Bolesławski Yours and Ours

Teresa Rutkowska

Abstract

The bilingual (Polish and English) collective volume Ryszard Bolesławski. Jego twórczość i jego czasy – Richard Boleslavsky. His Work and His Times (2018), edited by Barbara Osterloff, has been published by The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw as a result of an international conference devoted to this artist. Beside Polish authors’ articles (i.a. Barbara Osterloff, Marek Kulesza, Joanna Wojnicka, Patrycja Włodek, Maciej Wojtyszko) we can find in the volume essays by several foreign researchers, American (Tino Balio, Sharon Marie Carnicke) or Russian (Polina Stepanova, Nadezhda Shibayeva, Sergei Tcherkasski), among others. Bolesławski (1889-1937) was a theatre and film director, an actor and an acting teacher, as well as the author of the famous theory of acting formulated in the compendium Aktorstwo. Sześć pierwszych lekcji [Acting. The First Six Lessons]. He made a career in Hollywood and directed twenty films there, but remains underestimated in his homeland. The volume is to restore his rightful place in the history of Polish theatre and film. It presents the wide scope of his artistic activity, but avoids a hagiographic tone. The articles exploring his theory of acting, which has gained international importance and is still practiced, are especially noteworthy.