Reconfigurations of Masculinity in Recent Polish Theatre

2021

The second half of the 20th century witnessed – both in Eastern and Western of Europe – a process of re-balance and a restructuring of the landscape related to gender in the field of theatre criticism. Depending on the tradition and specific legal/working circumstances, in some European cultures the phenomenon was a slower or a faster one. In the 60s, for example, most of the people who exercised (constantly or accidentally) theatre criticism in media or in the academic milieu were man. After 1965, depending on the cultural, politic, or household specificities, the presence of women specialized in cultural journalism, theatre history and theory or usual reviewing is in a constant expansion; so much so that, at the beginning of the 21st century, more visible in Eastern Europe, the proportion between men and women theatre critics is completely de-balanced, in favor of the latter. This paper tries to analyze only some particularities of this phenomenon of gender change of dominances in Romania, the second half of 20th century. Of course, the processes that we’ll try to follow depend on the specific evolution of Romanian cultural landscape; still, our hypothesis tends to suggest that they took place, in similar ways, in many other European countries, at least in the ex-communist area anyway.

Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Sociologica, 2020

This article aims to provide a comparative analysis of the social condition of actors during the communist era in Poland and after the political transformation of 1989. The empirical material used by the author includes popular science publications devoted to actors of Polish public drama theatres as well as free-flowing interviews conducted by the author in 2015–2017 with theatre artists representing six Polish theatrical centres. Actors who remember the period of the People’s Republic of Poland well are nostalgic about the past theatrical life, they remember being on familiar terms within theatre teams, anti-rankism, and the inclusion of technical and administrative staff in the community of artists without emphasising hierarchies. Today, the social, ideological and political divides in theatre teams are more noticeable. Distinguished actors are being challenged by young colleagues, while they were held in high regard in the past. Nowadays, multi-active actors demythologise the pr...

Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej, 2020

The fundamental objective of the studies was to reconstruct and analyze the category of masculinity in the media discourse that refers to Robert Lewandowski as well as to describe and interpret the most important discursive strategies used in creating the image of the footballer. The research material includes almost 120 Polish-language media messages: mainly Internet articles, commercial spots, and interviews, all of which appeared in the years 2013-2019. This article presents the results of the critical analysis of the discourse, including proposals of the discourse-historical approach. The prime theoretical framework of the studies is made up of the theory of hegemonic masculinity on the one hand and the theory of inclusive masculinity on the other, as well as the concept of caring masculinities. The discourse on Lewandowski is not homogeneous; it includes elements derived from different versions of masculinity. The discourse is divided into two parts: one connected with the prof...

2021

This article discusses the #metoo movement in the Polish theatre. The author, referring to the thesis by Agnès Grossmann, notes that just like in the cinema, in which #metoo was initiated, the theatre reproduces images of women subjected to the male gaze. She then looks at how this problem of representation translates into the working conditions of women in the theatre. The paper presents the current state of research and actions regarding violence (including sexual violence) in theatres around the world. Applying these considerations to Poland, the author writes how this problem resonates with the situation of women in Poland. In the context of the theatre, the location of substantive and practical preparation for #metoo were theatre schools. Surveying events in the two most important and prestigious centres of theatre education, the author first makes a diagnosis of existing problems and then examines the process of combating them through the prism of Sarah Ahmed's concept of ...

