Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2024
Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik's Madam Eva, Ave Madam revealed their interest in transgression and their willingness to go against convention with a view to transcending what has been achieved in art so far. This theme will now be elaborated on in the analysis of Finnegans Make, yet another of their plays from the 90s, which allows for a discussion on their longing for wholeness and their quest for abundance. In parallel with the previous section about B.S. Johnson's One Sodding Thing After Another and Compressor, the following passages will provide an opportunity to expand on crucial themes and issues in Zenkasi's theatrical practice with the focus on their craft and compositional ideas. I will explore how Fajfer and Bazarnik employ intertextuality to draw on other authors, especially James Joyce, but also how they achieve autotextuality (Kolarov 2020), that is, a network of connections between their own works. This will allow us to observe how they worked with already existing material to compose a new piece and to compare their strategies to those of Johnson’s. Besides, Karen Quigley's notion of the “unstageable” will be again used to help tackle Zenkasi's theatrical solutions and their eagerness to test the limits of the medium.
Finnegans Make was composed in two language versions – in English and in Polish. The former was presented for the first time on 22 July 1996 at the James Joyce Summer School at the University College Dublin and followed by two other performances, in Notre Dame School in Norwich and the Polish Cultural Institute in London. Straight after that the Zenkasi Theatre travelled to Dublin for the Fringe Festival, where they staged the play six times between 14 and 19 October. At the end of the month they returned to Norwich to show Finnegans Make twice at the University of East Anglia and completed the journey with a performance in Salon des Arts in London. The following year brought even more staging opportunities. In January Finnegans Make was presented at Gama Bell School and then seven times in Teatr Zależny Kanonicza 1 [Dependent Theatre at Kanonicza Street], both located in Krakow.
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