The presentation refers to the symptoms and reception of the ethical turn in Polish theatre. It describes the discussions around it and reveals the disputes it has triggered, starting from the local response to the accusations against Belgian Jan Fabre in September 2018. In the following years the Polish theatre and theatre schools were facing a sequence of callouts, revealing a scale of inappropriate practices in the institutions. The presentation focuses on the performances and dramatic texts that deal with the topic of ethics in theatre. Artistic work as well as media publications create a specific discourse on violence in Polish theatre. Progressive artists take up the topic and write texts for theatre or produce performances that question the widespread master/director system (Agnieszka Jakimiak’s Nosexnosolo, inspired by the case of Jan Fabre), expose the abuses committed by theater schools’ teachers (Aktorki, czyli przepraszam, że dotykam [Actresses or I’m Sorry to Touch You] by Michal Telega, at the Krakow Theatre Academy students’ experiences), draw attention to the invisible work in theatre (Kwestia techniki [The Case of Technique] by Michal Buszewicz, presenting technical workers of The National Old Theatre in Krakow), point out the fatigue of the theatres’ administration employees (Zmeczone [Tired] play by Daria Sobik), and analyze the “fortunate” and “unfortunate” reactions of the alleged perpetrators of violence (Instytucje i backlash [Institutions and Backlash] performance by Agnieszka Jakimiak and Agata Adamiecka-Sitek).
In the autumn of 2020, members of The Polish Society for Theatre Research (PTBT) started the PTBT Ethics Group. At that time, we were hoping that pointing and naming inappropriate practices as well as developing a language that could enable us – artists, theoreticians, critics and journalists – to describe them in the media, academic texts- and meta-theatrical statements would become a trigger for a change. Today it seems that the ethical discourse in Poland is divided into two strands: in addition to corrective actions, the practice of backlash appears. The backlash, also seen in the theatre practice, supports the existing hierarchies and ironically depicts the call for a change. As a result, a division between the progressive, inclusive, non-hierarchical theatre and the patriarchal, hierarchical, director’s authoritative theatre deepens. Can this conflict be constructive? Does it serve the theatre as an institution of culture? Does it strengthen its employees? Does it make the audience more thoughtful? Does it inspire us to search for new methods of artistic work or freeze both sides of the dispute in the positions they hold?
Piotr Dobrowolski (dr. hab., prof. UAM) is an academic researcher and teacher at the Department of Polish and Classical Philology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, editor of the quarterly “Czas Kultury” [The Time of Culture] and the online magazine “czaskultury.pl”, contributor to several academic and cultural magazines, associate – as an author and expert – of the The Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, a juror in the Gdynia Drama Award committee (Gdynska Nagroda Dramaturgiczna) and a member of the Polish Society for Theatre Research (PTBT). He is the author of three books (the last one being Theatre and Politics. Political Discourses in Contemporary Polish Drama, 2019) and research papers, and the co-author of academic monographies, theatre and literature critic, essayist and translator.