Katarzyna Waligóra. “I Hate Them, but They Move Me”
Katarzyna Waligóra reviews The Woodcutters: Holzfällen, directed by Krystian Lupa (Polski Theater in Wrocław, premiere: 23.10.2014). The author describes the constellation of characters brought on stage, creating a little artistic world that is subject to constant disgrace. She points out, however, the fluctuating emotional tension in the performance: after sequences lined with bitter irony come delicate and subtle scenes, giving an ambivalent flavor to the whole. Waligóra interprets the second part of the staging as a political statement on the artistic system, whose major expression is Piotr Skiba's parabasis monolog.

No Longer an Actor: Piotr Skiba in conversation with Anka Herbut
Anka Herbut speaks with Piotr Skiba on building a certain kind of theatrical presence in Krystian Lupa's play The Woodcutters: Holzfällen (Polski Theater in Wrocław, premiere: 23.10.2014). The artist speaks of how he came to explore Thomas Bernhard and the path he took with the director in the process of creating such an introverted and contradictory character. For Skiba, the key mechanism in building the role was an almost performative transcendence of his own self in his actor's imagination, which he calls “betraying the actor in himself.” Skiba sees theatricality and acting as among the main themes of both the text and the staging.

Agata Łuksza. Dancing Girls: Femininity and Modernity in the Polish Interwar Revue
Agata Łuksza's article analyzes the conditions of women working in the 1920s and 1930s in stage revues. The author is particularly interested in the case of the Polish revue, which she compares to its equivalents abroad. She also situates her text in a broad context of sociological phenomena. Łuksza traces various ways of disciplining the female body and conceptualizing the image of the revue actress, who had to strike a balance between remaining decent and arousing desire. At the same time, she reveals and names a range of mechanisms whose use led to wielding discursive power over the artists.

Meike Wagner. Emancipation in the Net: Theater Audiences and the “Agency” of the Web
In a lecture given during the 49th Counterpoint Review of Small Theatrical Forms in Szczecin, Meike Wagner focuses on the emancipation of the theater viewer and the “agency of the Web.” The author's point of departure are some of Jacques Rancière's theses concerning the viewer as a “storyteller” and a “translator,” as well as a theory of the Internet by Bruno Latour. Using these concepts, Wagner performs an insightful analysis of the audience protests at Covent Garden in 1809 (the Old Price Riots) and the Situation Rooms project (2013) by the Rimini Protokoll group. The author considers the course and efficiency of the emancipation process in institutionalized theaters open to this sort of initiative, or the contrary, those which block the viewers' striving toward freedom.

Mateusz Borowski. “We no longer listen to you as judges, but as students”: Participation and the Legacy of the Lehrstück
Mateusz Borowski examines relationships and interaction between viewers and artists, taking a very diverse array of performative activities (the work of Marina Abramović, British documentary theater, the performative lectures of Rabih Mroué, the projects of the Rimini Protokoll collective). Borowski recalls the theories of Jacques Rancière, Claire Bishop, and Markus Miessen, taking a critical stance toward the “myth of participation,” perceived as a means to generate social change and to force the viewer to participate in the play.
Borowski's point of reference for analyzing the various models of participation in contemporary art is Bertolt Brecht's Lehrstück, whose aim was to create a stage situation where the participants would be able to learn from each other.

Łucja Iwanczewska. “The Eagle Makes Polish Children”: A Sketch on the Immature Production of History (’89)
Łucja Iwanczewska's article is devoted to the political dimension of maturity as a category. She diagnoses the growing problem of the infantilization of the citizen following the political system transformation; they have been transformed from conscious political subjects, capable of making independent decisions, into children who require caretaking. In describing what has brought about the figure of the child acquiring major significance in structuring the social imagination, Iwanczewska indicates the need to create a new formula for maturity in the post-1989 era. At the same time, she joins Joanna Krakowska in lauding ahistoricity as potentially the most important critical strategy, with the capacity to differentiate and antagonize.

Mateusz Chaberski. The Site-specific Performance, Computer Games and the Fusion of Memory
The author describes the very popular phenomenon of creating non-theatrical performances. He provides examples of specific sites of theater activities and ways that audiences function within them, often according to principles borrowed from or based on computer games. Tunnel 228 is particularly important – it was made in 2009 by British theater ensemble Punchdrunk in an inoperative section of London's metro system – as is the computer game The Path (a take on Little Red Riding Hood), both of which the author describes and analyzes in detail.

