Krystian Lupa has enjoyed a relationship with the Stary Theatre in Kraków since 1980, and created some of his most exceptional productions there. He began his work at this theatre by staging Powrót Odysa (The Return of Odysseus) by Stanisław Wyspiański (1981), a play to which he would return in 1999, staging it once more at the Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw. Lupa also took on Austrian literature for the first time while at this Kraków theatre. In creating his original production titled Miasto Snu (City of Sleep), Lupa drew inspiration from Alfred Kubin’s novel Po Tamtej Stronie (The Other Side). In 1988 Lupa directed Robert Musil’s Marzyciele (The Dreamers), a production which explored the deterioration of ideals through the prism of an individual who remains in a constant search for his identity. Bożena Winnicka wrote:
As in Musil’s text, in Lupa’s production man is a strange and impenetrable entity. Incomprehensible things happen within him. His intentions and deeds, feelings and thoughts, moments of elation and fear remain in constant flux.
Lupa would once again look to Musil two years later when he adapted and mounted a production of this author’s great, epic work – the essayistic, philosophical novel Człowiek Bez Własciwości (The Man without Qualities). Mounted as the thesis production for students of the Acting Department of the State Higher School of Theatre in Kraków, Lupa titled this staging Szkice z Człowieka bez Własciwości Roberta Musila (Sketches from Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities). The director once again adapted Austrian prose for his Malte albo Tryptyk Marnotrawnego Syna (Malte, or the Prodigal Son’s Triptych), a staging inspired by the work of Rainer Maria Rilke.
Krystian Lupa first drew on the work of Thomas Bernhard in 1992, creating a production based on his own adaptation of the author’s novel Kalkwerk. This staging quickly gained the reputation of being a great metaphysical treatise, whilst exceptional acting simultaneously made it a shocking picture of the physical and mental sufferings of a man who seeks meaning in a world ruled by routine. Lunatycy: Esch, Czyli Anarchia (The Sleepwalkers: Esch, or Anarchy), a production from 1995, was yet another adaptation of a German language original, namely, the second part of Austrian author Hermann Broch’s great prose trilogy. Encompassing the period from the close of the 19th century to the end of World War I, Broch’s The Sleepwalkers describes the deterioration of values held sacred until this period, a deterioration caused by processes of social disintegration:
In a sensitive sharpness of perception. In the acceptance of humanity in all of its ugliness, ludicrousness and wildness, in the acceptance of all the falsities and pretences that culture imposes upon nature. In noticing spiritual fears and longings in the biological reactions of humans: their need for community, order, a lessening of the fear of death – if only for a moment... This is all awkward, desperate, pitiable to a degree and comic, and therefore it is real and great in spite of its modesty.
In 1988 Lupa staged the second part of his theatrical adaptation of The Sleepwalkers, subtitling it Hugenau, czyli Rzeczowość (Hugenau, or Objectivity). Piotr Gruszczyński noted:
Lupa’s staging imperceptibly transcends the limits of the novel and becomes a painful treatise about the strangeness of existence. We are absolutely helpless in the face of our existence, perhaps even more helpless than in the face of death. This is the perspective of contemporary existence as tragedy. It is truly unimportant if we live in times of war or peace. War merely proffers the advantage of more sharply highlighting the troubles we experience with our existence.
In staging Bernhard’s The Siblings (Ritter, Dene, Voss), Lupa took a similar approach to that which he applied in mounting the same author’s Kalkwerk. Ritter, Dene, Voss is about the life of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and in his production Lupa examined the routine behaviors of three siblings while highlighting the emotional conflicts that absorb the would-be genius. The director also turned to his Austrian fascinations at the Polski Theatre in Wrocław, with which he has been collaborating since 1996. It was at this theatre that he staged Thomas Bernhard’s Immanuel Kant (1996), The Lady and the Unicorn based on Hermann Broch’s short story Hanna Wendling (1997), and Kuszenie cichej Weroniki (The Temptation of Quiet Veronica) based on a story by Robert Musil (1997). Most recently, at the Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw, Lupa directed Bernhard’s Extinction, based on his own translation (2001) – a production in which he explored issues of memory, attempts at erasing one’s biography, and the ability of individuals to be born anew. Janusz Majcherek wrote:
The theme of spiritual transformation or renewal is nothing new in Lupa’s theatre, although it seems this time the director has confronted it with unusual passion. The same author stated previously [...] it is worth noting the degree to which Lupa is familiar with Bernhard’s text, which obviously both attracts and repulses the director, the reading of which is both a compulsion for him as well as a pain.
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