Afera (Scandal)
I live in New York, and certain things now have a smaller emotional impact. One journalist wanted to find out my opinion about the [Lew] Rywin scandal. When I asked him whether Rywin was the ski-jumper, he got offended.
Actors
Before the premiere of Cinder at the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, the actors came to Kutz, [the director], complaining they didn’t want to perform in such a shitty piece. When they came to me, they complained they didn’t want to perform with such a shitty director. In the end, Kazio [Kutz] and I started to hate each other. Two weeks before the premiere, we settled matters between us at the SPATIF club, with shots of żytnia, wyborowa, jarzębiak and soplica vodkas.
After another week, the actors suddenly realised that after all, they will be the ones performing, and not us. In desperation, they threw themselves into their work, but it was too late. It was only later, at the Royal Court Theatre in London, that I realised that this first original play I wrote was actually really good. The English critics considered it the best one of the season. General Jaruzelski was also a helping hand in the matter, proclaiming Martial Law right before the premiere.
Allusions
From Off the Top of My Head:
We should loyally admit that in Poland under the communist regime, we had exceptionally capable readers and viewers in terms of picking up on allusions… even when none were intended. It was enought to write that the protagonist is an alcoholic or a hunch-back, or that perhaps he’s cheating on his wife, and it was clear to everyone that the blame was on communism, and they honoured the author with standing ovations.
Anecdote
From the conversation with Bartosz Marzec, Życie jako Przydługa Anegdota (Life As An Overly Long Anecdote), in the Rzeczpospolita daily, 19th June 2007:
In Off the Top of My Head, every anecdote is there for a reason, each one is part of the whole story. Anecdotes reflect reality in an unparalleled way. In one flash, they express something that would otherwise require a five page-long description and explanation. The most holy of stories are saturated with anecdotes. There are people whose entire life gets remembered thanks to one anecdote. Anyway, isn’t life itself one big anecdote? Usually a somewhat long and failed one?
Bogart
When asked about thoughts that accompany his bitter facial expression of pain, capable of driving women to ecstasy, Humphrey Bogart replied that first he swallows a glass of whisky, and then puts the right shoe on his left foot.
Brando
When the young Marlon Brando started to play Stanley Kowalski at the Actors Studio in New York, Elia Kazan, who was directing A Streetcar Named Desire, had fits of helpless fury. The figure of a mean Pole started to become the audience’s favourite, against all common sense. And this completely altered the meaning of the play. Kazan begged Tennessee Williams to somehow influence the actor. But the author, who was in love with Marlon, only responded that he doesn’t care about the play’s meaning, and that Brando is OK. The success of the play was enormous.
Curiosity
From Off the Top of My Head:
To be quite honest, when the August protests began, I went to the Gdańsk Shipyard not as a rebellious romantic or in order to fight the communist authorities, but simply out of curiosity. I had absolutely no faith in any success of the protest. And not that much faith in the conversion of the intellectuals, writers and poets whose books I read in school. And what a surprise. The pathos of revolution, brave workers, conversions made of gold, the relentless Wałęsa. […] I felt stupid I hadn’t been a part of anticommunist activity. I started to resent myself. And I began to write the pompous Give us This Day. But, as I wrote, my bad character took over and instead of writing about the turmoils of an intellectual, I wrote a sad and funny little story about a poor, stupid guy who wants to do good, but can no longer tell the difference between good and evil.
Dno (Rock-bottom)
From Hunting Cockroaches:
HER: One mustn’t give up. So many Poles made it here. This is America (hunting for a cockroach, she slams the floor with a shoe, and a knocking from downstairs responds immediately).
HIM: Wait… There’s a knocking from downstairs.
HER: That means we haven’t hit rock-bottom yet.
Drama
The things I write must be performed seriously. That’s the general rule, because I write dramas and not comedy. Beckett wrote that there’s nothing as funny as misery. I think one must look for the comic in the tragic. And this works really well, because we all laugh when we see someone fail. Unfortunately, that’s human nature. My plays should be performed in contrast to what Chekhov asked for. He asked to be played funny, and he was played seriously. Please don’t write this down, because they will say I’m comparing myself to Chekhov and that’s just outrageous insolence.
