In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Gombrowicz’s Archives and the Theater
  • Vincent Giroud (bio)

Click for larger view
View full resolution
Figure 1.

Witold and Rita Gombrowicz, Vence, France, 1969. Photo: Hanne Garthe, courtesy Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

[End Page 30]

The Witold Gombrowicz Archive found a home at Yale University in 1996, when the Beinecke Library acquired it from his widow, Rita. It comprises papers and books Gombrowicz had in his possession at the time of his death in July 1969 as well as important documentation she subsequently assembled. A survey of its theater-related holdings not only offers a rare glimpse of theater history but also indicates possible areas for research and production in the future.

Gombrowicz did not save his manuscripts, and few of his works survive in this form. The archive thus contains no records concerning the prepublication history of his first play, Iwona, księżniczka Burgunda, which has been rendered in English as Princess Ivona, or Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy, or as Iwona, Princess of Burgundia. Written in 1934-35, it first appeared in 1938 in Skamander, the main Polish literary journal of the interwar period (unfortunately still lacking in the Yale collections). The play, however, did not receive its first performance until the end of 1957, nearly twenty years after publication, when it was staged at the Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw during the short period when Gombrowicz's works became available in his native country. It was published separately the following year, also in Warsaw, in an edition illustrated by Tadeusz Kantor. The great Polish director had seen, but not liked, the Teatr Dramatyczny production. In his single letter to Gombrowicz kept in the archive, Kantor explains that this production was too close to the climate of a farce and discusses his plans to direct the play himself at his Cricot Theater in Krakow; a sketch of his design illustrates the undated letter. This plan was thwarted when Gombrowicz's works were banned again in late 1958.

Another abortive attempt to stage Iwona is documented in the archive by a 1964 letter from Ingmar Bergman. The Swedish director ultimately realized this project in 1995 at the Royal Theater in Stockholm, a production that announced at the time as marking his retirement from the stage. (One of the earliest American stagings of Yvonne was at the Yale School of Drama in 1970.) [End Page 31]


Click for larger view
View full resolution
Figure 2.

The cover of the samizdat edition of Trans-Atlantyk, 1981. Courtesy: Rita Gombrowicz

Gombrowicz's second play, Ślub (The Marriage), was written in 1944-46 in Argentina, where Gombrowicz found himself when the war started (he remained in Latin America for the next twenty-four years). No manuscript is known to have survived. Translated into Spanish soon afterward by Gombrowicz with the help of his young friend and longtime roommate Alejandro Rússovich, it was published in 1949 under the title Il casamiento by the music publisher European-American Music (EAM), thanks to the protection of its owner, Cecilia Benedit Debenedetti, one of Gombrowicz's chief Argentinean patrons. Two copies of this first edition of The Marriage (in any language) are in the Beinecke's collection.

The subsequent history of the play can be traced in the archive's correspondence section. Still unpublished in Polish, The Marriage was circulated in typescript copies. Gombrowicz gave one to Jaroslław Iwaszkiewicz when he visited Buenos Aires in 1948. Back in Poland, Iwaszkiewicz, then probably the most famous Polish writer in activity, tried to get the play published but reported to Gombrowicz the following year that he had little hope of succeeding; the play lacked any ostensible social satire, which would have made it politically palatable in postwar Poland. Gombrowicz also sent a copy to Martin Buber in Israel. In his reply, the Polish-born philosopher compared The Marriage to Pirandello's work, while regretting the absence of interpersonal relations between the characters. One copy came to the attention of Czeslław Milłosz, then cultural attaché to the Polish Embassy in Washington (he defected in February 1951). Milłosz, in turn, showed the play to the leading member of the Polish émigré literary community...

pdf

Share