Transcending the Absurd by Halina Stephan (review)

Book Reviews HALINA STEPHAN. Transcending the Absurd. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997. Pp. 276. $56.00, paperback. Slawomir Mrozek belongs to the ranks of Polish contemporary classics. Cherished primarily as a playwright. he is also an accomplished prose writer and a skillful and wiuy cartoonist. In 1990, when Mrozek turned sixty, his long career, spanning over four decades (three of which he spent abroad), was manifestly recognized by a two-week festival organized in Krak6w and devoted to his artistic achievements. The publication of his collected works in German, French and Polish added weight to the appreciation of his literary output and confmned Mrozek's international status. His position has also been auested, both in Poland and abroad. by numerous translations and theatre productions. Mrozek has attracted the attention of the best critics, among them Jan Blonski, J6zef Kelera, Jan Klossowicz and Daniel Gerould. However, he had to wait until the mid-nineties for the first monograph and book-length analyses of his dramaturgy . These are Halina Stephan's book, published in Polish under the title Mroiek (Krak6w: WYdawnictwo Literackie, 1996) and in English as Transcending the Absurd; Jan BJonski's Wszystkie szruki Slawomira Mroika [All Plays by Slawomir Mrozek] (Krak6w: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1995); and Malgorzala Sugiera's Dramaturgia Slawomira Mroika [Slawomir Mrozek's Dramaturgy] (Krak6w: Universitas, 1996). To a Canadian reader, Halina Stephan's book in English is of primary interest. It provides a comprehensive - bibliographically, culturally and politically contextualized - examination of Mroiek's literary output. Stephan's thorough research and polished style make the book not only a valuable source of factual and bibliographic infonnation but also enjoyable reading. The author clearly sets her goals. Her main interest is in three identities of the Polish writer: "that of the socialist journalist, the satirist and parodist of the socialist heritage, and the expalriate seeking a universal audience ..." (4). The exploration of the issue of identity underlies not only Stephan'S choice of a diachronic approach but also her analysis of Mroiek's major works. Modem Drama, 41 (1998) 331 332 Book Reviews The author pays particular attention to Mrozek's formative years and the influence of socialist realism on his world-view and poetics. She analyzes Mrozek's early journalistic articles, jeuiffero1ls, satires, cartoons and theatre reviews - the material which until now has rarely been discussed and whose importance to Mrozek's literary career has never been adequately acknowledged. Stephan's careful look at these early works sheds a new light on the origin of the playwright's thematic interests. on which she focuses most of her attention throughout the book, as well as on his stylistic and formal choices. Following the playwright's own evaluation of his experiences of Stalinism, Stephan sees his socialist realist practices not as an unimportant aesthetic aberration but as an intrinsic and influential part of his literary career, thus contributing to a more comprehensive interpretation of the Polish post-war theater, already exercised by such critics as J6zef Kelera and Marta Fik. Stephan's book, unlike the two other recent studies, subscribes to the prevalent reading of Mrozek's early plays in the West through the lens of the Theater of the Absurd, while recognizing the specificity of its Eastern European version. Her interpretation of Mrozek's works written abroad also reconfinns, this time thematically, the East-West dichotomy and explicates it through both intellectual and actual biographies of the playwright. However, it is the Polish cultural and political context that interests her the most. To it, the author adds well-documented responses of Polish and foreign theaters to Mrozek's playwriting. Among the latter the German reception is privileged, but Stephan also pays attention to the emerging Russian interest in and stagings of Mrozek's plays. She accounts for the major reasons for his successes and failures on stage at home and abroad. The book balances the factual with the analytical. The author, a Polish-American scholar, provides ample explanation for what otherwise might have been obscure to a non-Polish reader. Sometimes this approach leads to unnecessary repetitions, but it assures clarity. The analytical parts of Transcending the Absurd grow out of skillful and brief summaries of the works under consideration. In addition...