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BETWEEN HISTORY AND MEMORY: AUSCHWITZ IN AKROPOLIS, AKROPOLIS IN AUSCHWITZ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2009

Magda Romanska
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In 1962, Polish director Jerzy Grotowski mounted an adaptation of playwright Stanisław Wyspiański's 1904 play Akropolis. When James MacTaggart filmed it in 1968, the production gained immediate cult status among American theatre critics, scholars, and practitioners. Although Grotowski's production had already been seen internationally (though by a very limited audience), the film made it available to those outside major theatre centers. Notwithstanding the buzz that surrounded the film's release, most of the interest was focused on the acting and the set design; the fact that the show was based on an obscure modernist drama evoked little critical comment. Although the film's voice-over translated some lines of the play, the dialogue was not the main focus of commentary about the film or criticism of the play after the film was released. In 1974, Harold Clurman wrote that “the lines [of Grotowski's adaptation] spoken at incredible speed are not dialogue; they are tortured exclamations projected in the direction of another being, but with no shape as personal address. (It has been said that a knowledge of Polish does not make the lines readily intelligible… ” Clurman sidestepped discussing the text altogether, arguing that one does not need to understand it in order to understand the production.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , November 2009 , pp. 223 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2009

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References

Endnotes

1. Akropolis, stage dir. Jerzy Grotowski, film dir. James MacTaggart, prod. Lewis Freedman (New York: Arthur Cantor Films, 1968). It was aired on WNET and National Educational Television the evening of Sunday, January 12, 1969. See Jack Gould's review, “TV: P.B.L. Presents Polish Experimental Theater: Grotowski's ‘Akropolis’ Poses Challenges Auschwitz Set Against Bible and Homer.” New York Times, January 14, 1969, 9, John Simon's review “Does Genuine Art Require Special Pleading?” New York Times, 1969, January 26, D21, and the rejoinder by William Kinsolving, “Was Grotowski Too Lightly Dismissed?” New York Times, February 23, 1969, D21.

2. Clurman, Harold, “Jerzy Grotowski,” in The Grotowski Sourcebook, ed. Schechner, Richard and Wolford, Lisa (1997; reprint New York: Routledge, 2001), 161–64Google Scholar, at 160. (Originally published as a chapter in Clurman, Harold, The Divine Pastime [New York: Macmillan, 1974].)Google Scholar

3. Ludwik Flaszen, “Wyspiański's Akropolis,” in Grotowski Sourcebook, 64–72. (Originally published as “A Theatre of Magic and Sacrilege,” TDR: The Drama Review 9.3 [1965]: 172–89.)

4. Ibid., 64.

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6. Kundera notes that after World War II, “the border between the two Europes shifted several hundred kilometers to the west, and several nations that had always considered themselves to be Western woke up to discover that they were now in the East…. The part of Europe situated geographically in the center [found itself] culturally in the West and politically in the East.” Kundera, 33.

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13. Austrian troops did not leave the Wawel Hill until 1905.

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15. Quoted in Prussak, 103.

16. Wojciech Bałus, “Ożywianie posągów: Głosa do'Akropolis” [Resurrecting the Statue: The Voice of Akropolis], in Stanisław Wyspiański—studium artysty [Stanisław Wyspiański—Study of an Artist], ed. Ewa Miodońska-Brookes (Kraków: Wydawnictwo “Universitas” 1996), 169–80, at 170.

17. Nowakowski, Jan, Wyspiański: Studia o dramatach [Wyspiański: Study of His Dramas] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1972), 13Google Scholar.

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19. Prussak, 105.

20. Ortwin notices that the representation of Wawel as a stand-in for the otherworldly, immortal dimension appears in other plays by Wyspiański as well (The Legend, for example). Ortwin, Ostap, O Wyspiańskim i dramacie [About Wyspiański and Drama] (Warszawa [Warsaw]: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1969), 274Google Scholar.

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22. Kalemba-Kasprzak, Elżbieta, “Akropolis—dwie teatralne wizje Europy” [Akropolis: Two Theatrical Visions of Europe], in Studia o dramacie i teatrze Stanisława Wyspiańskiego [Study of the Drama and Theatre of Stanisław Wyspiański], ed. Błoński, Jan and Popiela, Jacek (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszczyński, 1994), 209–26, at 212–13Google Scholar. In 1904, sociologist Jan Stena wrote: “For me, Akropolis does not have a plot; I don't understand why these particular images are assembled here together in this particular order…. But, it is the style that is important—the soul of the poet…. Whoever is mystified by life's enigmas won't be able to pass by this work in indifference. Whoever wants to listen to the soul of the poet will find him here more accessible, more familiar than in his other more mature works” (quoted in Miodońska-Brookes, Wawel—‘Akropolis', 80).

