New Discourses in Drama

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Notes

The national and international theatre festival scene serves as a good example. Not only the diversity of places but also the names of these meetings signify the increasing interest in plurality and ‘otherness.’ Teatralne Spotkania Obrzeży in Zakopane, the National Festival Pobocza Teatru in Toruń, and the alternative Międzynarodowy Festiwal Teatralny A PART in Katowice speak for themselves. These interests are also pursued on an international scale: Kontakt in Toruń – the best productions from Central and Eastern Europe and Na Granicy in Cieszyn – theatrical productions from Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The new initiatives extend to religious, family, folk, youth, and foreign language theatres.

Jarosław Klejnocki and Jerzy Sosnowski, Chwilowe zawieszenie broni (Temporary Ceasefire) (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sic!, 1996).

Elżbieta Baniewicz, Lata tłuste czy chude? Szkice o teatrze 1990–2000 (Fat or Lean Years? Essays about theatre, 1990–2000) (Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Errata, 2000).

Born in 1955 in Yeniseysk, in a family embracing two traditions, Catholic on his father's side, and Orthodox on his mother's, Słobodzianek is a colourful figure of theatre life, a controversial essayist and a demanding reviewer. He is a co-founder (with Piotr Tomaszuk) of Towarzystwo Wierszalin, one of the most important groups active in the ‘small homelands’ of local cultures (to use Stanisław Vincenz's phrase). The other groups are, of course Gardzienice and, ten years younger, Teatr Wiejski Węgajty. Founded in 1986 by two Polish–German couples, Wacław and Ermute Sobaszek and Wolfgang and Małgorzata Niklaus, Węgajty is located near Olsztyn in the northeastern part of Poland. See http://teatr.wegajty.of.pl/.

Stranger in Our Midst: Images of the Jew in Polish Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).

For more information see Elżbieta Baniewicz, ‘Theatre's Lean Years in Free Poland’, Theatre Journal (December 1996), 461–478.

In an unpublished paper, Halina Stephan analyses the persistently stereotypic representation of Polish emigrant experience in America in these and earlier Polish plays, such as Głowacki's Polowanie na karaluchy (Hunting Cockroaches, 1987); Zawistowski's Stąd do Ameryki (From Here to America, 1988); Łubieński's Sławek i Sławka, (1988); Falk's Aktorki (Actresses, 1988). She also points to their numerous limitations, such as the confining of the action to New York and the emigrant ghetto, the monotony of available plots ‘placed within an ominous destructive setting, which is physically and culturally inaccessible’, minimal awareness of New World institutions, stereotypes of victimization, and the reluctance to redefine the canon.

Before these two most important early plays, Pruchniewski was author of another play, Paryż (Paris, 1987), of a one act play, Mrok (Murk), produced at Teatr Nowy in Poznań, and a radio play, Misterium (Mystery).

See Tadeusz Drewnowski, ‘Poza kryzysem. Trzydzieści roczników Dialogu’, (‘Leaving the Crisis Behind. Thirty Annual Sets of Dialogue’), Pamiętnik Teatralny, 4 (1986), 447–462 (p. 457).

Anna Burzyńska, Nicland (NothingLand) (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2004); Radosław Figura, Cztery na cztery utwory z dialogami (Four by Four Pieces with Dialogues) (Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2002); Jerzy Łukosz, Śmierć puszczyka i inne utwory (The Death of an Owl and Other Pieces) (2000); Artur Grabowski, Do trzech razy sztuka (Third Time Lucky) (1999).

He has staged Tango, The Hunchback, The Slaughterhouse, On Foot and The Portrait.

It brings to mind Mrożek's earlier plays, like Summer Day, whose new stagings, to mention the one at Teatr Słowackiego (dir. Józef Opalski) in 2000, confirm the diminished appeal of the playwright's cool, precise, intellectual charades on eternal topics.

It was written in Mexico in 1996 and premiered at Teatro Stabile, in Genoa, Italy, in 2001.

A TV production by Kazimierz Kutz was more successful. So was Kutz's 1998 TV production of Mrożek's Piękny widok (The Beautiful View, 1999), a play about the Balkan war.

In addition to its premiere at Stary Teatr in Cracow, it was staged by Erwin Axer at Teatr Współczesny in Warsaw, and by Piotr Szczerski at Teatr im. Żeromskiego in Kielce. Axer directed its TV production in 1998, and most recently, in 2000, Anna Augustynowicz produced it at Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin, the leading theatre staging contemporary drama. It was also widely staged abroad.

The Little Garden of Eden, Dzidzibobo, The Double, Drama of Moral Attitudes, The Divergent Drama.

In Wojciech Majcherek, ‘Kopa sztuk współczesnych’ (‘Sixty Contemporary Plays’), Teatr, 7–8 (2001), 41.

Filmed in 2002 by the author.

The director had similar success with the staging of Leopold Tyrmand's novel, Zły (Evil One), in Legnica in 1997.

Kinga Dunin, ‘Amejko w krainie słów’ (‘Amejko in the Land of Words’), Dialog, 9 (1997), 157–160.

See a conversation with Artur Grabowski, Jerzy Łukosz, and Tomasz Man, ‘Trzeci głos’ (‘The Third Voice’), Teatr, 4 (2001), 6.

See Anna Burzyńska's introduction, ‘Sztuka szybkiego reagowania’ (‘The Art of Swift Response’) in the collection of her own plays, Nicland, p.13.