Katarzyna Nowaczyk. Literacy as a School of Freedom: “Life-long Learning”
Katarzyna Nowaczyk raises the issue of adult illiteracy in European countries, seen not only through the context of education, but also in the spheres of culture and the economy. The author is interested in educational initiatives which use non-artistic theater as creative working tools, as in the work of the Nuovi Linguaggi organization. Nowaczyk primarily focuses on her experiences that came with participating in workshops at the Alcatraz center (Libera Università di Alcatraz) led by Jacopo Fo. She describes exercises carried out in the framework of the adult literacy project, as well as theatrical inspiration in the teaching process.

“To Walk a Thousand Kilometers, You Have to Take the First Step”: Jacopo Fo in Conversation with Katarzyna Nowaczyk
In conversation with Katarzyna Nowaczyk, Jacopo Fo describes the functioning of his partly self-created, economically self-sufficient “micro-republic” of Alcatraz (Libera Università di Alcatraz), which he himself describes as a “utopia in the making.” This is a place for meetings between cultures, views, and needs, open to diverse social and artistic activities. Jacopo Fo speaks of the special role of art in making his social projects (such as those dealing with education and adult literacy).

Aleksandra Kamińska. “The Questions Never End”: Political Aspects in the New Plays of Caryl Churchill
A presentation of the later dramatic works of British author Caryl Churchill. Aleksandra Kamińska begins by outlining the views and consistent standpoint of this author who is counted among the most important creators of political theater. Analyzing Churchill's various plays in terms of their current relevance (often they were written as spontaneous responses to contemporaneous political events), the critic points out the aesthetic vein of her theater. She notes that Churchill's formal experiments have inspired a younger generation of playwrights, including artists who are not involved in political theater.

Małgorzata Jabłońska. A Model Kit.
Małgorzata Jabłońska's article is an introduction to this issue's guide to the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold, concentrating on the concept of theatrical Biomechanics. The author speaks of the Russian master's various fields of work. Jabłońska also briefly describes Meyerhold's surviving writings and explains the circumstances behind the creation and publication of The Principles of Theatrical Biomechanics by Mikhail Korneev, one of Meyerhold's students.

The Principles of Vsevolod Meyerhold's Biomechanics
A translation of Mikhail Korneev's book from 1922, never before translated into Polish. In forty-four points, the author covers the most important facets and aims of the physical training for actors put forward by Meyerhold. Korneev puts special focus on the performer's obligation to develop self-consciousness, including both an awareness of his/her own body and the space of performance, and the ability to present him/herself before the audience. The importance of work as an ensemble is also stressed in many places. Biomechanics appears in the text as a remarkably precise method for using a repertoire of acquired methods and techniques, leaving nothing up to chance, requiring intense concentration and economy of movement.

Vadim Shcherbakov. A Few Remarks on Biomechanics
Vadim Shcherbakov's article provides an historical outline of Meyerhold's concept of theatrical Biomechanics. The author outlines the origin of the term “Biomechanics” and the circumstances important for its development. He also describes what attributes made an actor to Meyerhold's way of thinking, and how physical training worked in the Russian director's teaching. At the same time, he calls attention to the main components of Meyerhold's Biomechanics as a theatrical system, whose principles considered not only economy of movement, but above all, the effect on the viewers. These observations lead Shcherbakov to conclude that Biomechanics became a method for creating theater.

A Short Game without Words: Vadim Shcherbakov in Conversation with Alexei Levinski
This conversation with Alexei Levinski focuses on the practical application of Biomechanics in various fields of art. Levinski speaks of his four-year study period with Nikolai Kustov and of the teaching he later developed. He also describes how Biomechanics affected his work as an actor, developing an awareness of space and an ability to choose the proper means of expression. Levinski also mentions his experience as a director, which allowed him to observe the advantages of introducing Biomechanical exercises into actor training. He also stresses that Biomechanics, unlike other training systems, teaches abilities adapted to dramatic theater.

Małgorzata Jabłońska. Biomechanics – A Practical Glossary of Techniques
Małgorzata Jabłońska's text contains definitions of sixteen key terms for Meyerhold's Biomechanics. The author begins with general concepts (such as “theatrical Biomechanics,” “Biomechanical actor,” “game”), and moves on to terms that describe the nature of movement and stage actions in detail. As she observes in the introduction, becoming acquainted with the basic concepts in the Meyerhold glossary facilitates a reading of his works, and significantly helps in communicating during creative work.

