A theatre established by Leszek Mądzik at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) in 1969. This auteur theatre ultimately turned out to be one of the most original proposals in Poland's post-war theatre life. Devoid of words, traditional acting, instead using silence and sound, based on stage design, space and the play of light, Scena Plastyczna KUL is an inspiring venue presenting dreamlike shows that explore human existence.
"We traditional directors," says Andrzej Wajda, "think that the material of theatre is words, drama, movement of characters who develop before our eyes - they experience their tragedy or comedy, are ridiculed or elevated to the role of ancient heroes. Leszek Mądzik wants all this to occur without words, action, distinctive characters. Is it theatre? Or is it a quasi-theatrical phenomenon? I don't know, I'm not interested in terms. Watching, I experience something I do not experience at other theatres. Leszek Mądzik is an artist, and if he didn't exist, he would have to be invented." (in: "Leszek Mądzik i jego teatr" / "Leszek Mądzik and His Theatre", Warszawa 1998)
Leszek Mądzik, director and stage designer, founder of Scena Plastyczna KUL, was born on 5 February 1945 in Bartoszowiny, Kielce region. He finished the Secondary School of Visual Art Techniques in Kielce, and went on to study art history at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) in 1966-1970. This was where he established Scena Plastyczna in 1969 - his own original visual arts theatre. He has produced 16 shows so far. Though Mądzik's primary field of activity is his theatre, he has also completed many stage design projects for repertory theatres. He designed the stage sets for productions including Anton Chekhov's IVANOV directed by Ignacy Gogolewski (Juliusz Osterwa Theatre in Lublin, 1981), Witold Gombrowicz's PORNOGRAFIA / PORNOGRAPHY directed by Andrzej Maj (Teatr Nowy in Lodz, 1985), Sophocles' ANTIGONE directed by Anna Chodakowska (Juliusz Osterwa Theatre in Lublin, 1995). He also prepared the stage design for theatre performances in Lyon, France (Maurice Maeterlinck's ARIANE ET BARBE-BLEUE, 1983, and THE BLACK ROOM based on TRISTAN AND ISOLDE, 1985), Coimbra, Portugal (Miguel de Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE, 1985), and Olenburg, Germany (TERRA FELICITA, 1991). In 1997 he produced PAX A MEMOIRE at the Institute de la Marionette in Charleville - Mézières, and a year after that he prepared a production entitled SILLONS for the En Ille-en-Vilane festival in Rennes. He has conducted numerous theatre workshops in Scheersberg in Germany, Berlin, Hamburg, Finland, Portugal, Ireland, France, at Stanford University in San Francisco, the University of California Berkeley, the New School of Social Research in New York, and the University at Buffalo. He has been a professor of the Poznan Academy of Fine Arts since 1994, as head of the stage design studio.
The first production by Scena Plastyczna KUL was ECCE HOMO (1970), the very performance which contained the last words ever spoken in Madzik's theatre; after this, he produced NARODZENIA / BIRTHS (1971), WIECZERZA / SUPPER (1972), and WŁÓKNA / FIBRES (1973). From the first years of his activity with Scena Plastyczna KUL, Madzik determined the range of themes which absorbed him in later productions.
"The participants of Mądzik's theatrical events," wrote Irena Sławińska, "were meant to be mainly the academic community, lecturers and students. In any case the audience for his theatre are mature people or those maturing to participation in this range of problems and this poetics. It is not the passive consumer this theatre addresses: it calls for participation. … Is it existential theatre? It could be so described - but since the term has lost its explicitness and requires an attribute, one needs to add that it is religious, or more precisely Christian, existentialism. This is a clarification authorized by the artist himself, when he sees the common denominator of his theatre projects in 'approaching the Absolute', in 'seeking traces of Transcendence in the human world'. The presence of Transcendence, meanwhile, is the condition of genuine tragedy, tragedy which through darkness, suffering, and defeat leads to reconciliation, liberation." (in: "Leszek Mądzik i jego teatr" / "Leszek Mądzik and His Theatre", Warszawa 1998).
Scena Plastyczna KUL's first major success was IKAR / ICARUS (1974).
" 'Icarus' is undoubtedly fascinating, where shadows, unintelligible movements of visual forms become rhythm, slowly repeated by a man who runs and is stopped, who flies and falls to the ground." ("Gazeta di Parma", 1975)
Subsequent projects by Mądzik included PIĘTNO / STIGMA (1975), ZIELNIK / HERBARIUM (1976), WILGOĆ / MOISTURE (1978), and WĘDROWNE / WANDERING (1980).
ZIELNIK / HERBARIUM is a show
"... both magical and visionary, suffused with pessimism. Similarly to earlier productions by Scena Plastyczna, the leading element here is music, and the distinctive quality is simplicity which fulfils important psychological functions. There is no word, no thought spoken directly - only a performance filled with imagination, fantasy, and subtlety..." ("Diaria de Noticias", 1986)
Mądzik, who says he is in fact continually creating a single performance, from the beginning has honed the form of his productions - which he calls performance-sessions. He creates a stern, hieratic space bathed in darkness, in which spectre-like figures appear - intriguing sculpted forms, sometimes, as in IKAR / ICARUS - huge, deformed human forms, at other times, as in WILGOĆ / MOISTURE - mannequin mummies.