In 2012 we published the first English-language edition of Didaskalia. We now present the second issue, containing a selection of texts printed in our magazine between 2011-2013. The articles and interviews chosen for publication present the key phenomena in Polish theater, as well as the current academic interests and methodological approaches to theater history and today’s theater in contemporary theater studies. We begin with texts that deal with the reinterpretation of the Jerzy Grotowski’s work. Grotowski, Women, and Homosexuals: Marginal Notes to the “Human Drama” might be seen as an extension of Agata Adamiecka-Sitek’s reflections on gender in Grotowski’s theater contained in the “The Gender of the Performer” (co-written by Weronika Szczawińska), found in the previous English-language issue. This time the critic analyzes Apocalypsis cum figuris (chiefly based on the recording of the performance), demonstrating the dramatization of the misogynist discourse of psychoanalysis and male homosexuality in the play. This work polemicizes with interpretations to date, and serves as a point of departure for discussions on Grotowski’s work and the methodology of researching the history of theater contained in Adamiecka-Sitek’s correspondence with Leszek Kolankiewicz. In the following part we publish texts dealing with the issue of “negative performativity,” which appeared in Didaskalia in the context of works by Judith Halberstam and Bojana Kunst. Joanna Jopek transplants this concept in the context of Polish visual and performative art by Oskar Dawicki, Joanna Rajkowska, and Cezary Bodzianowski, indicating the anti-political, critical potential of failure that it contains. An important point of reference in her study is a pair of interviews with Oskar Dawicki. In these conversations the author less illuminates the process of making the film Perfomer (devoted to his work) than gives extremely different responses to the same questions, continuing his game with the image of the artist. Part Three, on the other hand, is entirely devoted to new Polish theater, though it closely corresponds with the issues raised in the preceding sections. In the article “Embarrassing Performances by Losers: Counterhistories of Political Theater,” Marcin Kościelniak focuses on counterhistory theater projects, putting forward the thesis that they “are most insightful in our day in realizing the postulates of political art and are creating the most fascinating and vital movement in Polish theater.” Isolating three models of writing counterhistories for stage, the author analyzes projects by duos of dramaturgs and directors: Paweł Demirski and Monika Strzępka, Jolanta Janiczak and Wiktor Rubin, and Marcin Cecko and Krzysztof Garbaczewski. His theoretical reflections are supplemented by a conversation with Justyna Wasilewska on her work on the title role in Marcin Cecko and Krzysztof Garbaczewski’s Balladyna. The subject of creating the image of the artist returns in two more texts, where it is shifted into media discourse and its impact on the reception of art. In her article “Covered/Uncovered: Memory Games in the Promised Theater” Małgorzata Dziewulska examines promotional strategies in theaters and the media discourse that accompanied two chronologically remote premieres: Jerzy Jarocki’s Dream of the Sinless of 1979 and Krzysztof Warlikowski’s (A)pollonia of 2009. She points out that the discrepancy between the advertisements for the performances before the premiere and the final form of the plays affected the content of the reviews, and ultimately modified the plays themselves. Monika Kwaśniewska, in turn, analyzes Jan Klata’s strategies of self-depiction, tracing his statements in the media. Kwaśniewska wonders what happened to make Klata (presently the director of the National Stary Theater in Krakow) the face of the new political theater, thereafter evolving into the “specialist on Polishness,” an “expert” on national issues. The subject of the texts in the final section is the phenomenon of the choir in contemporary theater. The texts by Ewa Guderian-Czaplińska and Agata Łuksza on two projects by Marta Górnicka at the Theater Institute in Warsaw – [‘hu:r kobj+] (“[ˈkɔːrəs əv wɪmən]”) (a play made with amateurs, dealing with the place of women in culture) and Requiemmachine (a performance that uses pieces by Władysław Broniewski to comment on the neo-liberal labor model) – are summed up by a conversation with the artist. In the interview “I Sing the Body Electric” Marta Górnicka speaks of the concept of the choir, created by individuals. She calls the language in her play a kind of speech cleansed of psychology, recalling the sound of a computer or a machine. The director relates the process of creating a choir, and the work in creating a new actor/performer through training sessions during rehearsals. The motif of the theatrical chorus branches out into various themes, lending itself to feminist, historical, political, and aesthetic reflections, concerning the phenomenon of musicality in the theater.

2004

The book directly opens possibilities for cross examination of the theatre theory status, the formations from the history of theatre and the potential contextualisations of theatre works (procedures, institutions, events) in Slovenian culture after the year 1950. The author’s selection of examples (theatre works, contexts, author profiles, historical orientations) remains within the field of evolutions, revolutions and deconstructions of the theatre work, ranging from radical modernist existential theatre (such as Oder 57) and late-modernist or neo-avant-garde experimental groups (Pupilija Ferkeverk, Glej, Pekarna) to postmodern eclecticisms of the 80s (the directing practice of Jovanovič, Ristič, Pandur and Živadinov) and plural happenings of the conflict or non-conflict heterogeneities of the dramatic and postdramatic theatre in the 90s (Meta Hočevar, Pandur, Betontanc, Kušej, Berger, Hrvatin, Živadinov). That is history, but a history which is theoreticised in the sense that has been let through the interpretative filters of contemporary theories, which serve the examination of the thesis on the confrontation of textocentrism and scenocentrism. (Miško Šuvaković about the book)

Studia Sociologia, 2019

In Romania, sociological investigations on theatre are mere illusions that drift further and further away into the sky. In the last 30 years, a few theatres commissioned surveys to measure, as best as they could, the structure and the preferences of their own audience, over shorter (in the case of the 2003 first survey draft at Odeon Theatre, the research lasted no more than one weekend) or longer spans of time (in 2015, at Nottara Theatre, IMAS conducted a survey during a month; the survey applied at the Bucharest National Theatre in 2013 remained a legend, or a rumour rather, as the management treated it with mysterious silence). This paper tries to follow the intentions and the destiny of the researches and surveys dedicated to the theatre sociology by Pavel Câmpeanu and his small team between 1968-1974.

Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics

The article analyses several films made within Eastern Europe during the first decade of the postcommunist period that represent the crisis of traditional gender models which permeated popular cinema. As the author argues the films represent 'transition cultures' in regard to gender discourse. The film Ildikó Enyedi's My Twentieth Century (Az én XX. századom, Hungary/GDR/ Cuba, 1989) destabilises normative models of femininity by means of both the narrative content and formal strategies. Dorota Kędzierzawska's Nothing (Nic, Poland, 1998) and Ildikó Szabó's, Child Murders (Gyerekgyilkosságok, Hungary, 1993) denounce its discriminatory politics, especially effective on women that represent marginalised sectors of society. Finally, The Garden (Záhrada, Slovakia, France, 1995) directed by Martin Šulík, demonstrates how breaking with the code of realism facilitates the process of 'correction of patriarchy'. The article will establish that these films significantly disrupt the national and thus patriarchal mode of address. This shift from the national to the gendered mode of identification also marks a new point of encounter between Eastern European and Western feminism. Due to represented gender uncertainty and aesthetic modes of spectatorial distanciation, the analysed works indicate this resistance and scepticism towards any singular mode of identification.

Theatre After the Change. And What Was There Before the After?, vol. 2, Budapest , 2010

On the representation of women before and after 1989, from Lucia Demetrius and Ecaterina Oproiu to Nicoleta Esinencu and Gianina Cărbunariu.