A Quartet for Z.

Kwartet dla Z

Author(s): Dorota Jarząbek-Wasyl / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Paweł Świątek; Review

A review of the play The Queen’s Peacock directed by Paweł Świątek, produced at the Stary Theater in Krakow (premiere: 27 X 2012). The director chiefly concentrates on the language of Dorota Masłowska’s novel, to which she subordinates the action, set design, and characters. The actors’ technical ability extracts the rhetoric from Masłowska’s text, showing the figures to be appropriated by various ideologies, caricatures assembled from social clichés and cultural formulae. Masłowska aims her critical blade not only at the protagonists, but at the audience as well.

Meir Ezofowicz, or: The Jews

Meir Ezofowicz, czyli Żydzi

Author(s): Joanna Krakowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Jewish Theater; Ida Kamińska

Joanna Krakowska’s article is an expanded version of her lecture from the People’s Republic: Presentations series, which inaugurated a multimedia project of a new history of Polish theater from 1765 to the present, realized at the Theater Institute in Warsaw. Krakowska provides a wide-angle view of the history of the play Meir Ezofowicz directed by Ida Kamińska. Departing from the popularity of and lively response to the play, Krakowska analyzes the director's work in detail, and gives an overview of the history of the Jewish Theater in which it was presented. She then steps back to analyze how this theater took shape in the reports of the People’s Republic authorities, and how the plays it produced took issue with the imposed or ignored narratives concerning Jews following the war.

On Lidia Zamkow: An Academic Fantasia

O Lidii Zamkow. Fantazja naukowa

Author(s): Agata Adamiecka-Sitek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: History of Theatre; Lidia Zamkow

A lecture to accompany the Zamkow: 2 or 3 Things I Know Nothing about re//mix made by Weronika Szczawińska at komuna//warszawa. Adamiecka spins a very coherent feminist analysis of the work of Lidia Zamkow, entirely based on documentary materials found in archives. The quotes that begin and close the text cast doubt upon the reliability of her interpretation, however.

Tempest in a Bucket of Water

Burza w wiadrze wody

Author(s): Joanna Targoń / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Dan Jemmet; Review

William Shakespeare's Tempest staged at the Polski Theater in Warsaw by Dan Jemmet (premiere: 24 XI 2012) is based, according to the reviewer, on a single interpretive idea. This involves showing the inhabitants of the island as contemporary human castaways – mechanical puppets in the second-rate theater created by Prospero. Placing Shakespeare's drama in the realistic, even naturalistic convention of a dysfunctional family of beggars with a father who is a myth-monger and second-rate magician performing cheap tricks, leads, in Targoń's opinion, nowhere.

How to Go Down in History? Monika Kwaśniewska Speaks with Weronika Szczawińska

Jak przechodzi się do historii. Z Weroniką Szczawińską rozmawia Monika Kwaśniewska

Author(s): Monika Kwaśniewska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: History of Theatre; Lidia Zamkow; Weronika Szczawińska; Interview

This conversation’s point of departure is the Zamkow: 2 or 3 Things I Know Nothing about re//mix made by Weronika Szczawińska at komuna//warszawa. Szczawińska gives reasons for the choice of Lidia Zamkow as the protagonist of her play, speaks of her hunt for materials on Zamkow’s work and her various doubts, both in terms of the reliability of the archival sources and the real artistic merit of Zamkow’s plays. With a healthy dose of distance and skepticism, Szczawińska also speaks of her search for her female “precursors” working in the theater.

A Too-Comfortable Seating Arrangement. Joanna Wichowska speaks with Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski

Za wygodna ta miejscówka. Z Pawłem Demirskim i Moniką Strzępką rozmawia Joanna Wichowska

Author(s): Joanna Wichowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Paweł Demirski; Monika Strzępka; Interview

Strzępka and Demirski speak of their latest play, Courtney Love, produced at the Polski Theater in Wrocław. They reveal that they were inspired to make the play by reading Everett True’s book, which showed Kurt Cobain’s wife in a radically different light than that in which she has entered the public consciousness. This was initially a play about Courtney’s fight with the male show business world, but the concept of the performance changed repeatedly. Paweł Demirski reveals that the text is infused with the depressive aspect of his own personality. The artists also say that they were interested in showing the mechanism by which, in rejecting our teenage years and discrediting our old dreams, we involuntarily allow the ruling structures to take over our lives.