Eroticism
From Erotyzm Ciemny i Jasny (Dark and Light Eroticism):
Two books were published recently, and, glittering among the grey of our literary life, they became real best-sellers. I am of course referring to Joyce’s Ulysses and Głupia Sprawa (editor’s translation: A Silly Affair) by Stanisław Ryszard Dobrowolski. [...] The protagonist of Joyce’s book analyses Shakespeare’s works, and the protagonist of A Silly Affair analyses and makes a favourable critique of one of Dobrowolski’s books, and this is a more interesting formal experiment: ’The man [the author, Janusz Głowacki adds] isn’t that stupid, and to think this was written so many years ago, and yet seems to be so fitting today.’ Dobrowolski juxtaposes Ulysses’ dark eroticism with warm, lyrical descriptions: ’Usually reserved in expressing her feelings, Zofia was bubbling with the youthful joy of life, and didn’t recoil from coquetry. "Will you love me?," she asked him directly, when she found the right moment for it… "Well, then give me… some peanuts," she lowered her voice to a pianissimo.’ And this description ends with an allusion to antiquity, coming close to Joyce '…Right in front of them, serious walkers strode close by in the neighbouring alley, like shadows in the asphodel-white eternal valley of silence over the Styx.'
Farce
There are numerous misunderstandings in Poland, when things which are perceived as funny are also performed as funny. Obviously, you can only perform like that when it’s meant to be farce. My plays can be funny when staged in a dramatic way, like a tragedy. Then the laughter gets somewhat choked, it’s a chuckle.
Fart (Luck)
From a conversation with Bartosz Marzec, Mocno Skomplikowany Moralista (A Highly Complicated Moralist), in the Rzeczpospolita daily, 25th September 2004:
- You went to America and rather quickly, you became successful. But in your book, you show how you weren’t always so lucky.
- Oh, that’s very Polish. No one can actually write well, unless they’re really lucky. He must have been aided by Jews or paedophiles.
Garnitur (Suit)
From Materiał (editor’s translation: Material):
Mr. Janusz, I am writing it up in order, type it up on your machine and put it together so it turns out good. I am a man of success. A man, to put it briefly, with the best hopes for the future. (…) The indifference of Gałła the clerk made it possible for me to sleep in the storage space, to sleep on a bed of iron, and also to use the stove with the right to add logs to the fire at night. The storage space has a beautiful view onto the city, which is constantly growing. (…) I am also of excellent health, and of a short height and because of the fact that I rarely eat, I am the object of my friends’ envy. I do not place myself above others for this reason, it is simply how I came into this world. It recently dawned on me to buy a suit, a suit which was shown on television thanks to the clothing store recently opened by new authorities.
Hitler
From Tadeusz Nyczek’s Po Co Jest Sztuka? Rozmowy z Pisarzami (What is Art For? Conversations with Writers), part I, Kraków 2012:
Now they’re making fun of Hitler, how he was a painter, how he wore a moustache… But he meant well. He wanted for Germans to stretch their legs out in a hammock, while Slavs served them vodka.
Intelligence
From The Fourth Sister:
Like any intelligent person, we only move from our residence to our car, and from the car to the boutique. And if we go to the theatre, it’s with bodyguards.
Irony
From the conversation with Marcin Król, Komedia o Rozpaczy (Comedy About Despair), in the Tygodnik Powszechny weekly, no. 19/1993:
Self-irony helped me (…) write Hunting Cockroaches, where I took no pity on my fate. The Kraków television channel staged this sad comedy as some reproachful mystery. I understand the director meant well, he wanted to pull me up a notch. Because irony isn’t valued in Poland. Pathos, sentimentality and reasoning are much more cherished.
Jajko (Egg)
From Off the Top of My Head:
After my high-school exam, in spite of the objections of my uncle, who was a well-known actor and who had his reasons to claim I have no talent, together with crowd of ungifted candidates, I was accepted to the theatre school on Miodowa street. They taught us using the simplified Stanislavsky method, I mean they told us to alter between identifying [with the character] and being empathetic. (…) I rolled on the floor like an egg or murmured like a tree in November Night, and I wasn’t as good at it as the others. I’ll tell you the truth: I completely refused to be an egg. Professor Maria Wiercińska asked me, 'Janusz, how come you don’t want to roll like the others?,' 'Because I am embarrassed in front of you,' I replied honestly. And that was the first time they accused me of cynicism.
Kariera (Career)
- You’re making an international name for yourself.
- What else am I supposed to make…
Komedie (Comedies)
In response to a question from the audience during a meeting with the writer:
- Why don’t you write things that bring relief, some light comedies?
- Probably because after Chekhov, the world has made some further depressive steps.
Kultura (Manners)
From Tadeusz Nyczek’s Po Co Jest Sztuka? Rozmowy z Pisarzami (What is Art For? Conversations with Writers), part I, Kraków 2012:
I was recently on a plane to New York. People are always lining up for the check-in to that destination. And a lady shoved in front of me. I didn’t say anything, I thought to myself, I’ll fly, anyway. And then a young little bull with a shaved head jumped out from behind. He caught her hand, and pulled her out the line, saying 'Show some manners, you fuck!’
