Jerzy Grzegorzewski took over the management of the Narodowy Theatre in Warsaw on 1 January 1997, when the building was re-built after the 1985 fire. He took this post as an outstanding artistic personality that had been exciting the imagination of theatre audiences with his novel staging formulas that conveyed the message of cultural breakdown, disintegration of the individual and the crisis of values. Working out a theatrical language that would adequately express these ideas meant that certain conventions had to be negated and many widely accepted models cast away, which caused numerous interpretational difficulties and misunderstandings, and the audiences sometimes rejected his productions for this reason. Before Grzegorzewski became head of the Narodowy Theatre, the artistic community had debated about what the future of the special stage that was being rebuilt should be. Presenting his programme, Grzegorzewski harked back to Stanisław Wyspiański. He wanted a theatre whose essential features would be art, metaphysics and tradition. The premiere of Noc listopadowa (‘The November Night’) in 1997 stirred a discussion in which Grzegorzewski’s supporters voiced their approval for the revision of stereotypical notions about national myths while his critics considered it to be a treasonous attack on the national culture. The production additionally sparked a more general debate concerning the role of classical theatre repertory. Grzegorzewski was the artistic manager of the Narodowy Theatre for six seasons, from 1 January 1997 until the end of the 2002/2003 Season. He resigned before his term of office ended. In this period, the theatre gave 29 premieres on two stages: the big Bogusławski Stage, and the small one of the Sala przy Wierzbowej. Grzegorzewski himself prepared 11 productions at the time, i.e. from one to three premieres per season. In creating a unique stage idiom, sometimes based on traditional conventions and sometimes going against them, Grzegorzewski worked within a sphere of contradictions between a need for developing his own language and a need to communicate with his audience. He attacked emotions and the intellect, demonstrated possibilities of looking at the reality from various points of view, and strived to compel his audiences to get a different perspective on some generally accepted beliefs. He analysed the common horizon of awareness stressing what was open and liberating in the Polish culture and urging to open one’s eyes to modernity. During his term at the Narodowy Theatre, the postulates that theatre be more in touch with the rapidly changing reality were being formulated with increasing force and clarity. There appeared directors and companies that satisfied these expectations. In comparison with their accomplishments, the wise, aesthetically refined theatre by Grzegorzewski seemed cool and aloof, while Grzegorzewski himself came to be viewed as a classic rather than as an avant-gardist. The multitude of artistic and ideological issues revealed through Grzegorzewski’s creative work at the Narodowy usually overshadowed the accomplishments of his organisational talents.
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The production of Tadeusz Różewicz’s "Duszyczka" (‘A Little Soul’) put on by Jerzy Grzegorzewski at the Narodowy Theatre in 2004 was preceded by other adaptations of the poet’s non-dramatic pieces that were staged by the same director. The scripts to two of them – "Śmierć w starych dekoracjach" (‘Death in Old Scenery’, 1978) and "Złowiony" (‘Caught’, 1993) – included fragments of the poem ‘Et in Arcadia ego’, a trait they shared with Duszyczka, which had numerous consequences. As a result, a peculiar interplay, spanning a quarter of a century and different registers, developed around the motif of Italian journey and the mythof Italy. In it was encoded one of the major themes of the 20th century, because Różewicz treated his questions about the existence of something we call spiritual world as a challenge to Eliot’s symbolist poetics.
This article is a discussion of four adaptations that Jerzy Grzegorzewski prepared during his studies at the Directing Department of the State Higher School of Theatre in Warsaw. The works, which were prepared based on The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. by Edgar Allan Poe, An Episode of the Reign of Terror by Honoré de Balzac, King IV by Stanisław Grochowiak, and The Balcony by Jean Genet, have not yet been analysed more extensively in research on the director’s work. Adaptations in the form of typescripts are documents of work that probably have not been staged. This is a special type of content, very rarely taken into account in research on theatre archives. The aim of the analysis was to analyse the various operations that Grzegorzewski used in his adaptations and to reconstruct the staging potential recorded in them. This procedure is consistent with W.B. Worthen’s approach in which the tension between the literary and the performative identity of a work is the focus of interest.
The paper addresses some methodological and technical issues involving the process of reconstructing a theatrical production based on its surviving documentation and other archival materials as well as the working out of the so-called documented and critical score. With that in mind, the author confronts the premises and assumptions of the Schillerean theatrology (Zbigniew Raszewski, Jerzy Timoszewicz) and Bédierean text-editing (Konrad Górski, Zbigniew Goliński) with solutions proposed by performative studies (Tomasz Kubikowski, Diana Poskuta-Włodek) and contemporary scholarly editing (Maria Prussak, Krzysztof Mrowcewicz). The paper is a part of a theoretical supplement to Mateusz Żurawski’s doctoral dissertation, Edycja krytyczna scenariuszy autorskich Jerzego Grzegorzewskiego (‘A critical edition of authorial scenarios by Jerzy Grzegorzewski’) written under the supervision of Dr. Habil. Tomasz Kubikowski and Dr. Habil. Krzysztof Mrowcewicz at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2017).
PL
W sprawie partytury teatralnej podejmuje zagadnienia metodologicznych i technicznych problemów związanych z rekonstruowaniem dzieła teatralnego na podstawie zachowanej dokumentacji i innych materiałów archiwalnych, a także z opracowywaniem tzw. partytury udokumentowanej i krytycznej. W tym celu konfrontuje założenia schillerowskiej teatrologii (Zbigniew Raszewski, Jerzy Timoszewicz) i bedierowskiej tekstologii (Konrad Górski, Zbigniew Goliński) z rozwiązaniami postulowanymi przez performatykę (Tomasz Kubikowski, Diana Poskuta-Włodek) i współczesne edytorstwo naukowe (Maria Prussak, Krzysztof Mrowcewicz). Tekst stanowi fragment teoretycznego suplementu pracy doktorskiej Mateusza Żurawskiego Edycja krytyczna scenariuszy autorskich Jerzego Grzegorzewskiego, przygotowanej pod kierunkiem dr. hab. Tomasza Kubikowskiego i dr. hab. Krzysztofa Mrowcewicza w Instytytucie Badań Literackich PAN (2017).
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