Wyspiański's wesele: Poised on the border

Theatre Journal

Volumn 54, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 187-202

  Komaromi, Ann ^a  

^a SWARTHMORE COLLEGE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 67650474012     PISSN: 01922882     EISSN: 1086332X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tj.2002.0047     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. See Todorov, Introduction à la littérature fantastique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1970), 29.
2. Czesław Milłosz noted that the visions may or may not be rationally explained as projections of the characters' own thoughts, The History of Polish Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 356.
3. The Jester, for example, evokes Jan Matejko's historical painting "Stańczyk at Queen Bona's Court" (1862), and can be linked to Shakespeare's fools.
4. See Lesław Eustachiewicz, "Spory o interpretacje tworczości Wyspiańskiego," Pamiȩtnik Literacki 1 (1959): 111-29, 121
5. and Franciszek Ziejka, W krȩgu mitów polskich (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1997), 227
6. who both compared Wesele to a session of psychoanalytic analysis. Paul Coates called Wyspiański's play "a visionary diagnosis of an entire repressed society, "Revolutionary Spirits: The Wedding of Wajda and Wyspianski," Literature/Film Quarterly 20.2 (1992): 131.
7. Schiller took a verse of Wyspiański's, "Teatr mój widzȩ ogromny [. . . ]," which he used as the title for a 1932 lecture and shortened for his renowned 1937 lecture on "monumental theatre." See Leon Schiller, Teatr ogromny, ed. Zbigniew Roszewski (Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1961), 211-14.
8. For the text of Mickiewicz's lecture, see "From Adam Mickiewicz's Lectures on Slavic Literature Given at the Collège de France," The Drama Review 30.3 (Fall 1986)
9. with an introduction by Daniel Gerould. The original French lecture was published as Adam Mickiewicz's Les Slaves (Paris, 1914).
10. See pleśnariowicz, "Polski teatr śmierci: Mickiewicz-Wyspiański, Kantor," Teatr 12 (1993). Kantor declared that Wyspiański discovered universal values, and he cited Wyspiański's influence on the development of his own Dead Class and I Shall Never Return. See the transcript of Kantor's meeting with the public on the occasion of the anniversary of Wyspiański's death, December 1987, Cricoteka archives, inventory number IV/003873, Krakow.
11. "Theatre's Lean Years in Free Poland," Theatre Journal 48.4 (1996): 466-67.
12. "Contemporary Polish Drama on Foreign Stages," Slavic and East European Performance 18.1 (Spring 1998): 44-52, 46.
13. The characterization of "hamletism" in the play is well motivated by Wyspiański's interest in Hamlet, to which he devoted a large study: Studium o Hamlecie (1904-1905).
14. The production opened 3 November 1923 and played three times. See "Les Noces," L'Intransigeant, 11 November (1923)
15. and other press clippings from Collection "Art et Action," Microfilm R138100, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris.
16. See Allévy-Viala, "'Wesele' w laboratorium teatru 'Art et Action,'" Pamiȩtnik teatralny 3-4 (1958): 495-504. She compared the universal resonance of the work to that of Dante's Divine Comedy.
17. See Jacek Frilling, "Wesele nad Hudsonem. Rozmowa z Erwinem Axerem," Nowa Kultura 22 (1962): 4. Axer's production opened on 12 April 1962 and played ten times. The New York Times review of 10 May 1962 bearing the headline "Visiting Polish Director Reports Warsaw Ticket Scalpers Active" provided no indication of the play's reception in New York.
18. Letter from David Vaughan, "European Theater; A Poor Example," New York Times, 2 February (1997): Section 2, page 6.
19. Michel Cournot, "La Noce en trois actes des deux Stanislas, Wyspianski et Nordey," Le Monde, 11 November (1996): 5.
