The Morality of Mrs. Dulska: A Play by Gabriela Zapolska (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Murjas The Morality of Mrs. Dulska: A Play by Gabriela Zapolska Translated & introduced by Teresa Murjas the M O R A L...

Author: Gabriela Zapolska

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Murjas

The Morality of Mrs. Dulska: A Play by Gabriela Zapolska Translated & introduced by Teresa Murjas

the M O R A L I T Y of M R S . D U L S K A

Gabriela Zapolska (1857–1921) was an actor, journalist and playwright. She was born during the 123 year partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia and wrote over thirty plays. The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, a ‘petty-bourgeois tragic-farce’, is probably her best known work. Zapolska’s uncompromising look at gender construction and class oppression in fin-de-siècle Poland is witty, entertaining and incisive. The English-language translation of this popular Polish classic was prepared by Teresa Murjas. In her illustrated introduction, she discusses how the translation and first UK production which she directed were developed. She introduces Zapolska’s work in its historical contexts, provides the reader with relevant biographical information and considers the play’s performance history up to the present day. She draws these strands together into a narrative of deportation, exile and emigration.

a play by gabrie la z a po l ska

Teresa Murjas is a Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Reading. She specialises in late 19th/early 20th century European theatre and translation. She supervises student directors in her department as well as directing her own practice as research projects. She has also worked as a Lecturer in Theatre and a director at the University of Lodz in central Poland.

ISBN 978-1-84150-166-6

intellect PO Box 862 Bristol BS99 1DE UK www.intellectbooks.com

9 781841 501666

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The Morality of Mrs. Dulska

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The Morality of Mrs. Dulska A petty-bourgeois tragic-farce by

Gabriela Zapolska

Translated and introduced by

Teresa Murjas

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First Published in the UK in 2007 by Intellect Books, PO Box 862, Bristol BS99 1DE, UK First Published in the USA in 2007 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright © 2007 Intellect All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Anyone wishing to perform the translated version of the play in this publication should contact Teresa Murjas for permission at the following address: Teresa Murjas Department of Film, Theatre & Television The University of Reading Bulmershe Court, Woodlands Avenue Reading, RG6 1HY, UK ISBN 978-1-84150-166-6 / ISSN 1754-0933 / EISBN 978-184150-983-9 Series: Playtext Series Series Editor: Roberta Mock Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons Copy Editor: Holly Spradling Typesetting: Planman Technologies Printed and bound by HSW Print, UK.

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To my father / AW MURJAS CZESL (1926–2006)

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Contents

Acknowledgements

viii

Preface

ix

Introduction

xii

Act I

1

Act II

39

Act III

72

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Acknowledgements With special thanks to Irena, Jolanta and Mal/a Murjas, Lib Taylor, Krystyna Olliffe, Roberta Mock, May Yao, Sam King, Mischa Twitchin, Elwira Grossman, Halina Filipowicz, Aoife Monks, Doug Pye, Pamela Wiggin, Lisa Clark, Chris Bacon, Dave Marron, Jonathan Bignell, Rosemary Allen, John Lynch, the efficient, helpful archivists at ZASP and the Theatre Museum in Warsaw and the many excellent, dedicated student actors, designers and technicians at the University of Reading whose energy and enthusiasm made my research production and this book possible. Derby, 8th August 2006

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Preface ‘Sometimes we saw her out in the street. Zapolska, dressed with some eccentricity, sat carelessly in a carriage. The ostrich feathers adorning her hat were blown by the wind into disarray but she, pensive, far away, failed to notice.’1 My introduction to Gabriela Zapolska’s 1906 play The Morality of Mrs. Dulska is divided into six sections. The first two sections are written from a personal perspective, in what I experience as a more emotive ‘voice’. They are intended to provide a conceptual framework within which the latter half of the introduction and the translation itself can be read. Discussion in Section 1 centres on the play’s translator and its director. Here I explore the contexts in which my translation and theatre production evolved and describe my approach to negotiating the play’s apparent transition from a so-called source, to a target, culture. In Section 2, I draw attention to a Polish Memorial in Portsmouth with which this translation is closely linked. In doing so, I raise a series of issues concerning my Polish-British identity and the significance of this translation within a narrative of Polish emigration, deportation and exile to Britain since the early nineteenth century. The remaining sections include material perhaps more conventionally encountered in introductions to translated texts. From many such introductions, the translator’s personal ‘voice’ tends to be abstracted. In writing these sections, I have selected and arranged information which I consider to be important for an understanding of Zapolska’s work. In Sections 3 and 4, I draw on scholarship largely available in English, in order to enable easy access for the reader, should s/he wish to read more widely. Focusing mainly on the period before The Morality of Mrs. Dulska was written, I indicate a general historical backdrop against which selected biographical information about the playwright can be considered. To obtain the latter, I have drawn on theatre scholarship produced in Polish. In Section 5, I discuss the cultural significance of Zapolska’s work in Poland and the critical contexts in which scholars and theatre practitioners have located the playwright and read her work. In Section 6, I draw on archival research conducted in Poland, facilitated by a travel grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This section deals directly with The Morality of Mrs. Dulska and focuses on aspects of its performance history in Poland. ix

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Preface

I have re-written the introduction many times. In doing so, I have gradually come to realize that my painful struggle to arrange the material, to somehow weave the different narrative strands together into resolution, is symptomatic of my broader struggle to define what precisely it means – culturally, geographically, historically, linguistically – to be Polish-British. What characterizes my experience as an ‘émigré-once-removed’. Hitherto, its key feature has been an often very productive, though frequently exhausting and frustrating, sense of disjunction and dislocation. For this introduction, I have tried to develop a form that will facilitate coherent expression of the tensions characterizing my cultural status. It is also intended that any reading of the translated text should further function to ‘shape’ the material included in the introduction.

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By permission of Oxford University Press

Figure 1: Eastern Europe c. 1880. From Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland (1984) by Davies, Norman, p. 176.

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INTRODUCTION Mrs. Dulska moves house

SECTION 1: The Translator Why and how was this translation created? My first encounter with Gabriela Zapolska’s 1906 play The Morality of Mrs. Dulska came when I was a pupil at our small community Saturday School in Derby, where I was born. There, in the mid to late 1980s, I studied for my Polish 'O' and 'A' levels and my interest in fin-de-siècle literature and theatre was sparked. I currently work as a lecturer in Theatre at Reading University. I developed this translation of the play by directing a research production.2 This was staged early in 2004 at the Centre for Polish Culture (POSK) in Hammersmith, London. The three public performances followed on from a previous run, which had taken place at the Reading Myra McCulloch University Theatre, in autumn 2003. The inter-disciplinary Department of Film, Theatre & Television at Reading has a long-established academic tradition of research into Polish film and nurtures links with /Lód´z University in central Poland. During a gap year from my Ph.D. studies at Birmingham University, for which I had chosen to focus on the work of Swedish playwright August Strindberg, Zapolska’s near-contemporary, I too worked in /Lód´z as a visiting lecturer. I was subsequently offered my current post, in a department additionally placing strong emphasis on teaching and research through theatre practice. Research productions at Reading represent examples of what is referred to in the field of Theatre Studies as ‘practice as research’ or ‘research through practice’. This involves the critical exploration of particular research questions or problems through workshops and/or the staging of a production, which may have evolved from a written play text or a process of devising. Accordingly, a formalized, annual nine week slot is available each autumn term for extracurricular, staff-led research projects of a practical nature, in which students also become involved. This opportunity can provide an arguably indispensable experimental forum for the theatre translator and in this instance it facilitated the re-shaping and refinement of my English rendition of the The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, here published. With my cast I worked on staging a production of my new translation. The rehearsal process became a way of developing the xii

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translated text, which changed week by week in response to this collaborative process, and has continued to change throughout the three years it has taken to prepare this book. A developmental, rehearsal-based working method of this kind is not dissimilar from that occasionally employed by the playwright herself, who was also an actor, translator, director, teacher, journalist and film scriptwriter. A theatre translator must try to imagine various potential approaches to the staging, design and casting of a play in her own context as well as taking account of previous productions. She must also try to hear potential multiple nuanced ways in which an actor might deliver a line, discover and develop subtext. She must try to catch and imprison the multiple theatrical possibilities she perceives in the play text, in the target language, whilst imaginatively negotiating her own dramatic and theatrical landscape. This is why often she sits in isolation, anxiously mouthing something to herself, before allowing her text to be read out loud by others. Theatre translation is as much about an impulse towards preservation, a sort of linguistic embalming, as it is about the potential for new embodiments. In developing a register for this particular translation, a process enabled by the research production, several different factors have been taken into account. I have aimed for formality of address, in order to effect a 'historicization' of the action, judging that too contemporary a tone would fail to evoke the late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century milieu and thus defuse the scandal that takes place in the Dulski household and is central to the play’s action. Zapolska wrote the play a century ago and so I have aimed to create a ‘linguistic construction’ of that period in English. The formality of address can be employed variously, especially by the actor playing the main character, Mrs. Dulska, to demonstrate, among other qualities and strategies, class aspiration and/or social sophistication via enabling the expression of varying degrees and methods of politeness and affectation and a constant negotiation between the performed public and private 'selves'. All these concerns are central to the Polish text, in which the evocation of the Dulski family’s double standards is crucial. In addition to aiming for a formal quality that implies historical distance, I have also attempted to locate a register which fuses, from a UK perspective, implied ‘otherness’ of location3 with patterns and rhythms of speech that conform, where appropriate, to perhaps more contemporary British stereotypes of the middle class, in the hope of Zapolska’s satiric purpose being more readily realized in performance. By allowing me to pursue a more collaborative translation process, within a theatre space, this instance of practice as research xiii

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has also prompted me to think actively about the transference of the text from Polish to English and perceive more readily the potential of the play in a UK performance, to an English-speaking audience. It has prompted me to ask new questions about my own role as a theatre translator and consider the precise nature of my agency within a process of ‘transposition’. The company of Reading staff/student performers, designers and technicians involved in the project were subsequently invited by Chiswick teacher Krystyna Olliffe to transfer the production from the University to POSK. As a result, I had the opportunity to consider the broader issues involved in staging the play in a multi-cultural context. Pupils at many of London’s Polish Saturday schools, where Krystyna teaches, had at the time been reading the play, which featured on their exam syllabus. Consequently, the event was billed as part of a broader educational and fund-raising programme; an opportunity for students to see a play they were studying in Polish, performed in English. Thus, the project also came to represent a very particular instance of outreach between two groups of students and two communities. It also represented an instance of the text returning to an aspect of its source culture in the target, rather than the source, language. As a result of effective collaboration, the generosity of the Polish Educational Board and POSK committee, on one very lively and, for me, unforgettable afternoon the production played, in a theatre packed to the brim, to over three hundred vocal and energetic Saturday school students, aged roughly between six and eighteen, many of whom cheered loudly when the Dulski’s wronged servant girl, Hanka, demanded her one thousand kronen from Mrs. Dulska. Some of them are the children of recent immigrants, whose mother tongue is Polish. Some are the descendants of the post-war diaspora and those who left Poland, in much fewer numbers, during the latter half of the twentieth century. For these latter two groups, and I include myself in the first, Polish language acquisition may be proving increasingly challenging. Such Saturday schools were established after World War II, predominantly by political refugees, all over the UK and have been maintained with great passion and dedication. Following Poland’s accession to the EU, they are facing the renewed challenge of self-definition. They strive once again to engage in dialogue concerning the philosophical basis for their pedagogical approach and, indeed, their existence. This dialogue must surely respond to the shifting demographic trends now having an enormous impact on the make-up of their staff and student body, for whom concepts of ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’ are undergoing new, not unwelcome, forms of de-stabilization. In order to survive, xiv

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these schools will have to accommodate and develop vastly varying language abilities and attitudes towards cultural heritage. They will be compelled to hear, and respond to, the growing number of voices now contributing towards currently evolving debates concerning identity politics and multiculturalism in the UK. What is the translator’s background? Polish is my mother tongue, in the sense that I speak it at home. Both my parents were children when deported from Poland during World War II; one by the Soviets to a kolkhoz in Siberia, as part of Stalin's ethnic cleansing of nearly two million people from Eastern Poland, the other by the Nazis, to forced labour in the Reich. They arrived in England having traversed the globe, some years after the war had ended. Their survival and that of many Poles of that generation, who settled in the UK, can only be described as extraordinary. Indeed, of enormous significance to this project has been my own, and my parents’, perpetual dialectical negotiation, in never-quite-accurate English, slightly old-fashioned pre-war Polish and sometimes a newfangled and bizarre conflation or perpetual re-translation of the two that only our closest relatives would understand, around the difficult and emotive question of cultural (national?) identity (authenticity?). This question is for some embarrassingly outmoded, facile and anti-progressive, and, for others, constitutes a psycho-physical problem enacted daily. Rationalize though I may, the outcome of my personal deliberations, however Romantic, fearful and ill-fated, is necessarily an attempt to connect with a ‘Polish past’ (dare I say a historical, culturally and ethnically inclusive, master-narrative?) via academic research. Luckily, in the 'National Psyche' section, the new Lonely Planet guide to Poland informs me that Poles, though ‘not always realistic… can sometimes be charmingly irrational and romantic.’4 So perhaps I should also put this down to my ethnic background. In any case, both my desire and fear are ultimately realized through the process of translation and, finally, via a crucial interaction with my students, as live and present theatre performance offered to audiences in contrasting, symbiotic cultural environments. As a child, I was raised in what I regarded as two very separate communities. During the week, I went to my local Catholic school, where almost all my friends came from working-class, immigrant backgrounds, including Italian, Irish and Maltese. There I studied what I thought of as a mainstream curriculum that had little to do with matters ‘Polish’. The weekend was spent within a xv

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vibrant Polish community; on Saturday I attended Polish school, where I learnt Polish, which I also spoke at home, more formally. I also attended classes in Polish literature, history and geography. I learnt Polish songs and dances. I ate beetroot soup and had long plaits. I recited countless poems about dying soldiers in my national costume, which my mother had painstakingly embroidered. I was a very truculent Polish girl guide. On Sundays, I attended Mass in Polish, and later on went to the Polish club for more dancing, more singing, or perhaps an ‘akademia’, a semi-theatrical event generally centering on the commemoration of a nationally significant aspect of Polish history. Thinking back, it strikes me that my entire life has been structured around processes of commemoration and remembrance. A continuation of this pattern is probably one of the few ways I know to express my ‘Polishness’. How this relates to my ‘Britishness’ (not, interestingly, my ‘Englishness’) is problematic. It is not after all my own direct experience I am expressing through the act of commemoration. It is other peoples. What it means to be here, here in England, to be ‘Pritish’ or ‘Bolish’ – for some reason I feel compelled to invent a ‘new word’ for it – I am not sure. I am not a post-war émigré or a political refugee. I am not an asylum seeker. Nor am I part of the ‘new wave’ of immigration. I fall with a bump between several stools – I am an émigré-once-removed. I am, in a very particular way, displaced. My sense of this is compounded by non-Polish people’s responses to me in Britain, often expressed in the form of frequently asked questions. Perhaps my attempts to negotiate responses to these questions are key to understanding the relationship between my Polishness and my Britishness. The questions concern religion and ethnicity and always begin with my name, which people often think is Spanish. When I try to offer the correct pronunciation, they ask where I am from. When I tell them I am from Derby, they ask me where I am from originally, and I have often been told that I speak very good English. When I explain that my parents were ‘originally’ from Poland and arrived here after the Second World War, it is often assumed that they are Jewish, because my surname does not end in a ‘ska’ or an ‘owska’, the apparently expected surname endings for Polish women who are not Jewish. Incidentally, responses to my surname in Poland sometimes follow exactly the same pattern. When I explain that my parents were from South-Eastern Poland, where national borders frequently shifted and where there was, prior to the Second World War, much ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, this often leads to a discussion about the Holocaust. The central question here is the role ‘Poles’ played in the Holocaust. I am often tackled about this and frequently informed quite bluntly that the Poles ‘shopped’ Jews during the war. This often moves xvi

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onto a discussion about anti-Semitism within the Catholic Church and concerns regarding the resurgence of right-wing nationalism in Poland. I am then asked whether I am Catholic and the last section of the conversation focuses on the funeral of Pope John Paul II. In summarizing the pattern such conversations take, I in no way wish to be reductive about the impact or significance of any of these aspects of my Polish identity. They are all of central importance to me. I remember and think about them every day. However, this repeated line of questioning does create a caricature of Polishness and acts to put me on the defensive. Sometimes this seems to be what the questioner expects; perhaps such a response is readable as proof of an underlying, genetically pre-determined Polish nationalism and xenophobia. I have learnt to avoid showing frustration in such situations. In fact, my capacity for expressing myself in any language tends to suddenly flounder as part of a complex physiological response. This is characterized by an acute sense of despair and of having been profoundly misread. Perhaps I should be expected to mount a defense of everything stereotypically associated with Poland, irrespective of my own personal thoughts and opinions. Something I am acutely aware of, however, is that my non-Polish questioners are rarely aware of the Soviet deportations from Eastern Poland, in spite of the presence of large communities of Poles in most British cities for sixty years. It is not my desire to in any sense prioritize or value these events at the expense of others. It is simply my desire to draw attention to them so that they can form part of a more mainstream narrative. My research into Polish theatre, and most importantly my work as a translator and a teacher, provides me with a forum in which to do this. The reason for the Polish ‘émigré’ emphasis on commemoration, on preservation, stems from the political circumstances in which Polish communities were established in Britain following the Second World War. It also has deep-rooted historical precedents, explored later in this introduction. Following the Yalta Conference, the vast majority of Poles who settled in Britain either could not or did not dare return to their country. The threat to them had they done so would have been very real – they were not simply being paranoid. Their presence in Britain, given the part played by the Soviet Union in the Second World War, was extremely politically sensitive. It must be said that many Poles were afraid. They were afraid because their experiences during the war, generally outside the borders of their own country, had made them so. They were afraid because they probably could not speak English. They were afraid because their situation was politically precarious and they were unsure whether xvii

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a forum would ever exist in which they could speak out more publicly. They were afraid because they did not know if they would ever see their friends and families in Poland again. Their sense of the potential annihilation of the Polish language was not unrealistic. Prior to the First World War, Poland had not existed on the map for 123 years, and concerted, aggressive efforts had been made by its occupiers to effect de-nationalization. Polish-speaking people have often had to conduct debates concerning the relationship between language, religion, culture, ethnicity and nationality under extreme duress. In this context, many members of so-called émigré communities felt, with no sense of pathos, that they were actually the guardians of their language. Along with this came an acute sense of political responsibility. However, direct activism relating to the cause of Polish independence was problematic, given the politically sensitive situation described and subsequently the cold war. Poles who chose to identify themselves in this way, as part of a national group, often engaged in political activism at a community level. At the centre of such communities a Catholic Church could invariably be found. This must have constituted a dilemma for Poles in Britain who were not Catholic. The national ‘hub’ for this inherently political activity was London. The developing sense of responsibility manifested itself in cultural and artistic activity and the establishment of Polish Saturday schools. Crucially, it also manifested itself in an enduring programme of commemorative events. These sometimes took place ‘publicly’ – that is, outside the spaces occupied by a given community – but, generally speaking, only Polish Catholics participated in them. Even very recently, for example, I attended our annual commemoration in Derby of the Katyń massacre. The event took place in the Market Place, by the War Memorial. It was a Sunday, and, around the square, people went about their business. Music blared loudly from shops and pubs and speeches had to be shouted. A group of Poles, many of whom have lived in Derby for almost sixty years, and their children, gathered to remember an event whose true nature was for so long suppressed by the authorities in Poland. Memory of the massacre was preserved by Polish émigré communities. Without such commemorative activities it may well have been erased forever from histories of the Second World War. Such acts of commemoration have also, therefore, functioned as acts of resistance, not acts of right-wing nationalism, as has been suggested to me by impartial observers. Although it is almost ridiculous to have to say this, the Polish émigré community was and is politically diverse. For decades these acts were intended as signs of resistance to the Polish political status quo, perceived as a state of occupation. Now, these commemorative rituals are enacted in affirmation xviii

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of a greater climate of freedom of expression in Eastern Europe. This affirmation, in spite of taking place in multi-cultural Britain, occurs in many cities in cultural isolation, without the participation of other communities.

SECTION 2: The Monument How can my research production be read as an act of commemoration? An extremely important aspect of my research production, and consequently this translation, is its relationship with a Polish Memorial standing on the West Side of Kingston Cemetery in Portsmouth. It is dedicated to a group of individuals who participated in the 1831 November Uprising in partitioned Poland. Its construction was first proposed approximately 42 years ago, when plaques were produced, to bear the names of 212 soldiers and a brick superstructure put in place. Completion of this important project, however, was rendered impossible due to insufficient funding and initial plans had to be shelved. It was in 2004 that a new monument, designed by Stefan Jakóbek, chief architect at Portsmouth City Council, whose father fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, was finally erected, thanks to the generosity of those contributing to a specially established Memorial Fund. Proceeds from the performances of my research production at POSK were, at Krystyna Olliffe’s suggestion, set aside for donation to this fund. Finally, nearly half a century after plans were first set in place, the project was completed. This was enabled by the Polish-British educational system in which I too have been shaped. For me, this monument has come to represent a vital point of intersection for the narratives I am constructing to explain my research. A consideration of the commemorated individuals can provide ways into thinking about the period in which Zapolska herself lived and worked, as well as the ideas that captured her attention. It can facilitate a discussion about the development of Polish socialism, so crucial to The Morality of Mrs. Dulska. In addition, it can assist the reader in assembling a broader context for understanding my own work as a translator of Polish descent and its socio-political significance within still-active processes of emigration, deportation and exile to Britain. The Portsmouth memorial signals the presence of a group of exiles who arrived here in extremely difficult circumstances, like many Poles to follow. It is a symbol affirming the impulses that drive my research productions, namely, the desire to explore, to identify, to commemorate, and explain. I translate Polish plays in order to ensure that the Polish language remains, as far as possible, inscribed on xix

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my memory. The presence of the monument appeases me (as does the presence of my translated texts, stacked haphazardly on a shelf in my office) acting to counter an undercurrent of anxiety that my ‘Polishness’ will disappear as soon as others fail to perceive it and that then I will no longer remain myself. Like the presence on these shores of recent Polish migrants, who are ensuring that the language we share shapes more distinctly this country’s aural landscape, the inscription on the monument makes me feel less isolated and more at home; more at home than I would feel if I lived in Poland. To whom is the Portsmouth Memorial dedicated? Between 1795 and 1918 Poland was enduring its third partition, brought about by Russia, Austria and Prussia. A treaty in 1797, established between these imperial powers, represented an attempt to abolish the very name of the country. It did not exist on the map for 123 years, until after World War I; as in Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi, it was, literally, a kind of 'nowhere'. This socio-geographic fragmentation had profound consequences in all private and public spheres, though events in one partition did impact on the functioning of the other two. The soldiers who arrived in Portsmouth had participated in the November Uprising, which began in 1830 and ended in October 1831. This took place in the Russian Kingdom of Poland, established at the 1814 Congress of Vienna and consequently referred to as the Congress Kingdom, or Congress Poland. It was a pseudo-liberal puppet kingdom, with the Tsar as monarch and its initially autonomous status was a legal fiction. Many lives were lost and broken as part of the uprising, an outraged response to imperialist oppression. The bloody event was followed by the largest wave of the political so-called Great Emigration to the West which began in relation to the destruction of the Royal Republic (1573–1795) towards the end of the eighteenth century. Unsurprisingly, insurrections throughout partitioned Poland characterized the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century. According to Zamoyski Patriotism was not the key issue in the risings, any more than social revolution. They were not, as the cliché has it, the romantic gestures of an indomitable people. Most of them were neither planned nor intended, but provoked. In 1794, 1830 and 1863 they were sparked off by impending mobilisation, which was the build-up of oppressive and illegal measures by the authorities. The risings were protests not so much against the system itself, but against the lawless behaviour of the authorities which did not respect the rules they laid down themselves.5

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After the Russian military had crushed the insurrection of 1830/31, many Polish soldiers who had been involved escaped to the Prussian and Austrian territories. The vast majority had been recruited from the lower classes, into the lowest ranks. So-called rebels of the same rank who did not manage to flee were condemned to penal servitude. Tens of thousands were forced to make their way to Siberia in chain gangs. The majority of foot soldiers and petty officers who did escape across the borders had little choice but to return to the Kingdom, following internment by the authorities and brutal military pressure. In November 1831, Russia declared a so-called amnesty. This, in spite of verbal assurances of leniency, actually involved punitive service in the Russian army far from home, in the Caucasus. The means deployed by the authorities to persuade such individuals to accept the amnesty were extremely harsh; beatings, starvation, forced labour. Several hundred of the most resilient were held for three years in fortresses in Gdańsk, Elbla˛g and Grudzia˛dz. These included those who eventually set foot in Portsmouth, having refused to take advantage of the amnesty. Bowing to political pressure from Europe, the Prussian authorities were compelled to release them and set them on course for North America. They set sail from Gdańsk (Danzig) aboard the Marianne in February 1834. Their sea journey was disrupted by severe weather conditions in the Channel. The ship was forced to make a stop in Portsmouth and the captain intended to wait out the storm and be on his way. The Poles, however, insisted on being let ashore, with the intention of finding a safe haven. Prime Minister Melbourne, not taking kindly to the local magistrate's petitions for funds to support the men, was keen on the suggestion that they should either join the Foreign Legion or be sent back to Prussia. Local concerns about a wave of mass immigration were sparked. Counter to official disputes regarding the exiles’ destination, a programme of grass-roots activity began. It seems that some members of the local community mobilized in order to lend support, since only eight days’ food supplies had been provided. The writing on the memorial in English, parallel to the Polish language section, acknowledges these events. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when a refuge in Algeria was finally found for the soldiers through official channels, they did not want to leave. In as much as the monument commemorates them, marking the common grave in which they are laid to rest, it is also intended to be read as a sign of gratitude to the local people. There is no doubt that an additional benefit to settling in Portsmouth, temporarily, as far as they were concerned, was its relative proximity to Paris, one of the chief centres of the Great Emigration. They regarded collaboration

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with already politically active Poles campaigning for the national cause as their only hope of eventual return to a free country. As I have already mentioned, the vast majority of exiles to have arrived in England at that time were predominantly soldiers originating from the lower social classes. This in itself was unusual, given that most insurrectionists managing to ‘emigrate’ to the West were members of the upper classes and intelligentsia, including politicians and higher-ranking army officials. Émigré political groupings based predominantly in France were indeed clustered around such individuals and were marked by divergent interpretations of why the Uprising had failed. These ranged from a harsh assessment of its leadership to a foregrounding of the divisive semi-feudal system which had arguably served to alienate the lower classes from collective political activism. Proposed strategies for achieving independence also varied, ranging from the renewal of armed conflict to international diplomacy. As a consequence, diverse political and social models for a future independent Poland were also put forward, including a constitutional monarchy and full collectivization. What part did the Portsmouth community play in the development of Polish socialism? The first time the word 'socialism' appears in Polish political literature is 30th October 1835. This was prior to both German and Russian uses, influenced rather by the French, Belgian and English early socialist movements.6 It appears in a manifesto produced by Gromada Grudzia˛dz (variously translated as the Grudzia˛dz Group, Collective, Commune or Community) in Portsmouth. This was formed by predominantly peasant and working-class soldiers and functioned as an agricultural collective. The group's name refers to the Prussian fortress where they had been imprisoned. Under the umbrella title ‘Lud Polski’ (Polish Peoples/Working Class), approximately two hundred of the émigrés who arrived in Britain in the early 1830s formed the organizational framework for the early Polish socialist movement, along with sister groups, formed later; Humań on Jersey and Praga in London. They constituted the first sizeable Polish communities in Britain. They never witnessed the emergence of the independent Poland for which they had risen up. Assimilation into (invisibility in?) British society, if that is what one deems was required of them, seems to have been more problematic for some than for others. Stanisl/aw Worcell, a penitent member of the gentry, was the individual most closely involved with developing a shared theoretical groundwork in association with Gromada Grudzia˛dz. This included efforts to reconcile patriotism with xxii

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internationalism in relation to the so-called Polish Question. Worcell was strongly influenced in his deliberations, though not necessarily fully endorsed by, the Frenchman Philippe Buonarotti and the Italian Carbonarist Guiseppe Mazzini. On account of his radical agenda and eagerness to propagate principles allied to French utopian socialism, Worcell found himself distanced from the more moderate Polish Democratic Society in France, which had in its Great Manifesto proposed capitalism as the socio-economic basis for a free and independent Poland. On 30 October 1835, the historically significant, non-atheistic socialist manifesto was produced by Worcell and the group. An agrarian revolution liquidating land ownership by the gentry was proposed, to lead to the establishment of a People's Poland, thus breaking with the traditional semi-feudal system. The manifesto contained the phrases ‘Property is the root of all evil’ and ‘Poland will not be raised by the nobility, but by the people; not through devotion to the nobility, but through devotion to the people.’7 The group was attacked by other émigré organizations for its perceived utopianism, parochialism, its anti-aristocratic, anti-bourgeois slogans, its plans to re-distribute wealth and ownership of the means of production, and to end social inequality by instigating a people's revolution. Indeed, the group's criticisms are expressed in the strongest and, it has been argued, perhaps, not the most rational terms. Gromada Grudzia˛dz existed until 1846, when after the Kraków Uprising and the tragic Galician Jacquerie, in which peasants killed 1,100 noblemen, some members rejoined the larger, Paris-based Polish Democratic Society to which they had initially held allegiance, in the hope that unity among émigrés might strengthen the Polish cause. New émigré socialist groupings were also subsequently formed. For historian Zamoyski, the London, Portsmouth and Jersey groups represent ‘interesting offshoots’ of the Polish Democratic Society. He suggests that ‘there were many splinter groups among the émigrés, particularly on the left. It was a sad world of threadbare heroes and lost causes, of endless discussions and arguments… a world of self-sacrifice and pettiness.’8 This, I believe, verges on an underestimation of their achievements, if one takes account of the broader context and the longer view. The socialist movement in ‘Poland’ itself was far from unified throughout the nineteenth century and attempts to create a party were repeatedly frustrated by arrests. Davies emphasizes the fact that, while the last decade of the nineteenth century saw ‘new social forces’ find expression in ‘new, spontaneous political movements’, there was initially ‘no established forum where all these parties’ such as the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) ‘could xxiii

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Photograph by Lib Taylor

Figure 2: Dulska (Emma Ankin), Juliasiewiczowa (Cassie Earl) and Zbyszko Dulski (John Lynch) discuss Socialism. Performance at University of Reading and POSK Theatre London, 2003/4, dir. Teresa Murjas.

