‘Othello’ in Poland: Notes from a Director's Diary

Abstract

In 1980 Wilfred Harrison was invited to Poland to direct Shakespeare's Othello, of which the Polish playwright Bohdan Drozdowski had prepared a translation. The following account. taken from the diary Harrison kept of rehearsals at the Wilama Horzycy Theatre in Tourn, decribes the encounter between an experienced British director and his Polish company from the first reading on 29 January to the opening night on 2 March, reveating some intriguing differences between two cultures andtwo conceptions of theatrical converntion. Wilfred Harrison was director for thirteen years of the Octagon Theatre, Botton, having earlier been founding-director of the moblie Century Theatre. Now a freeiance, he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1974, and has continued to travel Widely: his Othello earned him the Amicus Poloniae award in 1981, and also an invitation to direct in Bulgaria, where the production tourned.