20. "La Noce selon Nordey. Entretien avec Nadine Eghels," Program for La Noce, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Compagnie Nordey, 6 November-8 December 1996.
21. See Eva Plach's discussion of Rachel and the mediating role of Jewish women in Polish mythology. "'Botticelli Woman': Rachel Singer and the Jewish Theme in Stanisław Wyspiański's The Wedding," The Polish Review XLI, 3 (1996): 309-27. As the "marginal center" of the play, in the words of Halina Filipowicz, Rachel inspires the literary and fantastic play, attending the "birth" of poetry like a creative "midwife." Kapolka compared her to the biblical Rachel, whose mandrake root bears comparison to the Chochoł's form.
22. See Wojciech Dudzik, "Wesele nad jeziorem Boderiskim," Dialog 8 (1998). Dudzik acknowledged that such liberal adaptation could be troubling. In addition, he criticized the choice of Henryk Bereski's German translation of the play, a translation he judged much inferior to the translation by Karl Dedecius used elsewhere.
23. See Jean-Loup Passek, "Les Noces," Cinéma 74, 184 (February 1974): 88-91, and Jean-Luc Douin, Télérama, 12 January 1974.
24. "The spectres at the wedding feast," May 11 (1973): 11.
25. See Walaszek "Wesele Stanisława Wyspiańskiego w dwóch interpretacjach Andrzeja Wajdy (1973-1991)," in Studia o dramacie i teatrze Stanisława Wyspiańskiego, ed. Jan Bloński and Jacek Popiel (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Barań i Suszczynski, 1994), 227-65.
26. See also Wajda's discussion of objections raised by Soviet censors, particularly to the scene of Jasiek's losing the golden horn, Wajda. Filmy, vol. 2 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1996), 21-22.
27. "Wajda: 'La liberté ne résoud pas tous les problèmes,'" Le Figaro, 14 January (1992): 6.
28. The statement is the title of a book by Maria Janion, a sentiment travestied by one producer of a centennial production of Wesele, according to Ewa Guderian-Czaplińska. See her article and Joanna Walaszek's essay on the attempts to reformulate Wesele's relevance 100 years after its premiere, Didaskalia 42, April (2001).
29. From Anna Milanowska's conversation with the Salzburg actors, "Mowia̧ aktorzy Salzburskiego 'Wesela,'" Dialog 39, 6 (1994): 106-7. Dagmar Manzel, who played Rachel, found connections to Andrei Tarkovskii's films and to the universal questions of Faust. The actors acknowledged there were barriers to overcome, however. Stephan Wolf-Schönburg, who played the Chochoł, called the play difficult and "unusually exotic."
30. See discussion of the play's disappointing reception in essays by Olgierd Błazewicz, "Wyspiański był Europejczykiem?" Głos Wielkopolski 8 (February 1994)
31. and Wiesław Kot, "Pożegnanie 'inżynierow dusz,' Wprost 20 (February 1994): 76.
32. See Schultze, Jola Schabenbeck-Ebers and Irene Kriese, "Stanislaw Wyspianski's Versdrama Wesele (Die Hochzeit)," Forum Modernes Theater 1 (1995): 64-93.
33. Wajda's Wesele played at the Salzburg Festivals, 27 July-5 August 1992, 20-29 August 1993, and in April 1994 in Budapest.
34. Letters from the students testified to their interest in a culture of which they previously knew little. See Krystyna Zbijewska, "Przygoda z 'Weselem,'" Dziennik Polski 28 November (1995): 11,
35. and Milanowska, "Wesele jedzie! Z Wiener Neustadt do Krakowa," Dekada literacka No. 12/13, 15 July (1994): 14-15.
36. Milanowska remarked that the world of spirits most fascinated the young Austrian actors, whose enthusiasm was greatest among those playing the Dramatis Personae, "'Wesele' w Wiedniu," Teatr No. 1 (1996): 39; "Wesele jedzie!"
37. "O Weselu Stanislawa Wyspiańskiego wystawionym w wiedeńskim teatrze 'Akzent'" Polska-Austria, II, 203 (June 1996), 19.
38. Krystyna Zbijewska, "Przygoda z 'Weselem,'" 11.