Chapter 7 - Modernist Theatre

Summary

Polish theatre modernism covers the fin de siècle, the interwar period and contemporaneity. Katarzyna Fazan analyses its dramaturgy and materialization on stage. Wyspiański’s Monumental Theatre was used by Schiller to promote a form of nationalism in the interwar period, but reappears in the post-1989 transformation in the theatre of Grzegorzewski to help explore national identity, memory and the past itself. This reveals the tension between Polish traditionalism, conservatism and processes of social democratization. However, this progressive function – as a training ground for new lived experiences and arena for generating subversive cultural and social relations (Wyspiański, Przybyszewski and Zapolska) – does not necessarily lead to the theatre’s own renewal, as noted by Jarząbek-Wasyl in her analysis of artistic directorship, actors and the status of the audience in Polish modernist theatre. She analyses the forms of theatre (especially in Kraków and Lwów) from entertainment to being a site of political, social and moral protest to suggest that modernist theatre represents heteronomous unity refracting neo-Romantic, twentieth-century avant-garde and postmodern attributes.