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compete; but their very existence heralded the reassertion of Polish political life which even then was gaining momentum.’9 As Blobaum suggests, this left ‘the formulation of programmatic principles in the hands of the émigrés’. Interestingly, the first issue of the pamphlet ‘Robotnik’ or ‘The Worker’ was published in 1893 on Mile End Road in London. Blobaum also draws attention to the significance of the General Jewish Workers Union, known as the Bund, which, considered in tandem with the PPS, later ‘posed more than an irritant to the Russian authorities and represented a serious challenge to the Polish nationalist movement.’10 Jewish involvement in the socialist movement was posited as evidence of its ‘alien’ and undesirable character by nationalist leaders. It is therefore clear that, by the time of the 1905 Revolution, following peasant emancipation, agrarian reforms facilitating rapid industrialization and re-defined struggles for independence, even in Russian Poland the concept of what political life could and should be had certainly undergone democratization. Politics, specifically national politics, ceased to be regarded exclusively as the preserve of the gentry and intelligentsia elite. One year later, in 1906, Zapolska wrote The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, a play which has at its heart questions regarding social justice. As Mrs. Dulska’s uneasily decadent son Zbyszko Dulski suggests in my translation, issues of ‘socialism’, ‘morality’ and ‘conscience’ are at stake.

SECTION 3: Fin-de-siècle Poland Can historical narratives of late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century ‘Poland’ be constructed? Any attempt to recount and encompass the events of 123 years of nineteenth/ early twentieth-century Polish cartographic 'invisibility', especially for someone who is not an historian (perhaps not even Polish) and cannot pretend to be objectively informed, presents a considerable challenge. As Blobaum suggests, ‘Polish historiography [has] its nationalist, romantic and Marxist variants.’11 Reading between them is for me an emotionally exhausting process best described as cerebral mud-wrestling, since I cannot deny a tendency towards the rhetoric of romanticism which I have painstakingly tried to excise from this introduction. Post-colonial theorists and revisionists may continue to provide important strategies for re-generating and re-defining the historiography of this period, particularly taking account of Poland's cultural diversity. Davies asserts that ‘for most of the period “Poland” was just an idea – a memory from the past, or a hope for the future.’12 The statement troubles me; perhaps because, unsurprisingly, I grew up thinking of myself as Polish. This is the language in xxv

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By permission of Oxford University Press

Figure 3: Poland’s Changing Territory. From Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland (1984) by Davies, Norman, p. 354.

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which I feel myself to be most intimately perceived, recognized and realized. I was born and educated in England and have a British passport. I am, so it seems, an émigré-once-removed. This apparently is a state of being in and of itself. I try to imagine what a seismic conceptual, practical and emotional shift was necessary for the inhabitants of a multi-cultural country, which once had stretched 'from sea to sea', when it was subsumed into three different political, ideological, legal, social, economic and linguistic systems. The inhabitants were called upon with increasingly forcible insistence to abandon their language and right to cultural expression, yet, as Zamoyski notes, ‘oppressed peoples do revolt, but they also carry on eating, working and breeding.’13 The key for the historiographer must be to interrogate her or his ideological position in relation to events during those 123 years. To what extent should an outline of the geographical boundaries of the old Polish Republic be permitted to hover in the consciousness over maps drawn up between 1795 and 1918 from which it was eradicated, given that many of the same Polish-speaking families and those who identified themselves as citizens of Poland continued to occupy that 'ghost country'? And what of the Constitution of the 3rd May, 1791, still commemorated each year by British-Polish communities? Even the notion of a 'ghost country', however, could become problematic once one contemplates the shape-shifting and periodic ‘disappearance’ of Poland over time (see Figure 3). What were the key events in fin-de-siècle ‘Poland’ preceding the creation of Mrs. Dulska in 1906? Nineteenth-century novelist Bolesl/ aw Prus described Russian-occupied Warsaw as ‘under hypnosis’.14 After the failure of the 1830/31 insurrection, tsarist armies had entered the city. One of the most beautiful areas in the north was destroyed and hundreds of citizens moved from their homes in order to accommodate the Warsaw Citadel. This was built, not for purposes of defense, but intimidation. It still stands, serving as a commemorative museum. The threat of arrest and imprisonment loomed. Political prisoners were interned in the X- Pavilion, a part of the citadel, and forced to forge their own shackles. A huge gate overlooking the Vistula River is known as The Gate of Losses (Brama Straceń), marking a place of execution. The industrial revolution spread to Russian Poland in the second half of the nineteenth century and transformed it into the most economically advanced region of the Russian state. Numbers rose rapidly, resulting in a much enlarged xxvii

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working class. Between 1865 and 1897 the urban population in the Kingdom more than doubled. Between 1890 and 1915, Warsaw experienced substantial demographic growth, outstripping the other partitions, due in particular to the rapid industrialization of metal and textile production. Capital investment focused on four main areas: industry, banking, communications and trade; the latter being the main source of income for the growing Varsovian bourgeoisie. The downside of this growth was the impoverishment of the lowest classes. The threatening presence of the citadel did not, however, prevent further unrest. Zapolska was born in 1857, in Austrian Poland, just a few years prior to the next tragic rising in the Congress Kingdom, in which her aunt participated. This has been described as a guerrilla war, in which the Russian army was harassed for sixteen months. Davies points out that [i]n 1863–4 the second great January Rising in Russian Poland was due to be crushed in isolation. In this generation, there were Poles on every barricade in Europe, from Munich to Transylvania, from the Roman Republic to the Paris Commune. But the tangible benefits for Poland were meagre.15

In addition, the ensuing period saw the strengthening of Prussia following victories over Austria (1866) and France (1871). The unification of Germany and creation of the German Reich (1871) were consequently enabled and socalled Germanization on the occupied territories was intensified. Following the January Uprising, the Polish language and culture were effectively sentenced to annihilation in both German and Russian partitioned Poland. In the Congress Kingdom, as the nineteenth century progressed, the organs of government, the treasury, the legal and educational systems were gradually restructured according to the Russian imperial model. Relevant institutions were made responsible to St Petersburg in the drive to increase centralization and autocracy. However, as part of the severe military clampdown following the 1863 Uprising [t]he Tsar issued an ukase [edict] changing the name of the Kingdom of Poland to the 'Vistula Province'… All Polish institutions were abolished, and a period of intense repression began… Brutality was meted out on a hitherto unknown scale, the path to Siberia trodden by chain-gangs numbering tens of thousands of young people who would never return, and the nation went into mourning.16

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The President of Warsaw was now replaced by a Governor General. The Chief of Police controlled the censorship of literature and performance. Running parallel to, and overlapping the civil-military apparatus, was a massive police bureaucracy. During the 1880s systematic so-called Russification of the population became state policy. A period of intense denationalization began. Many political prisoners and insurrectionists were executed. Roman Catholic clergy and the gentry, perceived as leading social forces behind the rebellion, were targeted for particularly severe retribution. The outcome of legal proceedings could not be challenged. The trial of civilians could be arbitrarily transferred to military courts and deportations to Siberia ordered without the verdict of any court. Criticism of the system of government and state Orthodox religion was banned. The traditional Julian calendar, which gave form to the cultural and spiritual life of many Poles, was completely replaced by the Orthodox Gregorian, with its difference of twelve days, whereas following the November Uprising of 1830 and 1831 the two calendars had officially featured side by side. Reference to freedom or national independence, along with so-called propaganda relating to new political theories, such as socialism and communism, was outlawed, as were the majority of works by émigré writers. Warsaw theatres were forced to organize their repertory according to a published list of authorized works. Publicity was subject to control of the police authorities and each critical review had to be vetted by the president of the Warsaw State Theatres before it was published. All legally registered associations were required to conduct internal correspondence in Russian making it easier for the police to monitor their activities. Polish street and building signs were replaced. The Polish press was regulated with particular stringency by the police, the Minister for Internal Affairs being the individual responsible for deciding whether a paper or journal should be subject to preventative or punitive censorship. The political press was absolutely prohibited. Historical narratives of Poland were forged from an imperialist Russian perspective via strict control of the educational system. Text books were introduced with all references to Poland excised. The Polish language was banned from schools and eliminated from all levels of administration and the courts. By the end of the nineteenth century, Polish teachers were vastly outnumbered by Russian counterparts and Poles were completely purged from the upper/middle administrative ranks. Warsaw academics were purged from their faculties and replaced, as were Russian teachers suspected of harbouring sympathies for Poles.

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An important qualification is the fact that, as Blobaum suggests, ultimately the Russian Empire simply did not have the resources or organizational consistency to effect complete de-nationalization. Brute military force failed to have the desired effect.17 In addition, individuals and groups devised methods of resistance. What was Organic Work and Triple Loyalism? Following the brutally suppressed January Uprising, Poles were forced to engage in a sober reassessment of events they had witnessed. The capabilities and strategies of upper-class leaders of the risings did not escape criticism. At a time when The Polish Question found no place even on the peripheries of European diplomacy, the philosophy of ‘Triple Loyalism’ emerged, ‘a rather sophisticated program that considered loyal behaviour toward the partitioning governments as the necessary – if evil – condition for the continued cultural existence and material progress of Polish lands.’18 The seeming theoretical and practical impasse in which the cause for independence found itself persuaded many potential activists to adopt a programme of 'organic work'. This was aimed at preserving the Polish language, culture and a sense of community via education and non-aggressive though, inevitably, not always entirely 'legal' means. Organic work might be defined as a pacifistic strategy for conducting resistance, based in addition on the principle of self-preservation, which was arguably a logical response to strategies engaged by the occupiers. Zamoyski explains that [t]he colonisation of Poland by the Powers did not stop at physical control exerted in relation to need. All three, and most particularly Russia, strove to impose moral conformity and their own values on the conquered natives. To attempt to achieve this through legislation would have been impossible, and the authorities therefore carried on much of their activity in an illegal manner.19

Crucially, those who practised organic work and triple loyalism diverged in their politics, espousing varying degrees of loyalty and conciliation, though the Warsaw Positivists were its chief proponents. Blobaum suggests that the Positivists designated the ‘nascent Polish bourgeoisie’ as the leading class in the nation’s future; materialism, modernism and secular education were on the agenda. Eventually, significant challenges came from emerging nationalist and socialist movements, the former being for some considerable time more organizationally cohesive. This is highly significant contextual information for any reading of xxx

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The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, in which Zapolska raises questions concerning the relationship between economics, class and morality. Relevant also are Bieńka’s comments that by 1905 to 1907, the period of revolution and increasing disempowerment of the Romanovs, mass strikes were a frequent occurrence, characterized by growing insistence on the right to free speech and Polish language use, and on the right to commemorate key national events and individuals. Conspiratorial activity for the cause of Polish independence also increased. Artistic endeavour was encouraged in a concerted drive to develop a sense of collective national identity, countering efforts to suppress it. Contact with equivalent individuals and groups in the other partitions was attempted and efforts to keep abreast of western cultural and political developments were re-doubled. Literacy programmes and other support activities were set up, particularly for the poorest families and communities.20 How did Polish Galicia, the setting for the play, differ from the Russian and Prussian partitions? In the nineteenth century, in contrast to Russian and Prussian expansionism, Austria, the only Roman Catholic partitioning power of the three, was weakened by defeats in Italy (1859). Consequently, increased autonomy characterized Polish Galicia, the setting for The Morality of Mrs. Dulska. There, for almost half a century (c.1870–1918), Polish social, cultural and, to some extent, political identities could indeed be expressed with comparatively greater freedom. This is the partition in which Zapolska was predominantly, though by no means exclusively, based throughout her life. Davies writes that the Austrian authorities exhibited no intention of emulating ‘their Russian and Prussian counterparts. Forced by the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich of 1867 to abandon the idea of a unitary Empire, the Hapsburgs were content to win the loyalty of their Polish subjects by granting them regional autonomy.’21 He adds that Galicia was controlled for the most part by conservative Polish landowners …whose manipulations of the Provincial Diet were a standing joke. But a relaxed and nonchalant atmosphere gave scope for cultural enterprise. In the re-Polonized universities of Kraków and Lwów, in the Polish Academy of Learning (1872), in the mildly censored theatres and publishing houses, in the Polish School Board, the 'organic work' of the Poles in Galicia redeemed the constrictions on Polish culture in Prussia and Russia. For this reason, Galicia has been labelled Poland's 'Piedmont.' 22 xxxi

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Experimentation with federalism brought the introduction of village selfgovernment in 1866 and, after 1867, autonomous rule by Polish administrators. Yet another important consideration in relation to The Morality of Mrs. Dulska is the formation of the first Peasant Party on Polish soil in 1895, in Rzeszów, in response to the still-entrenched semi-feudal Galician system. It evolved from peasant co-operatives and self-help groups of the late 1870s. In 1902, four years before the play was written, a major farm workers' strike took place. In spite of rich reserves of coal and oil in Galicia (by 1910 it held 5 per cent of the world oil market) Austrian Poland was, however, by far the poorest of the three partitions. Polish Galicia appears to have been regarded by its rulers as a source of cheap labour and cannon fodder. Consistent problems throughout the region have been identified as land shortage, very limited industry, a growing rural population and primitive farming techniques. Persistent hunger and pre-harvest famine led to intermittent epidemics. The dichotomy of vast estates and struggling villages remained in place. This resulted in waves of mass emigration to the United States, on which my maternal ancestors were also borne to the mines of Pennsylvania. Zamoyski points out that the money sent back by emigrants in the early 1900s has been calculated as 50 million dollars per annum.23 Why did the play’s setting change in early editions of the play? The setting for The Morality of Mrs. Dulska is unquestionably Galicia, detectable from the currency referred to (gulden, krone) as well as terminology employed by members of the household, very difficult to render in translation. The setting for two of Zapolska’s spin-off short stories, The Death of Felicjan Dulski and Mrs. Dulska in Court (1907), is unambiguously Lwów, or Austrian Lemberg. However, writing in 1995, Kowalski suggests that, for a post-1945 spectator of the play in possession of a modicum of precise geographical knowledge, a rather bizarre evocation of place may have emerged. He asserts that this was the result of politically motivated interference by the censor. Though landmarks and street names referred to indicated the urban context to be Kraków, Galicia’s second most significant centre, mentioned institutions suggested that it was Lwów, the capital of Galicia in 1906. The destination of Felicjan Dulski's 'stroll' was originally intended to be Castle Hill in Lwów. However, there is also a large castle on a hill in Kraków. It was also in Lwów, in 1869, that, with the help of public funds, a mound was raised to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Union of Lublin, a joining of political forces with Lithuania. However, there is also a landmark mound in Kraków, the Ko´sciuszko Mound erected in the early 1820s. After 1945, however, xxxii

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Lwów, as Lvov, was part of the Ukranian Soviet Socialist Republic and, Kowalski implies, attempts were made to suppress its Polish identity. This involved the censorship of key texts, such as The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, in which the play's action was 'mapped' onto Kraków, still part of Poland. The city featured sufficient similarities to carry the change. Resultant 'slippage', however, could not entirely be avoided, the outcome an uneasy conflation of two different places.24 Best not to dwell on the possible existence of a nascent bourgeoisie and a couple of ineffectual proletarians in post-war Lvov, implies Kowalski. To add to the apparent complication, Czachowska, writing roughly thirty years earlier, provides information relating to the play's performance history not mentioned by Kowalski.25 Though Zapolska set the action in Lwów, Ludwig Solski, director of the play’s premiere in Kraków, ‘transferred’ it, in the interests of relevance and immediacy, to Kraków, changing requisite references accordingly. When the text was published, in 1907, the location, seemingly in accordance with Zapolska’s intentions, featured as Lwów. The 1924 edition, according to Czachowska, followed Solski's 1906 prompt copy and returned the location to Kraków, where it remained until the subsequent 1958 edition. An earlier instance of censorship relating to shifting territorial identities appears to be implied, in response to the Polish-Ukranian conflict over Eastern Galicia following the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918. Both Ukranian and Polish victims of this conflict are buried in Lychakivsky cemetery, in what is now L’viv, as is Zapolska. The Polish-Ukrainian-Soviet-Austro-Hungarian struggle for Eastern Galicia, historically a passionately contested area, was repeatedly re-inscribed in the ‘geographical’ vacillation of the Dulski family home. How was setting approached in the Reading University research production? Preparing to stage the play in Reading in English, I decided to locate the action in an imagined nineteenth-century Kraków. This was significant due to certain decisions regarding mise-en-scène. The use of entr'acte patterns of projections covering the entire high wall at the back of the large stage space allowed me to unambiguously signal a semi-fictional place. The projections were monochrome and spilled onto and over what was effectively a black-box theatre space, filled with minimalist though period-specific elements of setting, including furniture, an indispensable samovar and five free-standing door frames. The set formed the 'skeleton' of an early-twentieth-century middle-class drawing room whose various elements were regularly, almost symmetrically, arranged to form an open spatial relationship with the audience (see Figure 4). This encouraged actors to direct performance outwards, displaying the xxxiii

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Figure 4: Set designs by Lisa Clark for the production at Reading University and POSK Theatre London, 2003/4, dir. Teresa Murjas. xxxiv

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accoutrements of 'character' (costume, facial expression and gesture) without understatement and occasionally with stylization. Among the projected images employed were pre- and early-twentieth-century photographs, woodcuts and prints of Kraków maps and landmarks. My decision regarding 'place' arose from the judgment that an audience not necessarily conversant with Polish history and culture would more readily recognize Kraków as Polish. To this extent, I perhaps inadvertently colluded with the intentions of the post-1945 censor mentioned by Kowalski and created even greater 'slippage' than strictly helpful when staging a translated text for research purposes. Once the production transferred to POSK, where it played on two occasions to a more uniformly British-Polish audience, predominantly of the older postwar generation, my decision suddenly acquired new meaning and prompted a few raised eyebrows. The play had received its premiere in Kraków, in 1906, so the geographically specific images were occasionally rationalized from this perspective. However, my justifications concerning familiarity and strangeness inevitably floundered at this juncture. Nor could I bring myself to tackle headon the still somewhat sticky point, as far as much-loved, well-known Polish 'classics' are concerned, of so-called directorial artistic license and its relationship to theatre as a live event.My decision to wryly accompany the entr'acte projections with extracts from a mid-nineteenth-century Polish opera entitled The Haunted Manor (Straszny Dwór) by Stanisl/aw Moniuszko, building on Hesia Dulska's love of all things operatic, in addition evoked very different readings in both performance contexts, depending on the audience's understanding of the libretto and consequent attempts to engage inter-textual connections. For the Polish speaker, the opera could have been read as significantly more than musical accompaniment governing the rhythm of series of projections, because they may have been able to locate it culturally, reading in addition between the two texts they were hearing (the recorded, sung and the live, spoken) on multiple levels. Inevitably, in each performance context, some aspect of my intentions was rendered to some extent invisible – even, potentially, read as unsystematic – given the viewer's interaction with the signs in question and directorial decisions concerning target audience. In this translation, as in all late-twentieth/early-twenty-first-century Polish editions of the play, the setting is Polish Lwów - or, perhaps depending on one’s perspective, Austrian Lemberg of 1906. In 2006, this city is in Ukraine and is called L’viv. In my translation, character names and place names have not on the whole been ‘domesticated’. However, the linguistic patterning of this translation also implies that the action is taking place in England, somewhere between xxxv

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the present and an imaginative construction of the early twentieth century. Watching my own production, my sense of being suspended in a sort of spatial, temporal and linguistic ‘no-woman’s-land’ was acute.

SECTION 4: The Playwright What is known about Zapolska’s early life? Maria Gabriela Stefania Korwin-Piotrowska, who later took the stage name Gabriela Zapolska and wrote under the pseudonym Józef Maskoff, was born on 30 March 1857, 53 years after the November, and six years before the January, Uprising, in which her paternal aunt participated. She grew up in Podhajce, near /Luck, in the area then called Wol/ y´ n which had been, prior to the partitions, Eastern Poland and is now Volhynia, part of Ukraine. The Korwin-Piotrowscy were among the more influential and wealthy landowners in that area. One of Gabriela’s ancestors, Stanisl/aw Piotrowski, had been royal secretary in King Stanisl/aw August Poniatowski’s court and as a reward for his services received a title and a coat of arms which his family inherited. Gabriela’s father was a marshal of the Wol/yń nobility, owner of the villages Kiwerce and Podhajce, who, until he met his wife, had every intention of becoming a priest. The best-known story related about him in connection with The Morality of Mrs. Dulska involves his inability to relinquish plans to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Family duties now preventing him from literally making the journey, he worked out how many steps it was likely to take him to actually reach it and ensured that he covered the requisite amount of distance by traversing the grounds of his estate. Zapolska's creation of the largely silent Mr. Dulski in her play, forced by his wife to take a bracing walk to the High Castle around their drawing room, has been seen as a tribute to her father's piety or eccentricity, depending on which way you look at it. Gabriela's mother Józefa Karska, was a prima ballerina in Warsaw when she met Korwin-Piotrowski and gave up her job to marry him. Zapolska later wrote, ‘In my life I have not known the meaning of attachment to a mother, sister, brother… We were too well-bred. We had too much money and too little heart.’26 The playwright's mother suffered from ill health and reportedly did not give her three children (Gabriela had a brother and sister) much attention. Zapolska appears to have had most affection for her father, though she also criticized what she perceived to be his oddities and bigotry. The playwright was initially educated at home by tutors and later, between the ages of eleven and thirteen, by nuns at the Sacre Coeur convent in Lwów. Later xxxvi

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she was sent for one year to the Educational Institute for Young Women, with its reputation as one of the most progressive girls' schools in the city. Here her interest in theatre was awakened; according to her letters, the reason why her parents removed her. Subsequently, for two more years she was educated at home. Was Zapolska a spy? Towards the end of 1875, at the age of seventeen, and having completed her education, Zapolska arrived for the first time in Warsaw, where the family owned accommodation, so that she could ‘come out’ into society. A year later, . she married Konstanty Eliasz S´ niezko-Bl/ocki, a lieutenant in the Tsar’s gendarmerie. Jerzy Koller, who knew Zapolska, wrote in 1966: There was much gossip about this marriage, some confirmed it, others denied, ´ . ko-Bl/ocki was indeed of Polish extraction. We must underlining the fact that Sniez not forget that all this was taking place in 1878 and so only a few years after the January Uprising, when Warsaw was full of the widows and orphans of conspirators, who had perished down the mines and in Siberia. The situation was such, that a young woman from any self-respecting Polish family would not be seen in the street in the company of her blood brother, whilst he was doing compulsory military service and wearing the uniform of the Tsar’s army. I was told by eye-witnesses that ´ . ko, the church of during Miss Korwin-Piotrowska's betrothal ceremony to Mr. Sniez the Holy Cross in Warsaw was surrounded by the Russian gendarmerie so that the couple could escape any unforeseen incidents. This was of course the daughter of a marshal!27

Bl/ocki was a member of the landed gentry whose debts were substantial. Engaged at the time to a young middle-class woman, he chose to opt instead for the nineteen-year-old Gabriela Korwin-Piotrowska. Already, at the wedding feast, problems began to surface. The dowry was too small for the groom. His affection towards his bride cooled rapidly, signalled by an increased desire to spend more time outside their home with friends and lovers. Jadwiga Czachowska, who produced a comprehensive, highly informative bio-bibliography of the playwright in 1966, mentions in addition that the circumstances of Zapolska's marriage afforded her privileged access to Russian military circles. Thus came about her first contact with Andrei Margrafsky, at that time a middle-ranking member of the military police, whom she is later said to have used as a model for one of the characters in her 1898 play That One (Tamten), in which she took up the topic of xxxvii

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Polish conspiratorial activity and the Russian secret services and which during World War I was performed in Vienna and Berlin, under the title The Warsaw Citadel (Die Warschauer Zitadelle). Throughout his career, Margrafsky acquired a reputation for being particularly conversant with the ins and outs of Polish political activism. He had relevant pamphlets sent to him from Galicia, the Prussian partition, as well as émigré circles as far afield as America. He eventually wrote a strikingly well-informed tome, A Series of Articles concerning the Polish Question, about 'subversive' political activity in Galicia in the cause of Polish independence. Jan Cynarski, who, as a member of the Polish Socialist Party, organized the assassination in 1906 of the then General Margrafsky, chief of police, wrote that as a result of her contacts, Zapolska had been able to prevent the arrest of many young Polish students carrying out 'illegal' activities on account of information obtained ´ . koin police offices, due to her apparently privileged position as wife of Sniez Bl/ocki. Cynarski also suggests that the benefits of closer acquaintance with a Pole continued to be exploited by Margrafsky long after Zapolska's separation from her first husband. Margrafsky appeared to know an inordinate amount about the workings of the Polish Socialist Party, with which, following her separation from ´ . ko-Bl/ocki, Zapolska had some contact. As a result of her connections with the Sniez Russian military, suspicions of Zapolska's involvement in espionage have long been rife. These appear to date more specifically, as suggested by Czachowska (whose work provides the basis for the majority of subsequent articles) from her later apparently romantic, though inevitably dangerous and politically sensitive, association with an officer named Yuri Karnakovsky, who once followed the actress across the border into Galicia, where she was performing to great critical acclaim in Kraków, rousing the suspicions of the Galician authorities, who promptly asked her to leave. In 2003, in an article entitled 'Shameful Protection' published in Warsaw Life, Gallina28 writes that the playwright’s close contacts with the Russian secret services have been long underestimated and developed particularly after her return from Paris in 1895, when she had already been separated from her husband for some time. In spite of the material available on this subject, discussion of the relationships and circumstances in question is consistently framed in strongly allusive terms. Whether this is for reasons of unavailable specific and definitive information or former apprehension regarding the censor's reaction it is hard to tell. Consequently, making an objective judgment about these matters would currently be difficult. What one can deduce, however, is that, in order to function in the said political climate as a woman, playwright, journalist and actor (keen, in addition, to perform in the strictly regulated State Theatres in Russian-occupied Warsaw), Zapolska must have come up against some xxxviii

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problematic circumstances, which were inevitably compounded by rumour and gossip, however in/securely this can be said to have rested on factual information. Another biographer, Józef Rurawski, whose work lacks the detail and specificity of Czachowska's, asserts that the matter of Zapolska's contacts with Margrafsky and Karnakovsky is ‘shameful'. Aniela Kallas, who in 1930 wrote the first biography of the playwright in an extremely sensationalist vein (since treated with a hefty pinch of salt by theatre scholars), cites a conversation the playwright apparently had with her brother, the well-known and almost perfectly respectable (excepting his association with his wayward sister, then a déclassé actress) Warsaw lawyer Kazimierz Korwin-Piotrowski. Kallas attested to having 'befriended' Zapolska in order to write her biography, and subsequently employed the fact of her acquaintance to publicly validate both her sources and the material she produced. – I know! [says Zapolska's brother, according to Kallas] You are selling yourself […] you have been seen […] at a certain locale, taking supper with a convivial gathering […] And what were police officers doing there? They paid the bill and knew perfectly well why. There you have it, and damn the consequences! She laughed at this – an angry, ugly, disgusting laugh. Words fell, dictated by terrible anger – I will begin selling myself to whoever requires it! And you will have to suffer this! – she threatened. She was later seen at suppers in the company of police officers. She behaved provocatively. Appearances were such that the most monstrous stories were told about her.29

Zapolska wrote to Stefan Laurysiewicz I pop into a restaurant and eat a roast, tomorrow it will have spread abroad that Zapolska has been at a bar, gotten drunk and demanded some champagne in which to dip the heels of her shoes.30

When did Zapolska become a professional actor and writer? It was only a short matter of time before Zapolska’s patience with her new husband seems to have run out and she searched for new and independent occupations. In the autumn of 1879 she joined an amateur theatre troupe in Warsaw, under the direction of Marian Gawalewicz (who later directed the xxxix

