Performing: Piotr Grabowski, Joanna Jeżewska, Marek Kalita, Alicja Karluk, Filip Kowalczyk, Wiktor Loga Skarczewski, Andrzej Mastalerz, Tomasz Nosiński, Włodzimierz Press, Katarzyna Warnke
Stage reading of Jozef Korzeniowski's "Jews" directed by Jerzy Machowski.
The series Romantyzm. Od-czytywanie for the second time draws on the work of Józef Korzeniowski (1797-1863). In the nineteenth century he was, next to Aleksander Count Fredro, the most frequently performed playwright on Polish stages. He was wildly popular and was considered the greatest Romantic author writing for the theatre (it should be remembered that this was before the premieres of dramas by Słowacki, Krasiński and Mickiewicz, which were written in exile). Today, hardly anyone remembers Korzeniowski, or if they do, they associate him with The Carpathian Highlanders, which was read out in September. Now the series turns to a completely forgotten play by this author, which caused quite a scandal when it was published.
In Jews, Korzeniowski portrayed the borderland Polish gentry in the period after the November Uprising. He portrayed his compatriots as hypocritical and prejudiced, quarrelsome, petty and, above all, greedy. After the great national defeat, the theatre was expected to 'warm the heart' rather than subject society to harsh and painful criticism. In this drama, the impoverished nobility borrows heavily from Jewish usurers, whom it also despises, and ascribes to the Jews the greed it represents as a "national trait". She uses the word "Jews" only contemptuously, using it as an insult. Hence the title of the play, which perversely and ironically refers not to Jews, but to Polish landowners from the eastern borderlands.
In the Lviv staging of the play, the role of Baron Izayevich, a Jewish convert who has earned his aristocratic title but still cannot gain acceptance among the nobility, was played by Bogumił Dawison. The great actor's biography was strangely intertwined with the character he played: he himself came from a Jewish family, was baptised and changed his surname, but was still reproached for his origin. In Lvov, in addition to Polish performances, he began to appear in German-language ensembles. Finally, he got a commitment to the Viennese Burgtheater and then to the Royal Saxon Theatre in Dresden, where he died, enjoying the fame of a great dramatic artist and a specialist in Shakespearean roles. The Shakespearean trope will, incidentally, also appear during the evening devoted to Korzeniowski's Jews, who alludes to The Merchant of Venice in his drama through the character of the usurer Aron Levy.
adaptation: Iwona Rusek
After the stage reading, a conversation with Professor Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska, PhD, will be led by the director of the reading and series curator Jerzy Machowski.