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interview DIRECTING IN POLAND A Confrontation with History Zygmunt Hubner Zygmunt Hubner graduated from the State Theatre School of Warsaw in 1952. He was artistic director of the Teatr Wybrzeze in GdaAsk from 1958 to 1960 and manager of the Stary Teatr in Cracow from 1963 to 1969. He has been the manager and artistic director of the Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw since 1975. The theatre's main interest lies in the modern repertory, Polish and foreign, with emphasis on social and moral issues. Under Hubner's leadership, the Teatr Powszechny has become one of Poland's outstanding theatres, attracting many of the finest actors and directors. A dean and professor at the State Theatre School, Department of Stage Direction, HUbner is also Secretary General of the Polish ITI Center. Important productions which Hdbner has directed include the world premiere of Witkiewicz's The Shoemakers (Gdahsk, 1957, closed bythe censor after one performance) and the award-winning version of Joyce's Ulysses (Gdafisk, 1970). He writes a regular column for the drama magazine, Dialog, and has published in Polish three books on theatre: Conversations on Theatre (1953), Bogustawski, Man of the Theatre (1958), and Sorry, Nothing New (1978). 81 The following conversations took place while Hlibner was in the United States, first in Athens, Georgia, where he directed the American premiere of Witkiewicz's The Cuttlefish at the University of Georgia in 1977, and then in New York where he was the guest lecturer from Poland at the National Endowment for the Humanities Institute in Contemporary Eastern European Theatre: Poland and the Soviet Union, held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in the Summer, 1980. Daniel Gerould What do you see as the special characteristics of Polish theatre? A strong tradition of social and political involvement that goes back to the beginnings of the Polish theatre in the sixteenth century and continues to the present. In his sixteenth lecture at the College de France, during his years of political exile in Paris, the great Polish romantic poet and playwright Adam Mickiewicz wrote in 1843: "The task of the theatre is to provoke, or rather to force lazy souls to action." In Poland the theatre has never been considered primarily as entertainment, or exclusively in artistic terms. Light comedy scarcely exists. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary Polish theatre? A major source of strength Is that there are so many things to fight against. Besides this serious commitment to social and political involvement, there is a great variety of artistic trends, as represented by Szajna, Grotowski, and Kantor, as well as the more recent neo-realism. As for weaknesses, since we are short of actors, there is no competition among them. Bureaucracy penetrates Into artistic work. Then there are three areas of limitation imposed from outside: first, the political; second, the sexual; and third, the religous. I think that the political restrictions are obvious enough, particularly as concerns Poland's relations with the Soviet Union. Sexual restrictions are imposed, not by the government, but by the audience and the limits of its toleration. Although nudity Is nowacceptedin the theatre we cannot do plays that deal with perversion, or present sexual matters too openly, or use very vulgar language. Thus we have a great problem with doing many contemporary American plays in which dirty words abound. Our audiences simply are not ready to accept such usage. Due to Its special role as the conscience of the nation during the partitions of Poland, the Polish theatre is regarded as both school and sanctuary of the Polish language. We have a tradition of high culture in the theatre, In which literary, aesthetically elevated speech replaces normal street language. The religious restrictions stem from the government's desire not to offend anyone's beliefs and thereby upset the delicate balance between church and state. A play such as Oskar Panizza's Council of Love, which portrays Jesus and the holy family in a burlesque and blasphemous fashion, could not be staged In Poland. When in 1976 I did Wtadystaw Terlecki's Rest After Running (an adaptation of a contemporary novel deal82 Ing with the murder of a...

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