SOURCE: “Feasts in Time of the Plague: Polish Theatre and Drama, Post-Solidarity,” in Modern Drama, Vol. XXVII, No. 1, March, 1984, pp. 41–54.

In the following essay, Czerwinski discusses the state of the theater in post-solidarity Poland.

The classics are back and East European theatres are feasting on them. It is that time again when the winds of resistance die down and the ominous calm spreads across the theatre community. It has happened before, each time signaled by the censorship of Adam Mickiewicz's Dziady (Forefather's Eve), a nineteenth-century classic that straightforwardly excoriates the old Russian regime. Unfortunately, things have not changed much and Mickiewicz's diatribes against the Russians translate fortuitously into criticism of the Soviets. The present state of theatrical ennui in Poland, however, was precipitated not by Mickiewicz's poetic abuse, but rather by General Jarużelski's prosaic convening of ZOMO—the Polish equivalent of Hell's Angels. Polish actors, directors and...