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Warsaw premiere of The Morality of Mrs. Dulska) where she performed using . her married name ´Sniezko. It was her affair with Gawalewicz, a journalist for the Warsaw Courier, five years her senior and a married, family man, that triggered a series of events launching both her professional career and her social notoriety. It is he who took an interest in her work as an actress and also encouraged her as a writer. It was also as a result of her pregnancy that Zapolska's marriage ended and her family, judging her lifestyle to be unacceptable and fearing scandal, placed her in the Convent of Visitants in Warsaw, dedicated to providing shelter for young women awaiting the annulment of their marriage by the Vatican. Zapolska later wrote that during this, her first, marriage she ‘lost everything, beginning with [her] girlish delusions and ending in [her] fortune’. She left the ‘hellish’ ordeal broken and ruined.31 There has been some tenuous speculation that she may also at some point have been pregnant with Bl/ocki’s child, which she is said to have lost on account of illness resulting from his infidelities. In any case, her marriage to Bl/ocki was not annulled until 1888 and by then, after only a couple of months with the Visitants, she had already fled Warsaw for Vienna, giving birth there to Gawalewicz's daughter, Maria, who, placed with an irresponsible carer in the Imperial Austrian capital, died shortly afterwards. Zapolska, having suffered severe post-natal complications for approximately four months, was in Kraków at the time. She never had another child and was plagued by ill health throughout her life. She experienced sporadic loss of sight, hearing and sensation in her arms and legs, kidney, liver and digestive complications, gynaecological problems. In later life it was discovered that she was suffering from a serious parasitic infestation in the form of a tapeworm, very difficult to diagnose and treat at the time. It has frequently been suggested that she suffered from ‘nerves’ and ‘hysteria’. Her health must also have been further damaged by a suicide attempt on the night of the 5th October 1888. Zapolska, like the pitiful tenant in The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, treated with such contempt by her landlady, tried to poison herself with phosphor obtained from match heads. This was an indisputably traumatic period of Zapolska's life. At its onset she was to be found in the Polish Galician city of Kraków, bereaved, isolated, notorious and with virtually no financial support, her family and Gawalewicz having severed all contact. Her relations with family members, though later rekindled to some extent, subsequently remained consistently distant throughout her life. She began to write, most frequently journalism, as a way of making her living. She also translated plays from the French. Additionally, she engaged successfully in professional dramatic performance, both in permanent and touring theatres. It was around this time that she took her stage name. xl

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By kind permission of the Warsaw Theatre Museum

Figure 5: Zapolska in the role of Chochlik from Juliusz Sl/owacki’s Balladyna. Lwów, March 1884. xli

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What is the significance of Zapolska’s short story ‘Mal/aszka’? An exciting new 'scandal' soon erupted surrounding the publication of Zapolska's short story Mal/aszka (1883), written in a naturalistic vein and subsequently adapted for the stage while she was residing in Lwów. The work was intended to form part of a short story cycle featuring 'female types' from varying social backgrounds. The fiasco following its publication impacted on responses to her acting and she was deliberately shunted down the casting 'pecking order' in a reflection of social disapproval. Indeed, the intensity of feeling provoked by her prose writing in certain conservative circles caused even papers of a more liberal stance to withdraw their support. Following its Lvovian publication, Zapolska appealed to the Warsaw Weekly Review to accept the work. Her request was answered in the affirmative by editor Adam Wy´slicki, who commented that he might yet succeed in ‘rearing a Polish Zola’32 – an interesting comment given Zapolska's other enduring nickname, 'The Polish Molière'. The story was published in Warsaw in 1885 as part of a collection entitled Watercolours (Akwarele). Conservative critics castigated her propensity to ‘blacken’ the reputation of the upper classes. Subsequent accusations levelled at Gabriela by critic Jan Popl/ awski, in his article Standard from a Skirt, that Mal/aszka was plagiarized from a Russian short story prompted the young woman's challenge to the older, more established journalist to answer a charge of defamation in court. The title of Popl/awski’s article has been a key ‘trope’ in Polish readings of Zapolska’s work ever since. Zapolska was absent throughout the court proceedings, conducted by her lawyer, as initially was Popl/awski, due to internment for a time in the Warsaw Citadel. Popl/awski was involved in Polish nationalist politics. In stating that, by writing in this vein, instead of a military flag, or standard, Zapolska had displayed a red skirt, Popl/awski sought to engage, along with numerous other allusions, the notion that the writer's personal immorality was inextricably linked to a distinct lack of patriotism. He connected Zapolska's private life with her public activities. Zapolska lost the case. It is worth describing this short story in some detail in order to give a more direct indication of the subject matter taken up by Zapolska in her early prose writing and her stylistic approach. In addition, the publication of the story played a key role in propelling Zapolska’s work and name into the public domain and has, in the light of Popl/awski’s article, shaped readings of her work ever since. Mal/aszka is a poor, alluring, statuesque Ukrainian peasant girl from Wol/yń (where Zapolska was born) eager for social mobility and harbouring xlii

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desires 'above her station'. Whilst married to the 'boy next door' and raising their baby, she has a passionate sexual encounter with the local landowning count, also married to a sickly young aristocrat with whom he produces an heir, he having formed the centre of Mal/aszka's social and romantic aspirations for some considerable time. Contrary to her expectations, the wealthy couple leaves for the town, the count having failed, after the event, to recognise or acknowledge her. Indignant she eventually abandons her husband and child in their rural setting and by design becomes the trusted and much-talked-of urban wet nurse to the countess's child, whom she regularly maltreats. Nursing in addition her own sense of humiliation, the desire to revenge hurt pride and succeed in making the count kneel at her feet in his own home (after his wife has, of course, retired for the night) is now overwhelming and results in the tragic death of his child, which she foolishly attempts to pacify with vodka whilst waiting for the never effected assignation to take place. Shamed and cast out, the pitiful Mal/aszka, taking with her a red skirt, symbol of her urban life, returns to her husband. He has lost his senses, unable to acknowledge their child's demise and tries to kill Mal/aszka, losing consciousness in the process. A fire breaks out. Having escaped, our anti-heroine realizes her scarlet skirt is still inside the blazing cottage. Braving the flames, she re-enters, only to perish in the inferno. Characteristic of the piece is what remains a daring – and sometimes breathtaking – visceral evocation of female desire and design, a rawness and harshness of energy in the descriptive passages, a boldness and economy in the exploration of the nature/nurture argument in relation to Mal/aszka's motivation and a problematization of romantic class and gender stereotypes without any significant denial of the pleasures of melodrama and gothic excess. The blossoming of tragic Mal/aszka's class awareness is, nevertheless, traced with some delicacy and clarity against vividly drawn rural and urban environments. The central character's psychological functioning, expressed with measured complexity and juxtaposed with a compassionately drawn cameo of her husband, grates with merciless productivity against a plot worthy of the most pungent Penny Dreadful. In spite of her directness, Zapolska does demonstrate considerable stylistic restraint. The reader's perspective in relation to the protagonist is consistently re-aligned. Voyeuristically, we are forced to semi-critically contemplate Mal/aszka’s dirty knees as she sits on a fence, whereas further on Zapolska empathetically effects a superimposition of our gaze onto her anti-heroine's. xliii

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This tendency to problematize motive, exploring tension and ambiguity without entirely shirking those elements of caricature necessary for effective satire and theatrical pleasure is equally evident in the playwright's characterization of Hanka in The Morality of Mrs. Dulska twenty-three years later. The serving maid's often silent movement about the stage, for example, is carefully structured into scenes (perhaps less overtly than Dulski's, but to no less potent effect if handled adeptly) and provides opportunities for the development of precisely this dialectical tendency in performance. For the theatre director, the co-existence of contrasting formal conventions offers multiple possibilities with regards to the development of performance style and a great deal of choice concerning treatment of the 'fourth wall' both separating, in a conventional proscenium naturalistic setting, and linking the actors and the audience. Much contemporary critical attention given to Mal/aszka (which, though not exclusively, was overwhelmingly outraged) focused on the early passage in which the protagonist is portrayed sitting on a fence with dirty knees exposed, at the dawn of her erotic potency. Accusations of indulgence in immorality and pornography were levelled at Zapolska, including an interesting comment relating to Popl/awski's, that ‘she [saw] red.’33 In the conservative Daily for Everyone someone wrote anonymously Her unshackled imagination creates scenes worthy of the weakened senses of a spent debaucher, to spark dreams of all that is now in reality denied him… And this is supposed to be literature!… Into the fire with such literature - to hospital with such authoresses!34

Zapolska later wrote, in response to her conservative critics, an essay on Naturalism, in which she exclaims A woman’s naked body provokes their surprise and… arousal! Little do they then care why the woman is naked! They will not consider whether it is moral poverty or poor material means, a horrific crime or unjust laws that have set her naked before their very eyes. What do they care? They see only… a naked body! What shock can be read in their eyes! And yet why does that nakedness like one great stain overwhelm all else?35

What was the role and significance of nineteenth-century Polish theatre, as both practice and institution? Though she is well-known as a prose-writer, this being the aspect of her oeuvre currently subjected to renewed scrutiny by Polish scholars, it is nevertheless xliv

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Zapolska’s work for the theatre that has more consistently attracted critical attention. A consideration of how scholars have read nineteenth-/early-twentiethcentury Polish theatre as both a practice and an institution can provide a context for Zapolska’s work as an actor performing in both touring companies and permanent theatres and her work as a playwright. In doing so, the challenges faced by scholars of nineteenth-century theatre in partitioned Poland should not be underestimated. Many of these relate to persistent, aggressive censorship, others to availability of resources. For example, prefacing Bieńka’s book on the history of Warsaw State Theatres, which focuses on the last 25 years of the Congress Kingdom, is explication of the practical restrictions facing theatre historians. The Russian authorities published no legal documents specifying the exact function of their state theatres. Bieńka encountered sources which often contained directly contradictory information and were difficult to locate due to numerous cataclysmic events. She relied heavily on material, often incomplete, discovered in private collections which, by some miracle, survived the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, during which virtually the whole city was razed to the ground. In spite of comparatively limited resources, historians have been able to describe theatre performance of this period in 'Poland' as one of the two significant practices actively mobilized by an occupied people to counter where possible the catastrophic effects of the partitions, whether via engagement in, or boycott of, productions. The other set of practices cited is that associated with the Roman Catholic Church, which, though delivering its liturgy in Latin, preached sermons, practised rituals of devotion and administered sacraments in the Polish language. It was also dedicated to the high-risk provision of other community-based support activities. Theatre critic and practitioner Kazimierz Braun points out that this was of particular significance in the Russian and Prussian occupied territories, where repression was at its greatest. The existence of public forums associated with these practices was indeed of critical importance for the survival of the Polish language. Such activities were, in addition, tolerated to a greater or lesser degree by the occupiers, sometimes in an attempt to 'pacify the natives' in a show of apparent liberalism, or else publicly affect disregard for their impact and significance. Zbigniew Raszewski, one of Zapolska's biographers, suggests that as the partitions were gradually consolidated into three distinct socio-political structures, theatre remained one of the few practices capable of implying that apparently impregnable barriers could be transgressed and overcome.36 xlv

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Braun is careful to explain the nature of Polish language usage in a country ruled by non-Polish governments. In the Austrian partition, ‘within the framework of the relatively liberal policies of “Hapsburg multiculturalism”’ the German language was employed in the spheres of government, administration and the judiciary. However, Austro-Hungary to a broader extent tolerated linguistic diversity in the educational system and theatre. In the Russian and Prussian partitions, the elimination of the Polish language from all public spheres was much more thorough, systematic and stringent as the century progressed. In relation to the practice of theatre, Polish continued to feature as part of public life. It remained the only language used on stage by Polish companies in Polish theatres, not only by actors, but also by the public before and after performances and during intervals.37 However, Warsaw theatres were obliged to run their administration section in Russian. Publicity material had to be bi-lingual; from 1867 posters featured Russian text on the left, Polish on the right-hand side. Programmes were printed in Russian on one side, Polish on the other. In print, prices for goods and services, including tickets, were now set in kopeks and roubles, Russian currency, though in practice weighing and measuring took place using the Polish system, hence the occasional overlap in references to currency in Zapolska's plays. Davies' not unproblematic comments can assist in evoking the significance of theatrical practice during this period: The concept of an organic Polish historical process based on Poland's separate socio-economic progress is a figment of the modern imagination… Polish History in the nineteenth century cannot be approached with the same enquiries that one applies to the state histories of Britain, France or Russia, or to the histories of those more fortunate countries like Germany and Italy, which actually won their statehood… [T]he essential sources of its history have to be sought less in social, political and economic affairs than in the realm of culture, literature and religion.38

Adam Zamoyski elaborates, The Polish Question was not just a matter of crowns and frontiers; the Polish cause was not the cause of one tribe against its enemies; 'Poland' was not a geographical area; and Polishness was not an ethnic category… The Poles carried their nation and their country around in their knapsacks wherever fate scattered them… 'Polishness' became an ethereal moral condition which had nothing to do with the State.39 xlvi

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Zamoyski, perhaps sounding distastefully romantic to the modern reader, alludes here to a marching song which I learnt as a child, its chorus addressed to a young woman in love, its verses describing a soldier who, taking pity on someone’s enamoured, disembodied heart, carries it to war in his knapsack, and is consequently able to treat with increased levity the onslaught of bullets because he has, as it were, a spare heart in reserve. In some ways, Zamoyski may be seen as oversimplifying the ever-persistent 'Polish question' by deploying this metaphor to effect a theoretical conflation of 'nation and country' and then divorcing these from the body of the carrier by packing them up in a knapsack. Here, interestingly, that body is un-gendered, its ethnicity discounted, though the inter-textual reference implies a military white, male carrier (possibly working to middle class) to any reader initiated in the relevant symbolic code. Perhaps this apparent inclusiveness is in fact its opposite. The spatial, material, enacted relationship between body, language, place and other can perhaps, given the context of imperialist occupation and most crucially the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity of peoples inhabiting 'Poland', be subjected to a greater variety of readings that interrogate the ideological implications of the specified ‘ethereal moral’ condition. Perhaps a consideration of 'Polishness' more profoundly as physical, material – of one's body as another country, capable of resisting attempts at denationalization, by the act of speaking as much as anything else – may assist in revealing alternative (and by no means unproblematic) lines of enquiry, especially when issues surrounding assimilation, integration, occupation and resistance are raised. How precisely should one discuss the relationship between language, ethnicity, religion, nationality and location when considering this period? I ask the question because I am far from knowing the answer. I am still engaged in my cerebral mud-wrestling without having emerged victorious, or even won a round. However, I know that such questions and struggles will impact on the way I eventually discuss theatre in occupied Poland as both a practice and an institution. Against such a backdrop, roughly sketched as it is, the true artistic significance and political potential of the numerous nineteenth-/early-twentiethcentury Polish-language touring companies begins to emerge, as does the unusual status of Zapolska's work. Braun comments that the early years of partition saw established the first permanent theatres in 'Poland' and formation of significant numbers of touring companies, resulting in the development of professionalism in both contexts. Travelling troupes were based in a range of towns and cities from which they toured many locales, especially in Eastern xlvii

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. Poland, among them Grodno, Kowno, Minsk, Kiev, Z ytomierz and Kamieniec Podolski. Their search for Polish audiences took them as far afield as St Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa. Companies from Warsaw toured Poznań, Klisz, Pl/ock and Gdańsk; Cracovian companies Kielce, Radom and Tarnów. Initially, these companies were forced to contend with touring Italian and French companies, later, in the Russian partition, competition appeared in the form of Russian counterparts, and in the Prussian and Austrian partitions, of German-language companies. Raszewski40 suggests that, as a result of her theatrical career, Zapolska the actor was uniquely able to gain awareness of much that was afoot in all three partitions. This was a rare position for anyone to be in. Between 1882 and 1897 alone she visited more than 50 towns. She spent a year and a half in Kraków, two in Warsaw and Lwów. Very unusually, she visited the Prussian partition. She knew Poznań, Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Wrocl/aw. Twice she gained access to Polish circles in St Petersburg and during her five-year stay in Paris moved in émigré circles. She appeared in the vast majority of permanent theatres. Zapolska was one of the first Polish actors (following the internationally renowned Helena Modrzejewska's example) to play Ibsen's Nora, in Poznań. In 1883 she was to be found in St Petersburg, performing in A Doll's House as part of Józef Teksel's Polish touring theatre troupe. According to Czachowska, Ibsen had not previously been staged in Russia and the press praised Zapolska for her understated, consistently highly intelligent interpretation of this wife and mother compelled to make a series of difficult choices. Jerzy Koller notes, from early memories, that Zapolska had a rare talent for storytelling, and ability to apparently breathe life even into inanimate objects, which would seem to attain plasticity as a result of her narration.41 He suggests that one of her unique strengths as a playwright was the writing of sharp, economical dialogue, informed by a unique understanding, based on experience, of the actor's psychophysical functioning in rehearsal and performance. A frequent feature of Zapolska's touring schedule involved her recitation of work by Polish poets or writers, and these events had a distinctly patriotic character. Her visit to Da˛browa Górnicza to perform her own work for the local mining community in a disintegrating theatre building provides an interesting example. The miners and their families came out in such force to see her and the theatre troupe perform that the authorities sent a significant company of mounted military police to oversee the proceedings. She would regularly appear playing her own title roles or even doubling (as in her 1896 play Little Frog . (Zabusia) on the subject of infidelity in the ranks of the bourgeoisie). She xlviii

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frequently co-directed her plays and sometimes would only fully complete a script after rehearsals with actors. Zapolska’s manuscripts often left her hands very quickly (her 1897 play about Jewish arranged marriage, Mal/ka Szwarcenkopf, was performed ten days after she finished the last page). The fact that she developed theatrical forms and texts that proved stageable in such difficult and complex public domains, is, in my opinion, along with her other achievements, absolutely astonishing. Did Zapolska have contact with other European theatre practitioners? One of the most important recent research projects connected with the playwright focuses exclusively on the period during which Zapolska lived in France, 1889–1895. It is important because it establishes links between the . playwright and other significant European theatre practitioners. Elzbieta Ko´slacz-Virol has sought to re-appraise Zapolska's Paris acting career via a study of relevant critical contexts, including select theatre reviews which have frequently been used as 'free-floating' support for the prevalent opinion that she was not a talented or credible actor. Zapolska was 32 when she arrived in the French capital and had already been working in the theatre for ten years. Ko´slacz-Virol asserts that she was not the only Slavonic actor who tried to make her name there, citing the Ukranian Julia Feyghine, who joined the Comédie Française in 1881. Feyghine’s career was short-lived, mainly on account of the fact that her propensity to pronounce several words in too broad an accent was deemed unforgivable by the French press. Ko´slacz-Virol cites other Slavonic actors who encountered similar problems, providing a specific context for Zapolska’s struggles, such as Maria Wi´sniowska from Warsaw. Perhaps the most significant example is Helena Modrzejewska, Polish actor of international star status, who learnt to perform in English at the age of 40. She was offered the part of the Dame aux Camellias (which Zapolska played in Poland) by Dumas-fils. The writer sent her the script with the suggestion of appearances in Paris. Modrzejewska (or Modejska), who in Poland performed in a one-act patriotic play entitled On an Autumn Evening (Jesiennym Wieczorem) dedicated to her by Zapolska (1903), declined, having weighed up the extremely difficult conditions facing female actors on the French stage, never mind those who were foreign. Zapolska attended special classes for foreigners run by actors of the Comèdie Française, including Talbot, Sylvain and Dupont, whilst residing in the artists’ district of Montmartre. She spent hours learning lines, only too xlix

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aware of the huge barrier her accent presented to an acting career. She rehearsed Racine’s Phaedre and Andromache, Hugo’s Lucretia Borgia. It is clear from her correspondence that material difficulties, poor health and loneliness filled her with dread and she initially thought of returning to Poland on several occasions. The breakthrough came when she met André Antoine, founder of the Théâtre Libre and was accepted into his ensemble in 1892. He cast her many times and she appears to have been most successful in contemporary plays the French director introduced to his audience. Zapolska gradually became an exponent of his new, understated performance technique. Critical acclaim came in the role of a Romanian princess in de Gramont’s play Simone. In this context, an accent (whether Polish or Romanian…) could clearly be worked to her advantage, giving critics permission to perceive it as integral to her performance rather than as a barrier in their appraisals of her skill. Towards the end of her stay in Paris, Zapolska was performing at both the Théâtre Libre and at the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre, forum for the staging of early modernist works, under director Lugné Poe. Ko´slacz-Virol offers, in Polish terms, a long overdue defense of Zapolska’s Paris years. Importantly she contends that negative articles appearing in the Polish press about Zapolska’s performances at the Théâtre Libre, in which she was mocked, for example, for only receiving small roles, failed to give due credit to, or express any informed understanding of, the nature of Antoine’s work, which ran counter to the performance styles and work ethic being practised in Poland. Throughout her stay in Paris, Zapolska produced articles which she sent to Poland for publication. They took the form of chronicles of Paris life and included reports of the Great Exhibition. She wrote short stories for the Polish press, drawing on increasingly familiar Paris contexts, including Polish émigré circles. She met many artists, writers and theatre practitioners, including Ibsen and Zola. Returning to Poland, she took with her an extensive collection of works by well-known artists, such as Sérusier, Pissarro, Seurat, Ranson and Lacombe. Most importantly, given the contexts and circumstances I have discussed in this introduction, she also took with her the invaluable experience of involvement in significant European theatre practice. This she adapted, upon her return, to her own purposes. A few years after her return to Poland, Zapolska met her second husband. Stanisl/aw Janowski was a well-established and respected professional artist and successful portrait painter, whom she met when he was 30 and she nearly 40. The couple was often apart but communicated frequently by letter. A large proportion of their correspondence was published in the 1950s. Significantly, l

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Virol suggests that Zapolska’s (once) private letters should be approached with caution and is clearly embarrassed by some of them. Izabela ´Sliwonik contends that the letters ‘are of course a type of psychological self-portrait – a picture emerges of a woman above all lonely, chronically ill, essentially deeply let down by probably the greatest love her life, Stanisl/aw Janowski.’42 Ko´slacz-Virol suggests that what matters is the writer and work expressly intended for the public sphere, in an implied criticism of the editors and clearly acutely sensitive to a critical tradition which will no doubt, with a distinct lack of puritanism, persist in enthusiastically establishing inter-textual references between the different forms employed by Zapolska without sufficiently differentiating between them; the exact status of the relationship perceived between autobiography and fiction never sufficiently interrogated. Conversely, in Polish Women Writers (Pisarki polskie) the view expressed is that Zapolska's correspondence constitutes ‘the most magnificent, most authentic work to have emerged from under her pen, fully rehabilitating this ambiguous, frequently criticised figure.’43 Besides the intrinsic importance of the letters in terms of providing biographical information, it is important to note that without reference to Zapolska's correspondence, it would be more difficult to establish an organizational framework for research into her work in the theatre, particularly for writers like Czachowska. Zapolska and Janowski eventually separated. After she abandoned the stage around 1900, making her permanent home in Lwów, they engaged in mutual, successful, short-lived attempts at collaboration in the form of a theatre school and a touring company, which Janowski managed. It is generally accepted that during this period of failing health Zapolska’s strongest dramatic writing was produced. To this period, Mrs. Dulska belongs. Janowski and the Gabriela Zapolska Theatre toured Galicia with the play, starting in Przemy´sl, in 1907.

SECTION 5: The Critics How has Zapolska’s dramatic writing been read as part of a Polish literary and theatrical ‘tradition’? Important to a consideration of Zapolska's professional career is the symbiotic relationship between her work as playwright and performer. Both Raszewski and Braun assert that Polish theatre of the nineteenth century emphasized the role of the actor and an important factor from this perspective is the suggestion that live li

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performance can evade censorship in politically productive ways, even when written text has been cut/altered. Braun's research indicates that throughout the nineteenth century, comedies, mainly by foreign writers including Molière, Goldoni and Kotzebue, were most frequently staged predominantly as adaptations. Such texts would have formed the mainstay of Zapolska’s performance repertoire until she left the stage around 1900 and their influence is clearly perceptible in her own plays, especially those concerned with scrutiny of the bourgeoisie. The comedy of manners, along with well-made plays and problem plays by the French proto-realists, including Scribe, Dumas fils, Sardou, Augier and Ponsard, gradually attained popularity. Comedies by Polish writers, including Bogusl/awski, Zabl/ocki, Dmuszewski, Niemcewicz and Fredro, were also frequently revived, along with tragedies by Schiller, Corneille, Voltaire and Shakespeare and Polish . writers We˛zyk and Kropiński. An important qualification here, as some literary scholars argue, is that writers of the period subsequently considered to have produced seminal, overtly politically dynamic and formally progressive work were émigrés. Significant examples cited include the playwrights (virtually none of whom were women, or actors, like Zapolska) Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Sl/owacki, with Cyprian Norwid heralding the onset of Modernism. Depending, of course, on the fate of such writers, exile may at least have provided increased opportunities for the practice of free speech, in Polish and other languages, outside 'Poland'. Their work may not necessarily, however, have immediately found a public forum in their host country, such as a theatre performance. A prerequisite would surely have been translation and/or publication, neither of which necessarily occurred. The importance of established émigré communities in providing a context for significant theatrical practice should not, therefore, be underestimated. Texts of this nature often took time to reach Poland and were inevitably censored if they arrived via official channels. This usually made any public performance, reading or publication practically impossible. As Braun points out, ‘these dramas were written by authors who, on a day-to-day basis, saw productions in the theaters of Paris, Brussels, London, Rome, or Berlin; who knew first hand the works of Johann W. Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Victor Hugo or George Byron; who were observers and participants in the major artistic and intellectual developments of the time.’44 Paralleling this effect, many actors in 'Poland' did not have what are now considered some of the most significant Polish plays of the period at their disposal, nor can it be said that Polish practitioners participated in an overt and unrestricted fashion in the Great Theatre Reform or the Independent Theatre Movement, of such crucial importance to the development of European practice and its growing lii

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insistence on theatre as a potentially non-literary art form. However, Zapolska’s Paris years, spent working with the Théâtre Libre and Théâtre de l’Oeuvre prior to her return to Galicia, again constitute an important exception. Nor should this line of reasoning be employed to arrive at an underestimation or devaluation of those practitioners working in Poland. Zapolska’s work has traditionally been read as part of a movement most frequent titled ‘Ml/oda Polska’ or ‘Young Poland’. Its dates are generally fixed as 1891 to 1918, the year of independence. .The title comes from Artur Górski’s 1898 series of articles, published in Zycie (Life), forming a manifesto for artists of the younger generation. It has subsequently been employed to collectively identify varying modernist artistic practices (that frequently challenged attitudes commensurate with ‘Triple Loyalism’) including numerous works not yet translated into English. Significant canonical playwrights include naturalists Jan August Kisielewski and Tadeusz Rittner, symbolists Stanisl/aw Wyspiański and Stanisl/aw Przybyszewski and expressionist Tadeusz Miciński. Braun identifies the unifying characteristic of native Polish literature of the period following the January Uprising as tension between neo-Romantic nationalism and compromise. Importantly, Bieńka notes that native writers, including novelist Bolesl/ aw Prus and prose writer Eliza Orzeszkowa (who in 1889 considered Zapolska's short story Hell's Mouth (Przedpiekle), in spite of certain formal and stylistic reservations, to be evidence of a ‘great and uncommon talent’)45 were forced to communicate via metaphor, allusion and subtext. This in itself consistently poses a challenge to the historiographer and scholar of literature in Polish, particularly acute for theatre translators and directors of Polish texts outside Eastern Europe, including those written after the Second World War.46 Davies maintains that Polish politics [of the 19th century] driven from the public arena by an army of police and censors, took refuge in the metaphors of the poets and the allegories of the novelists. It developed its own vivid literary code, a corpus of symbols and conventions which assumed a life of their own. For this reason, nineteenth-century Polish Literature, which in quantity, variety and artistic accomplishment, was comparable to all great literatures of Europe, has proved markedly unsuitable for export, and largely untranslatable. But in Poland its role was paramount.47

Though I sympathize with this assessment, acknowledging also the inevitable and irretrievable losses incurred by the censor’s activities, I remain unconvinced that the politics of translation and publication of Polish (or any) literature are liii

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thus easily reducible, most particularly in relation to drama and live performance. The same may have been said of work by several nineteenthcentury writers of varying nationalities whose work has 'taken root' in an English-speaking context, were it not for the persistent efforts of dedicated translators and theatre directors who have striven in addition to create informed readers and audiences for the work in question. The material and ideological systems within which they themselves have had to function have inevitably affected the dissemination and reception of their work. Was Zapolska a feminist? For nineteenth-/early-twentieth-century Poles willing to air their views, the socalled public domain was a difficult, potentially dangerous, arena and this must have rendered political choices far from simple. In spite of Zapolska's political tendencies, it seems she did not make an outright commitment to a particular political grouping, even those espousing feminism (though it would be equally impossible, retrospectively, not to identify her as a feminist), preferring to avoid collective action and being 'boxed in'. This has been one of the tendencies frequently held against her. Narratives of the emergence of feminist discourse and activism during this period are still being written. One dominant narrative has given assurance that feminists across the political spectrum (generally identified as women) generously avoided separatism in the name of struggle for an independent Poland, without which arguments concerning women's rights would have amounted to nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors. Particularly since 1989, feminist scholars in Poland, whilst acknowledging the potential veracity of this argument, have been attempting to tease out alternative and increasingly focused counter narratives of contemporary feminist thought and practice and provide revisions of dominant narratives without necessarily discrediting them. A tendency towards structuralism within such dominant narratives, it has been suggested, is arguably entirely logical given repeated totalitarian attempts to suppress factual information relating to Polish historical events. Though I would by no means wish to suggest that equivalent research has not been taking place outside Poland, for example, in university departments of Slavonic and East European Studies, in Poland it constitutes a relatively new, though strong, burgeoning and extremely exciting series of scholarly developments. In tandem with already established scholarship, it will inevitably come to shed further light on Zapolska's work, perhaps ultimately acknowledging that her artistic endeavour might indeed be read as separatist, feminist and patriotic.48 Arguably, these categories could not liv

