Gardzienice: Polish Theatre in Transition

Paul Allain

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781135299262
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Arts de la scène

In 1977, the Gardzienice Theatre Association, an experimental theatre company was founded in a tiny Polish village. By 1992 The Observer was hailing "Brilliant Gardzienice...and orgy of joy, anguish, prayer and lamentation performed in candlelight with hurtling energy and at breakneck speed...Physically reckless, thrillingly well sung...On no account to be missed. " Today the Gardzienice Theatre Association is hailed as Poland's leading theatre group, training Royal Shakespeare Company actors and touring the world. Paul Allain describes and analyses their sung performances, strenuous physical and vocal training, and anthropological fieldwork amongst marginalized European minorities.
This is one of the first detailed attempts to assess developments in Polish experimental theatres since 1989. The author questions whether those artists can maintain their vision in the face of Poland's economic difficulties and increased commercialization of the arts.

1
POLISH THEATRE—ROMANTICISM FADES

An analysis of the predominant trends in the practice of major Polish theatre artists of this century reveals how Gardzienice’s work belongs to a particular tradition forged in a specific context. The Romantic movement has provided a theoretical and historical framework for Polish drama as well as giving it texts and mentors. It has also helped create a Polish theatre with specific attributes— post-Second World War alternative theatre in Poland has continually challenged theatrical boundaries and has been internationally recognised for its visual rather than literary means of expression. The content of performances has often opposed the dominant social and political values and ignored the narrow parameters of Communist dictates. This can be seen in a wide range of productions including Gardzienice’s which also draw on Romantic aesthetics and Polish theatrical traditions. Gardzienice’s performances are visual, physical and metaphorical, evolve from detailed actor training and utilise religious and folk imagery and symbolism. The influence of Romantic ideals on Gardzienice also pertains to wider aspects of their work, including the search for inspiration from nature, the value of folk culture and the importance of journeying to foreign cultures to broaden artistic sensibilities.

The driving political underground force and corresponding aesthetic in Polish culture which Romanticism inspired have both been undermined by the changes after 1989. With the collapse of Communism, a period of dynamic creativity notable for its specific idioms ended. Reflecting the way that political structures have been reconstructed, the Romantic ideals which shaped Polish theatre have faded, affecting the identity and practice of Polish artists in a now transformed Europe.

Romanticism was a major force in shaping Polish identity and national consciousness. The movement of European artists like Byron and Büchner towards Romantic ideals coincided with specific events in Polish history which deeply marked Polish consciousness. Romantic aesthetics (free-will, artistic expression as a vehicle for political change, and the inspirational role of nature and folk culture, to name but three values for Romantic artists) resonated with the political reality, offering a language of liberation which was utilised not only by artists but by all Polish citizens and in particular soldiers. Politically these ideals fuelled self-destruction in the loss of life in the failed uprisings (notably 1863) that shook Poland during the occupation of the Third Partition.¹ However, as the cycle of Liberation and Occupation has been repeated, Romantic aspirations have continued to also create a sense of a united nation in immensely difficult periods of Poland’s history.

Artistically, Romanticism built a foundation of works which have been continuously inspirational, though also resulting in introspection and parochialism. It created heroes and mentors who remain important figures today. In the theatre these were Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849), and Zygmunt Krasiński (1812– 1859) and even the characters they invented such as Mickiewicz’s Konrad. Their plays and poetic dramas form the Polish classical repertoire and have determined the ideology of Polish artists for many years. Their prominence has been due not only to the quality of their writing but also the connection of their content to Polish political history. Their works have been used for political protest as much as theatrical experimentation, showing how closely the Polish Romantic ideals have been rooted in circumstance.