23. Miodońska-Brookes, Wawel—‘Akropolis', 13.

24. Kalemba-Kasprzak, 215.

25. Raczek, Tomasz, “I stał się moment wielki czaru” [And the Great Moment of Magic Came], Kultura 14 (1978): 11, at 11Google Scholar.

26. Wyspiański, Stanisław, Akropolis, ed. Miodońska-Brookes, Ewa (Wrocław: Redakcja Biblioteki Narodowej. Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1985)Google Scholar, lines 606–13.

27. Filipkowska, Halina, Wśród Bogów i Bohaterów [Among the Gods and Heroes] (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973), 41Google Scholar.

28. Brzozowski, Stanisław, quoted in Elżbieta Morawiec, “Nasze ‘Akropolis’” [Our Akropolis], Życie Literackie 12 (1978): 7Google Scholar, at 7.

29. Bałus, 179.

30. Tadeusz Sinko, “O greckich tradedjach Wyspiańskiego” [About Wyspiański's Greek Tragedies], in Wyspiańskiemu Teatr Krakowski [For Wyspiański from Kraków's Theatre] (Kraków: Zakłady Graficzne “Styl,” 1932): 40–4, 40–2.

31. Maria Stobrecka, “Trzy dramaty Wyspiańskiego: Wesele—Wyzwolenie—Akropolis” [Three Plays of Wyspiański: The Wedding, Liberation, Akropolis], unpublished manuscript at Wojewódzka i Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna in Kraków, 29.

32. Rachwał, Józef, ‘Akropolis’ Stanisława Wyspiańskiego: źródła i ideologia [Stanisław Wyspiański's Akropolis: Origins and Ideology] (Tarnów: Nakładem Księgarni Zygmunta Jelenia, 1926), 24Google Scholar.

33. Bałus, 171.

34. Ibid., 217.

35. Rachwał, 44.

36. Jerzy Bober, “Inny Wyspiański” [Another Wyspiański], Gazeta Południowa 40 (18–19 February1978): 6, at 6.

37. Szybist, Maciej, “Akropolis,” Echo Krakowa 45 (24 February 1978): 2Google Scholar, at 2.

38. Fik, Marta, “Wizje na Wawelu” [Visions at the Wawel], Polityka 9 (1978): 23, at 23Google Scholar.

39. Morawiec, 7.

40. Krzysztof Pleśniarowicz, “W kręgu pewnej przypowieści” [In the Realm of a Story], Dziennik Polski 46 (24–5 March): 6 at 6.

41. Taborski, Roman, Dramaty Stanisława Wyspiańskiego na scenie do 1939 roku [Stanisław Wyspiański's Dramas on the Stage to 1939] (Warszawa: Semper, 1994), 121Google Scholar.

42. Schiller quoted in Jan Gawlik, Paweł, “‘Akropolis’ 1962,” in Mysterium zgrozy i urzeczenia: Przedstawienia Jerzego Grotowskiego i Teatru Laboratorium [Mysterium of Horror and Allure: Productions of Jerzy Grotowski and Teatr Laboratorium], ed. Degler, Janusz and Ziółkowski, Grzegorz (Wrocław: Ośrodek Badań Twórczości Jerzego Grotowskiego i Poszukiwań Teatralno-Kulturowych, 2006), 167–70Google Scholar, at 168. (“‘Akropolis’ 1962” was originally published in 1962.)

43. Zbigniew Osiński, “‘Akropolis’ w Teatrze Laboratorium” [Akropolis at the Teatr Laboratorium], in Mysterium zgrozy i urzeczenia, 300–34, at 301.

44. Taborski, 124.

45. Kalemba-Kasprzak, 210.

46. It is interesting that in the production notes to Kotlarczyk's production, under the history of the production, there is no mention of Grotowski's 1962 version. See Osiński, “‘Akropolis’ w Teatrze Laboratorium,” 302.

