Felicji Kruszewskiej przygoda z teatrem
Felicja Kruszewska’s Venture into Theatre

Summary/Abstract: A production of Sen [“A Dream”] by Felicja Kruszewska was Edmund Wierciński’s directorial debut. It is difficult to pinpoint when exactly he picked the drama for staging. His correspondence with Maria Wiercińska, his wife and actress who played one of the leading parts in the play, implies that the decision had already been taken in January 1927 and that by that time the work on the play was in full swing. Yet a letter written by the playwright to the director in the later half of February 1927 would make one believe that preliminary talks only just started at that time. The show premiered on 17 March 1927 at the Na Pochulance Theatre, and it was the first presentation of Kruszewska’s work as playwright.Felicja Kruszewska was born in Podolia in 1897; she studied literature on her own and taught herself French and English. Then she studied Polish and English philology at the University of Warsaw and journalism at the School of Political Sciences (Szkoła Nauk Politycznych). She was a humanist by education and an active patriot who served as a medical technician near the end of the First World War and was part of the Home Army underground during the Second World War. She died in unknown circumstances in 1943. She debuted in the press as a poet in 1921 and soon afterwards published two volumes of poetry, Przedwiośnie [“First Spring”] (1923) and Stąd – dotąd [“From There to Here”] (1925). She wrote Sen in 1925 (it appeared in print in 1927). In the following years, she published subsequent books of her poetry as well as autobiographical short stories. Her novel for young adults, Bolesław Chrobry, and drama Pożar teatru [“Theatre on Fire”] burned during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.The Vilnius opening night caught attention of the public and received numerous reviews. Reviewers, including a well-known Vilnius critic, Czesław Jankowski, indicated some flaws in the literary text, which spurred students from the Polish Philology Circle at the Batory University to defend the drama’s merit.Having left the Reduta, Wierciński wanted to find a place that would allow him and other secessionists to carry on their artistic experiments. Wierciński’s letters to his wife document his search and the final agreement he reached with the manager of the Nowy Theatre in Poznań, where the group of former Reduta actors eventually found work. In Poznań, Wierciński put on Sen as well. And here too, the show caught interest of the audience and critics, which was reported regularly by the local press. The public wanted to watch Sen so much that the theatre postponed the premiere of Gwałtu, co się dzieje [“What the Devil Is Going On?”], a popular comedy by Fredro.In May 1928 when it was performed in Warsaw, Sen attracted large audiences and received numerous reviews in the press, including positive ones by Irzykowski and Horzyca, and a crushing one by Słonimski. It enjoyed similar success in Łódź in 1929, where the play sparked the interest of both the audience and the critics.The last part of the publication contains letters written by the playwright to the director in 1927–1928. Seven of them have survived, and they are currently held in the Special Collections of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (Archiwum Wiercińskich, 1209/5, ff. 37–48). In a February 1927 letter, Kruszewska discusses what she would want to see on the stage, but her remarks do not go beyond her stage directions in the play. In the first letters, she is both bashful and overjoyed; she is first happy that the theatre has taken interest in her play and then satisfied with the effect achieved on stage. In her latest letters she writes about the scene where the Black Army enters the town to take hold of it. She stresses that the crowd should be enthusiastic and not desolate. At the same time, she makes it clear that her comment is limited to interpretation, and where the form is concerned the director is free to do as he pleases.

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