Agata Chałupnik. When Tears Don't Cry
A review of the play Apocalypse, directed by Michał Borczuch (Nowy Theater in Warsaw, premiere: 29.09.2014), which inquires into how theater can address important metaphysical, political, and social issues without resorting to insincere cliches. The creators of the performance consciously thematize their perspective of speaking about social issues, wondering to what extent – as “satiated inhabitants of the wealthy North” or duty-bound artists – they have the right to to speak for people from the margins of society or the non-industrialized countries. Agata Chałupnik insightfully considers the mechanisms that build the narrative, turning attention to the unrest and discomfort the artists manage to instill.

Paweł Schreiber. A Guidebook for the Stage
A review of the play Primer byMichał Zadara (Nowy Theater in Warsaw, premiere: 8.09.2014), focusing on the advantages that come from adapting Marian Falski's well-known school book for the stage. The author notes that Falski's primer hold a paradoxical place in the collective consciousness – on the one hand, every Pole encounters it while learning to read, but after it is used, memory of its existence begins to fade. Describing Zadara's play, Schreiber points out the diversity of stage ideas, which makes the production a good choice for children. He also lists the strategies that make Primer an interesting performance for adult viewers.

Monika Kwaśniewska. Theater That Doesn't Hurt
A review of the play King Ubu directed by Jan Klata at the Stary Theater in Krakow (premiere: 16.10.2014). The author notes that the director follows Alfred Jarry’s text, aesthetics, and thinking quite closely. Above all, however, the play serves Klata as a way of staging a polemic with his earlier work. King Ubu reproduces their strategies, using a series of self-quotations, but without the mysterious ambivalence, pathos, and horror. The most compelling and disquieting part of the play is its nihilism.

Karolina Leszczyńska. What Are We Killing for?
A review of The Maidan Diaries, directed by Wojtek Klemm (Powszechny Theater in Warsaw, premiere: 24.10.2014). The critic stresses the documentary nature of Natalia Worożbyt's drama, created on the basis of reports from witnesses to the recent struggles in Kiev. This means the play combines various ways of speaking about the Maidan incidents. The typical nature of these voices and the revolutionary image mean, however, that the media perspective dominates. The Maidan Diaries is, in the author's opinion, a fiery political drama which tries to provoke a response, playing on the viewer's sense of empathy; there is no room for expressing doubt, risking diagnoses, or philosophical contemplation. The key question here is: “What comes next for Maidan?”

Klaudia Laś. The Objectivity of the Negative
A review of the a new play, Africa, directed by Bartek Frąckowiak at the Polski Theater in Bydgoszcz (premiere: 17.10.2014). This is a statement on the recolonization of the African countries through economical and ideological dependence on Europe, which takes the form of a theater essay, in which the artists focus on the oppressive nature of contemporary narratives about Africa. The critic points out the documentary style of the artists' work, which aims to evoke a sense of doubt in the viewers and incline them to reflect and  to do further independent research.

Karolina Obszyńska. Hard Reset
Karolina Obszyńska describes Ewelina Marciniak's play Rag (Wrocław Współczesny Theater, premiere: 27.06.2014) based on a text by Jarosław Murawski. This story of a pathological relationship between siblings – the blind Rag and his able-bodied sister – is only presented from the girl's perspective. In the form of a macabre show, the protagonist tells the audience the story of her traumatic childhood, marred by a destructive fight with her brother. Obszyńska wonders to what extent the performance would have been changed if the handicapped brother had been allowed to speak.

Piotr Dobrowolski. Everything's for Sale
Piotr Dobrowolski reviews the Kalisz staging of Fantazy, directed by Maciej Podstawny (W. Bogusławski Theater in Kalisz, premiere: 18.10.2014). Describing the play, which transfers the action of the drama into the reality of the transformation era of the 1990s, the author calls attention to the moments which – though they could seem interesting – ultimately sentence the performance to failure, smothered by an excess of gags and witty situations. Dobrowolski expresses his disappointment in the production, whose promotion raised audience expectations too far.

Jakub Papuczys. Inventing Your Own Histories
Jakub Papuczys reviews three plays from the Wielkopolska: Revolutions project, curated by Agata Siwiak. Better Not Go There: Changes (Szamocin, premiere: 6.07.2014), directed by Michał Borczuch, is variations on the theme of last year's play, created in cooperation with children from the orphanage in Szamocin and children and young people affiliated with the Stacja Szamocin theater. A Rozdrażew Cosmology (Rozdrażew, premiere: 12.09.2014) by Wojtek Ziemilski joins the private stories of the play's participants – members of the Rozdrażew Branch of the Polish Astronomy Lovers' Association and the Kasjopea Astronomy Club with a scientific narrative about outer space. The Children of Jarocin Sing Retrojutro (Jarocin, premiere: 13.09.2014), in turn, is a project by Weronika Szczawińska and the Children of Jarocin ensemble, based on the legend of a famous festival, reconstructing the history of Retrojutro group, while leaving open-ended questions about the reliability of the facts and documents the play provides.