Mickiewicz was the leader of the Polish Romantic movement. As Romantic artists looked to tradition for inspiration, he questioned what Polish and Slavic culture is, almost from an objective perspective; he had been brought up in a dispossessed country, had lived in exile in Russia amongst a hostile people (the Russians and Poles had been enemies for many years) and had eventually settled amongst the exiled community in Paris. His childhood bought him into contact with White Russian and Lithuanian peasants and their folk customs. The structure of his major drama Dziady/Forefather’s Eve is based on a White Russian rite of ancestor worship. He turned to folk material to describe his own and Poland’s identity, a process which he advocated for all Slavic artists:

Such a drama should be lyrical, and it should remind us of the admirable melodies of popular folk songs. It should at the same time enable us to hear the stories…of the Slavs…the Serbs… the mountaineers of Montenegro… To create a drama that could be recognised as national by all classes of the Slavic race…it is necessary…to cover the entire spectrum from the simple song to the epic.²

He wanted to create a national drama and style that would use all theatrical means such as painting and lights, and which was rooted in poetry. Inspiration could be sought in a rural environment:

The poets should imitate the Slavic storytellers, the Slavic peasants. You are aware that no people have as rich or as marvellous fantastic tales…the artistic secret that the peasants, the native poets, possess. They have preserved that most precious quality, that of admiration… Above all he admires the word, he admires thoughts and feelings expressed by the word: that is the poetic character of the Slavic people.³

Mickiewicz was not proposing a nationalistic expression of art, but that of a people from common ethnic origin; not a Polish but a pan-Slavic one that cut across externally imposed borders. Ultimately this might be for political purposes because of the oppression the Poles then faced, but his prime concern was the search for a sense of belonging—a home and cultural roots—and for the inspiration this can give. One may have to travel a long way and endure exile but the ultimate destination was home.

Reflecting the Romanticists’ embrace of lofty verse as their expressive medium, poetry —and drama as the active embodiment of poetry—had a particular political and social function for Mickiewicz. It could awaken people to self-realisation and activity in order to fulfill their capabilities. The oppression of the Third Partition led him to rediscover an identity, a metaphysical territory where there could be self-determination through the arts. By reaching into the Slavic mentality and persona, with its love of the supernatural and respect for the spirit world, one could personally begin to fight the oppression. The efficacy of his own writings had taught him how this could then guide and unite others.
The Romantic respect for the metaphysical for him was rooted in the fact that he could not write for an actual stage. Due to the foreign occupation of Polish territory, Dziady did not receive its premiere until 1901, seventy years after its conception. Unable to see his works produced, his plays show a vivid imagination and extravagant theatricality, and are peopled with demons and spirits.

The role of the poet/artist for Mickiewicz was that of a wieszcz—a seer and visionary— as he himself indeed became. This love of heroism embraced the entire Polish nation in the form of Messianic Romantic nationalism, a concept fostered by all the Romantic artists. Poland was suffering as Christ had, but would rise again to save the world. In The Books of the Polish Nation and of the Polish Pilgrims Mickiewicz wrote that ‘the nations shall be saved…/through the merits of a martyred nation, and they shall be baptised in the name of God and Freedom.’⁴ His own suffering and ‘pilgrimage’ to Paris in the ‘Great Emigration’⁵ and his intention to thereby save Poland, were a model for the nation which actually existed only in people’s hearts and minds for 120 years. With its important geographical position, Poland was considered the Christian watchdog, keeping the pagan forces of the East from the doors of Europe.

Beyond his influence on national and political ideology, Mickiewicz has had an undisputedly formative effect on Polish theatre. Gerould has outlined the significance of Mickiewicz’s Slavic lectures, given in Paris in the 1840s, which crystallised his thoughts on Slavic culture:

The spirit of modern Polish theatre lives in this prophetic essay by Mickiewicz, surely one of the great documents on theatrical art and a constant impetus to creative work in Poland… Kantor, Grotowski, the Theatre of the Eighth Day, Gardzienice, and all that is best in modern Polish theatre have helped to realise Mickiewicz’s vision of a Slavic drama of the future which he knew would some day come into being.⁶

Since Wyspiański’s 1901 premiere of Dziady, this play has been nearly constantly in repertoire somewhere in Poland. The Romantic texts have been used not necessarily as complete plays, but have shed their influence in a broader way. They are valuable for their imagination, debates and poetic style. Many directors use the structure of Dziady, for example, as a starting point, loosely interpreting the text. It has been popular with the avant-garde to employ such classics as a basic for experimentation. Sometimes those texts have been reduced to detailed artistic quotations and obscure references, much as Gardzienice did in Avvakum, as I will outline in Chapter Six. To draw out the connections between Gardzienice’s work and Romanticism and traditions of Polish theatre, it is necessary to return to the time when Poland was once more independent after the First World War. This will reveal the continuous Romantic threads which have only been broken in the 1990s.

