One of the leading puppet theatres in Poland, a venue where the greatest puppet artists have worked, including Jan Wilkowski, Krzysztof Rau, Piotr Tomaszuk. In existence since 1953, its tradition dates back to before World War II. An amateur puppet theatre was formed in Bialystok in 1937. Its founders were Helena Pacewicz and Piotr Sawicki, the latter later becoming the Bialystok Puppet Theatre's first manager (1953-1960). The theatre has been based at 1 Kalinowskiego St. in Bialystok since 1979. This is Poland's first theatre building built specially to house a puppet theatre.
Initially the Bialystok Puppet Theatre performed exclusively for children and did not have a workshop. This greatly limited their capacity to produce their own original shows. That was why performances prepared at other puppet theatres were shown instead. The first productions designed on site were presented in the mid-1950's, after the technical facilities were expanded. In 1960-1969 the theatre was managed by Joanna Piekarska, a producer who skilfully integrated all the aspects of a puppet performance, creating fairy-tale and atmospheric shows. In 1963 she staged Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński's MŁYNEK DO KAWY / THE COFFEE GRINDER, one of the watershed productions in the theatre's history. The 1960's saw the start of the theatre's collaboration with Krzysztof Rau, first as a director, later as the theatre's long-time manager (1969-1989), finally as the founder of the Puppet Theatre Actors' School which was transformed in 1975 into the puppet department of the State Higher School of Theatre in Warsaw (today's Akademia Teatralna / Theatre Academy). In 1972 Rau expanded the theatre's repertoire, inaugurating the activity of the Adult Stage with a production of Tadeusz Różewicz's KARTOTEKA / THE CARD INDEX. Many recognized artists staged productions at the Bialystok Puppet Theatre in the 1970's and 1980's: Jan Wilkowski, and Andrzej Dziedziula whose shows here included Johann Wolfgang Goethe's FAUST (1974), as well as beginner theatre artists Tadeusz Słobodzianek, and Włodzimierz Felenczak with his famous NIECH ŻYJE PUNCH! / LONG LIVE PUNCH! (1973, second version directed with Wojciech Szelachowski - 1995). Between 1990 and 1992 the theatre was run by Wojciech Kobrzyński, who was appointed general manager in 1992. Wojciech Szelachowski was{C}
the artistic manager. Artists working with the theatre at this time included Waldemar Śmigasiewicz, who produced Nikolai Kolada's famous play MERYLIN MONGOŁ / MARILYN MONGOL (2002), and Slovak director Ondrej Spisak, director of the acclaimed GULIWER / GULLIVER based on Jonathan Swift (1996).
"The success of puppet theatre, which flourished in the early 1990's, would have been unthinkable without the Bialystok theatre," writes Roman Pawłowski. "... Piotr Tomaszuk and Tadeusz Słobodzianek, founders of Wierszalin, debuted here in the 1980's. It was here that Luba Zarembińska completed a course in directing, and today stages Wilkowski's 'Spowiedź w drewnie / A confession in wood' with amateurs in Szamocin. This theatre has been the source of artists thanks to whom puppet theatre has matured and become a rival proposal to what is offered by Poland's dramatic theatres." ("Gazeta Wyborcza" 1998, No. 216)
The Bialystok Puppet Theatre has long been rising above puppet theatre conventions. Their production of Charles Ferdinand Ramuz's THE SOLDIER'S TALE directed by Zdzisław Dąbrowski with music by Igor Stravinsky (1962) was one of their first performances in which live actors appeared next to the puppets. The Bialystok Puppet Theatre plays with different forms and styles in their performances, including commedia dell'arte in Jan Potocki's PARADY / PARADES directed by Wiesław Czołpiński (1995), and a cabaret show in KROTKI KURS PIOSENKI AKTORSKIEJ / A BRIEF COURSE IN ACTING SONGS based on a script and directed by Wojciech Szelachowski (1995). Some shows are performed at outdoor venues (Edmond Rostand's CYRANO DE BERGERAC directed by Marian Pecko, 1996) and on "classic" stages.
"Wojciech Szelachowski's theatre, however, would not exist without its actors, who form one of the best ensembles in Poland. This is a multi-generation family of unusual personalities and eccentrics who feel absolutely at home behind and in front of a screen partition, but also people whose world does not end in the wings," Roman Pawlowski writes. "The puppeteers from Bialystok have deflated the bombastic and mostly clever-clever Polish theatre, appealing to the child who exists in everyone, showing that the way to great themes like love, loneliness and death leads through the simplest stories." ("Gazeta Wyborcza" 1998, No. 216)
Monika Mokrzycka-Pokora
March 2004
Translation: Joanna Dutkiewicz
In September 2005 Marek Waszkiel has been appointed as a general manager and artistic director.
Białostocki Teatr Lalek
ul. Kalinowskiego 1
15-875 Białystok
Phone: (+48 85) 742 50 31
Phone/Fax: (+48 85) 742 86 31
WWW: www.btl.bialystok.pl