Ludzka strona (The human side)
From Off the Top of My Head:
I liked how in Przybyszewski’s case, as long as he was healthy, strong, and ruining his first wife Dagny, the women in his plays were monsters and a fatal force. Later, he aged, took to the bottle, and married Jadwiga Kasprowiczowa, whom he was afraid of because she beat him. Ever since then, women in his plays began to symbolise joy, happiness and salvation. This human side of his writing really spoke to me.
The media have become a business. They bring in more income than prostitution and drug dealing, and they’re respected and admired.
Mieszkanie (Apartment)
From Off the Top of My Head:
I wanted to have a flat of my own, but I didn’t have the money to buy it. I did belong to some co-op and I was put on the waiting-list for a place, waiting for years, like everyone else. I also wrote numerous applications. Once, in an attempt to impress the urban authorities, I wrote that I live together with my alcoholic mother and mentally ill father, but my mother was furious because she hated alcoholics, and she made me change the application, saying she’ll be the mentally ill one, while my father will be the alcoholic. My father didn’t care. Once we even had a visit from a special committee. My mother played rather well, because she started to holler 'It’s a scandal for a young writer not to have a place of his own!,' so they believed she could be a lunatic. My father, for whom I bought half a litre of vodka, although he did take a sip, refused to lay down on the floor and sing. And they didn’t speed up my application.
Nagroda (Award)
At the reception of the Warszawski Twórca (Warsaw Artist) award, 14th October 2011:
I divide awards into two categories: those which I haven’t received and have a deep contempt for, and those which I did receive and highly value.
Napięcie (Tension)
From a conversation with Katarzyna Bielas and Jacek Szczerba, Nic Tak Dobrze Nie Robi Pisarzowi jak Upokorzenia (Nothing’s As Good for a Writer As Humiliation), Magazyn monthly of the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, no. 237/1998:
- New York creates incredible tension. Some tolerate it better than others. Here, many people talk to themselves. It’s not only the homeless or mentally ill who talk to themselves, but also the rich players of Wall Street. It used to seem funny to me, but now I listen to it carefully. In the street, in the metro, at the bar.
- And do you talk to yourself?
- In New York, I do. (…) In English. With a Polish accent.
Niemoc twórcza (Creative impasse)
From Hunting Cockroaches:
HER: […] God! Why don’t you write anything. Such a sick mind gets wasted. We could have bought ourselves a house already with all these obsessions of yours. (…) I bought you this book on purpose, The Dollar as Your Friend, but you haven’t even looked at it.
HIM: You didn’t buy it, you found it in the rubbish. You want me to read a book about making money that someone threw out.
Onieśmielenie (Intimidation)
- Cinder will be a part of the repertoire of the National Theatre in Warsaw. Does this make you feel like a classic?
- Of course, I am intimidated.
Poczucie humoru (Sense of humour)
From a conversation with Magdalena Walusiak for www.empik.com:
I wrote Sonia, Która Za Dużo Chciała (editor’s translation: Sonia Who Wanted Too Much) in the tone of the Off the Top of My Head novel. It’s an almost-true story of a pretty, intelligent girl who didn’t make it in life. She emigrated, and she didn’t end up doing too well… She once did an interview with Lech Wałęsa for Playboy, and in New York, she tried to convince me to do an interview with the pope with her. Also for Playboy! I explained to her that the pope has a wonderful sense of humour, but a slightly different one. I suggested, 'What about Havel?,' as he had just become president then. She shook her head, 'No, they’ll pay 70,000 dollars for the pope, and only 30 for Havel. It’s not worth it.'
Pokora (Humility)
It could be a very interesting meeting for the actors, because Will Pomerantz is a good director. Good for New York standards, and not Warsaw, of course, because I am always informed that Polish theatre is the best in the world, which I humbly accept. Pomerantz will leave after the premiere, and he won’t understand the reviews, anyway.
Procedures
Once, when car fuel used to be rationed, there were men who went around at night with rubber tubes, opening up gas tanks to suck out the fuel and spit it into canisters. We’d call them vampires. They had terrible breath, because they always ended up drinking some of the stuff in the course of their hunt.
A driver’s licence, as far as I remember, cost 6,000 old zlotys, I mean for that amount they delivered it to your house. It seems like everything was done like that. The swimmer’s card could be obtained for 200 zlotys flat at the Legia stadium. Nowadays, when you sell concessions and deals for millions, those procedures seem somewhat comic.