Juliusz Osterwa (1885–1947) worked between the World Wars and could be called the grandfather of experimental Polish practice. He believed in theatre as a spiritual mission for a group of people living and working together in harmony and so created his own ensemble. He ran a studio as well as directing a professional performing group, the Reduta, and created almost laboratory conditions for his research. The actors all wore the same clothes for training and there was a monastic austerity and sense of duty in their life and work, demanding great sacrifices. Performances were mostly of Polish plays (like Mickiewicz the nature of Polish identity was at the core of his work) and were followed by discussions with the audience. Training was conducted in periods separate from rehearsals and would often last twelve hours a day. By shifting emphasis onto the process as well as the product, Osterwa tried to give these two elements equal weight, starting a tradition which many such as Gardzienice continued. For Osterwa the theatre was to serve the public and not the individual performers. He was keen to reach isolated audiences and his group travelled around Poland in a train to provincial and remote areas over fifteen years. The most notable example of this was his 1927 touring production of The Constant Prince, which points to his influence on Grotowski, who also led provincial tours of this and other performances. However, Osterwa’s importance lies deeper than the adoption of this model, for Grotowski borrowed Reduta’s insignia for his own laboratory and adapted it slightly in recognition of Osterwa’s inspirational activities. For Grotowski ‘Reduta is in our aspirations, our moral tradition’,⁷ a tradition which has deep roots in Romanticism. Osterwa has greatly influenced Polish theatre groups such as Gardzienice. When journeying in the Ukraine in 1993, Staniewski referred often to Osterwa who had also toured to that area when it was in Polish territory before the Second World War.

The Romantic obsession with rural culture was consolidated before the Second World War by several influential Polish directors, who tried to assimilate folklore into the theatre. Painter, playwright and scene-designer Stanisław Wyspiański (1869–1907), author of the Polish classic play The Wedding (1901), used folkloric devices to develop theatrical forms and for visual stimulus. Leon Schiller (1887–1954), renowned for his lavish stagings and crowd scenes and his ‘monumental’ drama, created what he has described as ‘song plays’ based on folk music. The use of such material in theatrical performances has continued to this day and is particularly evident in the work of Gardzienice. The use of folk symbolism and costumes is just one small strand which led to the evolution of a visually rich performance style.

The central role of fantasy in Romantic dramas laid a foundation of texts inviting imaginative visual interpretations. The emphasis on visual motifs and symbols in Polish theatre this century was developed by contemporary figures such as Kantor, Jerzy Gzegorzewski (b. 1939) and directors of student theatre groups. Some, like Kantor, initially trained as visual artists. Others were simply looking for new forms, creating performances where the scenography was a dominant element. For a few the experience of the Second World War and the Occupation inspired visual designs. Józef Szajna (b. 1922) survived three years in Auschwitz and as a direct result of this he created his painterly style ‘Theatre of Catastrophism’. His performances provided a means to purge himself of his experiences and stemmed from a belief that the word had failed and had to be replaced by the image. He was an influential Artistic Director of the Teatr Ludowy/ People’s Theatre of Nowa Huta in Cracow.⁸ One of his best known performances is Replika (1973, Warsaw), which is still in repertory in Warsaw’s Teatr Studio today.

The visual nature of post-Second World War experimental theatre has also been attributed to three literary influences—Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969), Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz⁹ or Witkacy for short (1885–1939). These writers’ poetic and theatrical style, with visual experimentation and fantasies, oppositional or marginal values and absurd playfulness, was exploited to answer and mock the dry strictures of Communism. Alternative theatres have used these artists’ novels, plays and theories extensively, including numerous subtle allusions to their works within performances. The difficulty faced in translating their writings, particularly those of Witkiewicz with his nonsense character names and neologisms, has restricted the international acclaim which these writers deserve. Their localised perspective and their sense of history and experience is specifically attuned to a Polish consciousness which can be impen etrable for outsiders. Their texts have combined with those of the Romantics as sources of inspiration for post-war Polish theatre.

