Dariusz Kosiński, Performing Poland: Rethinking Histories and Theatres [Teatry polskie: Historie], trans. Paul Vickers (Aberstwyth, UK: Performance Research Books, 2019), 405 pp., illustrations, bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-90649-906-8.
This coffee-table-sized, highly illustrated book is a reassessment of Polish theatre history from a performance-studies perspective. The book is divided into five thematic, rather than chronological, parts: “The Theatre of Festivities,” “A Theatre of Fundamental Questions,” “National Theatre,” “Political Theatre—Between Ceremony and Protest,” and “The Theatre of the Cultural Metropolis.” Between each part, there are four “interludes”: “Forefathers’ Eve: The Mother Lode,” “The Eternal Evolutionary,” “‘He Who Is Liberated of His Own Will . . . ’,” and “The Un-Divine Comedy.” The “festivities” part describes various festivals and rituals mostly related to the Catholic liturgical calendar, but some left over from earlier pagan times that traditionally had (and in many cases still have) performative elements in their celebrations. The “fundamental questions”...
