High Culture: What Does Polish Theatre Have To Do With Mountains?
While this may not be an obvious connection, it's not unknown in Polish theatre. Mountain themes were and remain present, both on stage and in the life stories of Poland’s artists, actors, theatre directors and… climbers!
Ashes by the mountainside
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Arunachala Mountains in India, photo: Sakthiprasanna / Wikipedia
Not everyone knows, for instance, that the cremated remains of innovative Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski – in accordance with his wishes – were scattered at the foot of the holy Indian mountain of Arunaćala (The Mountain of Flame) in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which represents the Hindu god Shiva. ‘Why there?’ you might ask.
The famous director was spiritually connected with India: he was fascinated by Far Eastern mysticism, philosophy and yoga and he made several life-altering journeys to South Asia. His guru, alongside Carl Gustav Jung and the Armenian philosopher George Gurdjieff, was the Hindu mystic Ramana Maharshi. This is just a biographical curiosity, but it’s easy to find many more direct connections between the theatre and the mountains.
Sleeping at the foot of the mountain
In the summer of 1977, a group of members of the Laboratory Theatre founded by Grotowski decided to take an unusual journey. The Mountain Project, a para-theatrical event meant to go beyond theatrical spectacle and to bring about spiritual change in its participants, started out in Wrocław and its goal was the 'conquest' of the late Gothic hilltop fortress outside the city of Legnica.
Although the fortress is located on a not particularly high volcanic outcropping (only 389 metres above sea level), it was not the altitude that lent the event its special character. What mattered was rather getting there, the metaphysical experience of arrival. The group climb was also meant to erase the boundary between night and day, to transcend the conventional understanding of daily life. It is rather hard to define what went on during The Mountain Project as it was largely composed of improvisation and had no fixed structure.
In the 'programme' of the project's experimental activities, there were overnight stays in the woods (the trip was preceded by a cycle of 'Night Watches'). This entire enigmatic enterprise was inspired by the aforementioned Arunaćala, the holy site of Hindu pilgrimages.
The heights of emotion
Cecylia Kukuczka, the wife of Jerzy Kukuczka, the famous Polish climber, couldn't hide her excitement following the premiere of a play inspired by his life: 'I am immensely moved. It is a great honour for me and my family to be able to see such a production on stage'. She was talking about The Himalayas directed by Robert Talarczyk, which premiered in May 2018 at the Silesian Theatre in Katowice. The play was authored not only by the playwright Artur Pałyga, but also by the climber's biographers Dariusz Kortko and Marcin Pietraszewski (Kukuczka: The Story of Poland's Greatest Mountain Climber). This was a first attempt at staging Kukuczka's story for the theatre – an attempt, it should be noted, to create a work of art, rather than a precise biographical documentary. The story, as Talarczyk envisioned it, played out at an odd, somewhat disconcerting ball.
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Still from the film 'Jurek', directed by Paweł Wysoczański, photo: Silesia Film
The impressive scenery and dramatic lighting created by Katarzyna Borkowska were accompanied by a live, original score by rapper Miuosha. The director himself saw the play as a dreamlike work, almost hallucinatory, 'poetically filled with emotion and vision'. 'This is a seriously wild show', said Talarczyk. The Himalayas enchanted most of its reviewers and Kukuczka's family: aside from his widow, his youngest son, Wojciech, was also unable to hide his emotions, saying that 'they managed to illustrate the emotions that climbers feel'. 'This offering will greatly surprise the viewer. It is courageous and monumental, dark and polyphonic', Marta Odziomek wrote in the daily Gazeta Wyborcza. Michał Centkowski called the play 'an intriguing show' and Jan Gruca praised it as 'a unique and beautiful thing'.
An intimate portrait of Rutkiewicz
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Wanda Rutkiewicz, Pakistan / China, 1982, during an expedition to K2 (peak in the background), photo: archives of Jerzy Kukuczka / Forum
'I said you shouldn't send women to Mount Everest' – this was apparently the reaction of Andrzej Zawada to the success of Wanda Rutkiewicz, the first Polish woman to conquer the world's tallest peak. Zawada would later lead the first Polish men's team to Everest. Taking on the role of Wanda Rutkiewicz was no mean feat for an actress to take on. Nevertheless, when we look at her solo debut, Anita Jancia-Prokopowicz clearly met the challenge: for her role in the one-woman show Wanda, directed by Maria Sadowska (this was the directorial debut of the author of The Art of Loving) and Joanna Grabowiecka, she was nominated for a Golden Mask award. 'Her artistry deserves a standing ovation. (…) Her determination and love for the mountains could be seen in her eyes throughout the entire production', wrote Jan Gruca in Dziennik Teatralny (Theatre Daily). Jancia-Prokopowicz's masterful tour de force was also praised by Kamila Łapicka: 'Anita Jancia has touched all generations of viewers, conquering the personal Everest which any solo show constitutes for an actor'.
