A History of Polish Theatre

The first of its kind, this volume offers the most ambitious and wide-ranging English-language history of Polish theatre to date.

Katarzyna Fazan (Edited by), Michal Kobialka (Edited by), Bryce Lease (Edited by)

9781108476492, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 January 2022

444 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm, 0.82 kg

'Recommended.' F. H. Londré, Choice

Poland is celebrated internationally for its rich and varied performance traditions and theatre histories. This groundbreaking volume is the first in English to engage with these topics across an ambitious scope, incorporating Staropolska, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Enlightenment and Romanticism within its broad ambit. The book also discusses theatre cultures under socialism, the emergence of canonical practitioners and training methods, the development of dramaturgical forms and stage aesthetics and the political transformations attending the ends of the First and Second World Wars. Subjects of far-reaching transnational attention such as Jerzy Grotowski and Tadeusz Kantor are contextualised alongside theatre makers and practices that have gone largely unrecognized by international readers, while the participation of ethnic minorities in the production of national culture is given fresh attention. The essays in this collection theorise broad historical trends, movements, and case studies that extend the discursive limits of Polish national and cultural identity.

1. Where is Poland? What is Poland?
1.1 The ambiguous republic Krzysztof Zajas
1.2 The global archive and the periphery Dorota Sajewska
2. Staropolski (old polish) theatre
2.1 Stages and audiences of Poland between the middle ages and 1765 Agnieszka Marsza?ek
2.2 Theatres of identity Miros?aw Kocur
3. The public stage and the enlightenment
3.1 Poniatowski's national theatre: The idea and institution of enlightenment Piotr Olkusz
3.2 The birth and death of the eighteenth-century myth of the polish public stage Dobrochna Ratajczakowa
4.1 Romanticism Juliusz S?owacki, Zygmunt Krasi?ski, Cyprian Kamil Norwid W?odzimierz Szturc
4.2 Adam Mickiewicz: Between the province and the cosmos Zbigniew Majchrowski
5. Mapping theatre (I): 5.1 Jewish theatre in Poland Alyssa Quint and Michael Steinlauf
5.2 Polish theatre in Vilnius Martynas Petrikas
6. Mapping theatre (II)
6.1 German theatre in Poland until 1989 Ma?gorzata Leyko
6.2 Shakespeare and/in polish theatrical cultures Aleksandra Sakowska
7. Modernist theatre
7.1 New ideas of theatre and their materialization Katarzyna Fazan
7.2 Stage practices at the turn of the twentieth century Dorota Jarz?bek-Wasyl
8. Avant-Gardes
8.1 Inter-reality: Between matter and memory in the polish Avant-Garde Agnieszka Jelewska
8.2 Avant-Garde sound theatre Anna R. Burzy?ska
9. Theatre during the second world war Justyna Biernat and Karolina Czerska
10. Political theatres
10.1 The political subject Joanna Krakowska
10.2 The politics of non-political theatre Grzegorz Nizio?ek
11. Ritual theatre
11.1 Theatre's reorigination in ritual Kris Salata
11.2 Ritual and performance legacies Tadeusz Korna?
12. Actors and animants
12.1 Actors and acting in the nineteenth century Beth Holmgren
12.2 The actor's craft in Poland (1918–2018) Beata Guczalska
12.3 Puppet theatre Marek Waszkiel
13. Writing and dramaturgy
13.1 Polish playwrights since 1900 Ewa Guderian-Czapli?ska
13.2 Theatre without playwrights Marcin Ko?cielniak
14. Theatre ontologies
14.1 No progress, no precursor Krystyna Duniec
14.2 Homosocial relations and feminist transgressions: Theatre and patriarchy Agata Adamiecka-Sitek.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: plays & playwrights [DSG], Theatre studies [AN]