Faithlessness – The Weakness of the Sacred and the Passion in Post-metaphysical Theater

Niedowiara, słabe sacrum i pasja w teatrze postmetafizycznym

Author(s): Katarzyna Fazan / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Performing Arts; Divine Comedy Festival; Review

Katarzyna Fazan describes plays dealing with contemporary spirituality created specially for this year’ Divine Comedy Festival in Krakow (5-13 XII 2012), grouped under the title Faithlessness. Analyzing plays by Ivan Viripayev, Radosław Rychcik, Wiktor Rubin, Piotr Ratajczak, and Michał Zadara, she states that each artist defined the act of speaking about spirituality and religious issues in the theater in a different way. Zadara’s idea was particularly effective, importing ideas of religion from the West, which allowed him to distance himself from the Polish contexts of the discussion on religiousness in the sphere of a Catholic country.

Japan: Dialogues and Transpositions

Japonia: dialogi i transpozycje

Author(s): Julia Hoczyk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Dance Theatre; International Crossroads Action Art Encounters; Review

A report from the 19th edition of the International Crossroads Action Art Encounters, during which Polish-Japanese dance theater was performed for the third time in the history of the festival. The image of Japan that emerged was quite varied, though there were points in common, linking tradition with modernity and nature with technology. The pairing of Polish and foreign productions allowed the organizers to create a meta-cultural space – a field for artistic experiments and shaping a unique alphabet of movement.

The Ailments of the Polish Theater

Choroby polskiego teatru

Author(s): Paweł Sztarbowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Cultural Policies

Paweł Sztarbowski puts forward the thesis that “the theater as we know it will probably soon come to an end.” It is threatened by commercialism, which forces directors to abandon artistic experiments and submit to the laws of the market. The author indicates a range of negative phenomena in the work of private institutions, theater schools, journalism, and festival organizations, all the result of new policies toward theaters. Sztarbowski proposes a positive rehabilitation program, using theatrical experiments in repertoires that draw mass audiences.

Theater in Search of Truth (2)

Teatr w poszukiwaniu prawdy (II)

Author(s): Tadeusz Kornaś / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Festival; World as a Place of Truth; Review

In the second part (Part One was published in issue 112) of his report from the Wrocław World as the Place of Truth Festival, Tadeusz Kornaś analyzes a play by Alvis Hermanis: Latvian Love. The director designed fourteen scenes that were not connected by plots, and whose overriding theme was various arranged meetings between men and women. All the stories have the same aesthetic framework: realistic acting, hyper-realistic characterization, an allusive set design, and the grotesque. Kornaś opines that all the episodes create a coherent whole. On the one hand, they present daily interactions as marked by a dominant sense of unfulfilment, and longing for another person. On the other, they form a suggestive and very wide portrait of Latvian society.

The Potential Hidden in the Country

Potencjał ukryty na prowincji

Author(s): Tomasz Kowalski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Performing Arts; Wielkopolska: Revolutions; Agata Siwiak; Review

Tomasz Kowalski describes the Wielkopolska: Revolutions project, developed on the initiative of Agata Siwiak, and carried out from April to December of 2012. The project involved artists working with the inhabitants of small towns in Wielkopolska. It aimed to explore the creative potential slumbering people living far from the city centers, and regions generally ignored by artists and cultural consumers. Kowalski believes that, apart from the artistic and aesthetic results, the project released energy latent in these local communities, which will be indispensable in creating more, independent projects.

We Play Till We Drop

Gramy do upadłego

Author(s): Marta Uszyńska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Elfriede Jelinek; Ewelina Marciniak; Review

Amateurs directed by Ewelina Marcinak at the Wybrzeże Theater in Gdańsk (premiere: 24 XI 2012) culls the feminist side of Elfriede Jelinek’s text. Six protagonists are enmeshed in pathological bonds where no communication is possible. The physicality exposed through their costumes “reveals” the truth of the characters’ feelings. The director uses the clothing to problematize the issues of omnipresent violence and manipulation, in male/female relationships, in families, and between the generations.

An Absurdist Farewell: Katarzyna Lemańska Speaks with Barbara Wysocka

Absurd na do widzenia. Z Barbarą Wysocką rozmawia Katarzyna Lemańska

Author(s): Katarzyna Lemańska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Performing Arts; Music; Opera; Barbara Wysocka; Interview

An interview on Barbara Wysoka’s most recent play, Philoctetes, staged at the Polski Theater in Wrocław (premiere: 30 XI 2012). In this performance Wysocka once again tackles the relationship between the individual and the collective, as in such productions as Anhelli, Caspar, Lenz, Gentle, Woyzeck, and in Jesus Christ Our Savior – Michał Zadara’s most recent project, in which Wysocka plays the main role. The director analyzes the socio-political foundation of the project, and describes the stages of working on the play.

