(A)Pollonia: Twenty-First-Century Polish Drama and Texts for the Stage

Exploring the ethics of historical narratives and national identities, this anthology of Polish plays delves into the trauma of war, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Poland’s post-communist reality.

The eleven pieces in this anthology of Polish plays dive deep into complex subjects such as Poland’s loss since the Holocaust, its difficult postwar relations with Germany, the social metamorphoses since the political upheaval of 1989, and the needs of Polish families and youth since the nation’s transition to a free-market economy. Krzysztof Warlikowski’s acclaimed production (A)pollonia, which calls upon excerpts from Greek tragedies, novels by Jonathan Littell and J. M. Coetzee, and reportage by Hanna Krall, provides the title for the anthology as it encapsulates the key subjects, conflicts, and dilemmas prominent in the Polish theater of the last decade.

The plays in this anthology are accompanied by thirty-five black-and-white photographs of performances showcasing select scenes from their original Polish productions. An introduction provides the historical and political framework for the collected texts, and the foreword explains the scope of the international collaboration that produced the exceptional translations in this volume.

Krystyna Duniec is professor in the theater department of the Institute of Art at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. She is the author of several books in Polish. Joanna Klass is a senior theater expert at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw. Joanna Krakowska is an editor, publisher, translator, essayist, and contemporary theatre historian. She is an associate professor at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and a deputy editor of Dialog magazine.