47. Ibid.

48. For the full history of the staging of Akropolis, see Dąbrowski, Stanisław, Sceniczne dzieje “Akropolis,” “Nasza Scena” [Production History: Akropolis, Our Stage] (Łódź: Teatr Nowy no. 4, 1960)Google Scholar.

49. Zbijewska, Krystyna, “‘Akropolis’ po pół wieku ‘Akropolis’” [Half a Century of Akropolis], Dziennik Polski 29 (4–5 February 1978): 7Google Scholar, at 7. Akropolis was not the only text by Wyspiański that Grotowski adapted; he also adapted Studium o Hamlecie (A Study on Hamlet) in 1964, which Wyspiański wrote around the same time he wrote Akropolis (Studium was published in 1905, a year after Akropolis). Both of Wyspiański's plays share many similar themes, including the encounter with the ghosts, national and European identity, and the quest for Polish self-definition within the larger politicocultural context. Both plays were written with Wawel in mind and as a result of Wyspiański's viewing of the newly discovered frescoes. Grotowski, though, considered his adaptation of Studium a failed project, and he did not include it in his list of accomplishments. Barba, Eugenio, Ziemia popiołu i diamentów [The Land of Ashes and Diamonds] (Wrocław: Ośrodek Badań Twórczości Jerzego Grotowskiego i Poszukiwań Teatralno-Kulturowych, 2001), 108Google Scholar.

50. Richard Schechner, “Introduction [to Part I]: Theatre of Productions, 1957–69,” in Grotowski Sourcebook, 23–7, at 25.

51. Kelera, Józef, Grotowski wielokrotnie [Grotowski Multiplied] (Wrocław: Ośrodek Badań Twórczości Jerzego Grotowskiego i Poszukiwań Teatralno-Kulturowych, 1999), 92Google Scholar.

52. Osiński, “‘Akropolis’ w Teatrze Laboratorium,” 301.

53. Ludwik Flaszen, “Akropolis: Komentarz do przedstawienia” [Akropolis: Program Notes], in Mysterium zgrozy i urzeczenia, 51–52, at 51. (Flaszen's program notes were originally published in 1962.)

54. Puzyna, Konstantyn, Półmrok [Twilight] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo PAN 1982), 135Google Scholar.

55. Puzyna, Konstantyn, Syntezy za trzy grosze [Three-Penny Synthesis] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo PAN, 1974), 185–6Google Scholar.

56. Gawlik, 167.

57. Grotowski quoted in Margaret Croyden, “‘I Said Yes to the Past’: Interview with Grotowski,” in Grotowski Sourcebook, 83–7, at 84.

58. Borowski, Tadeusz, “Pieśń” [Song], in Wspomnienia, Wiersze, Opowiadania [Essays, Poems, Short Stories], Wyd. 4 (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981), 25–6Google Scholar.

59. See Santner, Eric L., Stranded Objects: Mourning, Memory, and Film in Postwar Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

60. Grotowski quoted in Richard Schechner and Theodore Hoffman, “Interview with Grotowski,” in Grotowski Sourcebook, 38–55, at 53.

61. Grotowski quoted in ibid., 54.

62. Bąk, Bogdan, “‘Akropolis’ z laboratorium” [Akropolis from the Laboratory], Słowo Polskie 277 (1963): 3, at 3Google Scholar.

63. Borowski, Tadeusz, U nas w Auschwitzu (At Our Auschwitz) (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1971), 55, 68–9Google Scholar. DAW is the abbreviation for Deutsche Ausrustungswerke (German Equipment Works), the Auschwitz-based company that used prison labor. It was divided into metalworking and woodworking shops, where a reported six hundred prisoners in 1942 worked to make wood and metal products for Auschwitz–Birkenau and the SS staff. FKL is the abbreviation for the Das Frauenskonzentrationslager (the women's concentration camp).

64. Another was Borowski's Kamienny Świat [The World Made of Stone], available in French as Le Monde de pierre, trans. Laurence Dyèvre and Éric Veaux (Paris: Christian Bourgois, 2002). Veaux visited Teatr 13 Rzedow in 1963, when Grotowski was working on Akropolis; it was this experience that inspired him to translate Borowski's stories.

