Genezja – modlitwa i pełnosłowie
Genezja Fraternity – Prayer and Word-Fullness

Summary/Abstract: During the Second World War, which he saw as a time of cleansing and penance, Juliusz Osterwa planned to establish two acting fraternities: Genezja (Genesia) and Dal (Distance). Dal was envisaged as a secular brotherhood, Genezja as a religious one, specifically Catholic. In his wartime diaries and notebooks, Osterwa elaborated plans for how these associations should operate, envisaging them as a vehicle for a complete transformation of theatre. The article presents the practical solutions Osterwa had in mind for Genezja. Based on unpublished manuscripts from 1941–1944 – a diary, a prayer book for Genezja, and several notebooks analysing the structure of the holy mass – the author argues that Genezja was to be the culmination of Osterwa’s path towards theatre understood as a religious mystery, and practical exercises based on liturgical texts and prayers were to serve as a means of transporting theatre to the spiritual level. The documents also feature concrete solutions concerning stage and workshop space: Genezja’s “temple” was to be the Church of Holy Cross in Kraków, and the site of the laboratory work was to be the “Genezjanum” at the Pieskowa Skała castle, north of the city. However, after the war, with the change of the political system, the fraternities were ultimately not established, and Osterwa continued his work in repertory theatres. (Transl. Z. Ziemann)

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