Katarzyna Fazan. Revolutions, Choreographies, Processes, and Doubts
In Revolutions, Choreographies, Processes, and Doubts Katarzyna Fazan critiques this year's 39th Krakow Theatrical Reminiscences festival (4-12.10.2014), assembled according to an idea from curator Joanna Warsza and director Anna Lewanowicz. The author believes that the final version of the festival program and the overall impression of the viewers, in most cases, was quite remote from the organizers' ambitious premises. Among the spectacles and actions with rather unoriginal, overblown forms, there were, however, a handful of interesting contributions, such as: the three Very Mantero performances (a mysterious thing, said e.e. cummings, Maybe First He Should Dance, and Then Think, and Olympia), and a screening of Milo Rau's Moscow Trials, a recording of an arranged “Russian political trial.”

Joanna Braun. Puppetry: The Concept of Overcalibration
Joanna Braun sums up Warsaw's A Puppet Is a Person Too festival (Theater Institute in Warsaw, 10-17.10.2014). The author provides an overview of the event's program, briefly describing a few selected plays (Nicola Unger – Audience of One, Unia Niemożliwy Theater – Options for Living according to Professor Leszek Kołakowski, Room Two, Scarlattine Teatro/David Zuazola Puppets Company – Cupido es una broma, Lalka i Ludzie Theater – A Journey, Meitel Raz – The Zebra and Journey to the Moon, Tadeusz Wierzbicki – Tra). She concentrates on the visual forms of the presentations and their correspondence with the themes involved. The key to understanding the festival's strategy is the category of “overcalibrated” forms and concepts involved with puppet theater.

Anna Bajek. A (Re)gained Composition
A review of Ludomir Franczak's Regained project, shown during the Cultural Adhesive Festival organized by the Kana Theater Center in Szczecin (28.06 – 5.07.2014). Franczak combines two seemingly distinct stories: the resettlement of the German population from Pomerania after 1945, and the mass firing of striking workers at the Szczecin shipyard. The project thus tackles the subject of abandoned places, relocation, and expulsion in the form of a performance, installation, and exhibition, composed of historical documentary materials. The performance was held in the abandoned South Shipyard, and thus follows the premises of the festival to take theater outside of the theater building.

Marta Kacwin. All's Quiet on the Eastern Front?
Marta Kacwin's review of the Lesh Kurbas 3rd Festival of Young Ukrainian Directors (Kiev, 26.09 – 2.10.2014) focuses on what the author feels were the two most interesting plays: Lena by Tamara Trunowa and Diploma by Sashka Brama. Kacwin states that the reduction of stage props and the questioning of realism in the productions described are an attempt to revolutionize the model of theater that reigns in Ukraine. She does confess, however, that in spite of some interesting ideas, the directors did not manage to create good plays.

Theater Doesn't Interest Me! Sashka Brama in Conversation with Marta Kacwin
This conversation between Marta Kacwin and Sashka Brama focuses on three topics: first, the play Diploma (the director's recent premiere) and its connections with documentary theater; second, his planned rendition of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet; third, the political situation in Ukraine and the role that theater has to play in the social transformations. Brama also indicates why he was interested in documentary forms and posits the necessity of bringing current political problems into the theater.

Thomas Irmer. Various Sides of History
This article is devoted to an outstanding theater director who died last year, Dimiter Gotscheff, whose plays – still present in various theaters' repertoires – were staged during the Berliner Theatertreffen Festival in May 2014. Irmer begins the review of his final production, based onHeiner Müller's Cement, by reflecting upon the role and the place of historicism in twentieth-century German-language culture. The play, dealing with the issue of socialism prior to 1989 in Central-Eastern Europe and its present-day repercussions, is contrasted with Gotscheff's previous works.  

Friederike Felbeck. Do What You Can!
Felbeck describes the work of the Oblivia Theater in Helsinki, founded in 2000 by Annika Tudeer. The reason for the creation of this institution, which incorporates artists from many fields (dancers, actors, musicians), was an exhaustion with the Finnish theater of the time. Felbeck describes the ensemble's latest project, Super B, as a reckoning with the standard attributes of European theater: characters, psychology, realism, and narrative. The author of the article also describes the previous fortunes of Oblivia, demonstrating the institutional and financial problems that it grapples with on a daily basis.

