From the Great Reform to the Post-dramatic: Adaptation in the Polish Postwar Theatre

• Published in: Canadian Slavonic papers 2010-03, Vol.52 (1-2), p.1-18
• Main Author: Cioffi, Kathleen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Audiences; British & Irish literature; Communism; Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924); Cultural studies; Drama; English literature; Epic dramas; Fiction; Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich (1809-1852); Literary criticism; Literature; Lyric poetry; Modernism; Montage; Motion picture industry; Narrative poetry; Novels; Poetic movements; Poetry; Poland; Polish language; Politics; Postmodernism; Prose; Russian literature; SPECIAL SECTION: POLISH THEATRE AND TRANSLATION; Theater; Theatre; Visual artists
• ISSN: 0008-5006; 2375-2475
• DOI: 10.1080/00085006.2010.11092634

The adaptation of literature not originally written for the stage into plays is extremely popular in present-day Polish theatre, and has evolved from roots in the Great Theatre Reform of the early twentieth century into a more avant-garde form than is typically seen in Anglophone theatre. The Great Reform notion of the director as auteur of a theatrical production is connected with theatrical adaptation, and was popularized in Poland by Leon Schiller, the founder of the directing department at the state theatre academy. In the early postwar era, Mieczysław Kotlarczyk's influential Rhapsodic Theatre also produced adaptations of many classic works of prose and epic poetry. Starting in the 1960s, student theatres as well developed their own special variety of adaptation, and Grotowski and Kantor also freely adapted literary works in avant-garde productions that served their own directorial visions. By 1989, both mainstream and alternative theatres had developed adaptation into a tool that was often used to mount productions that criticized the Communist regime. After 1989, Krystian Lupa and his students have continued to adapt literary works less for political reasons than to make personal or artistic statements. Modernist fiction and postmodern mash-ups now fuel the post-dramatic stage adaptations that flourish on the Polish stage today.