Z szekspirowskiego archiwum reżysera
From the Shakespeare Archive of the Stage Director

Author(s): Kazimierz Braun
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Cultural history, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Kazimierz Braun; Shakespeare productions; Romeo and Juliet; Hamlet; Twelfth Night; Delaware Park Festival in Buffalo; Kavinoky Theatre in Buffalo
Summary/Abstract: The essay presents Kazimierz Braun’s Shakespeare productions directed in the United States. It opens with recollections of productions of plays by Shakespeare in which Braun either acted (Twelfth Night, Poznań University, 1957) or which he directed. These included Romeo and Juliet (Teatr Polski, Warsaw 1963), Hamlet (Teatr im. J. Osterwy, Lublin 1968), Twelfth Night (Teatr Współczesny, Wrocław 1981), Hamlet (PWST Theatre Academy in Wrocław, 1984), and also Twelfth Night in Esslingen, West Germany (1984). In America, Braun first directed his own medley of love scenes from Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night (Swarthmore College, 1985). Next, he directed a series of the Bard’s plays at the Shakespeare in Delaware Park Festival in Buffalo, New York: Henry V (1987), Julius Caesar (1988), King Lear (1989), and As You Like It (1991). He also staged Richard III at the Kavinoky Theatre in Buffalo (1999), where he was responsible for directing and stage design. Directing Shakespeare in its original English and in an open air setting helped Braun discover what he calls new Shakespearean horizons: the blank verse which is “actional” and totally integrates the actor’s words and deeds, controlling the actor not unlike a horse bridle, and at the same time guiding the actor’s actions, energizing him/her and imposing a rhythm on speech and movement; and secondly, replicating in the open-air theatre the potentially three-dimensional space of Elizabethan theatre, allowing a smooth and expressive structuring of the action.

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