‘Krakow provocation?’ On Adam Mickiewicz’s 'Forefathers’ Eve' directed by Bohdan Korzeniewski

This essay is an analysis and interpretation of Bohdan Korzeniewski’s June 1963 staging of Forefathers’ Eve in the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Krakow. Korzeniewski’s spectacle, named by Maria Czanerle ‘the most shocking thing ever done to Forefathers’ Eve’, with awe- -inspiring stage design by Tadeusz Brzozowski and Krzysztof Penderecki’s avant-garde music, did not earn a lasting place in the history of theatre. It received rather lukewarm reviews and did not gain the favour of actors, either. Despite being received enthusiastically by such distinguished critics as Marta Fik and Stanisław Marczak-Oborski, Korzeniewski’s Forefathers’ Eve has largely been forgotten. This essay is an attempt at reconstructing the performance based on the remaining theatrical copies, reviews and memories of those who collaborated on the production. The essay’s author poses the question about what part of Korzeniowski’s failure was due to the historical context and the impossibility to realize this concept in another reality an on another stage. As, indeed, Korzeniewski created his interpretation in 1953 and it was part of a secret ministry competition for the first postwar staging of Forefathers’ Eve. Analyzing the implicit signs present in the director’s concept, which refer to the reality of the war, occupation and Stalinist period, the author also asks how Polish romantic drama staging history would have unfolded if it was Korzeniewski and not Aleksander Bardini who staged Forefathers’ Eve in 1955 in the Polish Theatre in Warsaw