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Poland's Theatrical Vision
| Article
# : |
10774 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1993 |
2,551 Words |
| Author
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Claudia Woolgar
Claudia Woolgar is a free-lance theater critic and arts
journalist based in London. |
Few countries were as ravaged as Poland by the shifting map of central Europe. Gdansk was renamed Danzig, Wroclaw became Breslau, and it is in Poland that Auschwitz and Birkenau are to be found. But there is a spirit in Poland that has survived the marching armies of Europe, occupation, and genocide. A spirit as strong today as it was in the recent era of Grotowsky or Kantor--the theatrical spirit of adventure and experimentation.
Seeing Polish theater for the first time is an immensely exciting experience. Any traditional views about what theater should or should not do and be are not only challenged but thrown into utter disarray. Often there is no plot or story line; indeed, in some cases there is no dialogue at all. It is a theater rich in images and innovative form, and a theater that has developed far beyond the passé limitations of "happenings" -although it owes much to this experimental phase.
The Best
The work of the Catholic University of Lublin is a fine example of the best of contemporary Polish theater. I first saw this group--Scena Plastyczna--four years ago at the World Amateur Theatre Festival and an surprised at how little known they are despite extensive tours in the West (they have never performed in America). Under the strong leadership of the director, Madzik, the work of Scena Plastyczna is without linear plot, characterization in any traditional sense, or a single spoken word. The performers do not relate to each other in any "normal" theatrical manner, and it is a theater of images. Indeed, it has often been asked whether Madzik's work is theater at all. But that proves the exciting challenge of this type of performance.
The Gateway is their latest piece. But let us allow the title to hang unexplored for the moment. At the immense Stalinist Palace of Culture in Warsaw, the audience walks into a large, high ceilinged, marble-floored room. Great round pillars at one end presumably lead to the next room, but black curtains shut this from sight, and also house the "theater," or performance, space. Ushered into this space, I was taken by the hand and led into the pitch black. I could see absolutely nothing and was guided, stumbling and totally blind, to my seat.
Later the reason for this impenetrable darkness became evident. Blinded by the blackness, one was denied any chance to assess the dimensions of the performance space in which one was sitting. An audience that is ignorant of its own size and
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