Rozczarowanie (Disappointment)
The premiere of Cinder at the Joseph Papp Public Theatre in New York was brilliantly performed by Christopher Walken, who had just got an Oscar for The Deer Hunter, and Dori Hartley, a great actress known from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She once changed her sex, but was disappointed, so she returned to her previous one.
Success
Back home, everyone was surprised and even wrote about it with dismay, that I somehow had made it in America, while really, I shouldn’t have. This is something that’s often hinted at. It’s unfair, because there are many writers here, more gifted, much more talented, while I am the one who is successful, and this isn’t fair. Oh well, it’s too bad, I’ll endure it with dignity.
Szacunek (Respect)
From Off the Top of My Head:
Recently, I was walking back home in the evening, and on the other side of a brick wall, I saw the head of parking guard. 'Mr. Janusz!,' he called out, 'Please, come over here.' He shook my hand fiercely a couple of times. 'You don’t even know how much I respect you. Forgive me, for urinating at the moment.' I thought maybe I should return to Poland, after all.
Sztuka (Art)
From Tadeusz Nyczek’s Po Co Jest Sztuka? Rozmowy z Pisarzami (What is Art For? Conversations with Writers), part I, Kraków 2012:
Let’s say that for me art begins in the same place as risk. Not political risk. A risk in the language, in the imagination.
Świat (The World)
From The Fourth Sister:
Maybe things used to be more cruel once, but definitely not any more stupid.
Teatr polski (Polish theatre)
Speaking about this matter is troublesome for me, because Polish theatre is known to be the best in the world – in Poland.
Uczciwość (Honesty)
From the introduction to the Five and a Half selection of plays:
After The Fourth Sister was printed by the Dialog monthly, one influential Polish critic noticed that'the idea is brutally copied from Chekhov.' Unfortunately, it isn’t my first theft. In Cinders, I pickpocketed the Grimm brothers. With Antigone in New York, I hit up Sophocles, etc. What encouraged me was the knowledge that a rather large self-supporting gang was out and about in the world, too. I don’t want to give any names, so I will only list some titles, such as Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, Predstava Hamleta u selu Mrduša Donja, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Dismissal of the Greek Envoys, and many others. From this place, I would like to appeal to the the conscience of those authors, who are alive. Come out and reveal yourselves!
The fact that I was caught in the act by a Pole is logical and inevitable. After all, our country is especially sensitive to moral issues. And it is renowned worldwide for its honesty.
Upokorzenie (Humiliation)
From the conversation with Marcin Król, Komedia o Rozpaczy (Comedy of Despair), in the Tygodnik Powszechny weekly, no. 19/1993
I have this one favourite scene in Dostoyevsky’s Double, when councillor Goladkin suffers an infernal series of humiliations as he ponders whether he should sneak into a party through the back door, when they don’t want to let him in at the front. Well, that is what my day in New York was like… When I complained about this to the New Yorkers, they didn’t really understand. The rule is to get in, at any price. Once you’re in, you’ve won!
Warsztat (Technique)
From the conversation with Bartosz Marzec, Życie jako Przydługa Anegdota (Life as an Overly Long Anecdote), in the Rzeczpospolita daily, 19 June 2007:
- You once said that you like writing on the other side of a piece of paper that's already been written on. In Fortinbras Gets Drunk, you made various allusions to Shakespeare, in The Fourth Sister – to Chekhov, and in Antigone in New York – Sophocles.
Who else would you like to tackle?
- Dobraczyński.
Wiarygodność (Credibility)
- Can one believe in the things you say as a writer, as a dreamer who conjures up worlds of his own?
- Absolutely not. It’s so true, that you can’t believe it.
Wykształcenie (Education)
From Give Us This Day:
I didn’t get through the door and joyfully, I marched around this cold little nest, planning out the placement of my little procession, which, after the sudden death of the 7-year old, consisted of three children, all of whom were in pre-school, and I immediately swore to myself that I would set them on the righteous course of patriotism, a course filled with merciless sacrifice and supported by education, the kind that I myself was subject to for four years, thanks to the comprehensive aid of the state.
Wybór (Choice)
From a conversation with Magdalena Walusiak on www.empik.com:
The story of a boy from Żyrardów, who stabbed a man to death one night, totally pointlessly. It turned out he actually murdered an ORMO [Volunteer Reserve Militia] officer, so he was hanged. I went there. And it was incredible, because I talked to a major from the Warsaw investigation department, who also came. His eyes were really cold. ’How did we catch him? There wasn’t any trouble.’, he said. 'Once Warsaw takes interest in an investigation, it’s conducted very energetically. By the time we arrive, there are already a dozen guys who’ve admitted to the charges. So it’s not about catching them, but about choosing them.', 'And?' I ask, 'Do you choose the right one?', 'Sometimes.'
