Whose Authority May I Ask? Polish, English, German, Shakespearean or Directorial? On the Boundaries Between Ethnicity, Nationality, Religion and Theatricality in Jan Klata’s Shakespearean Productions

Jacek Fabiszak

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.17.05

Authors

Jacek Fabiszak Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.17.05

Keywords:

authority, authorship, performance, post-dramatic theatre, Shakespeare productions in Poland, Jan Klata

Abstract

Jan Klata is a director who has been labelled a provocateur and who is considered to hold nothing cultural or national sacred. From the beginning of his artistic career he is said to have challenged authorities: theatrical, ethnic, national, etc. by debunking and questioning prevailing heroic myths and forms. Today, imperceptibly yet steadily, Klata himself becomes an authority and his theatrical productions gradually become classics in the eyes of the new generations of theatre directors and audiences, at the same time inciting and inevitably inviting cultural rebellion ... The article examines Klata’s treatment of theatrical and national authority in his Shakespeare productions, on the one hand, and the image of the director as an authority on the other. All in the light of the theoretical model on authority in theatre, especially in Shakespeare productions, developed by W.B. Worthen.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Jacek Fabiszak, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

Jacek Fabiszak teaches cultural history and theory at the Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. His research interests include English Renaissance theatre and drama and their stage, televisual and filmic transpositions. He has published and given papers at conferences on Shakespeare’s plays—one of his major publications in this area is Polish Televised Shakespeares (Poznań: Motivex, 2005). Jacek Fabiszak also applied linguistic and sociological tools in the analysis of drama, which resulted in the publication of Shakespeare’s Drama of Social Roles (Piła, 2001), a book that attempts to interpret Shakespeare’s Last Plays in light of the theory of social roles and speech act theory. Furthermore, Jacek Fabiszak has popularized the Bard’s works in Poland co-authoring Szekspir. Leksykon [Shakespeare. A lexicon. Kraków, 2003] and co-editing CzytanieSzekspira [Reading Shakespeare]. He has also written on Christopher Marlowe, both his plays (focusing on imagery) and their screen versions (especially Edward II).

References

“Buntownik z irokezem dyrektorem Starego Teatru” [A rebel with a Mohican is the manager of the Stary/Old/ Theatre]. 2012. http://www.tvn24.pl/kultura-styl,8/buntownik-z-irokezem-dyrektorem-starego-teatru,261253.html doa: 5 March 2016.
Google Scholar

Beckett, Samuel. 1986. “Waiting for Godot”, in: The Complete Dramatic Works. London–Boston: faber and faber. 7-88.
Google Scholar

Bradby, David and David Williams. 1988. Directors’ Theatre. Houndmills: Macmillan.
Google Scholar

Brown, Lesley (ed.) 1993. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Google Scholar

Cieślak, Magdalena. 2015. “‘… The Ruins of Europe in Back of Me.’ Jan Klata’s Shakespeare and the European Condition”. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 50/4. 67-77.
Google Scholar

Jonson, Ben. 1983. “Volpone, or The Fox”, in: J.M. Morrell (ed.) Four English Comedies of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 11-129.
Google Scholar

Kizelbach, Urszula. 2015. “Review of Hamlet. Dir. Jan Klata. Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre, Gdańsk, Poland. Was lessen Sie, mein Prinz? … Bücher, Bücher, Bücher!”. Multicultural Shakespeare 12 (27). 155-159.
Google Scholar

Lehmann, Hans-Thies. 2006. Postdramatic Theatre. Tr. by Karen Jürs-Munby. London–New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar

Marlowe, Christopher. 2003. “Doctor Faustus”, in: Frank Romany and Robert Lindsey (eds.) The Complete Plays. London: Penguin Books.
Google Scholar

Masten, Jeffrey. 1997. “Playwrighting: Authorship and Collaboration”, in: Cox, John D. and David Scott Kastan (eds.) A New History of Early English Drama. New York: Columbia University Press.
Google Scholar

Taylor, Gary, John Jowett, Terri Bourus and Gabriel Egan (eds.) 2016. The New Oxford Shakespeare. The Complete Works. Modern Critical Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar

Worthen, W.B. 1997. Shakespeare and the Authority of Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

Worthen, W.B. 2014. Shakespeare Performance Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar

Wyspiański, Stanisław. 2000. Hamlet [Study of Hamlet]. Gdańsk: Tower Press.
Google Scholar