fbpx A Real Fictitious Discourse | HowlRound Theatre Commons

A Real Fictitious Discourse

Weronika Szczawińska

This week on HowlRound, we're looking at different kinds of theater happening in Poland. In this series, we'll be exploring the historical tradition of the Polish public theater, the ubiquity of Polish theater festivals, how theater in Poland has anticipated and responded to politics, and the current dynamic and vital Polish theater scene.

Writing about my work with Weronika Szczawińska is not an easy task. Weronika has always inspired me, and she helped me grow in many ways: theatrically, artistically, socially, and intellectually. Despite knowing each other for more than a decade, we have never become lazy about setting goals for ourselves. I continue to be challenged by Weronika’s ideas, concepts, and attitudes—always trying not to repeat the same gestures, always questioning my own standpoint.

Weronika Szczawińska's theater is at the same time a political and social project—her main considerations are the ideas of awareness, of redefining structures, and of undermining the boxes she has been put into.

Weronika works as a director, a dramaturg, a playwright, and a cultural studies expert. She graduated with a degree in interdisciplinary humanities, and is now defending her PhD thesis. She studied directing at Warsaw Theater Academy. Her research deals with the relationship between theater and collective memory, gender representation, political theater, and how the canon of traditional theater may need to be revisited.

In Polish theater discourse, there seems to be one legitimate division: the notion of formal or formalistic theater, and that of psychological theater. The idea of formal theater is usually associated with conceptual, avant-garde, non-descriptive, and non-linear work. Weronika and I don’t mind being associated with this type of theater, as the traditional, text-based psychological theater that usually examines emotional relationships between characters lands farther from our interests. Strict categorizing generally does more harm than good, though; in this case, formal theater is known as theater for intellectuals, too hermetic to be accessible for wider audiences. But Weronika constantly proves just the opposite. Her idea of theater is based on the concept of wit, on the strategy of détournement, on replacing fixed meanings with flexible alternatives, and on humor.

Trailer for Genie im rollkragen Pullover at the National Old Theatre, in Krakow

In her work, Weronika explores the intertwining relationship of gestures, signs, and meanings. She draws inspiration from the moment when words, things, actions, and connotations come into conflict. She is mainly concerned with how to reinvent currently oppressive narratives, how to reshape exclusive social and artistic strategies into inclusive ones, and how to transform institutional distribution of hierarchical power into a platform for equality and mutual concern.

In Polish theater discourse, there seems to be one legitimate division: the notion of formal or formalistic theater, and that of psychological theater.

Weronika addresses these questions at the starting point of each process. She then reinvents the category of responsibility and redefines the notion of individual signature among her collaborators—she is not only working on the final performance, but also towards making sure all involved are aware and comfortable. Everyone has the certainty that they are working both with her and also developing their own ideas. Weronika works collaboratively—she works outside of traditional labels because of the focus of her interests and research.

Weronika’s theater is at the same time a political and social project—her main considerations are the ideas of awareness, of redefining structures, and of undermining the boxes she has been put into. Weronika seeks a way out, for an emergency exit, for the doors that open towards being label-free. She questions heritage, patrons, and authority figures, and then, from a leftist and anarchistic perspective, she implements the visions of cultural utopia.

There is always a social, cultural, or political issue that triggers Weronika's theater work. In How To Be Loved, we tried to examine the strategies of memory and mechanisms of remembrance, amidst The Ministry of Culture forcing certain narratives on Polish citizens and the ensuing political debate it caused. The performance attempted to reflect on what happens when communal narratives are acknowledged as heroic, traumatic, or fundamental for establishing a (false) sense of community.

In Genie im rollkragen Pullover at the National Old Theatre in Krakow, through creating fake, falsified, and imagined fragments from the biography of major theater director Konrad Swinarski, we looked at creating legends and untouchable authorities in the history of theater. This was right after the canceling and censoring Oliver Frljić's performance Undivine Comedy Remains by Jan Klata, head of National Old Theatre. Frljić's show was to address the issues raised by Swinarski in the 1960s, like Polish anti-Semitism, the idea of social revolution and the notion of authority. This turned out to be too much for the national institution. And so in Genie, we tried to examine strategies that are acceptable and those that are forbidden in this discourse.

Thumbnail

The list of Weronika's works is long and diverse. Her performances are rarely staged traditionally—one piece might be a staged concert, the next one, an installation. In her work she practices Marx’s idiom: "All that is solid melts into air”; she permanently seeks for a different perspective, she does not apply hard and fast rules, and she treats theater as a temporal field of and for experiment. She also remains faithful to the concept of Godard: "The problem is not to make political films, but to make films politically." Weronika is aware that reinventing any institutional structure has to begin with the inception of the work to truly hope for any kind of an egalitarian platform for elevated discourse and understanding.

***

Photo by Magda Hueckel

Bookmark this page

Log in to add a bookmark
Thoughts from the curator

An exploration of different kinds of theatre happening in Poland.

Polish Theatre

Comments

1
Add Comment

The article is just the start of the conversation—we want to know what you think about this subject, too! HowlRound is a space for knowledge-sharing, and we welcome spirited, thoughtful, and on-topic dialogue. Find our full comments policy here

Newest First

I wasn't familiar with that Godard quote and I like it. This notion of inventing real people has always interested me--from Cheryl Dunye's Watermelon Woman to Lynn Nottage's Vera Stark, to mention two that really play with blurring the lines.