Anna R. Burzyńska. On Spirit, Matter, and All that Lies Between
Anna R. Burzyńska reviews Louis Andriessen's anti-opera De Materie, created in the framework of the Ruhrtriennale Festival by the director of this edition – Heiner Goebbels. De Materie is another in a series (following: John Cage’s Europeras 1&2 and Harry Partch's Delusion of the Fury) of atypical and relatively seldom staged operas directed by Goebbels in his three-year directorship of the festival. The author provides an insightful analysis of the performance, which she calls a “hyper-erudite musical essay” rooted in extraordinary, monumental stage design, making full use of the post-industrial space. Burzyńska proves that the four-part production is an intricately woven network of artistic narratives composed of precisely rendered and pondered images.

Marcin Bogucki. The Polish Britten
Marcin Bogucki begins his review of the opera The Merchant of Venice,directed by Keith Warner (Wielki Theater – National Opera in Warsaw, premiere: 24.10.2014) by recalling the circumstances behind the composition of Tchaikowsky's music. The author lists the adjustments that the composer and the librettist (John O’Brien) made to Shakespeare's drama. He stresses the gravity of exclusion as a theme in working on the opera. Although in Warner's staging he sees an attempt to create a universal tale of exclusion, he admits that the reception of the performance was dominated by the composer's biography and the process of restoring memory of his work.

The Translator in the Theater: A Conversation between Karolina Bikont, Monika Muskała, Agnieszka Lubomira Piotrowska, Małgorzata Sugiera, and Piotr Olkusz
A panel discussion organized on 11 March 2014 by the Kazimierz Dejmek Nowy Theater in Łódź and Didaskalia to address the essential, and often overlooked subject of the translator in creating the theatrical work. The discussion was held with people professionally involved in translating dramatic works from various European languages. The interlocutors focused on the issue of the specifics of drama translation, the translation process, and on translation techniques themselves. Questions were also raised concerning the collaboration between a translator and the theater. A particular case of direct cooperation between a translator and director while creating a particular play was also discussed.

Katarzyna Lemańska. Speech Is Speech, Dance Is Dance
Katarzyna Lemańska reviews Sally Banes's book Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance (Polish edition: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne in cooperation with the Music and Dance Institute, Krakow 2013). Over thirty years after its first publication, a book considered a classic of dance theater has been translated into Polish. The author of the review stresses that Terpsichore... is not an historical outline in the strict academic sense, but combines many fields of observation of avant-garde dance phenomena in the 1960s and 1970s in the USA. The book includes not only outstanding portraits of artists affiliated with the described movement and sketches of their work, but also fragments of interviews with the artists.

Julia Hoczyk. Thoughts in Motion – When Theory and Practice Converge
Julia Hoczyk reviews an anthology published by the Ha!art Corporation, Awareness of Movement: Texts on Contemporary Dance, edited by Jadwiga Majewska (Krakow, 2013). The author details the structure of the publication, which recalls a course reader. Hoczyk points out the solid editorial work, which is visible, for instance, in the precisely constructed ties between the various texts and sections. She also notes that the anthology, though aimed at a limited group of dance artists, critics, and researchers, is a fine source of inspiration, analysis, and methodology.

Marta Seredyńska. Art in Places of Memory
Metamorphoses (14-17.05, Poznań), another series created at the Castle Culture Center, addressed the issue of relationships between space and memory. Seredyńska describes three plays from the competition: Tyran(s), choreographed by Karine Ponties, Space and Power byDaria La Stella, and I Wanna be Someone Great by Dominika Knapik and the Harakiri Farmers collective. These works tie in to the stories of three remarkable cultural centers: La Briqueterie, Les Brigittines, and the Castle Culture Center, whose previous designations – a brickyard, chapel, and royal castle – mark out the thematic scopes of the plays (power, religion, labor).

Agata Siwiak. Understanding Public Theater
Dragan Klaic's book Resetting the Stage: Public Theater between the Market and Democracy (Polish edition: Zbigniew Raszewski Theater Institute, Theater Confrontations/Culture Center in Lublin, Warsaw-Lublin 2014) allows us to understand the idea of public theater, identified by the author through his cultural competencies and duties. In Klaic's view, the European theater systems require far-reaching revisions of public financing standards, for which one of the key criteria ought to be the level of the artistic, cultural, and civic mission, conceived in its broadest terms. Agata Siwiak notes the enormous importance of this work on the Polish market, where the organizational status of the institution is a deciding factor in receiving grants, and readers mistakenly identify public theater with local-governmental and state repertoire theaters.

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