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necessarily co-exist in comfortable juxtaposition within mainstream, largely conservative Polish scholarship. In any case, particular anecdotes appear to suggest that the playwright may occasionally (and sometimes gleefully) have been temperamentally disinclined towards the smooth functioning of the collective work ethic, apparently on one occasion striking a fellow actress, one Mrs. Marcello, with whom she had a disagreement, or rivalry, with the solid side of a stage prop, an axe, during a performance. The blow is said to have been delivered with rather more vigour than strictly required by the stage action. Marcello is said to have fainted and Zapolska reportedly declared that she had deserved it. Zapolska's contract with the theatre was terminated as a consequence and this made subsequent re-employment difficult. The anecdote presents her as capable of extreme aggression and competitiveness, tying in with a motto she is said to have appropriated; ‘unguibus et rostro’, ‘with beak and claws’. Another recurring criticism levelled at Zapolska, both during her lifetime and beyond, relates to the fact that she wrote like a 'hack'. Indeed, Zapolska worked throughout her life as a journalist for a variety of Polish newspapers, unusual for a woman, along the political spectrum, which, given the circumstances, was not without risk and involved frequent tussles with the censor. It may be said that she decided to compromise when times were very hard, which they often were for a woman in her position, in order to make a living, though intellectually she might generally be aligned with the left. Her arguments with the right-wing anti-Semitic paper Voice of the Nation were consistent and energetic, coming to one particular boiling point around 1897 when she laid a row of dogs' muzzles on the theatre seats of these journalists for having publicly objected to the Kraków performance of her play Mal/ka Szwarcenkopf, exclusively featuring Jewish characters, which, at its premiere in Warsaw, ran for an unprecedented eighty-eight performances (some productions would only run for two or three). One of these journalists was a relative, who subsequently contributed towards a series of vicious reviews of Zapolska’s acting. Following her performance in a . Judith Gautier premiere, /Lozyński (pseudonym Minos) wrote This artificial load of rubbish was probably staged exclusively in order to give the leading lady (Zapolska) opportunity for parading her bust and calves. The performance was a fiasco. Bouquets of burdock and red carnations proved of no assistance whatsoever. Many audience members left during the performance. Blanche and rouge of little use when the old bird has lost her youth.49

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Zapolska seems to have sustained her edgy sense of humour with regard to members of her own profession, however, and it must be remembered that she too consistently wrote theatre reviews for a range of newspapers and journals, particularly after 1900, predominantly, though not exclusively, in Lwów. A. Wa´skowski, who knew Zapolska as a young man, writes One day she suggests to me – Let's go and get some cakes. We entered the Jama Michalikowa [a bohemian-style café]. As was then the custom, an enormous cake stand was placed before us, on which were piled high coloured pyramids of confectionery; candied fruits, grapes etc. Zapolska surreptitiously opens a bag from the chemists… She takes out castor-oil capsules, very similar in size and shape to the grapes, and with great dignity places them deftly in amongst the elaborate display… She laughed with pleasure. For the theatre critics – she said – let's get out of here…50

Zapolska appears to have favoured being heard, in all public forums, as a lone, independent critical voice. Appraisals of her journalism as intellectually cheap and compromised 'seep into' and 'sully' appreciations of her prose and theatre writing, with little discussion of the fact that she is likely to have tailored her output to meet with the requirements of target audiences. As a woman using her pen in the public domain, as well as her performing voice and body, Zapolska's persona grew to be controversial, and what was read as her scandalously public private life both gave her access to space for movement 'outside' the structures of a complex society with attendant uncharacteristic freedom for a woman, and simultaneously literally rendered her an outsider, subject to suspicion and restriction, for whom the usual family and support networks in place for the female sex were rendered virtually inaccessible, or at the least unsupportive/unsympathetic. Tomasz Weiss writes, in 1966, People sought for traces of her personal, intimate experience in her work. Judgments of a moral nature, formulated in connection with Zapolska's way of life, were automatically mapped onto her work.51

Inevitably, this process also worked in reverse, though such a principle failed to be applied in a similar manner and as consistently to the. work or personae of Zapolska's predominantly male contemporaries. Tadeusz Z eleński assures us in confidence that, though lvi

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…it shames [him] to say it… of all [his] contemporary writers of comedy that old bird has perhaps the manliest grasp, the greatest capacity for observation, the most advanced economy of scenic expression and gesture.52

Alongside grudgingly offered praise and snide comments about her 'hack’s' tendencies, her 'careless and primitive' approach to writing prose, her 'truculence', her 'worldly lifestyle' which apparently prevented her from 'deepening her knowledge in any area' and complaints that 'the vamp' wrote 'too quickly' she has often been criticized, by men and women, for expressing herself (in every sense) outside patriarchal frames of reference, which in actual fact are usually made accessible through education. This in turn has often been posited as evidence that Zapolska was not very intelligent, the popularity of her work for theatre, as ‘entertainment', being cited in tandem as indicative of a feminized intellectual dumbing down. Her frequent dramatic scrutiny of the domestic sphere and her persistence in creating vividly drawn female characters are then easily deployed to support such a perspective. It is implied that Zapolska's perceived vindictiveness in exposing the hypocrisy inherent in institutionalized domestic life is simply a case of sour grapes vented by a woman who failed in her apparently moral duty of becoming a dutiful, home-bound wife and mother. During the nineteenth century, girls were mostly taught at home by a governess, if they were of the requisite class, according to a programme that would assist them in acquiring the graces necessary for coming out in society in an impressive manner. Schools for girls also existed, attended by aristocracy, though the gentry and middle-class intelligentsia (usually gentry fallen on hard times) were sometimes educated in these contexts too. Women who acquired knowledge of classical literature, foreign languages, European literature, history and philosophy were largely self-taught. Even if they had been schooled and wished to enter the writing and acting professions, they did not for countless reasons connected with this status quo necessarily have a so-called head start. If a definite feminist agenda can indeed be perceived in Zapolska's work, it relates to her exploration of the notion of a holistic education for women, with particular reference to issues concerning employment, sexuality, pregnancy, childbirth, childcare and prostitution. Her development of the character Elka in The Man, shown as a virgin in one act, heavily pregnant in the next and having lost her baby in the last, is truly remarkable. Elka is juxtaposed with her older sister, Julka, a teacher and professional woman, her sister's polar opposite. Zapolska's dramatic representation of adolescent girls and young women forced to dwell in ignorance (like Hesia Dulska, Mela Dulska and perhaps even the lvii

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Figure 6: Mela Dulska (Rose Walton) talks about her ‘growing pains’. Performance at University of Reading and POSK Theatre London, 2003/4, dir. Teresa Murjas.

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serving girl Hanka in The Morality of Mrs. Dulska) due to a lack of precise information about the functioning of their own bodies and mixed messages regarding the benefits of both innocence and experience persists throughout her writing career (see Figure 6). This artistic and social agenda is never achieved at the expense of simplistically demonizing their male counterparts, as is clear from the representation of Zbyszko Dulski, but is posited as symptomatic of an insidious set of double standards failing to benefit society at large and leaving women vulnerable through misinformation, until it is too late for them to consciously protect themselves emotionally and physically or understand the potential political consequences of desire and its fulfillment. Of particular interest in this context are Zapolska’s prose works Hell’s Mouth (Przedpiekle), about a suicide at a girls’ boarding school, and two related pieces, What one does not speak of (O czym sie˛ nie mówi) and What one does not even want to think about (O czym sie˛ nawet mysleć nie chce) concerning marriage, prostitution and sexually transmitted . disease. As recently as 1994, Andrzej Zarnecki suggested, subtly denying Zapolska any intellectual agency, that ‘like a sponge she became suffused with varying styles, currents, trends. This empirical knowledge she “placed” in books, newspapers and on the stage. She had an instinct for publicity, feminine intuition…’53 Almost the polar-opposite insinuation, a 'masculinization' of the playwright, is posited by Hanuszkiewicz, director of the musical version of the play Dulska! and the 'bio-drama' Zapolska, Zapolska, one which inevitably causes particular problems for feminist scholars pursuing research into the work of women writers of the period who have not reached canonical status. If Zapolska could manage it, the supposition might go, then why couldn't they? Was their work of lesser ‘quality’? She was unsurprisingly by no means the only woman writing at the time, though few chose the dramatic medium as their modus operandi. Karol Estreicher identified roughly five hundred women involved in writing in various forms around 1870, following the failure of the January Uprising, whereas at the beginning of the nineteenth century the number specified is closer to fifty. They are discussed in a book that has not yet been translated into English, Polish Women Writers (Pisarki Polskie), written by Borkowska, Czermińska and Phillips and published in 2000, ranging in its scope from the Middle Ages to the present day.54 Questioned in 1996 regarding Zapolska’s significance, Hanuszkiewicz replied A magnificently liberated woman, which at that time well-nigh bordered on heroism… I consider, that alongside our greats, Mickiewicz, Sl/owacki, Norwid, lix

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Wyspiański and Gombrowicz, one should locate Gabriela Zapolska – she is their equal… Dulska is like the best comedies of Molière… 55

Incidentally, in 2004, invited to discuss my production of Zapolska's play The Man with Jenny Murray on Radio 4’s Woman's Hour, the contextualizing question for the slot was 'Gabriela Zapolska: Was she the Polish Chekhov'? Hanuszkiewicz is still rather apologetically justifying Zapolska's right to a place in the all-male canon listed. The entire oeuvre of each of these men clearly remains in its entirety an inviolable signifier of quality. Zapolska's 'liberation' (which he does not fully describe or quantify) apparently renders her exceptional and appears to have thankfully released her from the banal intellectual and moral conventionality under which all other women laboured. Elwira Grossman suggests, in 2005, that ‘theatre in Poland is still predominantly controlled by men, who are the chief decision-makers, while gender discrimination remains practically a taboo topic.’ She follows with the qualification that ‘male and female critics who write about theatre tend to […] ignore the aesthetics and needs of female-centred readers/spectators.’56 Awareness of these circumstances, further developed by Grossman in her article, is salient for evaluating existing critical approaches to Zapolska's work and for further appreciating how atypical and discordant her semi-mythologized cultural status really is. Vital in this context is the proven marketability of many of Zapolska's plays, which rapidly became evident and still applies today, particularly with the more ensemble-based works. The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, in comparison with other texts she produced, might be described as a chamber piece with a relatively small cast. Some of her work requires over twenty-five actors and provides greater opportunities for spectacle. Ensemble pieces such as Little Frog, The Four of Them and The Morality of Mrs. Dulska have always been, relatively speaking, money-spinners, though this is not to say that she herself could ever have been described as wealthy. Audiences have voted with their feet and it seems that, at least in advertising terms, any publicity was good publicity. The early 'scandal' provoked by many productions could be frightfully delicious and arousing, as evoked in this wonderful sketch, written in relation to a performance of Zapolska's 1912 play Woman without Stain (Kobieta bez Skazy) in which several actors refused to perform, considering the subject matter excessively 'racy' and potentially detrimental to their future careers. Local family groups complained to theatres and boycotted performances. lx

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Do you know, apparently it involves a few screens behind which… Zosia, leave the room dear… Apparently that 'woman without stain' removes every last stitch in front of the butler. And I was told that she gets up onto the table in front of all her guests and shows her… well, you know… Those poor Galicians; there the censor has banned the play. How pleased I am to have got a ticket. I was at the box office first thing Monday morning, queuing…57

Irena Krzywicka describes Zapolska as a writer who reveals the functioning of class systems by repeatedly 'opening up' the domestic interiors of Krakow, Lwów and Warsaw, from the cellars below to the attics at the top, in an image akin to a doll's house. Krzywicka asserts that Zapolska's lived ability and opportunity to penetrate many different social circles lent her great scope as a playwright and prose writer. She argues that Zapolska's overwhelming focus on relationships within the urban domestic sphere, predominantly a matriarchal space, held as implicit for its contemporary audience the acute political and social disempowerment of Polish men in the public domain during the years of occupation and repression, a suggestion that may provide us with new ways of reading Felicjan and Zbyszko Dulski and their complex, silent relationship. Krzywicka violently gives image to the Polish fin-desiècle as a time of sadness, dirt and depression, recalling Mela Dulska's permanent state of malaise, encapsulated in the fashionable form of the contemporary woman, ‘monstrously distorted by means of whalebone – her body, her neck, her soul. A suffocated stomach, a stiffened posture, innards pushed up into the ribcage, enormous breasts clamped into one roll, hips like millwheels.’ For Krzywicka this almost industrial structure epitomizes the ‘unnatural’.58 She concludes that nothing good can be said of an epoch that thus shaped its women and posits Zapolska as the herald of social change – a herald, we may add, of revolution in the domestic sphere and most progressive in her representation of gender politics, notably in plays such as The Man (1902). Having now translated four and directed two of Zapolska’s plays, what repeatedly strikes me about their mise-en-scène is the proliferation of doors and windows and the energy stimulated by frequent entrances and exits, evocative of bedroom farce, slapstick and the comedy of manners. This is lxi

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drawn into tension with an absolute intensity of focus on one interior, characteristic of contemporary Naturalism, as providing a structure for relationships and the territory where Polish 'domestic' politics are played out in Polish, a language that had been under threat in the Russian and Prussian partitions. Further investigation may well be required into how precisely Zapolska’s dramatization and theatricalization of this sphere might be read as constitutive of a sophisticated dialectic concerning the relationship between form and national politics. Norman Davies, narrating Polish history of this period, comments that [t]he scope for minority politics was minimal. No independent or unapproved political activity designed to strengthen the national, Polish interest, as distinct from the power of the State, could flourish for long. As the old institutions were suppressed one by one, no new national institutions could take their place. The old traditions could not be applied to and tested against new circumstances. The Poles had to live off their memories and their day-dreams. Political deprivation – with all the social, economic, legal and cultural consequences which flowed from it – was a major fact of life.

Zapolska appears to question what precisely might be defined as political in nature. 'The personal' is usually categorized as the domestic and, it follows, feminine, private, unsuited to and distinctly separate from the public sphere. Accordingly, via the dramatic medium, Zapolska interrogates whether ‘the personal’ and 'the political' are necessarily incongruous and mutually exclusive concepts. During my production of The Morality of Mrs. Dulska this dialectic was extended extra-textually via the use of the aforementioned projections. Images of maps and a variety of public and domestic buildings were juxtaposed rhythmically with similarly monochrome, and sometimes fragmented, abstract, images of period furniture and costume, echoing the appearance of the actual set. These signs were chosen for their perceived similarity to each other, so that the pattern of a lace collar, for example, recalled the 'pattern' of a map, a section of window frame, the frontage of a tenement building and the structured shape of a woman's corset. In addition, whereas original productions would have employed a constructed and enclosed box set from which characters exited to that fictional place 'the rest of the house', my actors/characters were constantly in view of the audience, seated on chairs outside five free-standing door frames, with their backs to the auditorium, when they were not 'performing' within the domestic environment. When actors entered the performance space, they were lxii

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momentarily ‘framed’ by decorative door-frames. The resultant tableaux were suggestive of early portrait photography and pre-figured the behavioural stylization inherent in performances. Framing this arrangement, though for the most part located in darkness, were the permanent architectural features of the black-box theatre itself.

SECTION 6: The Play How has ‘The Morality of Mrs. Dulska’ been read? Today, suffering great pains, I completed Dulska. What is the matter? I know not. I simply wrote it in a fever. Maybe it will indeed be something excellent, or it may be worth nothing… Seems to me, that were I a Frenchman who had written something as strong and vital, I would make my fortune and achieve great fame. Here, they will torment me and I’ll earn a pittance. I have been a worker and will remain one to the grave. I judge, that with my final earnings they will buy me a coffin, because no-one will give anything on credit, and society would prefer me to be dug in a hole, like a dog at a crossroads, rather than give me anything of its own volition.59

Zapolska developed over thirty texts for performance. Of those surviving, The Morality of Mrs. Dulska (1906) is probably her best known. Reportedly inspired by events taking place in a family home visited by the playwright’s second husband, the play reached practically canonical status merely a few years after it was written. To this day its largely unresolved status as both a popular work intended for performance and a classic literary text worthy of academic study endures. This is maintained by critical discourses which tend to re-enforce polarization within a high art/low art value system. However, this status has been considerably problematized by vigorously politicized attitudes towards the playwright’s sex and her biography. This example of ‘woman’s work’ occupying an atypical space within critical and cultural discourse has sporadically provoked intense scrutiny of the relationship between Zapolska’s literary and personal reputation. Arguably, this in turn has ensured the play’s enduring presence on Polish stages. The wily, tyrannical, petty-bourgeois landlady, Mrs. Aniela Dulska, and her notcompletely-silent husband, long-suffering Felicjan, have been persistently referenced and recreated in the sphere of Polish cultural production and lxiii

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memory. The new play was rapidly snapped up by permanent theatres and touring companies. It became an immediate hit with audiences across partitioned Poland. Of the 82 texts staged in Kraków in the 1906 and 1907 season it received, at its premiere, the longest run. In March 1907, in that city alone, it was watched by a record number of 5,000 people and as a result published in the same year.60 In her 1912 play Miss Maliczewska, Zapolska's youthful hero grumbles to a colleague, ‘I would invite you over to my place, Kula, as I love God I would, and give you everything, but my old folks are a regular pair of Dulskis – pretty much the genuine article, mark my words’.61 Confident, after five years, of audiences appreciating this intertextual reference, Zapolska inserts it with the assurance of an established, frequently revived playwright. Accordingly, Mrs. Dulska swiftly became a household name, the notoriety of her family sealed in 1907 by two further 'spin-off ' short stories: The Death of Felicjan Dulski, in which the not unwillingly sidelined patriarch, true to form, more or less silently expires; and Mrs. Dulska in Court, in which the xenophobic Dulska’s son, Zbyszko, fathers a child with one of his mother's 'respectable female tenants'. In 1909, with the playwright’s thorough approval, Kraków saw the publication of a satirical journal entitled Mrs. Dulska, whose development Zapolska monitored closely. . In 1932, Tadeusz Zeleński, a writer, avid social commentator and translator, perceived similarities between Zapolska and Molière. A keen French colleague whom he escorted to a performance had verified, apparently between fits and starts of admiring laughter, that Mrs. Dulska ‘completes Molière’, since she . does not exist in his oeuvre. Zeleński waxes increasingly lyrical, asserting that, ‘[w]hen Dulska was created she was simply a type – now she represents a whole epoch. We can say “The age of Dulska”, as much as we can say “The age of Louis XIV or Louis XV.”’62 No surprise, then, that the play provided the source and its title, the root, for a new term in the Polish language: 'dulszczyzna', roughly translatable as 'dulskaness'. This has been employed as a ‘catch-all’ for the litany of reprehensible qualities exhibited by bourgeois philistine, Aniela Dulska; double standards, endemic conservatism, excessive self-delusion, poor social conscience, weakness of character, hypocrisy, xenophobia, penny-pinching, vanity, pomposity, crassness, lack of compassion, sadistic self-aggrandizement and bad taste. These qualities have been variously described by critics as indigenous to Poland, foreign or universal. Correspondingly, the complex ideological tensions provoked by this linguistic phenomenon have served to further the so-called lxiv

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cultural immortalization of the text. Like characters from a TV soap opera who receive letters from the viewers, the almost-real Dulskis have become a supratheatrical embodiment of capitalist miserliness and secretly relished moral dysfunction. Emilia Krakowska adds an important qualification regarding the origins of this much-maligned landlady’s sinful nature: Dulska-ness confronts us at every step. The usual way of describing it is middle class duplicity, ignorance – that characteristic dual morality, distinctly dividing our behaviour between the home and the street. A morality encapsulated in the phrase ‘what will people say?’ Gabriela Zapolska’s genius, however, relies on insightful observation unhampered by stereotyping and over-simplification. Because of course Dulska’s problem is that of a mother overcome by limitless love for her son.63

The precise translation of the term 'kol/tuneria' is also something of a challenge. It features as an adjectival affix to the generic descriptor 'tragi-farce' (‘tragifarsa kol/tuńska’) complementing the play's title. The word did exist before the work was written and in contemporary usage was predominantly employed to describe apparent petty-bourgeois backwardness and parochialism. However, in this particular textual genesis, its elevation to the ranks of more common linguistic currency was firmly marked. The word 'kol/tun' (plural ‘kol/tuny’) is frequently employed to describe those scabs, peppered with dandruff and dirt, which form under stubborn tangles of hair or an animal's fur and which are not necessarily immediately visible to the observer. Drawing on this meaning to provide the root for her witty generic categorization, Zapolska evokes a set of intellectually and morally backward, ingrained, unsanitary values and practices, elevated by their perpetrators to the status of sanctified domestic family rituals. This duplicity she reveals within Dulska's household. Hers is petty-bourgeois philistinism at its mottled worst, farcical in a most distasteful and oppressive sense. The play’s spectators may metaphorically be prompted to examine their own social consciences (with nothing less than a very fine-toothed comb) for the express purpose of rooting out precisely such festering knots and snarls of philistinism; those, indeed, in whose small, compact and seemingly innocuous centres the germs of social tragedy and immorality may be breeding. And so we have The Morality of Mrs. Dulska - A petty-bourgeois tragi-farce, by no means as pungent a translation as I would wish, yet here the most usefully explicit. Zapolska offers careful advice to the theatre director, simultaneously expressing a more skillfully malevolent, predatory side to the Dulskis lxv

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Bring increased depth to your consideration of [Dulska], which should not be filtered through the laughter of those entertained by a series of concepts alone. It is the ending that bears most weight – Mela’s shout of despair – ‘They have killed someone here’… Note how smoothly they commit a crime. Perhaps this tone will not be to your liking – but you see, I have always honoured the truth, which is what life itself presents: sparkling moments of happiness and terrible moments of misfortune. They are inextricably linked – only [when the expression of this connection is achieved theatrically] will we understand each other, those on the stage and those in the auditorium.64

The slickness of the Dulski’s criminal strategy was explored in 1996, when the play’s status as a popular classic was further reinforced by the arguably inevitable creation of a musical version, aptly entitled Dulska! This production appears to have served both as a critique of capitalism and a satire on left-wing . panic. Of interest in this context are Andrzej Zarnecki's comments: One politician, for example, shortly after 1989, enlightened by new ways of thinking about politics and economics, called for a change in approach to the [Dulska] stereotype. He called on us to regard dulska-ness as a positive phenomenon, evidence of right thinking about economics, which the Poles ought to learn. Not a few thunderbolts struck his virtually bald, admittedly styro-foam head. And yet after a few years the sowing of this new thought has resulted in a bountiful harvest.65

Crucially, study of the play as a schoolroom text has persisted to this day in Poland, complementing the work's frequent revival. Its theatrical manifestation in the form of Dulska! apparently constituted an attempt (or perhaps cynical marketing ploy) to attract younger audiences to the classics and counter that wellknown, prevalent malady, being 'all Dulska-ed out', a result of apparent overexposure to the play in the classroom. This was attempted by means of creating a type of ‘erotic cabaret’ set in the Dulski’s bourgeois drawing room. Reportedly, the play’s undercurrent of sexual tension was enticingly brought to the fore, with characters expressing their formerly suppressed, off-stage sensuality in varying states of titillating undress whilst performing musical numbers.66 Directors, not all of them Polish, began to create film adaptations of the play on a regular basis in the 1930s, with the advent of sound. The first was indeed a 'free adaptation' directed by B. Niewolin in 1930, the first Polish ‘talkie’, in which some intriguing new characters appeared. One is called Antek. His love lxvi

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for Hanka mercifully saves her from so-called ruin. Another is the mysterious Matilda Strumpf. Her only decipherable purpose, Andrzej Markret wryly suggested, was to be played by the extremely attractive winner of the beauty contest Miss Polonia.67 More recently, in the 1980s, the play’s continued presence in the national imagination was ensured by Andrzej Wajda’s popular television series As the Days Pass, As the Years Pass. By means of narrative conflation and reference to associated prose works, such as Zapolska’s short stories, the director adapted texts created by Polish modernist writers between the years 1883 and 1919, one of which was Zapolska’s The Morality of Mrs. Dulska. How was the play staged and received immediately following the Second World War? One of the most interesting aspects of my research into the play’s performance history is the period following the Second World War. This has involved consideration of programme notes and theatre reviews from the 1940s and 1950s, which contain critics’ and practitioners’ somewhat formulaic attempts to justify the staging of the play as an instance of half-baked socialist realism, commensurate with the all-too-crude (though dangerous to ignore) censor's requirements in communist Poland. Repeatedly, with attendant regret (though one suspects not always privately), they deny the playwright any true (read Soviet Marxist) understanding of the processes of history. Zapolska’s creation of the petty-bourgeois monster, Mrs. Dulska, is seen as comparatively commendable. However, Hanka, that recent arrival from 'the village', can by no means be regarded as an accurately represented working-class character (read hero) because she bargains with Dulska on her own terms. Nor can her final demand for 1,000 kronen really be disguised as a proto-revolutionary attempt to redistribute wealth. The play’s other working-class character, Hanka’s streetwise godmother, the washerwoman Tadrachowa, too uncomfortably recalls Dulska to merit any mention in the literary pantheon of the People’s Revolution. As Mela suggests, someone has been ‘killed’ by the end of the play, but it is the wrong person. Nor have they been killed in a manner satisfactory to any revolutionary worker truly worth her salt. Stark evasions are necessarily made in order to enable such arguments. Firstly, critics seem to have a blind spot concerning Zapolska's attempts, via the carefully considered juxtaposition of characters, to engage a political dialectic. Secondly, they persist in the profoundly reductive categorization of naturalism as a photographic, bourgeois, politically redundant form. There is a failure to lxvii

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acknowledge Zapolska's kinship with writers such as Molière, Goldoni and Beaumarchais. Additionally, critics avoid identifying links with earlier Polish playwrights, including Aleksander Fredro, one of the most significant earlynineteenth-century writers of comedy with whom she shares a sustained interest in the motif of two sisters (in this case Hesia and Mela Dulska). Conversely, connotations evoked by Zapolska’s late-nineteenth-century nickname, 'Zola in a skirt', are mercilessly exploited as confirmation of her political decadence. Curiously, virtually no discussion centres on the play’s neverrealized potential socialist, Zbyszko Dulski. The fact that he and his father have jobs that arguably serve to strengthen the spread of capitalism presumably proves to be evidence enough of their tacit acceptance of, or even collusion with, the mechanisms of imperialist domination. No irony is detected in Zapolska’s representation of these characters. Instead, assertions are made that she was congenitally incapable of seeing beyond the effects of social decay to its causes. In line with this limited mode of reasoning, the playwright is credited with having created a vivid document of her age; she has merely traced an undesirable image without providing appropriate commentary or a clear agenda for reform. Great pains are taken to assert that Zapolska's technique was journalistic and therefore essentially anti-idealistic. Critics deploy a distancing effect, denying any real or immediate relevance a live performance might have to the status quo; the bourgeoisie can by no means exist any longer, or, if they do, their numbers are negligible. They have gone underground. There they sit on small piles of silk stockings and gold watches, anxiously reciting a materialistic mantra to calm their shattered nerves, devising insidious though essentially negligible new inroads. In 1950, for example, in a journal article relating to two recent theatre performances, Zbigniew Mitzner’s speculation concerning what Zapolska's characters might be up to 'after the play’ is quoted by ‘Wisz’.68 ‘As a result of the abuse she endured, Hanka has rebelled against dulska-ness in a naïve manner and one – it might be said – lacking in class-awareness.’Yet, he is pleased to inform us, ‘Hanka’s grandchildren must certainly have stepped onto the path of Nil [from Gorky’s The Petty Bourgeois or The Philistines 69 (1901)] he who destroys the last remaining nests of Dulskis. Because exist they do, still. They exist in smaller numbers; they are quieter, but no less dangerous.’ As ‘Wisz’ concludes, ‘Hanka is certainly taken from life, but so was Gorky’s Nil.’ He identifies the difference between Gorky and Zapolska as lying in the deployment of form, associating Realism with the Russian, whose art is focused on the creation of a ‘new tomorrow’ and Naturalism with the Pole, who has been unable to satisfactorily address the relationship between art and politics, fiction and reality.70 lxviii

