On All Fours tells the story of an old infantile writer, who like the brilliant French painter Maurice Utrille, is happiest about his electric train. Laurent's fun is disturbed by the overprotective maid Pelasia and the swarm of intruders who want to bask in his glory. His office will soon be invaded by 'The Girl' who presumably wants to write a dissertation. However, she doesn't spare any efforts to seduce him, quickly becoming his wife and heiress. The dead Laurenty will still be sipping Pelasias soup in his apartment – now turned into a museum – where the Widow shows the Profane around telling completely delusive stories.
Różewicz’s works often annoyed, provoked, and occasionally incited outrage. The hyper-charged sexuality of the characters in his morally subversive and pioneering White Wedding tore apart the atmosphere of an old gentry manor, in which to girls became women. The erotic staffage – now really naive – provoked a critical outcry, among them party members such as Atrur Sandauer. Meanwhile the first post-war topless scene, with Barbara Sułkowska as Paulina under the direction of Tadeusz Minc, brought crowds of spectators to The Small Theater.
Do Piachu earned itself a bad reputation among the Home Army veterans. Różewicz described guerrilla life, but without the patriotic highs, presenting what other often fail to mention: the mud, dirt, lice, blood, poor quality food, the disconnection from our close ones, the absence of women, the severe discipline. Waluś, a village peasant who dreams of seeing Kraków and Częstochowa, comes back from a predatory excursion. His two superiors who took part in it have made off with the loot. The commanders focus their anger on the boy with animal treatment to which he uncertainly obeys. Różewicz’s anti-epic about anti-heroes, the absurdities of war and the dehumanization it causes, futile sacrifice in the name of a restrictive law, caring for thy neighbour, his pain, suffering and death, probes the boundaries of human debasement and sacrifice.
The outrage of the veteran milieu that broke out after the first two stagings of the play (by Tadeusz Łomnicki in the Warsaw Teatr Na Woli in 1979 and Kazimierz Kutz in The Television Theater in 1991) caused the author to place limitations on access to his works. Of late, only Janusz Opryński and Witold Mazurkiewicz have succeeded, on behalf of from the Provisorium Theater and the Theater Company in Lublin, in 2003.
Neither scandal nor subversiveness alone necessitates greatness, as some worshipers of theatrical currents may assert; these qualities must be supported by artistic justification.
The contents of the play Trelemorele can be best summed up in the subtitle: 'A soap opera for public and private television.' Różewicz blatantly undermined the language of the medium that in attempt to be endearing ultimately becomes jibberish mixed with a dose of kitsch and perversity. The family in front of the set consumes the medley of images that flow out of debilitating game shows, infantile commercials, imbecile series and unreliable news. A nervous walk among the channels doesn't change anything. Everywhere it is the same thing, equally nauseous and hopeless.
The timelessness of his plays, avant-garde in form and rebellious in content, is also not confirmed by the frequency in which these works are staged. Despite being a few decades old they retain a contemporary bite. With bitter irony they show the everyday life of the Warsaw intelligence, as seen by one of the most clear-sighted annalists of Polish reality in recent history.
His plays provoke imagination with a metaphorical, intelligent and often razor-sharp language. The longevity of those plays abroad indicates that his language resonates with an international audience.
Różewicz addressed the most serious matters in a fickly, roguish manner, a subversive, who like Stańczyk, dons the jester's mask to shamelessly hit you in the face with the truth.