65. Gurawski suggests that Szajna lacked a fundamental understanding of the theatrical space. He used similar props (prisoners' garb, clogs, wheelbarrows, pipes) in his own play, Empty Field, produced in 1965; Osiński, Zbigniew, Jerzy Grotowski: Źrodła, inspiracje, konteksty [Jerzy Grotowski: Origins, Inspirations, Contexts] (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo słowo/obraz terytoria, 1998), 135Google Scholar. Szajna, for his part, cites his camp experiences as fundamental to his theatrical choices: “Our production—with its Akropolis–Oświęcim association as a symbol of modernity, the script as Man's Big Day—found its inspiration in my personal experiences of the prisoner in Auschwitz–Birkenau, which was essential for us.” Szajna, Józef, “List do Redakcji: Grotowski—Teatr Laboratorium” (Letter to the Editor: Grotowski—Teatr Laboratorium), Polityka 7 (1968): 1Google Scholar.

66. Gawlik, 168. The Polish edition of Borowski's This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen had a detail from Bird's Hell, a work by the German expressionist painter Max Beckmann, on its cover.

67. Copermann, Émile, “Une métaphysique obscure” [An Obscure Metaphysics], Les Lettres Françaises (9 October 1968): 17Google Scholar, at 17. In 1968, Émile Copermann wrote a long review of the play, which was shown in Paris by pure accident. Grotowski with his Teatr 13 Rzedow was on his way to America when Russian tanks entered Czechoslovakia. The group was refused American visas, and French manager Antoine Bourseiller, who was planning to organize a few performances of the group at a later time, decided to add a few additional shows at Théâtre de L'Épée de Bois. So, Copermann concludes, “Thanks to the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Paris was able to discover Grotowski's Akropolis” (20).

68. Grotowski quoted in Schechner and Hoffman, 51.

69. In contemporary drama, the structure that most closely parallels Grotowski's approach is Peter Weiss's 1964 Marat/Sade, in which the prisoners of the 1808 mental hospital in Charenton near Paris reenact the assassination of Marat, one of the French Revolution's bloodiest leaders. The play within the play is written by Marquis de Sade, who at that time was one of the inmates at Charenton. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Marat/Sade was first performed in West Berlin in 1964 under the direction of Konrad Swinarski (1929–75), a Polish theatre director who had worked and studied at Brecht's Berliner Ensemble during 1955–7.

70. Kalemba-Kasprzak, 214–15.

71. Wolford, Lisa, Grotowski's Objective Drama Research (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996), 198Google Scholar.

72. Kalemba-Kasprzak, 221–2. Lisa Wolford points that that “a feminist critic might construct an interesting analysis of Akropolis, in which female characters were represented by male actors and inanimate objects (the biblical Rachel signified by a stovepipe), but male characters were consistently embodied by men”; Wolford, 198–9.

73. Miłosz, Czesław, Zniewolony umysł [The Captive Mind] (1953; Warszawa: Logos, 1981)Google Scholar.

74. Borowski, Tadeusz, “Alicja w Krainie Czarów” [Alice in Wonderland], Pokolenie 1 (12 January 1947): 9Google Scholar, 63, at 9; quoted in Jan Kott, “Introduction,” trans. Michael Kandel, in Borowski, Tadeusz, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, ed. and trans. Vedder, Barbara (New York: Penguin Classics, 1992), 11–28, at 22Google Scholar.

75. Howe, Irving, “Writing and the Holocaust,” New Republic (27 October 1986)Google Scholar, 27–39, at 27.

76. Kott, 24.

77. Kalemba-Kasprzak, 224.

78. Flaszen, “Wyspiański's Akropolis,” 62.

79. Wyspiański's letter quoted in Osiński, “‘Akropolis’ w Teatrze Laboratorium,” 309.

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84. Flaszen quoted in Osiński, “‘Akropolis’ w Teatrze Laboratorium,” 311.

85. Barba, 73.

86. Clurman, 161.

87. Grotowski quoted in Schechner and Hoffman, 50–1. Jerzy Gurawski wrote that “the finale had a shocking effect as the actors disappeared in a big trunk, in which they sacked themselves up according to a pre-designed plan.” Gurawski quoted in Osiński, Jerzy Grotowski, 135.

88. Kalemba-Kasprzak, 221.

89. Osiński, Zbigniew, Teatr Dionizosa: Romantyzm w polskim teatrze wpołczesnym [Dionysian Theatre: Romanticism in Polish Contemporary Theatre] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1972), 175Google Scholar.

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92. Kalemba-Kasprzak, 212.

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