In Transition: 1989–2004

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

All theatres had previously received support, whatever their quality or status. During the Communist period, every Województwo's [county's] capital town had had its own theatre. The regions wanted to keep these local theatres active as symbols of their importance, especially following the administrative reform in July 1998, when sixteen large regions replaced the thirty-nine Województwo.

For example, supposedly ‘dangerous' political texts were generally banned, though they could be presented in provincial areas. Texts were censored, so rehearsals remained islands of freedom. An Aesopian allusive language developed to circumvent restrictions.

The three ‘G's' serve as a useful example. The theatres in the small towns of Gniezno, Gorzów Wielkopolski and Grudzia¸dz presented work of a very poor standard but fed local ambitions. Only the theatre in Grudzia¸dz was eventually closed down and became a private venue.

Kubiak and his company also wanted to privatise Teatr Dramatyczny where this production was first put on in 1991.

This production was a great success in Poland, but had to close a week after arriving on Broadway, where it was received very poorly.

This involved performances taking place for the diners in the gardens of restaurants.

The theatre was used to promote businesses that supported the Foundation, for occasions when actors worked as entertainers at private business functions in expensive hotels in the city. It was nicknamed the ‘theatre for foxes' referring to somewhere you would go to show off your latest fur!

These changes were attempted by the young directors Piotr Cieplak, Grzegorz Jarzyna and Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Rozmaitości, and Paweł Wodziński and Paweł Łysak at Teatr Polski. [See also Jacek Kopciński's piece in this issue on Jarzyna and Warlikowski.]

This was led by Krystyna Meissner, who initiated the annual festival Kontakt in Toruń and the biannual festival Dialog in Wrocław.

A masterpiece is meant to be timeless but no theatre work can be regarded out of and beyond time.

This included many anonymous letters of protest as well as public outcries against desecration of the myth of the Home Army (AK). The play portrays AK soldiers to be just like any old soldiers with all their brutality and mistakes of judgement. A central character, Waluś – a village simpleton who becomes a partisan, is executed by his forest compatriots in response to his committing sexual abuse in one of the villages. However, the play is directed against the absurdity of all war and all stupidity.

This arose surprisingly quickly after the changes. After just a few years of Balcerowicz's shock therapy, slogans were heard calling for the rejection of his strategy.

[See Leszek Kolankiewicz's article on Kantor in this issue.]

He led the Teatr Narodowy in Warsaw from 1996 to 2003.

[See Grzegorz Niziołek's piece in this issue.]

They do not have their own dedicated workspace even after 30 years of activity.

From De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by Titus Lucretius Carus.

‘Kiedy umrze polski teatr?’ (‘When is Polish theatre going to die?’), Odra, 7–8 (1994).

`Rozmowa Bożeny Winnickiej z Jackiem Wekslerem’ (‘A Conversation between Bożena Winnicka and Jacek Weksler’), Wiadomości Kulturalne, 23 (1995).

For instance, Anna Augustynowicz of Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin, said in conversation with Piotr Gruszczyński that theatre should use MTV language, Tygodnik Powszechny, 36 (1998).

He led the Teatr Narodowy after its reopening, eleven years after it was burnt down in 1985.

[See Alison Hodge's article in this issue.]

Her play Clara's Case was directed by several artists: Krystian Lupa, Paweł Miśkiewicz, Bogdan Tosza, and by Magdalena Łazarkiewicz for TV Theatre in 2003.

Roman Pawłowski (ed.), Pokolenie porno i inne niesmaczne utwory teatralne (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa, 2003). This was a collection of plays written by men in a realist way, though using the realism of reality TV rather than the theatre. Pawłowski, however, made great claims for the seriousness and importance of the neglected social issues that these works presented.

[This is a vast Opera House in Warsaw.]