The name of Kantor has been most closely linked to these three. In 1956 he founded Cricot 2¹⁰ theatre company with whom he gained an international reputation, recognised as a leading exponent of European visual theatre with productions like The Dead Class (1975). Throughout his life he was at loggerheads with the authorities, being offered and then forced out of academic posts. His theatre pieces stood against all Communist prescriptions, questioning reality, exploring memory and history and using vivid images and metaphors. He challenged assumptions of what theatre is and where it should take place, performing in bombed-out buildings during the war. Kantor died in November 1990 and at his funeral the centre of Cracow was dominated by a procession of thousands and all traffic stopped in the city for two hours. His group still present performances, though the actors now refer to an empty chair where he once sat by the stage. With Kantor’s death, Gardzienice’s biggest rival in contemporary Polish experimental theatre ceased to exist. It will never be known how he would have developed in the present environment or if he would have found or created a ‘new wall’ to work against.

During Communist rule, image-based theatre also developed partly as a means to avoid the censors’ cuts, hoping to circumvent restrictions with difficult to interpret statements. It is easier to cut words out of a text, for images and symbols prove ambiguous when tone and interpretation can alter their meaning completely. Symbols became a powerful indirect means of expression often as protest, but visual theatre was still accused of collusion with the authorities. With its metaphorical nature and allusions it was seen by some to condone rather than attack the oppressive system. Visual companies such as Kantor’s toured abroad and in doing so and in spite of their own independence were considered by some Poles to be a showcase for Communist cultural policies. Yet most international audiences interpreted such Polish productions with political readings that were against the government even if they had subsidised them. The visual language was not necessarily one of collusion as student groups revealed.

The student theatre movement often used non-literary sources mixed with collage techniques. Groups such as Teatr Ósmego Dnia (Theatre of the Eighth Day) used series of tableaux mixed with archetypal character-based scenes, a physically energetic style and a parodic tone. This was not just to avoid censorship but grew from a rough and ready, inexperienced way of devising for performance. They presented political and social criticisms openly and payed the price for it, even of physical violence from the authorities. Widely recognised images were distorted as a mockery of the status quo. The Catholic Church and its lavish use of symbols inspired the visual imagination of many Polish directors as did Communist motif s. The student groups could draw on this rich pool when they devised their home made performances. Many groups toured abroad and the work came to be supported and admired throughout the world. Teatr Ósmego Dnia gave highly acclaimed performances at the 1985 Edinburgh Festival, even though some members of the group had not been allowed out of Poland. This company and a few others still exist today and their method of devising performances has inspired many, including the younger generations in Poland whom they are now coaching.

The visual movement in theatre blossomed as a reaction against predominant requirements, which may be termed Kantor’s ‘wall’. As the anger of ‘kitchen-sink’ drama erupted in Britain, so a realistic, politically and socially responsible theatre was imposed in Poland. The Socialist Realist movement developed before the Second World War in post revolutionary Russia. It never took as strong a hold in Poland as it did in the former Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia or Hungary, but it dominated cultural thinking immediately after the Second World War. It described a writing style that was imposed on authors by State-controlled organisations like the Writers’ Union¹¹, yet it also applied to all art forms, controlled by their respective Unions. The State’s intentions were to regulate artistic output: to keep art close to the people and accessible to the masses and to make it ideologically correct and socially constructive, according to the Communist Party line. Supervision entailed close analysis and then censorship of anything too critical of government policies. Self-censorship was also encouraged as a means of assessing the extent of an artist’s affiliation to the Party Experimentation was not advised, imagination was not encouraged and uniformity was imposed.

These policies also meant that theatre at this time was hugely subsidised. As part of post-War reconstruction many new theatres were built, opened and renovated over a wide geographical spread. Companies toured to rural areas and puppetry theatres opened. Theatre was to become accessible and available for all ages and all levels of society. Three theatre schools were started and magazines and cultural institutions such as the Intern...