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Both available reviews and programme notes follow a similar pattern, fusing admonitory didacticism with apologetic justification for the production about to, or having taken, place. Crucially, in reviews, performance is never explicitly discussed as an interpretative act. Critics or practitioners recite a list of Zapolska’s shortcomings in something akin to public confession; she was irreversibly shackled to the ideological failings of her early upper-class conditioning, they assert. She did have a self-indulgent bourgeois lifestyle that rendered her capable of writing comedies that, one would hope inadvertently, compounded middle-class self-satisfaction. She did, it must be said, reside for extended periods in 'backward’ Polish Galicia. This was predominantly agrarian, largely untouched by rapid industrial progress (the pride of Russianoccupied Poland) and arguably excessively eager to negotiate co-existence with its (comparatively liberal) imperial occupant, Austro-Hungary.71 Nevertheless, having done their penance, the writers appear partially ideologically absolved. They go on to find themselves incapable of denying that, in commensurate ideological terms, Zapolska was indeed balancing on the right (thin) line. Seemingly, the ability to balance on that line without necessarily toeing it constitutes an acceptable point of departure for salvaging her by now sufficiently brittle reputation. She cannot, after all, be blamed for having been born under an inauspicious star rather than a red one. In those highly regulated circumstances it was permissible – even desirable – to stage The Morality of Mrs. Dulska. However, one had to, firstly, apologize profusely for the playwright having been a Pole of the wrong class, secondly, treat the written play text as a historical artefact and, thirdly, conceptually conflate the written play text and the performance, regarding them as a single fixed entity with one stable meaning and ideology, which was at odds with the so-called truth or new socio-political reality. Repeatedly, throughout the mid-twentieth century, continued revival of the play was paradoxically legitimized by its largely negative treatment as a literary text and speculations about the live theatrical event expressly avoided. Thus, the theatrical embodiment of Aniela Dulska as viscerally grotesque, politically alluring or socially self-assured, with all the comic and dangerous theatrical (and ideological) seduction such manifestations might exude, was clumsily, or perhaps rather nimbly, sidetracked. In the 1960s, following the post-Stalinist thaw, theatre critics began to discuss performance and directorial concept with somewhat greater confidence. It is arguably evident from their work that the theatrical representation of Dulska until that point closely followed as restricted a set of edicts. It appears likely that this entailed a tendency towards extreme lxix

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caricature via, after all, adherence to the implied logic of Zapolska's initial stage directions regarding the dirt and disarray of her petty-bourgeois matriarch's apparel, as well as a small sketch of Dulska produced by the playwright herself (see Figure 7). To add to this, Dulska lacks education and this is revealed in her very occasional, though hilarious misuse of words. By means of visually externalizing Dulska's 'kol/ tuństwo', bad taste and corruption, the spectator might perhaps have been prompted to laugh exclusively at her rather than occasionally with her. This at least had the potential to superficially defuse Dulska's theatrical potency, allure and her social significance. A side effect must, it follows, have been reductionism and simplification in relation to the figure of Hanka and, as a consequence, all the relationships portrayed. A performance could therefore function as a warning parable for the aspiring class warrior, as long the audience understood that they were observing the theatrical equivalent of a museum piece. A sense of the intellectual peril, physical risk and utter frustration which must have been involved in engaging in live performance and all forms of public expression is clear from a consideration of the post-war debates surrounding this work. It is interesting to note that the first production to be staged in post-war Poland was The Morality of Mrs. Dulska and that it was revived frequently throughout the USSR. Within the country that has persistently continued to re-visit it, therefore, this text has been inscribed with a problematic legacy. The broader issue implied in these arguments involves a complex ideological struggle over who should be permitted to 'own' and narrate Polish socialist thought and practice and in what terms. One need only refer to Adam and Lidia Ciol/kosz's 1984 publication entitled Independence and Socialism: 1835–1945 to discover what is at stake. The writers consider the rejection of ‘socialist’ rhetoric and symbolism by the Solidarity workers' movement in the 1980s, as it sought to liberate itself from the control of the Communist Party. The writers discuss the necessity for pre-communist era models of socialist theory and practice to be re-visited and re-narrated in order to begin, yet again, addressing imbalances in imperialist-led historiography. Culturally, the contested figure of Hanka, exploited former peasant girl, can be seen as forming a locus for these arguments. Crucially, in fin-de-siècle Poland, and most specifically Galicia, where the play is set, under conditions of heavy censorship, ethnographers played an extremely significant role, via the formal study of folklore, in transforming the image of Poland to a more socially inclusive ideal in which peasant and feudal lord are presented as sharing a common cultural and political bond. This reflected the literal emergence of peasant and worker into the sphere lxx

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Figure 7: Zapolska’s sketch of Dulska, ‘Mrs. Dulska in her little nest’, 1906.

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of public politics. Following the abolition of serfdom across partitioned Poland in the mid-nineteenth century, a system whose legacy was in actual fact eroded only very slowly and displaced to other, parallel models of exploitation by the partitioning powers, there ensued a complex process of negotiation between the traditional 'bearers' of the 'patriotic message' (the gentry and intelligentsia) and the lower classes, concerning the nature of national identity and indeed the basis for a conception of a future, independent Polish nation and state. This was additionally complicated by the cultural and ethnic diversity of the population. Most rural Galician communities were home to a combination of Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Ruthenes and Germans of varying religious persuasions. StauterHalsted suggests that as late as 1907 writers mentioned the ‘two souls’ of the Polish peasant; that of the serf and that of the free man, ‘which competed for attention in almost every field of peasant endeavour.’72 Crucially, the rift between the Polish peasant and his semi-feudal lord was perceived as a highly significant factor in the failure of frequent nineteenth-century insurrections. Unsurprisingly, peasant women's rights lagged far behind their male counterparts.73 Ultimately, the positive presentation, and often active romanticization, of peasant figures and their folklore in literature had a distinctly political, often nationalistic, function that should not be regarded with unadulterated cynicism. It can, in addition, be read as an attempt to regain ideological control of the definition of ‘Polishness’ in the light of imperial Russia’s liberation of the serfs and its attendant agrarian reforms. These events were regarded by some historians as attempts to win the loyalty of the lower classes and counteract plans by the Polish intelligentsia to foster national cohesiveness and political subversion. In this context, it is interesting to note that Hanka has in some productions been presented in traditional peasant costume, an extremely potent and contested national image (see Figure 8). The relationship between the Dulski family and Hanka might be read as Zapolska’s tongue-in-cheek ‘resurrection’ of the said semi-feudal power dynamic in an early-twentieth-century, more urbanized context. What was the significance of Lidia Zamkow’s 1967 production of the play? The play's performance history has been rich and far too extensive to cover meaningfully here. Extremely worthwhile, however, is brief discussion of a highly significant production which may assist in highlighting some of the issues potentially involved in staging the play, developing a performance style commensurate with the play’s generic conventions and interpreting the figure of lxxii

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By kind permission of ZASP Archive, Warsaw

Figure 8: Zbyszko Dulski (W. Sheybal) and Hanka (I. Eichler), Teatr Nowy, Warszawa, 1950, dir. Irena Babel. lxxiii

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Dulska. In 1967 at the Kraków Sl/owacki Theatre, Lidia Zamkow evidently took a new directorial approach, with which my own in 2003 closely corresponded. Theatre critics' responses to Zamkow's show demonstrated development in two distinct areas. Firstly, performance concept was discussed in greater detail than had hitherto been the norm, emphasizing directorial agency. Secondly, performance was consequently read as an interpretative act, with more extensive consideration of the play's contemporary socio-political relevance. In his programme notes, Natanson pinpointed the emergence of an alternative to the traditional mode of representing Dulska, its genesis identifiable in Irena Babel's ´ 1950s production, in which Cwikli´ nska as Dulska daringly abandoned the trademark curling papers, dirty dressing gown and worn slippers. Szczepański notes that Zamkow successfully pushes the logic of Babel's reading to a full-on confrontation with the contemporary spectator. ‘This is a family not from a run-down tenement on a side street, but a respectable establishment on the main street. They even appear quite sympathetic. Dulska’s slyness and thrift might well be seen as good housekeeping. You have to look and listen very closely to perceive their “kol/tuństwo”, hidden beneath considerable social sophistication. This interpretation sharpens the plays satirical intention.’74 Its aim is identified as the characteristic of 'kol/tuństwo' identifiable in any social system. In my production, the Dulskis were certainly upper-middle class, but enjoyed seeing themselves as members of the aristocracy. In my publicity material, however, I attempted to describe Dulska as a fusion of Hyacinth Bucket, pronounced ‘Bouquet’, a pompous, slapstick character from a British TV sitcom, and Brecht’s Mother Courage. Pieszczachowicz contends that ‘theatres have become used to belittling Zapolska’s heroine, taking the easy route via a dirty dressing gown and curling papers, effecting premature crystallisation of the figure, now a symbol, and thus limiting her scope. Mrs. Dulska, superficially gracious and elegant, is a considerably more real and dangerous opponent.’ Krzyski as Dulski is ‘a highly comic figure, arousing more laughter than Dulska.’75 (see Figure 9) Zamkow's key visual conceit involved a highly polished floor in a carefully realized, tastefully furnished, naturalistic environment, which forced actors to move slowly and with great difficulty. Typical of domestic practice in respectable Cracovian households, they wore felt sole-guards over their footwear to protect the floor and simultaneously sustain its polish. Zamkow extended locally plausible, naturalistic behaviours into a performance style that flirted with overt physical stylisation and verged productively on the farcical. The careful movement first proved entertaining and gradually became a strain lxxiv

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Figure 9: Felicjan Dulski (H. Krzyski) and Aniela Dulska (Z. Jaroszewska), Teatr im. Sl/owackiego, Kraków 1967, dir. Lidia Zamkow.

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to watch. Zbyszko, arguing with Dulska, suddenly threw his shoe protectors into the fire, Dulski searched fruitlessly for his, losing his footing. Conventionality was presented as a psycho-physical balancing act, class as performative. Additionally, Zamkow accentuated Dulska's role as dedicated mother with semi-epic heroic qualities, struggling to maintain order and exert control and highlighted the pathos of her predicament. Sieńkiewicz writes that ‘Dulska has a pathological love of cleanliness. She polishes the floors with rags and raises the activity to the status of a ritual of obligation. Amidst these acts of hygiene… the entire disgusting, morally filthy business takes place.’76 Against this backdrop, Hanka's role as 'servant' was sharply called into question. Bober concludes ‘Zamkow has thrown onto the dirty souls and bodies of Zapolska’s characters fashionable clothes, pleasing to the eye, elegant, lovely, attractive… she has drawn us into a game, in which farce crosses over the boundary into cruelty.’77 This was Dulska on rags rather than in them. It is absolutely crucial to emphasize the semiotic richness of costume/clothing in all Zapolska's work, a gift to the practitioner. According to Zapolska’s instructions, Dulska begins in dirty, torn apparel in the presence of her immediate family (contrasted with Dulski's scrupulous approach to dress) and moves through levels of variously elaborate costuming when performing to her 'public'. Both Zamkow's production concept and my own diverged considerably from this agenda. The opportunity for directors to make equivalent choices in a British context is, I hope, encrypted to some degree in my translation, particularly in terms of its linguistic structures potentially enabling the use of accent, intonation, pitch, pauses, pace and rhythms of delivery to both engage and disrupt class stereotypes in performance (see Figure 10).

CONCLUSION Why is the publication of this translation significant? Hitherto, both in UK theatres and university drama departments, there has existed a sustained, though demographically uneven, culture of interest in the work of mid-/late-twentieth and twenty-first-century, predominantly male, Polish theatre practitioners who have taken a radical deconstructive approach to dramatic literature or devised their own work. Grotowski, Kantor and Gardzienice are key examples. Frequently, they have been described as avantgarde, though explanations of how and why, in their own context, this may have been the case, take little account of the extremely ideologically problematic concept of ‘the Polish mainstream’, the role of naturalism and realism as lxxvi

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Figure 10: Aniela Dulska (Emma Ankin) poses for her audience. Performance at University of Reading and POSK Theatre London, 2003/4, dir. Teresa Murjas.

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theatrical forms within it, and the impact of literary and theatrical censorship prior to the Second, and indeed the First, World War. Study of these practitioners’ work is often conducted without engaging with translations of their literary Polish source texts, simply because these may not even exist and may focus specifically on more frequently translated, documented instances of performance or systems of rehearsal in which the role of language has been de-stabilized to allow the emergence or foregrounding of other modes of communication. Such an approach may in certain circumstances be considered methodologically problematic, though I am not suggesting there is anything politically sinister about it. Nor am I attempting to overvalue the role of the play text within the field of Theatre Studies or devalue the role of devised theatre and performance in Poland, or indeed its study. Historically conditioned factors which continue to affect accessibility, and which have affected Polish academics’ own ability to publish and disseminate their work both within their own country and abroad, do, however, clearly exist and this is my concern. It is simply extremely difficult to teach a detailed module on Polish theatre from a historiographic perspective within a drama department due to the limited availability of corresponding translated primary, and secondary, resources produced within the field of theatre studies and thus drawing on shared critical contexts and discourses. This is not to deny, of course, that excellent translations . of plays by Witkiewicz, Mrozek and even Fredro do exist, many originating in the US (as does the Contoskis’ 1983 translation, The Morality of Mrs. Dulski) or that superb scholarship continues to emerge within the field of Slavonic and East/Central European studies. Such subject-specific, overall limitations do, however, remain in place, conditioning in turn how UK post-graduates and academics who cannot speak Polish conduct their researches into Polish theatre within drama departments. They are felt most keenly with regard to late nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century naturalist and early modernist play texts falling within my own area of research. The study of theatrical naturalism, crucially important to most undergraduate university theatre courses on European theatre in the UK, uniformly, as far as I am aware, includes no Polish examples and is the poorer for it. Broader socio-political and geographical concerns relating to Poland’s current and historical place in Europe continue to determine the ideologies of academic curricula, impacting in turn on how naturalism is conceptualized as a theatrical form. What I perceive as an unbalanced, unsatisfactory, frustrating situation arises, I believe, from insufficient negotiation between so-called source and target culture via translation, curious given Poland's recent accession to the EU and the lxxviii

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emphasis on both ‘new’ and ‘old’ writing in British theatre. Whatever culture of exchange does exist is weakened by the extreme lack of confidence demonstrated by UK editors, many of whom consider publication only on the 'back of ' professional productions; a catch-22 situation, since theatre producers and directors are just as reluctant to take a gamble and would prefer to stick to revivals, using often strongly domesticated versions by British playwrights, of plays by Ibsen, Chekhov and Strindberg. Curiously, Granville Barker and Shaw are given some – though less – theatrical attention and the women’s work they would have supported at The Court has practically disappeared from our stages, except for Githa Sowerby’s Rutherford and Son, written somewhat later, in 1912. It is my ambition to eventually produce a translated edition of latenineteenth-/early-twentieth-century Polish naturalist plays by a range of playwrights, emerging from and specifically prepared for the UK performance context, in an attempt to begin addressing some of these imbalances. This translation represents my first step, and I am extremely lucky to have found a courageous and supportive editor and publisher. This is, currently, by no means an easy task. My translation of The Morality of Mrs. Dulska remains an interpretation of the play. It functioned effectively in a particular contemporary performance context. Translating and directing a play that is so well known in Poland and completely unknown in a UK context has been an experience peculiarly commensurate with my daily existence as an émigré-once-removed. What its retranslation, performance and deconstruction might come to mean 'here' and 'now', following my first tentative steps, is hopefully yet to be discovered and explored. Another opportunity for this, at least, presents itself. Why not end by thinking back? I would like to conclude this introduction by calling to mind a few monuments, all of them symbols of attempts at dialogue, translation, adaptation and negotiation. First, there is Zapolska's tomb in L’viv, the formerly PolishGalician city of Lwów or Lemberg, now part of Ukraine. Zapolska's lonely and painful death took place in Lwów in 1921. The 1918/19 Polish/Ukranian armed struggle for Eastern Galicia, passionately contested territory, was not yet over. The playwright’s estranged husband Janowski returned to arrange her burial, / yczakowski cemetery. Second, which was paid for by the city authorities, in the L I once again mention the Portsmouth memorial, dedicated in Polish and English to an early-nineteenth-century émigré community. Third, with great sadness, I lxxix

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have in mind the urn containing my father’s ashes. He died while I was writing this book and the project in its entirety is dedicated to him. He leaves me somewhat adrift, more fearful and compelled to re-define anew my ‘Polishness’, my so-called integration and/or assimilation. Finally, there is this book itself, produced exactly one hundred years after Zapolska wrote her play. It is the outcome of a lengthy and intensive process of collaborative research through practice, achieved with the help and support of my colleagues and students at Reading, for which I offer them my thanks. The book in turn offers the opportunity for English-speaking actors to once more embody The Morality of Mrs. Dulska. It would be lovely to see the Dulski family nicely settled in. Notes / ód´ 1. Jagoszewski, M. Programme note. Teatr Ml/odego Widza, L z. (1960s-exact date missing). All translations are author’s own unless otherwise specified. 2. The play has been translated into over twenty languages, including Chinese, Italian and Danish. Jadwiga Czachowska mentions a 1950s American-English translation used in performance in the US, but I have been unable to locate a copy. It is mentioned on p. 361 of her bio-bibliography. The translator was Edwin B. Self. A performance using this translation took place in Cleveland, in the Metropolitan Theatre (Theatre Workshop). The premiere was on the 10th September 1923. Czachowska obtained this information from Taborski, B., Polish Plays in English Translations. A Bibliography, Polish Review, nr. 3, 1964, p. 73. An American-English translation of the play by Wiesl/ awa and Victor Contoski was first published in Slavic and East European Arts (ed. E. Czerwiński), vol. 1, n. 2, spring 1983 (New York). It was performed at the Slavic Cultural Centre and then at the Provincetown Playhouse, New York, in 1984, under the direction of Andrzej Markiewicz. It has subsequently been used as a performance text in the USA. It was re-printed, as The Morality of Mrs. Dulski, by Oxford University Press (New York) in 2000/01, in an anthology of the work of modern European women playwrights, edited by Alan Barr ( please see bibliography). My thanks to Mischa Twitchin and Halina Filipowicz for drawing attention to these texts. 3. Characters’ names, place names, street names and references to Polish Galician currency are also clearly significant in this context. 4. Wilson, Parkinson & Watkins, Poland, Lonely Planet: London, 2006, p. 32. 5. Zamoyski, A., The Polish Way: A Thousand-year History of the Poles and their Culture, John Murray: London, 1987, p. 290. 6. See Ciol/ kosz, A., & L., Niepodlegl/ o´sc´ i Socjalizm: 1835–1945, Wydawnictwo CDN: Warszawa, 1984. This slim tome is available in the British Library special collections. 7. See original documents in Special Collections, British Library, entitled Lud Polski – Wybór Dokumentów: Material/ y do Dziejów Ruchu Ludowego. 8. Zamoyski, A., p. 292. 9. Davies, N., p. 173.

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The Morality of Mrs. Dulska 10. Blobaum, R. E., Rewolucja: Austrian Poland 1904–7, Cornell University Press, New York, 1995, p. 37. 11. Blobaum, R. E., p. x. 12. Davies, N., p. 159. 13. Zamoyski, A., p. 301. 14. Bieńka, M., Warszawskie Teatry Rzadowe: Dramat i Komedia 1890–1915, Instytut Sztuki PAN: Warszawa, 2003, str. 10. 15. Davies, N., Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1986, p. 166. 16. Zamoyski, A., p. 284/5. 17. Blobaum, R. E., Rewolucja: Austrian Poland 1904–7, Cornell University Press: New York, 1995. 18. Blobaum, R. E., p. 28. 19. Zamoyski, A., p. 290. 20. Bieńka, M., str. 30–32. 21. Davies, N., p. 171. 22. Davies, N., p. 172. 23. Zamoyski, A., p. 304. 24. Kowalski, M., 'Przeprowadzka panstwa Dulskich' Tygodnik Ciechanowski, nr. 35, 1 wrzesień, 1995. 25. Czachowska, str. 338. 26. Czachowska, J., str. 13. 27. Programme note. Teatr Ziemi Pomorskiej. Grudzia˛dz. Pa´zdziernik 1966. . 28. Gallina, M., ‘Wstydliwa Protekcja’, Zycie, 2003. [ZASP archive clipping – date and page numbers incomplete]. 29. Kallas, M., Kalendarz Teatru Polskiego, Warszawa, nr. 19, Sezon 1967–8. 30. See Czachowska, J., str. 144. 31. Czachowska, J., str. 17. 32. Czachowska, J., str. 23. 33. Czachowska, J., str. 42. 34. Czachowska, J., str. 37. 35. Zapolska, G., ‘O Realizm – Prawde˛ Bezwzgle˛dna˛!’ reproduced in Listy Teatru Polskiego, nr. 56, Warszawa, Sezon 1961–2, str. 20–21. 36. Raszewski, Z., ‘Czl/owiek Teatru’, Kalendarz teatru Polskiego, Sezon 1967–8, str. 18–19. 37. Braun, K., pp. 78–9. 38. Davies, N., p. 159. 39. Zamoyski, A., p. 288. 40. Raszewski, Z., str. 18–19. 41. Koller, J., in Programme note. Państwowy Teatr im. Juliusza Sl/owackiego. Kraków, marzec 1967. 42. S´liwonik, I., ‘Gabriela Zapolska – Legendy i Fakty’, Przyjaciól/ ka, nr. 13, Warszawa, 26 marzec 1976. 43. Borkowska, G., Czermińska, M. & Phillips, U., Pisarki polskie od s´ redniowiecza do wspól/ czesno´sci, Wydawnictwo Sl/owo/Obraz Terytoria: Gdańsk, 2000, p. 84. 44. See Braun, K., pp. 75–92. 45. Czachowska, J., str. 80.

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Gabriela Zapolska . 46. See my work on translating and directing Mrozek. 'Falling off the Fence: Translating and . Directing Mrozek', Slavic and East European Performance, fall 2003, 10–23. 'Sitting on the . fence: Mrozek in Performance', Journal of the International University Theatre Association, . 4, 2, 2002, 20–35. 'A Question of Identity: Translating and Directing Sl/ awomir Mrozek's The Turkey, Studies in Theatre & Performance, 21: 3, 2002, 162–175. 47. Davies, N., p. 177. 48. Whether Zapolska herself would have been satisfied with this categorization is of course a different matter! . / ozy´ nski (pseud. Minos) ‘Gl/os Narodu’, nr. 291, 22 grudzień, 1897, str. 5. 49. ibid. 171. From L 50. Wa´skowski, A., ‘Znajoma z Tamtych Czasow’, Listy Teatry Polskiego, nr. 56, 1961–2, str. 61. 51. Weiss,. T. Programme note. Teatr Ziemi Pomorskiej. 1966. 52. Boy-Zeleński, T., ‘Teatr Polski 1928’, Listy teatru Polskiego, nr. 56, 1961–2, str. 50–3. 53. Programme note. Teatr im. Juliusza Osterwy. Lublin. Sezon 1993/4. 54. Borkowska, G., Czermińska, M., & Phillips, U., Pisarki polskie od s´ redniowiecza do wspól/ czesno´sci Wydawnictwo Sl/ owo/Obraz Terytoria: Gdańsk, 2000. 55. Programme note. Teatr im. Stefana Jaracza. Olsztyn. Listopad, 1995. 56. Grossman, E. M., ‘Who’s afraid of Gender and Sexuality? Plays by Women’, Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 15(1), 2005, p. 105. 57. Lorentowicz, J., ‘Kobieta bez Skazy’, Kalendarz teatru Polskiego, nr. 19, Sezon 1967/8, str. 11. Quoted from Nowa Gazeta, nr. 89, 1912. 58. Krzywicka, H., ‘Polska Komedia Ludowa’, Listy Teatru Polskiego, nr. 56, Sezon 1961–62, str. 11–15. . 59. Zapolska, G. Quoted in programme note. Teatr im. Stefana Z eromskiego, Kielce, marzec 2000, dir. Wiesl/ aw Hol/ dys. 60. Czachowska, J., Gabriela Zapolska: Monografia bio-bibliograficzna, Wydawnictwo Literackie: Kraków, 1966, str. 341. 61. Zapolska, G., Panna Maliczewska universitatis: Kraków, 2003r. See Lorentowicz, J., ‘Sztuka pel/na sprzeczno´sc´ i’, Kalendarz Teatru Polskiego, nr. 19, Dyrekcja Teatru Polskiego: Warszawa, Sezon 1967/8r, str. 11. . 62. Boy-Z elenski, T., ‘Pani Dulska dopel/nia Moliera’, Listy Teatru Polskiego, nr. 56, Sezon 1961/2r. 63. Programme note. Mickiewicz Theatre, Cze˛stochowa (clipping – date missing) 64. Rurawski, J., Gabriela Zapolska, Wiedza Powszechna: Warszawa, 1981, str. 345. 65. Programme note. Teatr im. Juliusza Osterwy. Lublin. Sezon 1993/4. 66. Chal/upnik, A., 'Sztandar ze Spódnicy', Dialog, nr. 12, grudzień 1998, str. 122. 67. Markret, A., ‘Od “Niebezpiecznego Kochanka” do “Moralky Pani Dulskiej” – czyli Zapolska na Ekranie’, Ekran, 1958, str 14. 68. ‘Wisz’, ‘Dulscy pod obstrzal/ em czterdziestu pie˛ciu lat’, Czytelnik, 21 marzec, 1950. 69. These are alternative translations of the play’s title. ´ ˛sk, 1950. Ironically, 70. Mitzner, Z. Quoted in programme note. Teatr Wyspiańskiego, Sla Zapolska had praised Gorky’s play unreservedly in a dedicated review. See Zapolska, G., ‘O ‘Mieszczanach’ Gorkiego’, Listy Teatru Polskiego, nr. 56, Sezon 1961–62, str. 61–2. 71. The Austro/Hungarian allegiance lasted from 1867–1918. Prior to this Austria was the sole occupant of Polish Galicia.

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The Morality of Mrs. Dulska 72. Stauter-Halsted, K., The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in Austrian Poland 1848–1914, Cornell University Press: New York, 2001, p. 9. . 73. See Zarnowska, A. & Szwarc, A. (eds.), Kobieta i praca, Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: Warszawa, 2000. 74. Szczepański, J. A., 'Pani Dulska pozytywna?', Trybuna Ludu, nr. 160, 11 czerwiec, 1967. 75. Pieszczachowicz, J., 'Piekl/ o Wiecznego Mieszczaństwa', Echo Krakowa, nr. 69, 22 marzec, 1967. 76. Sienkiewicz, M., 'Dulscy na Szmatkach', Wspól/ czesno´sc´ , nr. 13, 21 marzec, 1967. 77. Bober, J., 'Dulska w Nowej Szacie', Gazeta Krakowska, nr. 78, 1–2 kwiecień, 1967.

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Bibliography Books Barr, A. (ed.) Modern Women Playwrights of Europe, Oxford University Press: New York, 2001. See pp. 10–49, The Morality of Mrs. Dulski, translated by Wiesl/awa and Victor Contoski. Bieńka, M., Warszawskie Teatry Rza˛dowe: Dramat i Komedia 1890–1915, Instytut Sztuki PAN: Warszawa, 2003. Blobaum, R. E., Rewolucja: Austrian Poland 1904–7, Cornell University Press, New York, 1995. Borkowska, G., Czermińska, M. & Phillips, U., Pisarki polskie od s´redniowiecza do wspól/czesno´sci, Wydawnictwo Sl/owo/Obraz Terytoria: Gdańsk, 2000. Braun, K., A Concise History of Polish Theater from the Eleventh to the Twentieth Centuries, Mellen Press: New York, 2003. Ciol/kosz, A. & L., Niepodlegl/o´sc´ i Socjalizm: 1835–1945, Wydawnictwo CDN: Warszawa, 1984. ´ Cudak, R. (ed.) Literatura Polska w Swiecie: Zagadnienia recepcji i odbioru, Wydawnictwo Gnome: Katowice, 2006. Czachowska, J., Gabriela Zapolska: Monografia bio-bibliograficzna, Wydawnictwo Literackie: Kraków, 1966. Davies, N., Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1986. Jakubowski, J. (ed.) Reflektory na Scene˛ Polska˛: Teatr Zapolskiej, Centralna Poradnia Amatorskiego Ruchu Artystycznego: Warszawa, 1965. Kieniewicz, S., The Emancipation of the Polish Peasantry, University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1969. Kieniewicz, S., Ruch Chl/opski w Galicji w 1846 roku, Wydawnictwo Zakl/adu Narodowego imienia Ossolińskich: Wrocl/aw, 1951. . Kl/osińska, K., Cial/o, poza˛danie, ubranie, Wydawnictwo eFKa: Kraków, 1999. ´ ˛skiego: Kl/osińska, K., Fantazmaty: Grabiński – Prus – Zapolska, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Sla Katowice, 2004.

