Adam Hanuszkiewicz, photo: Jerzy Stalęga / East News
Adam Hanuszkiewicz, one of the most outstanding contemporary theatre directors and actors, passed away on Sunday, the 4th of December 2011 at a hospital in Warsaw on ul. Stępińska. He was 87 years old
Throughout his youth he was one of the youngest souls in Polish theatre arts. His staging tricks such as the ladder in the Kordian, a Honda in Balladyna and dogs in the A month in thecountryside, became legendary.
Hanuszkiewicz was born on the 16th of June 1924 in Lviv. He made his theatre debut in 1945. His most recent work on stage - just before the closing and liquidation of the New Theatre in Warsaw on ul. Puławska - was Mark Haddon's, Where's the catch?, which premiered on the 20th of September 2005. Hanuszkiewicz had spent close to sixty years on the theatre stage.
'Theatre Hanuszkiewicz" - as he was known in Poland - visited almost every European capital from Paris and London to Moscow and Helsinki between the years 1963-1995.
In 1956-1963 he was the artistic director of Polish Television. During that time he was the only director in Europe who produced multitudes of television classics from European literature, including Moliere, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Twain, Elliot, Sartre, and from Mickiewicz's national classics by Gombrowicz and Mrożek.
For fourteen years he acted and directed at the National Theatre in Warsaw (1968 - 1982). He lead two stages there. His classics were staged for years (The Wedding by Wyspianski, Balladyna by Słowacki and A month in the Countryside by Turgenev). Audience turnouts were one hundred percent on an annual basis (exactly 96.2 percent). And it was the only theatre in Europe where tickets to the shows were sold on the black market for ten times higher than normal prices.
His shows received mixed reviews. Newspapers wrote about him, "when you're at the bottom of Polish theatre, you can hear Hanuszkiewicz knocking from underneath".
In one of his final interviews, he told reporter Janusz Kowalczyk,
I know I shouldn't say this myself, but I changed the paradigm of romantic classics staged in the National Theatre, From then no one else took that path. And I was given an extremely hard time. Today's most respected directors to me are Augustynowicz, Jarzyna, Warlikowski, who create classics. They are also given a hard time as contemporary avant-gardists. I wish I could interpret my avant-garde productions into classics, and change the stereotype. You have to change them, because they stop functioning. Time passes. Our tastes have changed. We can hear the change. They accused me of copying from films and the television to 'Balladyna' and today Jarzyna does the same thing. Finally they realised that you have to enter into the language of today's youth and bring this language into the classics. After Balladyna I received the Golden Badge of Polish Teachers. While presented the award at the National Theatre, I asked for justification. 'Sir, we try to re-create and stage the masterpieces of Polish drama, however, after the first act audiences flee. They say to me, professor, we love you but this kitsch we are not going to watch. After your Balladyna, with what you did with Słowacki, is better than Mrożek.
In 1990, BGW Publishing published Adam Hanuszkiewicz's book, Dogs, Honda and ladder. In 2003, another book came out - Too much difference in sex... of his life's motto "All is vanity of vanities, but from time to time - how delightful". He also said,
My loneliness stemmed from the fact that I never had close friends, in 1941 they scattered all over Lvov. Hence my complex as an outsider and the feeling that the finally judgement will be given my God, said Adam Hanuszkiewicz during the celebration of his eightieth birthday at the New Theatre. I myself made this anniversary.
In his opinion, Kordian and The Wedding should continue to be interpreted and staged in new versions over and over again, to join the EU the youth should not bid their national identity farewell. Because then as a nation the Poles were destined to perish,
I think that the tragedy of our political position results from the cultivation of the Polish Patriot model, said Hanuszkiewicz. Without the Polish-citizen model, without introducing into schools the works of: Frycz-Modrzewski, Skargi, Norwid, Prus, Piłsudski, who represent Poland’s heros, we will not get very far. Chanting 'Bolshevik chase, chase, chase!' is not enough.
Adam Hanuszkiewicz was, above all, dedicated to education, both teaching and learning, at both side of the desk.