„A jeżeli tego miasta nie ma”
“And If This City Doesn’t Exist”

A Dialogue About Arcadia in Grzegorzewski’s Theatre

Summary/Abstract: The production of Tadeusz Różewicz’s "Duszyczka" (‘A Little Soul’) put on by Jerzy Grzegorzewski at the Narodowy Theatre in 2004 was preceded by other adaptations of the poet’s non-dramatic pieces that were staged by the same director. The scripts to two of them – "Śmierć w starych dekoracjach" (‘Death in Old Scenery’, 1978) and "Złowiony" (‘Caught’, 1993) – included fragments of the poem ‘Et in Arcadia ego’, a trait they shared with Duszyczka, which had numerous consequences. As a result, a peculiar interplay, spanning a quarter of a century and different registers, developed around the motif of Italian journey and the mythof Italy. In it was encoded one of the major themes of the 20th century, because Różewicz treated his questions about the existence of something we call spiritual world as a challenge to Eliot’s symbolist poetics.

• Details
• Contents