Reportaż jako materiał sceniczny Teatralne świadectwo Cynkowych chłopców
Reportage as Stage Material Theatrical Testimony of Boys in Zinc

Author(s): Justyna Kowalska
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: reportage; stage adaptation of reportage; staging history; Svetlana Alexievich;
Summary/Abstract: The subject of the article is the evolution of a traumatic historical testimony into theatrical material. Its main purpose is an attempt at demonstrating the complex relations between three levels of narrative: a tale of the historical event (confessions of participants and the families of the deceased during the Afghanistan war of 1979–1989); a quasi-literary text of the reportage (Svetlana Alexievich’s Boys in Zinc) and a stage production (Boys in Zinc directed by Jakub Skrzywanek in Jerzy Szaniawski Theater in Wałbrzych). It is possible to visualize and interpret the meaning of an event only when it is rid of the amorphous element of “now” and becomes a finite “once.” The story of “boys in zinc;” the veterans of Soviet-Afghan war became a subject of literary and theatrical discourse; in both cases it acquired a different structure; was created according to different selection criteria. Attention should also be given to the construction of time in the production; which constitutes at attempt at reconciling several time registers with the theatrical convention of “here and now.” The awareness of historical truth and an immediate contact with the real physicality of the body of an actor turns the audience into a witness of terrible confessions in grotesque stylistics of Soldier’s Song Festival in Kołobrzeg.

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