Jesus!, I thought, I have to write a story about this. Żyrardów is a town of physical workers. Back then there was almost no sewage system there. In the evenings, men would pop out to get water with buckets. It was a way of getting out of the house. But before getting the water, they’d hit the bars. And they would hang these buckets up on numbered hangers, like coats. There were rows of buckets hanging. And I wrote a story about two guys, Ból Gardła na Dwóch (editor’s translation: A Soar Throat For Two). One had a sore throat, and the other got hanged.
Wypadek (Accident)
I can tell you how I almost got killed in a car. Even though, as you can see, I survived, I got scared, I suffered, and I lost the car, so it will be a nice read.
I was driving from Obory to Warsaw at night. There was some construction work in Jeziorno, one of the turns was closed off, I got lost. I saw a bus in front of me, with a trailer, I thought it must the end, I passed out and crashed into it head-on. Some good news for the drivers now. It all happens really quickly, and doesn’t hurt at all. I was wearing my seat belt and I was driving a very low sports Fiat 128 3p, so the blow was weakened and I slid underneath the bus.
When I regained consciousness, about half a metre ahead of me I saw lights, a bumper, and some people running around. The thing was that water from the cooler spilled onto the steaming engine, so everybody was running, because they thought it would explode. This only strengthened my already fierce faith in human solidarity. I waited for the ambulance in a ditch, pressing down with a finger on the little artery on my temple, which got cut by the glass and was squirting out blood. The ambulance came with no doctor, only the driver, who asked me how I was feeling. Fine, I told him. To which he responded that that doesn’t prove anything, because yesterday he drove someone who said the same thing, and then turned out to be dead when they arrived at the hospital.
It was a Saturday night ER at Banacha hospital, so the corridors were filled with drunk, beaten and cut up men and women, while drunk doctors circled between them. They made me wander around different levels of the hospital for some X-rays. This was an occasion to learn that drunkest doctor of all was my colleague from the SPATiF (Association of Polish Theater and Film Artists) club. He shouted for me not to move, as I could die any second. He was in a bad mood, because they brought in a lady who got hit by a tram. First of all, she couldn’t be saved, second, she had 1,500 dollars on her. There were three of them trying to save her, but because they didn’t trust each other, after a long inner battle, they decided to give her over to someone else.
One sober doctor brought me a pair of pyjamas and told me I must stay at the hospital, but my drunk colleague said it wasn’t a prison and I should sign a paper saying I am leaving at my own risk, and I could go wherever I wanted to. I signed it, they put a cast on my arm, stitched up my little artery, smeared my face with some purple stuff, and I left.
A drunk guy in the waiting room started to shout that I entered 'unpainted,' so the doctors surely must’ve beaten me up. He wanted to avenge me, which I found very moving.
At home, I was woken in the morning by phone call. It was my doctor-friend who had sobered up and was shouting 'Thank God you’re alive! You had no right to go home.', 'I’m alive,' I said, 'but that cast you put on fell off.' 'Don’t bother about the cast!', he responded, 'you could have died at any moment’.
Zasada (amerykańska) (The [American] rule)
The rule is: you’re only as good as the last thing you’ve done. And it’s true. The next play must be a success, otherwise I will 'fall down’ again. And it’s incredibly crowded down there.
Zło (Evil)
From Cinder:
Waves of pure moral evil will crash against the walls of our penitentiary, like they once did against the walls of the holy Carmel fortress, flowing in from the West, under the guise of democracy.
Znakomitość (Excellency)
From Off the Top of My Head:
Thanks to the actions of General Jaruzelski, and the harm suffered by the Polish nation, in one instant I was transformed from a completely unknown provincial writer into someone of excellence. (...) Journalists queued up, and the reviews unanimously underscored the anti-totalitarian character and the somber, Kafkanesque humour of [Cinder].
Życie (Life)
From Good Night, Dżerzi:
Jody’s mother loved her father and books, and she infected her daughter with the latter. Her father was handsome, with grey hair, he had asthma, a couple of lovers and smoked red Marlboros. And mother was good to an unbearable degree.
Once, coming back home from school in the winter, Jody saw her out in the street, jumping up and down from the cold. ’Father is so ill,’ she said to her daughter. ‘Claudia, that fat lover of his is with him. I’m waiting for her to leave. Let him get something out of life while he still can.’
Originally written in Polish by Janusz R. Kowalczyk, Sep 2013, translated by Paulina Schlosser, Sep 2017
Unless otherwise indicated, all of the citations come from interviews with Janusz Głowacki conducted by the author of this text for the Rzeczpospolita magazine between 1990–2009.