Research, Discovery, Ibsen: Thomas Irmer Speaks with Heiner Goebbels

Badanie, odkrywanie, Ibsen. Z Heinerem Goebbelsem rozmawia Thomas Irmer

Author(s): Thomas Irmer / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Performing Arts; Heiner Goebbels; Interview

Heiner Goebbels characterizes his theater as the renewal of forms of telling, presenting, and reading a text, and the search for ever-new ways of staging it. He speaks of his plays, claiming that their point of departure was questioning how to go beyond the forms which have thus far existed in theater. This is why the majority of his plays have aimed to achieve a new level of audience participation through the absence of traditional theater elements (such as actors). He assigns a great deal of importance to music. His also brings this way of thinking to his lessons at the Institute of Applied Theatrology in Gissen.

The Tangles of the Web

Sploty sieci

Author(s): Anna Róża Burzyńska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Art; Technology; Agnieszka Jelewska; Book; Review

Agnieszka Jelewska's book, Sensorium: Essays on Art and Technology (Naukowe UAM Publishers, Poznań 2012), is a collection of around thirty sketches linked by a network of discourses. The author investigates various methodologies and research theories (Philip Auslander, Henry Jenkins, Steve Dixon) and the relationships between science, art, philosophy, and technology. The reviewer stresses that Jelewska's aim is not to locate a "common denominator and synthesis" for the quoted and summarized theories, but quite the contrary: "in accordance with the notion of the Internet, to build a polyphonic, heterogeneous discourse.”

Lear from the Spirit of Music

Lear z ducha muzyki

Author(s): Tobiasz Papuczys / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Grzegorz Bral; Review

The brick Hall on Purkyniego Street in Wrocław hosts the latest play by Pieśni Kozła Theater, Lear's Songs (premiere: 28 IX 2012). The director, Grzegorz Bral, plays the role of a narrator-conductor, who “gives the collective song the form of a play, directing its progress, but also disrupting the dramaturgy.” The tragic story of Lear and Cordelia is told in the songs, upon which is built the performance's entire dramaturgy. As the review's title suggests, and as Nietzsche suggested, “tragedy has a musical structure.”

ANTI: On Gender, Nature, and Children

ANTI: o płci, przyrodzie i dzieciach

Author(s): Antoine Pickels / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Performing Arts; Live Art; Contemporary Art; ANTI Festival; Review

The author begins this report from the ANTI Festival held in Kuopio, Finland with a brief description of the concept of live art – the strategy of creating a common space for joining many types of contemporary art. It is precisely this artistic form that considerably shaped the image of the festival. Apart from the theme of working for children and the issue of gender, Pickels found the nature stream of the festival particularly interesting. Artists ordinarily working in public spaces and interacting with urbanity of various definitions now had to create works expressing their relationship to nature, and perform them in the forest, unplugged.

Whatever Happened to Vera Stark?

Co się zdarzyło Verze Stark?

Author(s): Grzegorz Stępniak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 113/2013

Keywords: Theatre; Drama; Lynn Nottage; Jo Bonney; Review

The drama By The Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage is a fictional tale about the first dark-skinned actress. The play, with Sanaa Lathan in the title role, was directed by Jo Bonney at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles (premiere: 26 IX 2012). The detailed description of the play and an analysis of the drama bring us to the conclusion that the artists limited themselves to the presentation of a humorous historio-political tale. What is missing is the meta-theatrical games with history and its implications for race that we are accustomed to finding in Nottage's texts.

Carlo Natali (ed.), Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII, Symposium Aristotelicum

Carlo Natali (ed.), Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII, Symposium Aristotelicum

Author(s): Klaus Corcilius / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2010

Reviews / Carlo Natali (ed.), Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII, Symposium Aristotelicum, Oxford University Press, New York, 2009 (296 pp., ISBN 978–0–19–955844–5 [hb])

«ΚΑI OΤΙ EΣΤΙ ΤΙΣ ΤΡΙΤΟΣ AΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ» (Aristotelis sophistici elenchi 22 178b36–179a10). Prolegomena to ancient history of the argument of 'third man'

«ΚΑI OΤΙ EΣΤΙ ΤΙΣ ΤΡΙΤΟΣ AΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ» (Aristotelis sophistici elenchi 22 178b36–179a10). Prolégomènes à une histoire ancienne de l’argument du ‘troisième

Author(s): Leone Gazziero / Language(s): French / Issue: 2/2010

Few arguments from the past have stirred up as much interest as Aristotle’s ‘Third man’ and not so many texts have received as much attention as its account in chapter 22 of the Sophistici elenchi. Yet, several issues about both remain highly controversial, starting from the very nature of the argument at stake and the exact signification of some of its features. The paper provides a close commentary of the text, dealing with its main difficulties and suggesting an overall interpretation of Aristotle’s discussion of the ‘Third Man’ argument