"He has halted the actor's activity, the foreground action, and set in motion all that was in the background - the immobile sets," wrote Stefan Sawicki. "He has taken away the voice of those who spoke till now, getting secondary, previously dumb elements to speak. He has blurred the boundary between the person and visual art in theatre. It is this I would see as his innovation." (in "Leszek Mądzik i jego teatr" / "Leszek Mądzik and His Theatre", Warszawa 1998)
However, Paweł Konic noted:
"...the author of sessions of autonomous visual art forms - he never completely gave up on actors, on a living image of people. Most often, though, he conceals it, he does not emphasize it." (in: "Polska plastyka teatralna. Ostatnia dekada" / "Polish Theatre Design - The Last Decade", ed. B. Osterloff, A. Koecher-Hensel, Warszawa 1991)
Mądzik's projects were fewer in the following years. Scena Plastyczna KUL presented BRZEG / THE EDGE (1983), PĘTANIE / BINDING (1986), WROTA / GATEWAY (1989), TCHNIENIE / BREATH (1992), SZCZELINA / THE CRACK (1994), KIR / PALL (1997), and CAŁUN / THE SHROUD (2000).
Whereas in his earlier projects Mądzik tried to eliminate the barrier between the stage and the audience - introducing a second audience of mannequins, taking the audience across a deep trough/grave in PIĘTNO / STIGMA, he did not use such spectacular tricks in his later productions. However, he remained faithful to the fundamental means he used for building his stage images: the shape and texture of material; he used draped curtains in BRZEG / THE EDGE, and showed a billowing, "restless" wall in WROTA / GATEWAY. One of the main means of expression was still light brought out from the interior of the darkened stage.
"For Madzik darkness is never just the lack of light, nor is it a break in the performance, nor a neutral moment. It always has a dramatic purpose - augmenting the mood of anticipation, or setting in motion the mechanism of the audience's memory - and, like everything else here, a symbolic one. ... There is also a special meaning in the moments when successive images emerge and fade away, approach and disappear in the darkness, moments when objects gradually gain, or just the opposite - lose their tangible concreteness and outline. All this means that the audience very strongly and directly - almost palpably, physically - feels the pressure of the reality, otherwise completely artificial, which Madzik creates. This is an ambiguous reality, but somehow familiar and comprehensible. At the same time - threatening and alien." (Paweł Konic in: "Polska plastyka teatralna. Ostatnia dekada" / "Polish Theatre Design - The Last Decade", ed. B. Osterloff, A. Koecher-Hensel, Warszawa 1991)
The universal language of Mądzik's symbols means that the artist and his group have long been successfully presenting their projects abroad. Since 1974 Scena Plastyczna KUL have taken part in several dozen international theatre festivals as well as special performances in Europe and the United States.
Important awards and distinctions:
- 1978 - award for Leszek Mądzik for the stage design for Rada Moskova's WHERE ARE YOU GOING, PONY directed by Wlodzimierz Felenczak at the Andersen Theatre of the Puppet and Actor in Lublin, at the THIRD INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF BULGARIAN PUPPET PLAYS in Varna
- 1983 - special mention for Leszek Madzik at the PRAGUE QUADRENNIAL - INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF STAGE DESIGN
- 1989 - St. Brother Albert Award
- 1991 - journalists' award for ZIELNIK / HERBARIUM at the INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE FESTIVAL in Cairo, award from the ITI Polish Centre's Critics Section
- 1992 - awards for stage design, directing, and theatre technique for Leszek Mądzik at the TIATF INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL in Toyama, Japan
- 1993 - award of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for "promoting Polish culture around the world"
- 1994 - a Hetman's Baton award for WĘDROWNE / WANDERING at the 14TH ZAMOSC THEATRE SUMMER
- 1995 - Youth Award for SZCZELINA / THE CRACK at the 5TH THEATRE CONFRONTATIONS in Kłodzko, Gold Cross of Merit and a diploma from the Minister of Culture and Art for Leszek Mądzik, medal of merit from the Catholic University of Lublin for Scena Plastyczna KUL, Lublin city's artistic award for Leszek Mądzik
- 1998 - Jan Dorman Award, title of Honorary Citizen of Kielce
- 1999 - best stage design award for Leszek Mądzik for the stage design for WROTA / GATEWAY at the INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE FESTIVAL in Cairo
- 2000 - Honorary Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for Scena Plastyczna KUL for their contribution to Polish culture, special award from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture for the group's contribution to worldwide exploration of new theatre forms at the INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE FESTIVAL in Cairo, Union of Lublin Medal
- 2001 - title of Ambassador of Lublin Province 2000 for Leszek Mądzik
Monika Mokrzycka-Pokora
June 2003
Scena Plastyczna KUL
Al. Racławickie 14
20-950 Lublin
Phone: (+48 81) 533 03 92, (+48 81) 445 45 02
WWW: www.kul.lublin.pl