Pamiętnik Teatralny

That Which Is Hidden: Beata Guczalska’s Book "Konrad Swinarski: Biografia ukryta" ("Konrad Swinarski: A Hidden Biography")

Stanisław Godlewski — 2025-06-16

This text discusses the biography of Konrad Swinarski written by Beata Guczalska. It describes how the biographical narrative is constructed in the book and confronts Guczalska’s approach with the myth of Swinarski created by the theatre community, reviewers, and theatre historians. It is argued that her attempt to cover the entirety of the famous director’s life and work occasionally leads to superficial interpretations, and the whole argument is constructed in such a way as to ‘defend’ Swinarski, which results in arbitrary assessments of certain events in his life. Retracing Guczalska’s steps, he tries to interpret selected aspects of Swinarski’s performances using the tools of psychoanalysis and queer theory to show that the director’s work can still be inspiring, subversive, and critical.

Dialogue with the Literary Model: Andrzej Mleczko’s Theatre Programmes

Marta Cebera — 2025-06-16

The aim of the article is to analyse selected illustrations by Andrzej Mleczko in the theatre programmes of Teatr im. Jana Kochanowskiego (Jan Kochanowski Theatre) in Opole (1975–1979) and Teatr im. Stefana Jaracza (Stefan Jaracz Theatre) in Łódź (1979–1988). Drawing on intertextuality theory and the findings of Julia Kristeva, Michał Głowiński, and Ryszard Nycz, the author sets out to interpret the cartoonist’s drawings as dialogues with their literary models, in which Mleczko uses means such as parody, caricature, and grotesque. The description of his intertextual practices is preceded by a discussion of the differences and similarities between the Opole and Łódź programmes. The illustrations are grouped based on, i.a., the intertextual criteria proposed by Nycz: attribution, presupposition, and anomaly.

Stand-up; or, Peculiar Dialogue

Piotr Zdziarstek — 2025-06-16

The author analyzes stand-up as a dialogue between the comedian and audience, shaped by a paradoxical dynamic — from winning favour to provoking and creating distance. Drawing on Jan Mukařovský, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Erika Fischer-Lichte, the study highlights the tension between spontaneity and rhetorical preparation. The comedian engages in dialogue not only with the audience but also with the world and themselves, becoming a polyphonic medium where diverse voices, beliefs, and contexts intersect.

Between the Social Scene and the Theatre Stage: Parabases in "Rewolucja, której nie było" ("The Revolution that Was Not") by Teatr 21

Anna Piniewska — 2025-06-16

This article offers a poetological operationalisation of the concepts of the theatre stage and the social scene and an analysis of their interrelationship, based on the example of the production Rewolucja, której nie było (The Revolution that Was Not), directed by Justyna Sobczyk. This choice of material is motivated by the character of the work of Teatr 21, which uses a variety of theatrical conventions and genres while commenting on the situation of people with disabilities in Poland (in this case, referring to their 2018 protest in the parliament). The actors hijack and then deconstruct discourses on disability as well as its cultural stereotypes. The framework adopted for interpreting the work of people with disabilities is critical disability studies, with parabasis as the tool that enables the thus-designed analysis. The author distinguishes two types of parabasis: thematised and implied (parabasis within parabasis), which, in a variety of ways, play out the tensions between theatricality and the socio-political context.

“That’s something for the vice-minister, no less”: A Korean Fairytale in the State Puppet Theatre in Gdańsk

Joanna Stacewicz-Podlipska — 2025-06-16

This article discusses the circumstances of the staging of the play Arirang in a Polish puppet theatre. This dramatised Korean fairy tale was based on short stories by Dr Tonchu Ru, a Korean living in the Polish People’s Republic, whose biography constitutes a separate important thread of the story. The play premiered on 31st October 1953, four months later than originally planned; this was due to the hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, which forced the producers to get involved in ministry-level exchanges and special diplomacy. Affected by the pressure of a centrally controlled message about the war, the staging was part the Polish ‘engaged’ artists response to the armed conflict in a ‘brotherly’ country. In the face of this conflict, the Polish-Korean ‘parallels’ identified for decades gained a new context, and with it a socialist realist costume.