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The Morality of Mrs. Dulska Redmond, J. (ed.) Themes in Drama: Melodrama, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. See Filipowicz, H., ‘From Comedy to Melodrama: The Transposition of a Polish Theme’, pp. 105–20, devoted to Zapolska’s play Tamten. Rurawski, J., Gabriela Zapolska: w 60 rocznice˛ ´smierci pisarki, Wiedza Powszechna: Warszawa, 1981. Stauter-Halsted, K., The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in Austrian Poland 1848–1914, Cornell University Press: New York, 2001. Sword, K., The formation of the Polish Community in Great Britain 1939–50, Caldra House: London, 1989. . Z aliński, H., Stracone Szanse: Wielka Emigracja o powstaniu listopadowym, Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, Warszawa, 1992. Zamoyski, A., The Polish Way: A Thousand-year History of the Poles and their Culture, John Murray: London, 1987. Zapolska, G., O czym sie˛ nawet my´slec nie chce, Universitatis: Kraków, 2004. Zapolska, G., O czym sie nie mówi, Universitatis: Kraków, 2002. Zapolska, G., Panna Maliczewska, Universitatis: Kraków, 2003. Zapolska, G., Z pamie˛tników ml/odej me˛z.atki, Universitatis: Kraków, 2002. . Zapolska, G., Z abusia, Universitatis: Kraków, 2003. . Zarnowska, A. & Szwarc, A. (eds.) Kobieta i edukacja na ziemiach Polskich w XIX i XX, Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: Warszawa, 1993. . Z arnowska, A. & Szwarc, A. (eds.) Kobieta i praca, Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: Warszawa, 2000. . Zarnowska, A. & Szwarc, A. (eds.) Kobieta i s´ wiat polityki, Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego: Warszawa, 1992.

Newspaper and Journal Articles Allain, P. & Ziól/kowski, G. (eds.) ‘Polish Theatre after 1989: Beyond Borders’, Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 15, issue 1, 2005. Brock, P., ‘Joseph Cowen and the Polish Exiles’, Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 32, 1953–4, pp. 52–69.

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Gabriela Zapolska Brock, P., ‘Polish Democrats and English Radicals’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 25, 1956, pp. 139–45. Brock, P., ‘The Polish Revolutionary Commune in London’, Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 36, 1956, pp. 116–29. Brock, P., ‘Polish Socialists in Early Victorian England’, Polish Review, vol. 6, 1961, pp. 33–53. Brock, P., ‘Karl Marx and the Polish Insurrection of 1863’, Polish Review, vol. 10, no. 4, 1966. Beylin, R., 'Zapolska Wczoraj i Dzi´s', Teatr, nr. 6, czerwiec 1950. Bober, J., 'Dulska w Nowej Szacie', Gazeta Krakowska, nr. 78, 1–2 kwiecień 1967. Chal/ upnik, A., 'Sztandar ze Spódnicy', Dialog, nr. 12, grudzień 1998, str. 112–127. Contoski, W. & V., ‘The Morality of Mrs. Dulski’ (translation) in Slavic and East European Arts, vol. 1(2), spring 1983. Dyrekcja Teatru Polskiego (eds.) Listy Teatru Polskiego, nr. 56, Sezon 1961–62. . Gallina, M., ‘Wstydliwa protekcja’, Z ycie Warszawy, 25 kwiecień 2003. . Górnicka-Boratyńska, A., ‘Chcemy cal/ ego z ycia’. Reproduced in programme. Teatr Nowy, Warszawa, February 2000. Grossman, E. M., ‘Who’s afraid of Gender and Sexuality? Plays by Women’, Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 15(1), 2005, p. 105. 'Katarzyna', 'Cierpienia Gabrieli', Modna Gospodyni, nr. 24/27, grudzień 2002, str. 33. . Klimek, K., 'Romans z Rekwizytami', Prawo i Z ycie, nr. 11, 12 marzec 1983, str. 16. . Ko´slacz-Virol, E., 'Gabriela Zapolska na Emigracji w Paryz u', Gl/os Katolicki, nr. 1, 10 styczeń, 1999. . Ko´slacz-Virol, E., 'Gabriela Zapolska w Paryz u', [ZASP archive cutting]. Kosiński, R., 'Moralno´s c´ Pani Dulskiej', Dziennik Polski, nr. 67, 21 marzec, 1967. Kowalski, M., 'Przeprowadzka państwa Dulskich', Glob, nr. 35, 1 wrzesień, 1995.

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The Morality of Mrs. Dulska Ku´znik, G., ‘Triumf Kobiety’. Dziennik Zachodni, nr. 223, 5 pa´zdziernik, 2001. Markret, A., ‘Od “Niebezpiecznego Kochanka” do “Moralky Pani Dulskiej” – czyli Zapolska na Ekranie’, Ekran, 1958, str. 14. Nal/kowska, Z., ‘Widzenie bliskie i dalekie’. From Czytelnik 1957. Reproduced in programme. Teatr Nowy, Warszawa. February 2000. Pieszczachowicz, J., 'Piekl/o Wiecznego Mieszczaństwa', Echo Krakowa, nr. 69, 22 marzec, 1967. Radziwon, M., 'Gl/upota Ponad Pl/ciami', Dialog, nr. 12, grudzień 1998, str. 128–134. Sienkiewicz, M., 'Dulscy na Szmatkach', Wspól/czesno´s c´ , nr. 13, 21 marzec, 1967. ´ Sliwonik, I., ‘Gabriela Zapolska-Legendy i Fakty’, Przyjaciól/ka, nr. 13, 3 marzec, 1976. ´ Swierczewska, K., ‘Jak sie˛ ma krzyk Meli do naszej mal/ej stabilizacji’, Nowiny-Rzeszów, nr. 62, 20 marzec 1979. Solski, L., 'Zapolska jako aktorka', Scena i Widownia Warszawska, nr. 1, styczeń, 1948. Szydl/owski, R., 'Tragifarsa mieszczańska', Trybuna Ludu, nr. 121, 3 maj, 1967. Szczepański, J. A., 'Pani Dulska pozytywna?', Trybuna Ludu, nr. 160, 11 czerwiec, 1967. ‘Wisz’, ‘Dulscy pod obstrza l/ em czterdziestu pie˛ciu lat’, Czytelnik, 21 marzec, 1950. 'WK', 'Teatrem Ope˛tana', Antena, nr. 48, 26 listopad, 2001.

Programmes A range of programmes and photographs have been consulted, ranging from the early 1900s to the present day.

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Gabriela Zapolska


Figure 11: Gabriela Zapolska in 1909.

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Dramatis Personae Aniela Dulska – mistress of the house Felicjan Dulski – her husband Zbyszko Dulski – their son Mela Dulska – their daughter Hesia Dulska – their daughter Juliasiewiczowa – a relation Tenant – the Dulski's servant Hanka – the Dulski’s tenant Tadrachowa – Hanka's godmother

First UK performance of this translation Aniela Dulska – Emma Ankin Felicjan Dulski – John Lynch/Tom Jordan Zbyszko Dulski – Tom Jordan/John Lynch Hesia Dulska – Laura Farrell Mela Dulska – Rose Walton Juliasiewiczowa – Cassie Earl Tenant – Alexandra Burgess Hanka – Zoe Gamon Tadrachowa – Keira Lapsley

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Gabriela Zapolska

Photograph by Marek Borze˛cki

The cast and director of the 2003/4 University of Reading and POSK Theatre, London production. Front row, left to right – Hesia (Laura Farrell), Tenant (Alex Burgess), Dulska (Emma Ankin), Juliasiewiczowa (Cassie Earl). Back row, left to right – Tadrachowa (Keira Lapsley), Director (Teresa Murjas), Dulski/Zbyszko (Tom Jordan), Dulski/Zbyszko (John Lynch), Hanka (Zoe Gamon), Mela (Rose Walton).

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ACT I (A bourgeois living room. Rugs, solid furniture. Reproductions in gilded frames line the walls, along with heaven only knows what kind of pictures. Horns of plenty, fake palm trees, an embroidered landscape behind glass. Also a beautiful old mahogany display cabinet and small empire-style screen.1 A lamp with a paper shade, side-tables – on them, photographs. The blinds are drawn, it is dark on stage. When the curtain rises, the clock in the dining room strikes six. During the initial scenes it gradually grows lighter. Eventually it becomes completely light, when the blinds are lifted.)

SCENE I (For a while the stage remains empty. The patter of house-shoes is heard backstage. Dulska enters from the left (the master bedroom) carelessly attired. Curling papers in her hair, a thin strand hangs down her back, a white kaftanik 2 of dubious cleanliness, a short woollen petticoat, torn across the stomach. She moves about mumbling, candle in hand. She puts the candle on the table and goes to the kitchen.)

DULSKA

Cook! Hanka! Time to rise!… (Mutterings are heard in the kitchen) What’s that you say? Early? Your royal highnesses! I haven’t a fraction of your constitution and I have already risen!… Hold your tongue, Cook, this is no opportunity to air your grievances. Get a fire going! Hanka! Come and light the stove in the salon. Do hurry up, girl!… (Goes towards the door on the right) He´ska!3 Mela! Get up, up with you! You’ve lessons to recite, scales to practise… quickly… before you rot in your beds… (She paces about the stage for a while, muttering. She goes towards the first door on the right, looks in, wrings her hands, and enters the room with her candle.)

SCENE II (Dulska. Hanka. Hanka barefoot, skirt barely fastened, her shirt and kaftanik thrown on, she is carrying small logs and a few glowing coals. She crouches beside the stove, lights it, sniffs, and sighs. Dulska enters, angry.)

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Gabriela Zapolska

DULSKA

Is that how you start a fire? Well, is it? A girl with a clod for a brain, in my household! It must be a punishment from God! What a waste of wood. Get back to your cows, yes – to the cows where you belong, a respectable home is no place for you! Out, out of the way. Wait, you really are good for nothing! I’ll show you myself. (She crouches down and starts a fire.) Go and wake the young ladies, if they refuse to rise, off with the covers. (Hanka goes to the girls’ room, Dulska stokes the fire and blows. A bright flame illuminates her plump and bloated face. Hanka returns.) Well, how are the girls? Are they up?

HANKA

I pulled off the covers. Miss Hesia kicked me in the belly.

DULSKA

How dramatic! No need to fret, it’ll heal in time for your wedding day! (Pause)

HANKA

Pardon me, Madam…

DULSKA

Look, you see how well it’s taken…

HANKA

If you please, Madam…

DULSKA

Must I always be the one to think of everything! Together you’ll drive me to an early grave, the lot of you.

HANKA

(Kisses her hand) Pardon me, Madam! If you please, I need to ask you something. I want to be let go, at the end of the month.

DULSKA

Why? What on earth for?

HANKA

(Lowering her tone) I could start packing, then?…

DULSKA

Don’t you dare! All has been arranged with the banking house. You must continue with your service. Well, I like that!

HANKA

I’ll pay back my wages.

DULSKA

Would you look at the girl, what a bold retort! It’s all gone straight to her head. Hmm! Town life is having an effect… Perhaps she’s in a great hurry to become a lady’s maid? Well?

HANKA

If you please, Madam, it’s… the young Master.

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DULSKA

Ah…

HANKA

Yes… I don’t want to… because it is…

DULSKA

Again?

HANKA

All the time… what with one thing… and another… and I don’t…

DULSKA

(Without looking at her) Very well then. I’ll have a word with him.

HANKA

I’m sorry Madam, but it won’t make a blind bit of difference. Because you’ve already told me, more than once, that you’ve said something… more than twice… and still…

DULSKA

Yes, well, this time it will help.

HANKA

Only the priest has told me to leave.

DULSKA

Are you the priest’s servant or mine?

HANKA

But I must listen to the priest.

DULSKA

Go and fetch the milk and bread rolls.

HANKA

Yes, Madam. I will, Madam. (Exits)

DULSKA

(Approaches the door of the master bedroom) Felicjan! Felicjan! Get up! The office won’t wait, you know! (She approaches her daughters’ bedroom door) Hesia! Mela! You’ll be late for school!

HESIA’S VOICE

But dearest Mama, it’s so cold in here. Can’t we have some warm water…?

DULSKA

What a ridiculous notion! Cold water is good for the constitution! Felicjan! Are you up yet! Are you aware that your son, that good for nothing, has failed to return home? Well? You don’t have anything to say? Oh, I dare say not. Father will be tolerant. The apple didn’t fall too far from the apple tree, now, did it! But when his little debts begin to mount, you won’t be the one who has to bail him out, now, will you?

HANKA

(Pushes the kitchen door ajar) Pardon me Madam, but the caretaker’s here. He’s come to collect registration forms for the lady and gentleman who’ve just moved in.

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Gabriela Zapolska

DULSKA

I’m coming! Hesia! Mela! Felicjan! A family of somnambulists! Well, well, I do declare, we’d have had to pack our bags by now, were it not for me… (Enters the kitchen) Why has the caretaker left that new broom in the yard? It’s pouring with rain… (She closes the door. Her voice fades into the distance.)

SCENE III (Hesia, Mela. Hesia and Mela run out of their room, wearing identical short skirts and fustian kaftaniks, their hair loose. They rush towards the stove and huddle close to it, crouching.)

HESIA

Come out! Come on!

MELA

Isn’t she there?

HESIA

No. Can’t you hear her, boxing the caretaker’s ears? Mmm! It’s lovely and warm in here!

MELA

It really is! Stop pushing, I want to…

HESIA

Wait, let me. There, now pass me a comb, I’ll do your hair.

MELA

Don’t be silly! If she sees us, she will shout!

HESIA

Let her shout. I’m not afraid.

MELA

But I am. It’s very unpleasant, when someone shouts so loudly.

HESIA

Only because you are sentimental! You are just like father. Like father like daugh…

MELA

How do you know, what Father is like? Father never says anything.

HESIA

Oh, I just know. And anyway, you have his nose.

MELA

That is strange.

HESIA

(Combs Mela’s hair) What is?

MELA

You know, that a child is either like its father or its mother. How does that happen? 6


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HESIA

I know! I know!

MELA

(Tentatively) You know!… Tell me!

HESIA

I’m not that stupid. I won’t tell you but I do know.

MELA

Who told you?

HESIA

The cook

MELA

Oh! When?

HESIA

Yesterday, when mother went to the theatre without us, because that play was immoral. I went into the kitchen and Anna told me in there! Oh! Mela!… Ooh, Mela! (She rolls around on the rug, laughing)

MELA

Hesia! I think it’s a sin.

HESIA

What is?

MELA

To speak with the cook about such matters.

HESIA

But it’s the truth. That’s how things really are.

MELA

Supposing Mother found out!

HESIA

What of it? She would shout, she shouts constantly anyway.

MELA

(After a pause) And you won’t tell me?

HESIA

I won’t. I wouldn’t wish to have it on my conscience. Thou shalt not corrupt the little ones! (Pause. Hesia rises and tiptoes towards Zbyszko’s bedroom, peers in and returns to the stove, Mela meets her halfway – they sit down. Hesia in an armchair, Mela plaits her hair.) There we are. Now, you may transform me into a country maiden, with a mane of jet black hair.

MELA

Stop fidgeting, then!

HESIA

Know something – Zbyszko’s been out carousing, again!

MELA

Isn’t he here?

HESIA

He is not. I could tell you a thing or two, only swear to me that you won’t tell a soul. Come closer… Zbyszko is chasing after Hanka.

MELA

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Gabriela Zapolska

HESIA

Oh… you are so… what is the sense in talking to you… well,

MELA

Well, because you said that he is chasing her…

HESIA

Well, chasing after her, pestering her, in love with her, whatever…?

tell me yourself, is there any sense in even talking to you?

MELA

Oh, Hesia! Zbyszko?

HESIA

Well? Haven’t you been to the opera, to see Halka? 4 Don’t you know how it all happens? The young master, the serving maid… ‘Pale, unfortunate and wan, the lowly maiden hither comes…’ (She laughs heartily)

MELA

But that is on the stage… and anyway, that was when men wore three cornered hats, and Zbyszko wears… oh Hesia! (Enter Hanka, she kneels by the stove)

HESIA

Aha, it’s Hanka! I will ask her. Then you’ll see, whether I’m lying or not.

MELA

(Fearfully) Hesia, don’t ask her… I… please!

HESIA

Whyever not? It is her business… Besides, mother can’t hear.

MELA

Hesia, I don’t know why, I’m ashamed in front of Hanka. (Silence)

HESIA

(Quietly) Well, in that case I won’t ask, but I did see him pinching her yesterday right here.

MELA

But you said that he’s in love with her.

HESIA

Well… yes, exactly.

MELA

But if he loved her, he wouldn’t pinch her, would he?

HESIA

Do you know something… you should be locked in a darkened room… well, upon my word…

MELA

Why Hesia, why in a darkened room?

HESIA

Because of your silliness! (Pause – suddenly) Oh! I would love to know where that Zbyszko gets to after dark!

MELA

(Naively) Perhaps he goes walking in the park; it is so lovely there at this time of year. 8


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HESIA

And you are so stupid! (Suddenly, to Hanka) Hanka, do you happen to know where gentlemen go to after dark?

HANKA

How should I know…?

HESIA

Well, like Master Zbyszko, for example, nearly every day, until the

HANKA

Oh, I suppose he must…

HESIA

I did ask him – he said, ‘carousing’, and the cook laughed ‘til she

crack of dawn, without getting a wink of sleep.

got a stitch and she said he meant an all-night café. Oh, God above! When will I finally learn about something properly! When will I grow up! When will people stop keeping secrets from me! MELA

I prefer it that way.

HESIA

What?

MELA

Not knowing about anything. It’s nice, somehow. I prefer to know nothing.

HESIA

Clod brain!

SCENE IV (The same. Dulska.)

DULSKA

(Hurtles across the stage like a hurricane) What are you doing in here? What is this? Get dressed! Hanka, tidy up! Mela, your scales! Felicjan… (She rushes into the master bedroom)

HESIA

(To Mela) Stay a while longer, the storm has passed. Felicjan!

MELA

Hesia!

HESIA

What? ‘My sainted mother’! Oh… superstitious poppycock.

MELA

(Horrified) Hesia, look, Hanka is laughing.

HESIA

What of it? Let her laugh! You think I’m incapable of forming my own judgements? 9


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Gabriela Zapolska

(To Hanka) Why are you laughing, you idiot? Tidy up at once! No, wait – a moment of your time. Perhaps you’ve been to an all-night café yourself ? HANKA

Ha, ha! What a thought, Miss… I wouldn’t even know where to find one.

HESIA

Only because you are stupid! Cook knows. She went to one when she was younger. She says the gentlemen sit there and drink liqueurs and it’s all very jolly. Cook said about these lovely young ladies there and…

MELA

Quiet, Hesia! Mother might hear you!

HESIA

Don’t be ridiculous. This has got nothing to do with mother. You

(Hanka exits) simply don’t want the light to come on inside your own head! MELA

I told you, I prefer not to know.

HESIA

But you asked me yourself just now.

MELA

About what?

HESIA

Oh… about, mm… children.

MELA

That is something entirely different.

HESIA

Why?

MELA

Because everything to do with children is interesting, but this is…

HESIA

Not at all, this is even more interesting.

MELA

Perhaps, but I always feel so sad afterwards.

HESIA

Oho! Here comes the carouser!

dirty.

SCENE V (Hesia, Mela, Zbyszko. Zbyszko, his collar turned up, face crumpled, he is cold, hunched. He is young and already hopeless, though now and again it is clear from his eyes that certain thoughts come and go.)

HESIA

Where have you been, where have you been? 10


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ZBYSZKO

(Moves her aside with his cane) Out of my way!

HESIA

Where have you been? Have you been out carousing? Dearest, darling brother, tell me, do tell me… I won’t say a thing to Mother.

ZBYSZKO

Out of my way!

HESIA

What delightful expressions you employ! So, you won’t tell me? And yet I already know! You have been to an all-night café, you have been drinking liqueurs, there were several lovely ladies present… you have that delicious stink of cigar smoke about you… mm… mm!… How I adore it…

ZBYSZKO

I said, out of my way!

MELA

Leave him alone, Hesia!

HESIA

Is that all? That is all you have time for? Just you wait, soon I’ll be grown up too, I will carouse and carouse – I too will spend my time in all-night cafes drinking liqueurs… in all-night cafés, just like you, just like you! (She hops up and down in front of him)

ZBYSZKO

An entirely appropriate education – your behaviour augurs well.

HESIA

And now, for the express purpose of instructing you in behaviour more suitable within the bosom of our family…! (She calls) Mama! Mama dearest! Zbyszko has returned!

ZBYSZKO

Be quiet!

DULSKA

(Bursts in like a bomb) There you are?

ZBYSZKO

Here I am and off I go! To take a nap, before work!

DULSKA

No you don’t! You will stay exactly where you are! We have matters to discuss.

ZBYSZKO DULSKA

Oh!… I’m asleep on my feet. (Severely) I can believe it! (To the girls) Go and get dressed, please. Mela, your scales!

MELA

There isn’t enough time. 11


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DULSKA

Five-finger exercises, time enough for those. Hesia has ruined her

ZBYSZKO

Is there no black coffee anywhere?

DULSKA

No, there is not, your lordship! Hesia has no respect for anything.

galoshes again.

You will never make the right kind of woman. (The girls run out) ZBYSZKO

Is there no black coffee in this establishment?

DULSKA

Where have you been?

ZBYSZKO

Huh?

DULSKA

Where have you been all this time?

ZBYSZKO

If I told you the truth, Mama, you would get rather flustered.

DULSKA

Oh!…

ZBYSZKO

Best not to ask!

DULSKA

I am a mother.

ZBYSZKO

That is precisely why.

DULSKA

Precisely how are you wasting your time and ruining your health – I need to know.

ZBYSZKO

Can you see, Mama, right here beneath my nose? It’s a moustache, not milk… and so…

DULSKA

(Wringing her hands) Look at you!

ZBYSZKO

Eh!

DULSKA

You look green.

ZBYSZKO

A truly fashionable colour! Remember, Mama, you gave instructions for all the window frames and balcony rails to be painted green.

DULSKA

Which young lady will want you, looking like that!

ZBYSZKO

They all seem perfectly happy wanting chaps in a much worse state than this. Is there no black coffee in this establishment?

DULSKA

Mind your tongue. I suppose you think you’re still in the company of coquettes.

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ZBYSZKO

Their company is as good as any. Besides, I find all this talk of coquettes rather perplexing. Apparently, there are no coquettes in this building. Yet as I recall you do have one renting on the first floor, Mama.

DULSKA

(With dignity) But I do not acknowledge her.

ZBYSZKO

Yet you do take her rent, and what a tidy sum it is…!

DULSKA

Pardon me, but I think you’ll find that I don’t keep that kind of money to myself.

ZBYSZKO

What do you do with it, Mama?

DULSKA

(Majestically) I use it to pay the taxes.

ZBYSZKO

Ha! Well, well… And I am going to bed.

DULSKA

Will you stop prowling about at night?

ZBYSZKO

Jamais!

DULSKA

I will most certainly not settle any of your debts!

ZBYSZKO

Oh!… We’ll talk about it later.

DULSKA

Zbyszko! Zbyszko! Did I nourish you with my own milk so that you could drag our decent and respected family name through various cafes and dens of iniquity?

ZBYSZKO

You should have reared me on Nestlé’s milk – it is, apparently, most excellent. (Dulska sits at the table, depressed. Zbyszko approaches, sits on the table and says, confidentially) There, there, now – no fretting or frowning, Mrs. Dulska. Besides, mother dearest, what would I do, exactly, stuck here at home with you? No-one ever comes by – we live like the last people on the planet.

DULSKA

Times are far too hard to throw money away on entertainment.

ZBYSZKO

Aah! Man is a gregarious creature. He must from time to time share his thoughts. Oho! Listen to that, Mama – ‘thought’ – what a great word. No room for it here – we shoo it away – but it’s quite persistent.

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Gabriela Zapolska

DULSKA

I don’t have any time to think.

ZBYSZKO

Quite so, yes! That’s why I flee the building – it’s more like a cemetery. For the interment of thought – expansive, independent thought…

DULSKA

And off you go to the café, off you go to the…

ZBYSZKO

Yes, yes! Off I go… to that place… quite… what, Mama, could you possibly know about the way people think – even dyed-in-thewool prigs,5 like me.

DULSKA

You are a fool. You are just like your father. He spends all day at the patisserie, and you spend all day God only knows where…

SCENE VI (Dulska, Dulski, Zbyszko. Dulski, a shrivelled clerk, enters. He is meticulously dressed, ready to go out; he is brushing his hat.)

DULSKA

Well, at last!

ZBYSZKO

Good morning Father!

(Dulski adjusts his collar in front of the mirror) (Dulski greets his son with a gesture) DULSKA

(To her husband) Collecting your portion today? (Dulski nods) Only be very careful not to go and lose it. What are you waiting for? Ah! A cigar… Zbyszko, bring your father a cigar from the stove. (Dulski accepts the cigar that Zbyszko finds above the stove, he samples it.) Do you know what time your darling son came home? (Dulski shrugs his shoulders, indicating that it is no matter, and exits through the central doorway.) Such a man could drive one to distraction.

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Felicjan Dulski (W. Wol/oszyński) and his son Zbyszko (M. Reszczyński). Teatr im. Osterwy, Gorzów Wielkopolski, 1978.

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ZBYSZKO

That is how you’ve reared him, Mother.

DULSKA

No – this time you really have overstepped the mark!

ZBYSZKO

Goodnight! I shall now take a nap.

DULSKA

And the office?

ZBYSZKO

(Yawning) Won’t run away!

DULSKA

(Preventing him) Zbyszko! Swear to me that you will mend your ways.

ZBYSZKO

Never! I'd rather pass the state examination. (He exits to his room)

SCENE VII (Dulska, Hanka, then Zbyszko.)

DULSKA

Polish the pianoforte, stoke the fire. Is Cook dressed for town?

HANKA

Yes, Madam. (Dulska goes into the kitchen. Hanka tidies for a while. Zbyszko leans in from behind the door.)

ZBYSZKO

Hanka? Are you by yourself?

HANKA

Leave me alone, sir!

ZBYSZKO

You have a bee in your bonnet! (Hanka is silent) Come over here. Show me that pert little snout of yours. Why so angry? (Hanka is silent, she tidies more energetically, we see her internal struggle.) You are so very ugly when you sulk.

HANKA

(Suddenly) That’s right, sir, of course, sir… those young ladies you keep going back to, they are much prettier.

ZBYSZKO

Aha… so that’s what they told you… that’s why you’re upset?

HANKA

I’m not upset about anything, only I don’t want to be… put through the mill by you, sir. 16


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ZBYSZKO

If you’re nicer to me then I’ll stay at home.

HANKA

That’s not what I need, sir. You’re very welcome to visit those young ladies if you want to.

ZBYSZKO

I don’t believe it for one moment! You’re practically shaking.

HANKA

Would you please leave, sir, or an older lady might just walk in on us?

ZBYSZKO

Well, indeed! Kiss the master’s hand, to appease his anger.

HANKA

(Laughing) Poppycock!

ZBYSZKO

Mmm, you little hussy!

(She slaps his hand) (He wants to embrace her. Mela enters, lets out a small cry, then, blushing, her eyes lowered, goes towards the pianoforte. Hanka escapes. Mela sits and plays her five finger exercises. When Mela remains alone, she plays for a while, then rises, goes towards Zbyszko’s room and knocks on the door.) MELA

Zbyszko!

ZBYSZKO

(Leans his head out, he is not yet dressed) What’s the matter?

MELA

(Confidentially)

ZBYSZKO

She's gone completely mad.

MELA

Because it’s not your fault or Hanka’s either.

ZBYSZKO

What isn’t?

MELA

(Shyly) Well… Hanka and you… if you…

ZBYSZKO

What! From the mouths of babes? Shame on you… little bloomers

Don’t be afraid, you or Hanka… I won’t say a thing to mother.

still visible and so utterly corrupt already! MELA

Me? But, Zbyszko, on the contrary, I…

ZBYSZKO

Leave me in peace! (He hides. Mela stands sad and preoccupied, approaches the piano and begins to play. At that moment Hesia bursts in wearing her coat and hat. She has the same type of hat and coat over her 17


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Gabriela Zapolska

arm for Mela. She throws her books, strapped into parcels, onto the floor.)

SCENE VIII (Mela, Hesia, Dulska, Hanka.)

HESIA

Get dressed, Ophelia! Quickly! The boys are already leaving for school.

MELA

(Rises, dons coat and hat) Hesia, you won’t make eyes at that tall student again, now, will you?

HESIA

I will do as I please.

MELA

It makes me so ashamed for you.

HESIA

So be ashamed! And just you try telling mother; I will inform her immediately that instead of going to sleep at night you spend your time – sighing. Mother will be a great deal angrier about that than about this student.

MELA

I doubt it.

HESIA

I don’t. Mama knows me and she is well aware that I know my boundaries and that I shan’t ‘forget myself’…

MELA

What do you think she means by that?

HESIA

I already happen to know exactly what she means, O rose of May, dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia…

DULSKA

Hanka! Come and accompany the young ladies!

HANKA

(From the kitchen)

DULSKA

Have you the umbrella? Walk straight ahead, no looking about.

Coming! Remember, modesty is a young girl’s treasure. (To Hesia) Stop slouching! (Hanka enters wearing a headscarf) 18


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HESIA

(Throws her the books) Carry those, you twisted old crone. Goodbye, dearest Mama! (The girls exit with Hanka. Dulska moves about, dusts, sighs. The bell rings in the hallway. Dulska opens the door carefully. On seeing the tenant, she backs away.)

SCENE IX (Tenant, Dulska.)

DULSKA

I do apologise… I am not yet dressed. Please, do come in, I’ll be back shortly.

