Performowanie Pamięci w Polskim Teatrze Współczesnym
Performing Memory in Polish Modern Theatre

Summary/Abstract: A reflection on the means of using and processing documents in the course of attempts to reconstruct occurrences from the past seems to be the most compelling perspective of contemporary documentarism. Theatre provides a space that is particularly appealing in this case, as it is a place where maintaining equilibrium between the real and the fictional appears to be a widespread practice. This article focuses on a few performances that complicate their relationship with regard to “the archive”in a peculiarly refined manner, pointing at the variational aspect of the image of reality created onstage. The new documentary theatre, whilst undermining the possibility to create an “objective” historical account, pictures the past as something that undergoes constant motion and therefore change.Creating simulations of historical representations, new theatre processes them in order to highlight the shift of interest – from the history itself onto the media of history. In fact, what is being simulated is not the sheer occurrence, but the memory of it, which is prone to varied manipulations.This new drift in documentarism is derived from the findings of performance studies, especially the strategy of re-enactment. In other words, the procedure of reconstruction, perceived as a type of performative reiteration that questions the capability of the past to evince itself in the present time. In performances founded on the strategy of “performing memory”, a crucial role is being played by the scenography, which is orientated at feigning reality. The theatre, not infrequently acquiring the function of “the site of memory” (les lieux de memoire),reveals a new possibility in documentarism –the offering of a renewed experience, a suggestion to recreate the score of a certain experience, rooted particularly in personal accounts (oral history) favored in modern humanities. These performative tendencies that determine the new documentary theatre, focused on the constant process of renegotiating the shape of the theatrical reality, are likely to constitute its greatest potential.

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