This was a very female production (in the Bielsko-Biała Theatre in 2017), not only because of the biographical subject but also because the entire production team was composed exclusively of women: lighting, scenery and costumes were done by Ilona Binarsch and the author was the poet and playwright Wiesława Sujkowska. Wanda, like The Himalayas, was not a mere biographical study dropped onto a stage. The non-linear text was intended to create an emotional and sensual portrait.
There were many poetic, scenic images in Wanda and many allusions to the human body: the play opened with a monologue about physicality recited by a naked actress curled up in an embryo in a transparent cube.'The public loves this intimate play; it isn't pompous; it doesn't erect monuments to anyone nor does it demean anyone', Marta Odziomek wrote in praise of the play.
The Himalayas on television
Another film director also took on a similar challenge: Agnieszka Smoczyńska, author of the much talked about film The Lure. In 2015, she decided to tell Rutkiewicz's story, bringing the play Your Highness by Anna Wakulik to Teatr Telewizji (Polish Television’s Television Theatre). In this play inspired by the biography of the climber, Wanda Rutkiewicz was played by Dorota Kolak, accompanied by Agnieszka Żulewska, Jacek Romanowski and Krzysztof Czeczot. Kolak, despite her extensive research for the role, did not attempt to duplicate Rutkiewicz's feat: 'My highest peak is Babia Góra [a 1725-metre peak on the Polish-Slovak border]’, said the actress, emphasising that the experience of a 'real' Himalayan climb, such as Rutkiewicz's, is simply beyond the imagination of a layperson.
Smoczyńska's television production was first and foremost a story of the difficult emotions connected with the life of the first European woman to achieve the famous summit. The actress who played her called it 'a story of the immeasurable loneliness of a person who, here on Earth, is unable to find her place'.
Dream team in Davos
One of the 'highest situated' European tales also found its way on stage. While it was earlier taken on by, among others, Wojciech Malajkat and Barbara Sass, its most interesting version was produced in 2015 by a genuine dream team made up of the top artists in their respective fields. The operatic adaptation of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain – whose action takes place in the Swiss town of Davos, the highest town of the Old Continent at 1560 metres above sea level – was created by Andrzej Chyra who, though best known as an outstanding actor, also completed formal studies as a director.
Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk was the author of the libretto that realised Chyra's vision and was paired with a musical score composed by Paweł Mykietyn. The director along with the artist and scenographer Mirosław Bałka decided to eschew the dramatic scenery of the Alpine resort and instead placed the action in a minimalist frame resembling the interior of an abandoned factory. This was an unexpected choice in the context of the storyline, but entirely unsurprising taking into account Bałka's characteristically cold, bleak style. The production featured the outstanding Polish singers Barbara Kinga Majewska and Agata Zubel.
The Magic Mountain, Chyra's second directing project, was warmly received by critics. Anna Schiller simply called it 'an inspired and beautiful work of art'. This original two-act opera – there was no orchestra involved – was also valued for its courageous introduction onto the stage of electronic effects, creating what Agata Górnicka of Teatr dla Was (Theatre for You) called a 'metaphysical aura'.
Young Witkacy enjoys the Highlanders
Reflecting on connections between the mountains and the theatre inevitably brings to mind one of the most extraordinary figures not only of Polish theatre, but of theatre altogether, and a part of the bohemian scene of Zakopane in the first half of the 20th century. I am referring, of course, to Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 'Witkacy', who, though born in Warsaw, travelled with his parents at an early age to the capital of the Tatra Mountains with which he would then be associated for the rest of his life.
It was there that he was baptised in 1891: six-year-old Witkacy was led by the hand to the church by his godmother, Helena Modrzejewska. It was there as well that he wrote his first work: his father, Stanisław Witkiewicz, treated his work extraordinarily seriously from his earliest age, encouraging his son to be a non-conformist and giving him free rein for his creativity. When little Stanisław reached school age, his father decided to send him for private lessons to the then-curator of the Tatra Museum, Walery Suszel. The high mountain tableaus inspired Witkacy. In his letters to his mother during his first days in the Tatras, his content father reported:
We've been in Zakopane for a week. […] The little one is enjoying the highlanders and everything he sees here; he's completely happy.
Escaping from the mounds of garbage
Witkiewicz Sr brought his family to the mountains for the fresh, clean air that was supposed to help him with his lung disease (which is hard to imagine today, considering the problems that the former resort has with smog nowadays). He not only left in order to protect his health; he also fled the urban nature of Kraków, which offended his sensibilities. He fled, as he wrote, 'convinced that the Sukiennice marketplace was just a heap of garbage, that St Mary's Basilica was just some Gothic structure of dubious value (…) and that the Wawel Castle was nothing but a bunch of dirty barracks'.
