Teatr Współczesny

Tadeusz Nyczek

Contemporary was first called Chamber and was created just after the war in Lodz. When all the theaters were nationalized in 1949, the band was transferred to Warsaw and since then Mokotowska 13 has been living as a Contemporary. Although it was founded by four artists and in that set he ruled for some time, was associated primarily with the name of Erwin Axer, one of the greatest creators of postwar theater. The idea of ​​the Contemporary was not to be intellectually detached from the West when there was a political attachment to the East. This meant turning to European literature and culture, as contemporary as possible, which otherwise justified the name of the theater.

But there was more to it: not to be internalized internally, to be subjected to mental malfeasance. Not only did the audience in Warsaw quickly understand, and the tens of years to the Contemporary were people who tried not to forget that they could afford more than consent to the commonality of life in gray socialism. For many years it was a theater in the best sense of the word. He exhibited great literary art in excellent directing and best possible castings. There was no text passing through the whistles of the director's fanbase, and he did not put his head on what he wanted to stand on. Professional craftsmanship, wise literature - in the times of cardiovascular mortality it was the building of islands of spiritual resistance. Many premieres went to the History of the Grand Theater. Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" (1957), "Artur Ui's Career", Brecht (1962 - with brilliant Tadeusz Lomnicki), Mrozek's Tango (1965 and 1997), "Master and Margaret" by Bulgakov (1987) Fragments of a much larger whole. From 1981 Contemporary Maciej Englert, continuing and extending the Axer programming line. It was the most turbulent of the twentieth century in history and in this whole post-war Poland. "Solidarity," martial law, then freedom and regime change swept across the country like a tornado, overturning principles, mixing concepts, changing the rules of community life. By these storms, the Contemporaries have mutilated as everyone else, but as one of the few he did not have to appeal anything, apologize for nothing, cut off anything. Today it is no longer able to perform such a role as it used to be - a bridge between us and the world. Everything is slow, the world is open, you can choose.

But some things do not get old: intelligence, like professionalism and good intuition. Contemporary stars still actresses, although their former greats are not living - Łomnicki, Mrozowska, Mikołajska, Fijewski, Wołonąko, Ludwiżanka, Gordon-Gorecki, Czechowicz.

But Maja Komorowska, Marta Lipińska, Krzysztof Kowalewski and Janusz Michałowski are still working here. There are still performances that, once once, are difficult to get. And this is one of the few theaters in Poland that does not have an audience, just a ticket office. There is a great classics and the latest news, from social dramas to the funniest farce.

Whoever wants to give his daily life stress to the locker room and breathe to others, better ordered air, let him enter Mokotowska 13.