TENANT

It’s only a brief call. Please don’t stand on ceremony.

DULSKA

Yes, yes, I will just throw something on. (She rushes to her room) (The tenant paces about slowly. She is very pale and sad. She has clearly suffered a serious illness and moral anxiety. She sits down on the nearest chair, gazes at the ground and remains motionless. After a while Dulska enters, garbed in a luxurious fustian house-coat.) Do, please, be seated, on the couch.

TENANT

Thank you. I only wanted a quick word. I have received your letter… (She breaks off – silence)

DULSKA

Have you been fully discharged from the hospital?

TENANT

Yes. Mother brought me back the day before yesterday.

DULSKA

I can see that you are well.

TENANT

(With a sad smile) Oh, I still have a long way to go!

DULSKA

Aha! In your own little house you will quickly recover your strength. For a woman, there is no place like home. That’s what I always say.

TENANT

Yes, if a person has a home.

DULSKA

And you, of course, have a husband, you have standing. 19


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TENANT

Yes… but… (Silence – with considerable effort) Dear Madam, is it absolutely necessary that I move out on the first of the coming month?

DULSKA

My dearest Madam… your rooms are urgently required by my relatives.

TENANT

I would much prefer to stay on. It will be difficult to find another place in winter.

DULSKA

Oh, that is impossible! I repeat, impossible!

TENANT

But surely with a little good will… I know you’ve had a notice put up in the window and so, if you’ll forgive me, I know your family won’t be moving in.

DULSKA

(Pursing her lips) Oh! Please do not compel me to cause offence.

TENANT

Do you bear me a grudge?

DULSKA

(Erupts) My good woman, this really does break all boundaries! Cast your mind back to the scandal you created when you tried to poison yourself!

TENANT

So that’s what all this is about?

DULSKA

What else could it possibly be? The two of you paid your rent. You had no children, no dogs. There was only the small matter of your beating the rugs so early in the morning… You could have extended your contract, continued living in the apartment, when suddenly… I only have to think about it and the blood rushes to my face. An ambulance, on the doorstep of my very own fine, stone tenement building – an ambulance!!! May as well have been a saloon, after a drunken scuffle.

TENANT

But, if you’ll forgive me, accidents can happen anywhere at all…

DULSKA

One does not come across accidents in a respectable tenement building. Have you ever seen an ambulance parked outside a genteel tenement building? No you have not! And then all that publicity in the newspapers! Thrice was the surname Dulska

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mentioned, the surname of my daughters associated with such a scandal… TENANT

But my dear Madam – surely you are aware of my reasons for…

DULSKA

A dreadful affair… your husband… all the business with that

TENANT

But she was my servant. It was revolting! I couldn’t bear it!

girl… that is one thing… As soon as I knew for sure, I… DULSKA

You swallowed some match heads. Such second-rate poison! People were laughing. Nor was that the end of it. The whole affair was just like a comedy! If you’d at least died… well then… !

TENANT

It is a great pity.

DULSKA

That is not my implication – only death is always something… there is always something to it… but that… well… all I can say, dear lady, is that everyone laughed heartily. On one particular occasion, I was travelling home by tramcar. We passed my tenement building, because the stop is a little further on, and two gentlemen – I didn’t even know them – indicated the building saying, ‘Look! There is the house where that jealous wife poisoned herself’ and they began to laugh. I thought I would freeze to the spot on that tram.

TENANT

(Humbly) I am truly sorry for all the unpleasantness I’ve put you through.

DULSKA

Oh, my good woman, publicity is publicity…

TENANT

The whole incident made me very ill. Besides which, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was driven, like a madwoman then… (She weeps quietly)

DULSKA

Of course you were, my dear. Each and every suicide must be mad, must have lost her sense of morality, her faith in the omnipresence of God. That’s true cowardice if ever I saw it. Quite so, in a nutshell – cowardice! Followed by the annihilation

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Gabriela Zapolska


Dulska and the Tenant. Teatr im. Z·eromskiego, Kielce, 1950.

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Page 23


of the soul. It is a great comfort to know that suicides are buried in seclusion. They should not be permitted to push and shove their way into the company of decent people. Kill yourself!… And for whom? For a man! No man, my good woman, is worth risking eternal damnation for. TENANT

Pardon me, but this was not about a man, it was about my husband.

DULSKA

Huh!

TENANT

I was not able to tolerate that under my own roof.

DULSKA

Better under your own roof than someone else’s – less publicity.

TENANT

But I knew.

DULSKA

My good woman! The reason we have four walls and a ceiling, is

No one need know.

so that we can wash our dirty linen in private and no one need know a thing about it. Dragging it out into the open is neither moral, nor fair. I have always conducted myself in a manner befitting someone who can never be accused by anyone else of having caused a scandal. A woman ought to proceed through life calmly and quietly. That is the way things are and none of us can help it. TENANT

And yet if Mr. Dulski were to forget himself with a servant…

DULSKA

Felicjan? Impossible! You don’t know him. And as for what happens next… that, my dear lady, is your affair. I must protect both myself and those close to me from publicity. After all – you may revive your attempts to perform the said ungodly act – these nasty lapses, so I’m told, can be very persistent, and consequently…

TENANT

(Rising) I understand. I will move out. I would like to say, however, that instructing me to look for alternative accommodation at such a time is not, in all conscience, good, honest or fair. I am so terribly weak.

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Gabriela Zapolska


Dulska (Emma Ankin) and the Tenant (Alexandra Burgess). University of Reading and POSK, London, 2003/4, dir. Teresa Murjas.

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DULSKA

(Offended, rises) You can teach me nothing about honesty and fairness. I know what honesty and fairness are. I come from a worthy, well-established family and I do not stir up publicity.

TENANT

(Restraining herself) Undoubtedly so! But you’ve nothing to fear. I won’t try to poison myself a second time. It requires a great deal of courage, in spite of the fact that you, dear lady, have called it cowardice. And afterwards one must suffer terribly. I no longer have the strength for it and… I would not be capable of enduring that kind of suffering a second time. Besides – I am parting from my husband, that’s the best guarantee of all that I shan’t be jealous any longer… (She smiles sadly)

DULSKA

You are parting from your husband? That is quite simply wrong. It will mean renewed publicity – no-one will give you the benefit of the doubt any more. In spite of this new development, I remain unable to facilitate an extension of your tenancy agreement. Single women are not… well… you do appreciate…

TENANT

(With irony) Yes, I do. And as for the lady on the first floor, the one who always comes home late at night…

DULSKA

(With dignity) She is a person of independent means, who behaves in an exceptionally modest and self-effacing manner. There has certainly been no ambulance standing in front of my fine, stone tenement building on her account…

TENANT

(With irony) Only private detectives and automobiles.

DULSKA

They always park a few streets away. It does occur to me that I’m under no obligation whatsoever to present you with some sort of justification for my actions…

TENANT

Of course you’re not. Hardly the done thing! I bid you farewell.

DULSKA

And I would request that you refrain from discouraging anyone who comes to view the apartment.

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Gabriela Zapolska


The Tenant and Dulska. Teatr Polski, Warszawa, 1962.

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TENANT

(Departing) I’ll say that it’s rather damp, because it really is damp.

DULSKA

For this, dear lady, we have legal procedures.

TENANT

I will follow the dictates of my conscience. I bid you farewell, Madam. (Juliasiewiczowa appears in the doorway)

DULSKA

(Offended) Do you hear that, Mania? You are a witness. This lady maintains that…

TENANT

I bid you farewell, Madam. (Exits)

SCENE X (Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa.)

DULSKA

(Livid) That… that… that I should… she… that she should…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Do calm down, Aunt.

DULSKA

If it carries on like this I will have to go to Karlsbad this summer, take the waters.6

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I’ll keep you company.

DULSKA

No need for that – really.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

What happened? She looked like the tenant from the ground floor apartment, the one who poisoned herself.

DULSKA

Yes, yes… the very same. She has been discharged from hospital. Scandalous! It’s perfectly clear that after such an incident I simply cannot keep her on in the building. You yourself were a witness. When they carried her out she was practically naked. It was horrendous. I have asked her to move out.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Really? What a pleasant coincidence. Our rent has gone up. We

DULSKA

No need for that – really.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

But surely you could do it for us, Auntie, for your own flesh and

would be more than happy to take the apartment.

blood.

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DULSKA

Times are far too hard to merit special concessions.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I understand. You’ve made the assumption that we wouldn’t pay up.

DULSKA

I have made no assumptions. I simply happen to know that you live beyond your means.

JULIASIEWICZOWA DULSKA

Now, now! You go to the theatre… (Severely)… And only to the popular plays, I note.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Of course, it’s rather difficult to…

DULSKA

You subscribe to various journals…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Granted, you are right, but…

DULSKA

I always borrow and that is quite adequate. If I fail to borrow, then the world does not collapse about my ears because I’ve been unable to read some tall story or other in the print. You order hot suppers…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

That is essential.

DULSKA

Ha! Well, if it’s essential, stop complaining that you have insufficient means.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

We cannot live like…

DULSKA

(With irony) Like we do? We shall see – in your old age, you might well sing to a different tune. In such matters, Felicjan and I stick firmly to our own set of principles.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

My husband doesn’t know how to save and neither do I.

DULSKA

You should have seized your chance and married that pharmacist from Bobrek, the one who came to court you. I did my level best to convince you.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

But he died of tuberculosis a year ago.

DULSKA

Exactly! You would now have a tenement building and you would be a widow.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Oh!…

DULSKA

‘Oh’ has nothing to do with it. A guaranteed income is the bedrock of existence. And as for a husband – he can be rendered malleable.

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When he receives his wages, they can be taken away from him. Every day a grosz or two to spend on coffee can be pushed into his paw. You can buy his cigars yourself and keep them nice and dry above the stove. Otherwise, such a gentleman has the potential to ruin you completely.

SCENE XI (Zbyszko, Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa.)

ZBYSZKO

There’s such a racket in here, it’s impossible to get any sleep.

DULSKA

So much the better. Perhaps in that case you’ll go to the

ZBYSZKO

Huh…

office. (To Juliasiewiczowa) How are things with you, old girl? JULIASIEWICZOWA ZBYSZKO

How are things with you, apparition! (Looks in the mirror, then at Juliasiewiczowa) Am I really so green?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Why, planning to make a declaration later on, are you?

ZBYSZKO

You never know…! Only that ancient relic, you know, the councillor – won't take his sunken, seeping eye off me. Lots to get through… lots and lots…

DULSKA

Just you stand there and stagnate instead – then we’ll see what

ZBYSZKO

Not me – these parts. (He leans against the stove and warms

happens. himself) DULSKA

(Removes her housecoat and remains in her skirt and kaftan) You must indulge me, my dear. I’m going to do some dusting and must protect my robe.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Please, feel at liberty. (Dulska dusts, looking irately at Zbyszko from time to time)

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Gabriela Zapolska

ZBYSZKO

Mother? That woman who poisoned herself, are you really going

DULSKA

What's that to you?

ZBYSZKO

Well… I heard something vaguely. I am my mother’s son… after

to throw her out of the tenement building?

all… as a matter of fact, she’s been very sympathetic, that woman, toward me. DULSKA

I can believe it. A scandal monger!

ZBYSZKO

All for love of her husband, that was. Should be entirely to your

DULSKA

Aha. In this instance, the husband was in the right. I’ve grave

taste, Mother – married love. doubts about that love of hers. Rustling silk is audible, you see, from beneath. ZBYSZKO

What does that prove?

DULSKA

It proves that she is not an honest woman. A woman does not need to adorn herself underneath for her husband, young sir. And any woman who rustles is a…

ZBYSZKO

(To Juliasiewiczowa) Sit very still – because you are rustling too. And as for that woman from the ground floor, I can vouch for the fact that she is honest.

DULSKA

How would you know?

ZBYSZKO

(Nonchalantly) Because I tried to touch and got my fingers burnt.

DULSKA

You could at least leave the female tenants in peace. Move aside! How long are you going to stand there propping up that stove, hm? (Passionately) Sometimes, when I look at you, I cannot believe you are my child.

ZBYSZKO

Well, if you’ve any doubts on that score, mother, I’d…

DULSKA

(To Juliasiewiczowa) Take my advice – never have any children.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Ah, we’re making no attempts of that nature.

DULSKA

(To Zbyszko) No – you are not my son. You are a monster.

ZBYSZKO

I am, dearest Mama! Unfortunately, I am, and that constitutes my 30


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entire tragedy… (Goes to piano and, standing, begins to play very skilfully) DULSKA

Hear that? Unfortunately, he says!

ZBYSZKO

I expect so. To be a Dulski – that is a catastrophe.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Truly, Zbyszko, you do allow yourself too many liberties.

ZBYSZKO

You leave me alone.

DULSKA

(To Juliasiewiczowa) No morality, no principles…

ZBYSZKO

No blanket theory – like Mama.

DULSKA

However will it end – perhaps he’ll join the socialists.

ZBYSZKO

(Closes the piano) I’m too stupid for that.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Laughing) You don’t have to pass an examination to become a socialist.

ZBYSZKO

Actually, you do – the most difficult examination of all.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Who is the examiner?

ZBYSZKO

One’s very own conscience and one’s very own soul, my sweet angel.

DULSKA

Above all, to become a socialist, one should have a heart free of God.

ZBYSZKO

At last! Long time since anyone mentioned God in this house.

SCENE XII (The same. Hanka.)

HANKA

(From the kitchen) Pardon me Madam, the umbrella.

DULSKA

Leave it in the hall then… go and sweep the hall. Has Cook returned?

HANKA

(Returns from the hall, goes through to the kitchen) She has.

DULSKA

One moment… (Rushes to the kitchen)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(To Zbyszko) My Aunt is perfectly right, you know. You could steady yourself a little more. You look like the English plague.

ZBYSZKO

You don’t look so bad yourself.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

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ZBYSZKO

That means that as I caroused outdoors, you were carousing indoors.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Laughing) You are impossible.

ZBYSZKO

If ever… (Hanka crosses the room carrying dustpan and brush. Zbyszko follows her with his eyes.)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(To Zbyszko) Why look at Hanka like that?

ZBYSZKO

Because I like her.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

A servant?

ZBYSZKO

So what? She’s still a woman, isn’t she? In actual fact she’s really rather…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You already know something about it?

ZBYSZKO

What's that to you?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I thought you had more refined tastes.

ZBYSZKO

Quite pathetic, your priggish aesthetic! Besides – I am rather like a pianist. When he sees a pianoforte, he simply must play a passage or two…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Yes, but a pianoforte does not…

ZBYSZKO

My dear, every woman is a pianoforte – only one must know how

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Why do you drag yourself round all those bars?

ZBYSZKO

Where do you suggest? I must drag myself somewhere.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

If I were in your position, I would try to establish a more…

to play her. Hmm! I am so tired…

reliable… acquaintance. Well… there are so many married women… aren’t there? Good Lord! ZBYSZKO

Thank you very much. Too much priggishness round here – and in

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Why should you be a prig?

ZBYSZKO

Because, my angel, I was born a prig! Because even in my mother’s

me, no less!

womb, I was a dyed-in-the-wool philistine! Because even if I tore the flesh from my bones, somewhere down there, inside my soul, is 32


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a big, thick layer of ignorance, immune to eradication! There’s something else down there too – not sure where it came from – putting up something of a fight, eager to break loose. But I know it’s only a matter of time before the big family prig overwhelms my mind, and then I shall be… Felicjan… I shall be… well… quite frankly… Dulski… great-Dulski, über-Dulski, I shall sire Dulskis, whole legions of them… celebrate my silver wedding anniversary and have a decent gravestone, far away from all those dreadful suicides. And I won’t be green, only puffed up with fat and puffed up with theories and I shall talk a great deal about God. (He breaks off, goes to piano, plays nervously) JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Approaches him) One can break the bonds of priggishness.

ZBYSZKO

Not true! You think you're free, because you have a little surface polish. But you’re made of mahogany, that's all, just like your fin-de-siècle furniture and your dyed hair. That’s the mark, madam counsellor – the true mark!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Plays the piano with him, one hand) Did you learn to play?

ZBYSZKO

Me? I don’t know a single note. Something inside me plays on, something inside me obstinately hammers away… hammer itself out in no time… oh… what’s the use! (Embraces her) Do you know something… you are so very… so…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Laughing) Leave me alone!

ZBYSZKO

(Laughs) A passage or two, my dear – several passages… (Hanka crosses the room. She casts a gloomy glance at the pair and goes into the kitchen.)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Looks after her attentively) Well I never – that is quite fascinating.

ZBYSZKO

What is?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

That girl – you should have seen the way she looked at us! If I were you… 33


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ZBYSZKO

I will, when I have some time…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You misunderstand me. I meant I’d

keep well away from

her. ZBYSZKO

Huh!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

She’s jealous – she’ll make trouble for you.

ZBYSZKO

That would be capital!

SCENE XIII (The same. Dulska.)

DULSKA

(To Zbyszko) Still here? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself ? We all work – your father, me, your sisters…

ZBYSZKO

(Goes into hallway, takes overcoat, hat, comes back and gets dressed) Mother dearest, whether one works or not – all comes to the same thing…

DULSKA

That is not true. We are industrious people, whereas those who while away their time may be considered…

ZBYSZKO

But surely, us and them, them and us, we’re all the same…

DULSKA

What? What do you mean?

ZBYSZKO

We will all end up kicking the bucket… ta, ta! (To Juliasiewiczowa) Ta, ta, my sweet! (Exits)

SCENE XIV (Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa, Hanka.)

DULSKA

It is quite appalling, it really is. You heard how he speaks to me! The heaviest blow of all is that he is so talented, so capable! If only he wanted, he could have a bright future, a career, but no, he won’t have it – not a blessed thing… Refreshments will be served in just one moment. As I was saying, he doesn’t care – he will have none 34


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of it. Carouse around the clock, that’s all he does. Money slips through his fingers. And that is the picture at present – not a blessed thing – only cafes and petticoats. (Hanka brings in tray with vodka, cheese and snacks) Do help yourself, my dear. JULIASIEWICZOWA

Thank you, Auntie (They sit down to it) He seems so irritable… so discontented…

DULSKA

(Erupts) If he only knew what he wanted! He should give thanks to God, he is well-made, vigorous… Your good health! (Drinks a glass) Hanka, go and tidy the master’s bedroom. (Exit Hanka)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Looks at her) Have you found Hanka to your satisfaction, Aunt?

DULSKA

So, so.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Quietly) Send her away, Auntie, would you?

DULSKA

Why should I do that?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Something has come to my attention.

DULSKA

She's been stealing.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

No… worse than that.

DULSKA

Well… well…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

It seems that Zbyszko has been trying his luck…

DULSKA

(reluctantly)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I do know what I’m talking about. You should send her away, while

Oh… that… there’s still time… DULSKA

My dear girl, it was just your imagination… besides… (Looks around) …in the light of certain circumstances… well… you understand… out of sight, out…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Aha, I see!

DULSKA

In a word – you discern my meaning? 35


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JULIASIEWICZOWA

East or west, home is best?

DULSKA

I’m not saying a single word – only –

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Do you know what, Auntie, perhaps you are right. (Pause. Hanka crosses the stage in silence and disappears into the kitchen. Both follow her with their eyes.) One must admit that men have very peculiar tastes.

DULSKA

Oh, let him! As long as he doesn’t drag himself from pillar to post and ruin his health… Only a mother can appreciate the true agony of witnessing a son’s demise…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Heaven preserve us. But do let’s hope she doesn’t…

DULSKA

Her? Highly likely! She’ll have a smile on her face… they’re all the same – infamous for it. I’ll show you the hat I’ve altered. (Goes to the front room, returns with a hat 7 decorated with violets and white feathers, puts it on her head. Combined with a fustian kaftan and petticoat, this has a strange effect) Do you like it?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Absolutely! I quite literally…

DULSKA

(The hat still on her head, waxing lyrical) I must invest in my appearance… I’m having all my old clothes made over.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Everything accumulates interest on you, Aunt. Will you be raising

DULSKA

I expect so! I must! Everyone else is! I’ll show you my little list.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Yes… yes…

DULSKA

(Takes paper out of drawer, spreads it out on the table, both busily

the rent this year?

lean over paper) The entire basement – rent up by 20. I’ll put the mangle in the hallway. JULIASIEWICZOWA

It’ll be a tight squeeze – they’ll knock each other’s teeth out.

DULSKA

It’s all the same to me. I never go there anyway. Both ground floor apartments, up by five each, first floor, the coquette, by ten…

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JULIASIEWICZOWA

The coquette? That’s not enough. I would put hers up by at least

DULSKA

You think so?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Laughing) Naturally. She has money – she acquires it with ease…

twenty.

let her pay. DULSKA

(Cheered) Let her pay…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Laughing) Let her pay!

DULSKA

And so – the coquette, up by twenty, the councillor up by ten… second floor… (Worked up into frenzy, both bend over the table, reading. The curtain falls slowly.)

Notes 1. This would have been a fire or light screen. 2. The Polish word is 'kaftanik' – this would have been a type of light house-jacket, perhaps fulfilling a function akin to a modern-day cardigan. 3. 'Hesh-ka' – a diminutive 4. A famous opera by Stanisl/aw Moniuszko written in 1858. The central character is seduced serving-maid Halka. 5. The Polish word is 'kol/tun' (see p. lxvi of the Introduction). An alternative translation might be 'philistine', though this has a different set of associations. 'Filsiter' would be a 'literal' translation of 'philistine', but 'kol/tun' has a far more immediate, aggressive and colloquial tone, referring as it does to the petty-bourgeoisie and their apparent obstinate vulgarity and backwardness. 6. There are a few occasions in the text when Dulska gets words confused. Here she says in Polish that she will 'drink [apple] strudel' – ‘pić sztrudel’ – instead of ‘drink sprudel’, this being the name of the mineral water found in the Galician spa-town Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic). It is extremely difficult to render this in translation and so I have resigned from any attempt, preferring to point out when these instances occur. The rehearsal process may yield effective alternatives at other points, when Dulska is being particularly pompous. 7. The Polish word is 'tok', a type of hat without a brim.

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´ Dulska (J. Jarmul/) and Juliasiewiczowa (A. Swietlicka). Teatr im. Osterwy, Lublin, 1994, dir. A. Z·arnecki.

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ACT II (The décor is the same as in the previous act. It gradually grows darker, long lilac-grey shadows are cast through the frozen windowpanes. Dulski, pocket watch in hand and in his dressing gown, paces in an automatic motion back and forth across the stage like an animal in a cage. He closes his eyes and moves like a marionette. At last he stops. At once the door of the master bedroom opens and Dulska appears in a corset and skirt.)

SCENE I (Dulska, Dulski, Hesia.)

DULSKA

Felicjan! Felicjan! (Dulski comes to and looks at her) Walk on, man! Why aren’t you walking? You haven’t even travelled two kilometres yet! I have been keeping count, you know! (Dulski shows her his pocket-watch) Why take the trouble to show me your pocket-watch! I have a most reliable timepiece inside my very own head! Just you let me catch you cutting corners! Very well – I’ll simply have to tell the doctor. I gave you instructions to walk to the Castle1, not along the street, oh no, not in the open air, but around this very room. It’s for your own good. This way, I can keep an eye on you, make sure you’re not getting up to your old tricks, and you… well – on your own head be it. (She hides behind the door. Dulski begins his automated pacing once more. Hesia bursts in wearing her best light blue dress, heeled shoes and sky-blue stockings. She kisses the cuff of her father’s dressing gown.)

HESIA

Is Father walking to the Castle? (Dulski nods.) And do you have far to go? Dulski holds up five fingers

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Gabriela Zapolska


Felicjan Dulski. Teatr Polski, Bielsko-Bial/a, 1998, dir. T. Kotlarczyk.

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Five hundred? (Dulski nods.) In that case you must be near Teatyński street? 2 (Dulski mutters – Hesia laughs) Yes you are! Yes you are! But you must walk quickly father, because they're demolishing the tunnel (Dulski looks at her gravely and shrugs his shoulders. Hesia stands on the couch and scrutinises herself in the mirror; Dulski approaches her and pulls her off the couch.) Mother can’t see! (Runs to the door of the girls’ room) Mela! Mela! DULSKA’S VOICE

Hesia! Is Mela dressed?

HESIA

She’s dressing to kill. (Dulski stops dead, horrified, and mumbles something) Don’t you understand, Father? You know… she’s dressing up. Didn’t they use that expression in your day? Well never mind. They do now.

DULSKA

(Leans out, impeccably dressed) Felicjan, you can stop walking, you have already reached the Great Castle. Tomorrow you will go to Kaiserwald.3 (She disappears)

HESIA

(Goes to the window and blows on the pane, she sings) All frozen up… like a drain… (Dulski looks around and quietly walks towards the stove. He climbs up onto a chair and steals a cigar. At the same time Hesia turns around and sees him. Dulski clears his throat, goes through to the hallway, returns, approaches the door to Dulska’s room, knocks, she leans out.)

DULSKA

Aha! The cafe beckons already, no doubt? Well, well, then. Here, take twenty. From now on I shall be dispensing only so much on a daily basis. No more weekly ration, oh no – not a hope. You are

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more than likely to squander the whole amount with those friends of yours! And be sure to come back in time for supper! (She disappears) (Dulski spends a moment in preparation in front of the mirror and eventually departs. Hesia immediately rushes towards the stove, climbs onto the chair and steals a cigar.)

SCENE II (Enter Mela, dressed like Hesia, she is pale and unwell. She stops in the doorway, then runs towards Hesia, who sticks her tongue out at her and flees towards the couch.)

MELA

Hesia! Show me, what did you take?

HESIA

Very well then, I took a cigar… and it’s nobody’s business but mine!

MELA

You stole it?

HESIA

Aha!… But Father stole one too – just now. If an ancient property

MELA

What do you need a cigar for?

HESIA

What for?

owner like him has the mettle, then why shouldn’t I?

(Rhythmically) I shall smoke it! MELA

Oh! When?

HESIA

Whenever I happen to go to a gala. And then I shall leave!

MELA

Where will you go?

HESIA

To the Baltic coast. Hm, no, perhaps not. I’ve a better idea: I shall give the cigar to the Cook’s lover. Listen to this, I’ve seen him! He’s an orderly. You know – at the lieutenant’s… he’s ooh, hum, so very…

MELA

How can you even look at someone like that?

HESIA

And why not? Whyever not?… Why are you so pale?

MELA

My head aches terribly. 42


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Mela and Hesia. Teatr Ludowy, Nowa Huta, 1989.

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Gabriela Zapolska

HESIA

Perhaps you’ve been puffing on cigars as well!

MELA

Oh, no!… I still feel very weak, I could sleep and sleep.

HESIA

Better do the chassé with me, my darling. I keep forgetting, which leg goes first, dear heart, that teacher of ours will be most ashamed of me again… oh look, my strap has come loose… Hanka! Hanka! (Hanka enters, pale, and transformed)

SCENE III (Mela, Hesia, Hanka.)

HESIA

Fasten my shoe! What on earth is wrong with you, surely you’re not ill as well? Would you just look at her, Mela.

HANKA

You’re only imagining it, Miss.

HESIA

Well, you can barely move… You can go now! (Hanka exits – Hesia shakes her head.)

MELA

It’s hardly surprising. I know exactly why she’s changed.

HESIA

You know? Tell me!

MELA

No, Hesia! It’s her secret. I’m not allowed to say a thing – at least, not until the time is ripe.

HESIA

As you wish. Secrets, secrets everywhere… well, well, come along then… grip my hand firmly! How does that chassé go? Un, deux, un, deux… (She whistles)

MELA

Hesia, don’t whistle!

HESIA

Aha! The earth moved, did it? Now then, let’s try a waltz, my precious creature! (She embraces her, they waltz)

MELA

Why are you squeezing me like that?

HESIA

(Dancing) Because I am the man.

MELA

But I can’t breathe.

HESIA

Exactly… and if you’re the woman you go like this… look… like this! 44


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Hesia, Hanka and Mela. Teatr Dramatyczny, Wal/ brych, 1977.

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(Shifts her weight onto Mela’s arm) I swoon, I swoon, and then I gaze into his eyes… gaze into his eyes… That’s how I always do it. MELA

You do?

HESIA

I do, I tell you! The students blush like big beetroots.

MELA

Let go of me…

HESIA

What’s the matter with you?

MELA

I don’t know, but I…

HESIA

Well in that case, play something – quietly, so that mother doesn’t come in. I can never keep time. (Pushes Mela towards the piano) A waltz! (Mela plays quietly – Hesia wants to dance, she strikes a pose, laughs and starts a cakewalk) Mela! The cakewalk! (Mela plays the cakewalk quietly, Hesia jumps up and down)

SCENE IV (Zbyszko enters.)

ZBYSZKO

What’s all this?

HESIA

(Dancing) The cakewalk! Cakewalk! Cakewalk! Well? What do you say? I've got just what it takes to be a star at the café chantant!

ZBYSZKO

All that and more.

HESIA

(Triumphantly) And what do you say to this?

ZBYSZKO

Where on earth did you learn to do that?

HESIA

Ignania taught me. Oh, you know, Ignania Olbrzycka. Her brother spends hours and hours at the café chantant, so he taught her and she in turn taught me.