Enchanted by the 'immaculate whiteness of the Tatras' and the authenticity of the aesthetics of the Podhale region, he recorded his impressions in his famed volume On a Mountain Pass (1899). Witkacy, already as a mature artist, undertook various initiatives in Zakopane of which the most important from a theatrical perspective was the Formist Theatre founded in 1925. Its operations were inaugurated with the presentation at the Morskie Oko Hotel of two of Witkacy's plays: The Madman and the Nun and The New Deliverance. The undertaking only lasted two years, but Witkacy would return to directing an artistic theatre in Zakopane in the last years of his life: in 1937, he established the Independent Theatre in the Tatras' capital. Two years later, consumed by a deep depression, he committed suicide.
The Mystique of the Tatras
Witkiewicz Sr's Tatra journals also attained theatrical treatment. In 2002, Andrzej Dziuk, director of the Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Theatre, adapted Witkiewicz's texts for the stage. The director created a spectacle enlivened with highland music and dance: in addition to On a Mountain Pass, he also borrowed fragments from Walery Eljasz's Guide to the Tatras and Pieniny, the first extensive work of this type, published in 1870.
Dziuk found in Witkiewicz senior's journals not only a sort of travel narrative, but also a testament to an authentic fascination with the 'mountain mystique'. As the director wrote about his production, it was an attempt 'to show – in an ironic, grotesque fashion – how the situation described by Witkiewicz translates into today's relationship between the city-dweller and nature'.
Sources: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz: kronika życia i twórczości by A.Micińska, Na przełęczy: wrażenia i obrazy z Tatr, S. Witkiewicz, instytut-teatralny.pl, e-teatr.pl, witkacy.pl, dziennikteatralny.pl
[{"nid":"5688","uuid":"6aa9e079-0240-4dcb-9929-0d1cf55e03a5","type":"article","langcode":"en","field_event_date":"","title":"Challenges for Polish Prose in the Nineties","field_introduction":"Content: Depict the world, oneself and the form | The Mimetic Challenge: seeking the truth, destroying and creating myths | Seeking the Truth about the World | Destruction of the Heroic Emigrant Myth | Destruction of the Polish Patriot Myth | Destruction of the Flawless Democracy Myth | Creation of Myths | Biographical challenge | Challenges of genre | Summary\r\n","field_summary":"Content: Depict the world, oneself and the form | The Mimetic Challenge: seeking the truth, destroying and creating myths | Seeking the Truth about the World | Destruction of the Heroic Emigrant Myth | Destruction of the Polish Patriot Myth | Destruction of the Flawless Democracy Myth | Creation of Myths | Biographical challenge | Challenges of genre | Summary","topics_data":"a:2:{i:0;a:3:{s:3:\u0022tid\u0022;s:5:\u002259609\u0022;s:4:\u0022name\u0022;s:26:\u0022#language \u0026amp; literature\u0022;s:4:\u0022path\u0022;a:2:{s:5:\u0022alias\u0022;s:27:\u0022\/topics\/language-literature\u0022;s:8:\u0022langcode\u0022;s:2:\u0022en\u0022;}}i:1;a:3:{s:3:\u0022tid\u0022;s:5:\u002259644\u0022;s:4:\u0022name\u0022;s:8:\u0022#culture\u0022;s:4:\u0022path\u0022;a:2:{s:5:\u0022alias\u0022;s:14:\u0022\/topic\/culture\u0022;s:8:\u0022langcode\u0022;s:2:\u0022en\u0022;}}}","field_cover_display":"default","image_title":"","image_alt":"","image_360_auto":"\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/360_auto\/public\/2018-04\/jozef_mroszczak_forum.jpg?itok=ZsoNNVXJ","image_260_auto":"\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/260_auto_cover\/public\/2018-04\/jozef_mroszczak_forum.jpg?itok=pLlgriOu","image_560_auto":"\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/560_auto\/public\/2018-04\/jozef_mroszczak_forum.jpg?itok=0n3ZgoL3","image_860_auto":"\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/860_auto\/public\/2018-04\/jozef_mroszczak_forum.jpg?itok=ELffe8-z","image_1160_auto":"\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/1160_auto\/public\/2018-04\/jozef_mroszczak_forum.jpg?itok=XazO3DM5","field_video_media":"","field_media_video_file":"","field_media_video_embed":"","field_gallery_pictures":"","field_duration":"","cover_height":"991","cover_width":"1000","cover_ratio_percent":"99.1","path":"en\/node\/5688","path_node":"\/en\/node\/5688"}]