself.

Kantor and the “Jews”
Grzegorz Niziołek’s text is an attempt to read Tadeusz Kantor’s play The Water Hen in the context of the issue of the witness. The author arranges selected motifs of the director’s biography, his manifestos, and the notes he wrote while he was preparing the play, the script of the production, and reviews. He reconstructs particular scenes from the play, pointing out the relationship that is forged between the stage and the viewer, as well as that between the drama and the action on stage. Drawing reference to texts by Dori Laub, Robert Eaglestone, and Bruno Bettelheim on the subject of Holocaust witness, and those by Jean-Francois Lyotard on traumatic experience and affiliated expulsion, the author presents the following hypothesis: “Kantor draws from the original expulsion, but uses images of a secondary expulsion, i.e. images of the Holocaust that have been stripped from the collective memory,” and thus “he less reminds us of our memory than recognizes what will never be forgotten.”

The Transformation of the Theatrical

A review of Samuel Weber’s book Theatricality as a Medium, emphasizing the originality of the methodology used in this research on theater and drama in a philosophical context. Taking up some of the chapters and strains of the book, the critic indicates the most important philosophical categories for Weber’s methodology, and the theses unraveled with their aid.

In Praise of Error

A review of Jan Balbierz’s book A New Cosmos. Strindberg, Science and Signs. According to Jarosław Wójtowicz, Balbierz draws from scientific texts by August Strindberg that are little known in Poland, in order to search for a deeper explanation of his views and his dramatic works, thus dispelling stereotypical notions of the author of Miss Julie.

Rehearsals from the Extremes

A description of Katarzyna Fazan’s book Designs for an Intimate Theater of Death. Wyspiański, Leśmian, and Kantor. The critic follows the structure of the publication under review, introducing the reader to the various interpretations of works by Wyspiański, Leśmian and Kantor. In going over the book, Agnieszka Marszałek describes its basic premises and interpretive strategies, and covers selected chapters, emphasizing the analysis of the dramatic texts and stagings, and devoting less space to the letters and poetry.

Not the Idea of Things, But the Things Themselves

A review of Ewa Krakowska’s book Memory Sketches. Notes, Recollections, and Letters, in which Tadeusz Kantor’s ex-wife describes the years spent with him (first the time in Kunstgewerbeschule in a group of artist friends, then the correspondence between her and her ex-husband). In the critic’s opinion the book is not a typical memoir publication – it is a raw and objective collection of source documents and stories that accompany them.