Cognitive framework

Tomasz Kubikowski — 2025-06-16

Introduction to the essay-cluster Cognitive Framework.

The Disorder of Love and the Love of Disorder: Cognitive Interplay in Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night" at the Middle Temple, 1602

Richard Kemp — 2025-06-16

Twelfth Night presents both personal love and festive reveling as phenomena that create disorder. Contemporary productions often render the play as a romantic comedy in which a temporary disruption of personal and social harmony is finally resolved by the prospect of three marriages. A richer and more complex appreciation of the play can be gained by exploring its first recorded performance at the Middle Temple (a law college) in 1602. I do this through the lens of embodied cognition, a hypothesis arising from cognitive neuroscience which holds that cognition is grounded in bodily interactions with the physical and social environment, and that mental concepts arise from the body’s sensory and motor neural systems. Thus the meaning of Twelfth Night in performance is comprised not only of the script’s dialogue, but also the biology, experiences, and values of its performers and audience members. Envisioning the play’s performance in the physical space and social context of the Middle Temple highlights ways in which Shakespeare’s company raised moral complexities for audience members whose legal decisions shaped the order of early modern English society.

Temperament and the Roots of Interpretation

Vladimir Mirodan — 2025-06-16

Adopting the perspective of recent findings in psychology, this article examines the complex ways in which the personalities of individual actors and directors affect their interpretations of dramatic material. The article asks: How is it that in the crucible of the rehearsal room certain interpretative decisions “feel right” and others do not? What are the forces that shape these pre-reflexive processes? When taking interpretative decisions that can shape a performance or even an entire production, where does the balance lie between deliberate reflection, enculturated habits, and non-conscious processes? Are the latter rooted in our personalities? In search for answers, the article outlines the considerable effect genetic and epigenetic factors (“temperaments”) as well as inherited “tribal attitudes” have on the formation of personality. The article concludes by asking whether we need to look again at actor training in the light of advances in the psychology of individual differences and suggests a way for the practices of our training studios to renew themselves so as to reflect the findings of the new psychology.

Acting Near and Far

Darren Tunstall — 2025-06-16

A key question for the success of a dramatic scene is where the actor’s attention is directed because this influences in turn the audience’s point of attention. The actor’s movement in space in a play is discussed in terms of the Construal Level Theory of Yacov and Liberman, in which events, including mental events like dreams and recollections, are construed by the mind in terms of near and far. An example is given of how near/far mode construal affected my rehearsal of a scene from a recent British play. It is further suggested that near/far mode construal applies not only to non-verbal behaviour such as proxemics but to speech itself. A core function of speech is referential displacement to enable prediction for action beyond the immediate present, an idea that may be linked to the Regret Prediction Theory of Frith and Metzinger. I suggest that near/far mode is exemplified in Stanislavski’s productions of the plays of Chekhov. To be a good psychologist is to be socially valued, it is proposed, and a skilful use of near/far mode distinctions in both movement and speech thus is seen as a reliable indicator of (an actor’s) intelligence.

Enactivism and Performance Theory: Towards Interdisciplinarity Without Misunderstandings

Yanna Popova — 2025-06-16

Watching a performance is a particular kind of a participatory experience; moreover, it is one with constitutive embodied and interactive features, where a meaning is not simply received or passively observed but, rather, enacted or reconstituted in an interactive process between a performer and a spectator. This is a depiction of performance (theatrical or otherwise) that many scholars will agree with. It is also, and importantly, a description founded on a new and comprehensive approach to human cognition called enaction or enactivism. The similarities between performance theory, as used and applied in various branches of the humanities (including theatre studies), and the newest achievements of cognitive science are noticeable. Yet, there are also important differences that stem from the very genealogies of the respective theoretical fields. Performance studies rests on its beginnings in anthropology and philosophical pragmatics. Enactivism is the offspring of a fruitful union between biology, dynamic systems theory and phenomenology. The aim of this article is to look at what is common but also distinct in these two domains of thought and to clear up some misunderstandings, thus opening the door to potential connections in the future.