ZBYSZKO

(With irony) I thought it might be your cook who taught you.

HESIA

Her?

ZBYSZKO

She has, after all, been putting the finishing touches to your education. 46


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HESIA

What do you mean? By the love of God, she has not!

ZBYSZKO

(Passionately) See, how she lies! Oh, yes! Everyone around here tells lies! But at the very least leave God out of it, alright?

HESIA

Temper, temper again, now, is it? And there we were thinking you'd mended your ways! Very well, then. Mela, do continue, play a little more. Tell me, Zbyszko my prince, whether this is how it’s done! Like this? (She dances)

ZBYSZKO

No. That’s all wrong, bend over… a little further!

HESIA

How? How? (They both dance) How lovely, how delightful, like flying through the air!

SCENE V (The same, then Dulska.)

DULSKA

(Bursts in) What’s going on in here? What kind of a ballet is this?

ZBYSZKO

I am putting the finishing touches to my sister’s education.

DULSKA

Hesia! How could you! What is this? (To Zbyszko) You are a heavy cross to bear! Either you walk about like some savage or else devise idiotic schemes and lead the girls astray…

ZBYSZKO

Yes, yes, alright. Too many words! Watch out for gusts of wind today, you in that perfectly magnificent outfit, you might get swept away.

DULSKA

Oh, we shall never get ‘swept away’.

ZBYSZKO

No hope of glimpsing your lovely legs, then?

DULSKA

That is indecent and one quite simply does not mention it.

ZBYSZKO

And yet it’s entirely decent to dress young girls like ballet dancers? Mm! Just look at this lovely, translucent fabric!

DULSKA

They are children, it is acceptable. 47


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ZBYSZKO

Children, indeed! Ladies on the verge, I'd say!

DULSKA

All young ladies from good homes attend their dancing lessons dressed in this fashion.

ZBYSZKO

Practice makes perfect… practice does make perfect…

HESIA

For what? What for?

ZBYSZKO

When you grow up and go to the ball, you will reveal yourselves from the top down, but now, since you are naïve children, you may do so only from the bottom up…

DULSKA

Zbyszko! Be quiet! How dare you!

ZBYSZKO

The oddest thing in the world. She's chilled to the bone.

(To Mela) Why are you so pale? (It grows darker) MELA

I’ve a terrible headache. Mama, if possible, I’d much prefer not to

DULSKA

Show me your tongue! It’s white. You’ve eaten something again.

go… (She presses her hand to Mela’s forehead) You’re burning up. Well, well… you really are unique. Are you in pain? Hmm? MELA

It hurts just here.

DULSKA

Your left shoulder blade? Use a cold compress.4 We have one somewhere, the one your father used that time. And get undressed.

ZBYSZKO

How can she? She already is undressed. Perhaps she should get

DULSKA

Hesia! Coat, gloves!

ZBYSZKO

You’re going on foot? With her, like that? Be very careful, you

dressed instead.

may just get arrested. DULSKA

Good Lord above! Give me strength! And make sure no-one lights the lamps before time. (To Zbyszko) Going out, are you?

ZBYSZKO

No.

DULSKA

In that case, tend to the stove. We will return in one hour. Mela, go

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and change your clothes! (Hesia and Dulska exit. Mela goes to her room)

SCENE VI (Zbyszko alone, later Hanka. Zbyszko stands motionless for a while then stretches out his arms in front of him in a lazy, apathetic motion. He turns towards the stove, kicks the doors open, pulls up an armchair, sits down and quietly remains like this with a cigarette balancing on his lip, his hand trailing at his side. A reddish light has illuminated him. He feels apathetic and sad. The door opens quietly; Hanka edges in, sees him, approaches, kneels down and delicately, with a sort of canine humility, kisses his hand. He strokes her head mechanically, without looking at her.)

ZBYSZKO

There, there… it’s alright…

HANKA

Please sir… I…

ZBYSZKO

Well? What’s the matter?

HANKA

I’m going to go… where you told me to go… sir…

ZBYSZKO

Ah… yes! Of course! Of course you must! And don’t be afraid, speak out boldly and clearly, explain what’s the matter. (Hanka remains kneeling, motionless, wrapped in the folds of her shawl) Well, why are you still here?

HANKA

Do I know… I feel…

ZBYSZKO

Stop wallowing… go… before they get back!

HANKA

(Rising) I will go! (She exits slowly – the door is heard shutting heavily behind her)

SCENE VII (Zbyszko, Mela. Mela in a kaftanik, her head bound up – she approaches Zbyszko quietly and sits on a little stool opposite him)

MELA

(Shyly) Zbyszko!

ZBYSZKO

You didn' t lie down?

MELA

I can’t. It makes me feel even worse. Am I not disturbing you?

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ZBYSZKO

No. Of all the members of this family, you are actually the most bearable. Perhaps it’s because you’re ill, so there’s something nicer about you, something different from all the others.

MELA

Something different? And you think it’s because I’m ill?

ZBYSZKO

Yes. You haven’t much vitality and so you don’t push and shove your way through life, what you do is… creep along. You understand me, don’t you?

MELA

Yes. It’s as though I have to get out of everyone’s way all the time,

ZBYSZKO

That’s bad. Mademoiselle Dulska should set forth like so… it's

like any moment someone might push me over, like… understood. Someone gives you a shove, you do it back… That should be our motto! As much elbow room as possible. More room at the top!5 MELA

(Looks at him for a while) Zbyszko, why is it you dislike us all so much?

ZBYSZKO

Dislike you – that’s far too tame. I hate the whole lot of you and I hate myself into the bargain.

MELA

You hate yourself as well? As a matter of fact, I… Let me talk to you for a while. Alright? When the storm clouds gather, I'd give anything to be able to talk to someone – really talk – calmly, quietly. Never any hope of that here. It’s like a mill. Mama says that she works. But you can work by thinking too. Isn’t that right, Zbyszko? (She settles before him in such a way that the light from the stove illuminates the sad and morose pair)

ZBYSZKO

Go on… keep talking…

MELA

You hate yourself, and I feel sorry for myself. Most terribly. Nothing bad ever happens to me – I have a father, a mother, you and Hesia, I go to school, I am simple, straightforward, they take care of me, give me iron tablets, other kinds of treatment, I learn about all sorts of things… and yet, and yet, Zbyszko, I feel as though some harm is being done to me, that someone has 50


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imprisoned me, someone is pressing down on my throat, as if… I can’t really describe it, only… ZBYSZKO

It’s bad you should feel that way, Mela, very bad! You would do well to rid yourself of such sensations. Soon you’ll be all grown up – you’ll make a good marriage, then claim your own space.

MELA

No, I will enter a convent.

ZBYSZKO

Nonsense! Blood is thicker than water. You’ll be just like your mother.

MELA

But father doesn’t push and shove his way through life, does he?

ZBYSZKO

Because father has taken the line of least resistance. Mother barges her way forward and he proceeds in her wake.

MELA

(After a pause) There’s something very sad about all this.

ZBYSZKO

It would make a donkey weep.

MELA

You laugh at everything.

ZBYSZKO

That is what hanged men do. (Pause)

MELA

(Tentatively) Zbyszko!

ZBYSZKO

What now?

MELA

I would like to tell you something, but… promise you won’t shout? You see, my heart is in the right place. Because… that time… when I saw you…

ZBYSZKO

What?

MELA

(More quietly) You and Hanka. You shouted me down, but I…

ZBYSZKO

Why do you even have to talk about it?

MELA

Because I feel sorry for you – and for Hanka. I think about you all the time. I even pray for you. Because both of you must be very unhappy.

ZBYSZKO

We must? Why?

MELA

What do you mean? She’s a simple servant girl, you're a clerk, you work for the treasury… how can you… and you love one another… It's very sad. Mama will be very much against it.

ZBYSZKO

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MELA

Well, yes, of course, when you get married.

ZBYSZKO

Are you out of your mind? Me… to Hanka?

MELA

What does it matter, that she’s supposed to be beneath us. Look at King… King Zygmunt August and that Barbara… now what was her name…

ZBYSZKO

You’re even stupider than I thought.

MELA

Please, Zbyszko… there’s no need to pretend on my account. I will take your part. I will teach Hanka how to speak like a human being and eat with a fork, and I’ll teach her everything I know until she’s just like one of us. I will help both of you.

ZBYSZKO

You really are a phenomenon!

MELA

Only there is one thing that worries me a great deal. I don’t know, whether I ought to say it…

ZBYSZKO

Well, then – out with it!

MELA

Only be sure to mention none of this to Hanka! Give me your word. Alright… Hanka has… a fiancé… in the village. Yes, yes. But don’t worry. She doesn’t love him. He’s a guard in customs. I found a letter he wrote to Hanka. There was a beautiful phrase in it: ‘Miss Hania! Dear Lady! May the dove that deposits my letter at your dainty feet bear me an answer to this question on its wings, why do I hear from you so seldom?’ That's how it went. Ah! ‘The wings of a dove’ – how pretty! There was no dove on the stamp though, only a little pink pig and four piglets – but he always wrote straight from the heart. And he must love her. Only, she doesn’t reply to his letters, and that's not right, because he does take such pains…

ZBYSZKO

I have only one request to make of you. Stop interfering in this business! You have a headache. Go and lie down!

MELA

But my heart is in the right place.

ZBYSZKO

I know it is.

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Mela (J. Litwin) and Zbyszko (G. Widera). Teatr Zagl/ ebia, Sosnowiec, 2004.

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MELA

(Rises, tentatively) And… you’re not angry with me?

ZBYSZKO

No! Come over here, give me a kiss!

MELA

(Kisses him) So… you don’t hate me?

ZBYSZKO

(Stroking her) No. Not now.

MELA

Thank you. It’s so pleasant, when someone speaks to me gently… Thank you, Zbyszko. (She exits quietly to her room. Zbyszko rises, goes to the window, through which the light of the street lamps falls, leans his forehead against the pane and remains like this. Hanka enters, in tears, wrapped in a shawl, approaches Zbyszko and speaks quietly.)

SCENE VIII (Zbyszko, Hanka.)

HANKA

Pardon me, Sir…

ZBYSZKO

Well? Well? What is it?

HANKA

Everything is… I was right. (She begins weeping quietly)

ZBYSZKO

What a dreadful business! Confounded bad luck! (He begins pacing the room. Hanka remains by the window in the glow of the street lamp, tragic in the folds of her black shawl.)

HANKA

What will I do now?

ZBYSZKO

Go home.

HANKA

What! So my father can flay me alive! I won’t go!

ZBYSZKO

Oh, stop burbling. There’s still time. Maybe something will

HANKA

But… I'm cursed with bad luck. Imagine the worst possible thing,

change. it comes… my way. I could have lived without all this! Oh God! Oh, my God! I will have to drown myself. ZBYSZKO

Fat lot of good that will do!

HANKA

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ZBYSZKO

You are a stupid girl!

HANKA

Lord!… (She cries)

ZBYSZKO

Be quiet! Stop crying, or I’ll be damned I’ll…

HANKA

(Covers her face with the shawl and tries to smother her sobs – a long pause) Please, sir… what should I do now, sir?

ZBYSZKO

(Looks at her for a moment, then exits to his room) What rotten luck! What confounded rotten luck! (Hanka explodes in spasms of weeping, huddling against the wall. Mela sidles out of her room on tiptoe.)

SCENE IX (Mela, Hanka.)

MELA

(Approaches Hanka and stands before her anxiously) Hanka! I heard Zbyszko – he was very angry about something. Am I right?

HANKA

No.

MELA

But I heard you! And I’m so afraid it’s all my fault. It must have been about that fiancé of yours, down in the village. Why have you kept it secret, Hanka? Only now you really must stop writing to him. Why look at me like that? I know everything… (Hanka looks at her, dismayed) Well, everything to do with you and Zbyszko, do you see? (Hanka covers her face with the shawl) Truly, you mustn’t be afraid. I will stand by you. I’ll even coax your father over to our side. Everything will change and once the wedding has taken place…

HANKA

How can you say that, Miss! Who will marry me now?

MELA

What do you mean, who?

HANKA

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MELA

(Surprised) Someone else’s child? What are you talking about, Hanka? Are you a widow, that you should already have a child? And you’ve said nothing about it to Zbyszko…

HANKA

(After a pause) What do you mean, miss, when you say you know everything!

MELA

Well… about you and Zbyszko. It will be a misalliance, no doubt, but there’s nothing to be done about that… (Hanka is silent. She chews the corner of her shawl and looks at the ground.) Why don’t you say something, Hanka? Why are you still crying? I only speak with the very best intentions. Don’t cry – everything will fall into place, somehow.

HANKA

(Bawling) Nothing will fall into place… a curse on my head, misfortune… Ha, that I had never been born!

MELA

Dear Lord! Don’t you cry, Hanka…

HANKA

If I had only broken both my legs sooner than come here!

MELA

Hanka, please stop crying or my heart will burst. (She leans over her)

HANKA

Let go of me, Miss.

SCENE X (Mela, Hanka, Juliasiewowicza.)

JULIASIEWOWICZA

Is there anyone home? The kitchen door is open… (She sees Mela and Hanka) What are you two doing here, in the dark? (Hanka escapes) Mela, conspiring with the servants?

MELA

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JULIASIEWOWICZA

You’d be far better off lighting a lamp. (Mela lights a lamp) And why is Hanka so unhappy?

MELA

Oh! It’s a terrible story!

JULIASIEWOWICZA

Why don’t you tell me all about it, Mela.

MELA

I simply can’t, Auntie… I can’t, but it really is terrible – it could all come to a dreadful end!

JULIASIEWOWICZA

It would be so much better if you told me. Perhaps I could offer some advice.

MELA

That’s true. You are so very wise, Auntie, and you know best of all how to deal with Mama. (They sit at the table beside the lamp)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

What does your Mother have to do with all this?

MELA

What can you mean? Mama has everything to do with it! (After a pause) I will tell you the whole story from the very beginning, as though you were my confessor. Only, dear Auntie, if you betray me, if you say that I… told… then… I cannot imagine. Oh Auntie, Auntie! A great misfortune has occurred. Zbyszko has fallen in love with Hanka.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Lets out a snort of laughter) Is that all?

MELA

Auntie – please, stop laughing! Only God knows, how all this will end, because Mother won’t allow them to marry. You’ll see, Auntie!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

To begin with, how did you come to know all this?

MELA

I… saw them. I didn’t mean to! I promise you, I didn’t. Afterwards, I closed my eyes immediately.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You should have closed them first. What was it you saw?

MELA

Auntie, they must get married! They’re already kissing!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Laughs) Well, if they're already kissing, then it’s…

MELA

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tugs at me, inside. And it makes me want to cry, and I feel sad and pleased… But I am different – there’s no doubt at all that Mama will disown Zbyszko. JULIASIEWICZOWA

Don’t you worry little lamb! Mama won’t disown Zbyszko.

MELA

If only that were the whole story, but there are many, many complications. There’s still the guard from customs down in the village… and after that I’m not really sure… there is someone else’s child.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Someone else’s child?

MELA

Yes! That’s right! Hanka told me.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Interested) Well… well… what did she say?

MELA

I said to her, you will get married, meaning to Zbyszko, which is what I’d been thinking all along. And then she begins bawling, not crying, and shouts: ‘And who will have me now, with someone else’s child!’

JULIASIEWICZOWA

She said that?

MELA

Auntie, I never lie. Only… I have tried so hard… and I really can’t

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I do! I do indeed!

MELA

(Leaning against the table)

piece it all together. Do you understand it, Auntie?

Then please explain it to me, Auntie, dearest! JULIASIEWICZOWA

No, young miss. I will not explain it. Only remember one thing, Mela – your little lips are sealed. Don’t you breathe a word of this to anyone! Not one word! And no more peeking! If you happen to see anything ever again, close your eyes.

MELA

But you will take care of it, won’t you, Auntie?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Perhaps…

MELA

But dearest Auntie, they might even run away or do away with themselves! That is what happened that time in Kiev… you remember the story… ssh… quiet! It’s Zbyszko!

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SCENE XI (The same, then Zbyszko. Zbyszko is dressed to go out)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

How are you? On your way out?

ZBYSZKO

I am.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

On the loose once more!

ZBYSZKO

That’s right.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I thought you were spending more time at home.

ZBYSZKO

Looks like it’s finally caught up with me.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

What a pity, you’re looking so much better for it. You’ve put on weight.

MELA

They'll all be back soon, Zbyszko, we'll have cups of tea.

ZBYSZKO

Don’t wait for me.

MELA

Mama will be cross again.

ZBYSZKO

Leave me alone!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You could take the trouble to be rather more polite!

ZBYSZKO

What for?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well, to me at least… you behave like a…

ZBYSZKO

My dear, first you want me to treat you as an equal, you practically implore me, and then you want me to respect you. Once and for all, make your choice – matron or coquette?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Livid) It will be best, I think, to abstain from conversation with such a brute as your good self.

ZBYSZKO

It most certainly will. And while you’re at it, you may as well stop daubing yourself with paint, because you look like an old tenement building patched up for the emperor's grand parade. Fare you well…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Indeed! Well… I hope you never have cause to regret your brutality!

ZBYSZKO

I never have any regrets. (Exits)

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MELA

He’s just as cross as he used to be. And he had such a big argument with Hanka! They argued so dreadfully! Oho, Mama's on her way through the kitchen.

SCENE XII (Dulska, Hesia, Juliasiewiczowa, Mela, later Dulski.)

DULSKA

(To Juliasiewiczowa) How are things with you? I am terribly out of sorts.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

What can the matter be?

DULSKA

On the tram. Another fracas. When Hesia is seated, she clearly looks very much like a child of less than one metre in height. I say to her repeatedly, keep your head down…

HESIA

Oh, please Mama!

DULSKA

And just to annoy me she sits bolt upright, stretching her neck out, there follows a scene6 with the conductor, all eyes fix on us…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Ha! All that and for what…

DULSKA

Throw money away and you’re worth nothing… Hanka, lay the table! We’ve taken to drinking our tea in here. The stove in the dining room deteriorates by the day…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Why don’t you have it fixed?

DULSKA

You think I’m a complete fool? Next year I won’t be living here myself, I’ll rent it out, then the tenant will fix the stove for me. I’m going to put on my robe. Hesia, time to get changed! Mela, you attend to tea. (Exits) (Hanka lays the table) (Juliasiewiczowa observes Hanka)

HESIA

It was a beastly lesson today – you made the right decision, staying at home. Shoddy commoners, the whole lot of them!

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JULIASIEWICZOWA

Hanka! Goodness me. You do look terribly unwell.

HANKA

My teeth hurt.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Your teeth. (Enter Dulska)

DULSKA

(In her house coat) Look lively! The samovar, the rolls… Shall you be taking tea with us?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I rather think I shall. (Enter Mela. She carries a book and a workbasket. Later, Hesia with exercise books and textbooks. They sit at the table.7 Dulska and Juliasiewiczowa also sit to the front of the table.)

DULSKA

I am delighted to be home at last. From a woman’s point of view, there’s nowhere quite like home. And I shall never tire of repeating it. Call for Zbyszko!

MELA

Zbyszko has gone out.

DULSKA

He what?

MELA

But he'll most certainly be back very soon.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Aunt, you told me there’d been a definite improvement.

DULSKA

Because it's perfectly true. He’s finally arrived at the realisation that nothing rivals family and home. He must have been called away.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Nothing of the sort. He says he’s grown quite sick of his home and family.

DULSKA

He said that?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Yes, only a short while ago. Not, perhaps, quite so concisely. What precisely he’s grown sick of I really can’t say. However, he's gone – that's pointed enough for me.

HESIA

He’ll be out carousing again!

DULSKA

Mind your tongue, my girl! There’s nothing more to be done for that boy. I've catered to his every need, just to keep him indoors.

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JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Meaningfully) Ah, my dearest Aunt, perhaps it’s precisely this

DULSKA

I don’t understand. What will he gain, stepping beyond the family

strategy that produces the very opposite of the desired effect. circle? JULIASIEWICZOWA

Hmm.

DULSKA

(To Mela) Why are you making faces at your Aunt?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

At me? Oh no, Auntie, you’re imagining it… as for that small matter of the family circle…

DULSKA

How could you possibly know anything about it? You are so flighty! Allow me to divulge a little secret – people are starting to gossip, about you…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

They gossip about everyone.

DULSKA

Ah, yes, but the things they say about you, are precisely the things you would like them to say.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

For example?

DULSKA

That you are a coquette.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Mmm!

DULSKA

You do create that kind of impression. How does it happen, I wonder, that no such comment is made about me?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Irritated) You might do me the courtesy of not lecturing in front

DULSKA

They are children, they don’t understand. Besides – let them hear

of the girls. it all. A good lesson, I’d say, for the future – let them learn what comes of frivolity and vanity… (Enter Dulski. He greets Juliasiewiczowa with a small wave and, taking a newspaper from his pocket, he sits down at the table and begins to read.) JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Increasingly irritated) Honestly, you do have a very peculiar notion of hospitality…

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DULSKA

My dear, above all, I have a notion, as you put it, of morality and it is always at the forefront of my mind, whether at home or abroad…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Your implication is, I assume, that my life is immoral.

DULSKA

If appearances are anything to go by. I do see you regularly out in

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well I can’t very well stroll along the rooftops, can I?

DULSKA

You have dyed your hair red. When did you ever see an honest

the street.

woman with red hair? JULIASIEWICZOWA

That's quite enough!

DULSKA

. Yesterday, for example, Kre˛z lowa said…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Rising) Right! That does it! You really have made a fine job of annoying me – and quite deliberately at that. I never pry into your affairs. And I could certainly say a thing or two about those…

DULSKA

Aha! Pray, continue, by all means, do! My conscience is clear and I shall not fear the light of day.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well, well – best not to wait for daylight in this particular instance. One or two things might become startlingly visible. In any case, dear Aunt, I would ask you to refrain from provoking me or I will not, I can assure you, have any hesitation…

DULSKA

(Provocatively) You are most welcome, please feel free to speak your mind – don't be shy.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I have the children in mind.

DULSKA

Hesia, Mela, please leave! Felicjan, off you go as well, man… (Hesia and Mela leave. Dulski takes his newspaper and goes into the bedroom) Now then, we are alone. Say what you have to say.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Believe me, Aunt, you most certainly deserve to know. And let me tell you this much – if you have the gall to conduct an inspection

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of my property, you should at least have the decency to wipe your own feet first… DULSKA

No dirty business going on here. And certainly no gossip being spread abroad concerning my household…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

But there will be – oh yes, there will be… when everyone hears the appalling racket it makes…

DULSKA

To what are you alluding?8

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I will explain everything in intimate detail, Auntie, if only you promise to invite me to the christening.

DULSKA

That is a tasteless joke, young lady! Felicjan and I put all that business out of our heads a long time ago.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I’m not suggesting you’re to be a mother, Aunt, only a grandmother!

DULSKA

In what sense? How so?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Zbyszko has done a sterling job…

DULSKA

Zbyszko has? Zbyszko?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

…on Hanka!

DULSKA

Holiest Mother of God! When, how? It’s a lie! It is falsehood! Trying to kill me, are you? This is horrendous! My caretaker, forced to pack his bags, and now this!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

And so I’m a liar into the bargain? In that case, you’d better ask

DULSKA

A scandal! Hanka! Hanka! Come here this minute!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I’d prefer not to hear this. I’ll go through to the girls’ room. When

Hanka directly.

you have satisfied yourself that I’m not lying – then you will offer me an apology. DULSKA

Tomorrow morning! Hanka! Hanka! (Juliasiewiczowa exits swiftly. Hanka bursts in with laundry ready for the mangle)

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SCENE XIII (Dulska, Hanka.)

HANKA

Madam! You called! I was on my way to the mangle…

DULSKA

Hanka! I want you to answer my questions as though in the presence of a priest. Tell me – is it true that you… that you are… (Hanka backs up against the wall and stands motionless, wide-eyed. Dulska faces her, glaring threateningly.) Answer me!

HANKA

(With some effort) Yes… if you please… Madam.

DULSKA

Suppose you are lying? Perhaps you want to trick me…

HANKA

I am not lying!

DULSKA

You swear on your deathbed?

HANKA

I swear on my deathbed! (A long pause. Hanka remains motionless, back to the wall. Large heavy tears stream down her cheeks.)

DULSKA

(After a pause) I will present you with your book, I will pay you this month’s wages and then you can get out.

HANKA

I would prefer to go straight away.

DULSKA

(Remembering herself) Yes, that would be better. Pack your things. Put that linen down. I cannot allow your sort of girl, the sort who cares nothing for her good name, to remain in this house. You will remove yourself at once… I’m going for the book… (Exits to the bedroom. Hanka remains motionless for a while. Eventually she wipes her face and steers herself towards the kitchen. Juliasiewiczowa enters from the girls’ room.)

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SCENE XIV (Juliasiewiczowa, Hanka, Mela, Zbyszko.)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Hanka!

HANKA

What?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Whatever can have happened?

HANKA

(Bursts into tears) Madam is throwing me out…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You must have a word with Master Zbyszko.

HANKA

But… what’s the use! I hope they suffer for this! (She rushes into the kitchen)

MELA

Auntie! Auntie! Well? Well then? I’m so frightened!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Get back to your room! Don’t even think of showing your face!

MELA

Dear God! Auntie, please – don’t desert them! (Juliasiewiczowa pushes her into the girls’ room. Enter Zbyszko.)

ZBYSZKO

(To Juliasiewiczowa) You, here? How very peculiar… that officer of yours is parading back and forth outside the gate, waiting, no doubt, for your good self…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

That is no concern of yours. Better be vigilant, or you might get

ZBYSZKO

Why the tone of voice?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

It might be politic to consider changing your own. Any minute

just what you deserve.

now you’ll be singing to an entirely different tune. The small matter between you and Hanka has come to light. ZBYSZKO

Oh… damnation!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Aha, that’s right! Curse away! Fat lot of good it will do you now! Your mother is in the process of evicting Hanka. I do wonder – what precisely will your seducer’s honour now instruct you to perform, for your… victim! (She laughs ironically)

ZBYSZKO

(Seizes his hat) You viper!

JULIASIEWCZOWA

I knew it! Cap in hand and away he runs! This way for the quickest exit! 66


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ZBYSZKO

Silence! Don’t you dare try and provoke me!

SCENE XV (Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa, Zbyszko.)

DULSKA

(The book in her hand)

ZBYSZKO

Yes, yes, I already know the story! And may I just say… you’d be

Hanka! Aha – you – here? Don’t move! I have a score to settle with you! demonstrating an enormous amount of tact, Mother, if you kept all this under your hat. DULSKA

Tact! Tact! You dare talk to me about tact! You, who’ve stirred up such a scandal in your own family home! If word of this gets out, onto the streets, there’ll be nothing left to do but sell the house and move away, to Brzuchowice or Zamarstynów!

ZBYSZKO

This is my problem.

DULSKA

Shameless creature! Now anyone might use this against me! How could you let it come to this!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Pardon me just one moment. When you say ‘anyone’, are you perchance referring to me? This is quite beyond the pale. And uttered by my very own Aunt! You are aware, are you not, that with a few choice words I could shed a whole new light on this delightful little episode?

DULSKA

Whatever you say, it will be a lie. No one will believe a woman like you.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Perhaps so, but I have certainly never taken liberties of the kind permitted in this household. (To Zbyszko) Know this – my Aunt has been very well aware of the business with Hanka from the moment it began.

DULSKA

That’s not true!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Aha! Not true, is it! We looked on through our fingers, did we, through our fingers! Only now, when threatened with a scandal 67


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of enormous proportions do we blame it on Zbyszko, on Hanka… ZBYSZKO

This is a pretty tale. And to what purpose?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

To keep you at home.

ZBYSZKO

Aha… I see.

DULSKA

She’s lying!

ZBYSZKO

She’s telling the truth! It’s very much in line with your unique moral code, Mother.

DULSKA

(Beats the table with her fist) She’s lying!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Does the same) I am not!

ZBYSZKO

(Does the same) She’s telling the truth! I can sense it, I know it! It’s been lurking here, revolting, like filth – but we must make absolutely sure it doesn’t seep out. Still, whoever sows the wind must reap the storm. Hanka! (He runs to the kitchen) (Mela and Hesia appear in the doorway)

DULSKA

Zbyszko!

ZBYSZKO

Shall I tell you, Mother, what I intend to do? Shall I? I’m going to marry Hanka!

DULSKA

Holy Mother of God! A bolt from the blue!

MELA

Mother, absolve them! Give them your blessing!

DULSKA

Let go of me! (Zbyszko drags in Hanka)

ZBYSZKO

Hanka! Cast off these rags! You will be staying here forever!

HANKA

But Madam has given me notice.

ZBYSZKO

You will stay! I will marry you!

HANKA

Saints in heaven!

DULSKA

I won’t allow it!

ZBYSZKO

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Dulska (Zbikowska), Dulski, Hanka, Mela (B. Sojecka), Hesia (J. Marisówna), Juliasiewiczowa (Jaglorzowa), Zbyszko (Dzwonkowski). Poznan´ , 1945, dir. W. Neubelt.

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JULIASIEWICZOWA

Zbyszko, have you taken leave of your senses!

DULSKA

(To Dulski, who has entered and is standing dumbstruck) Felicjan, take a long, hard look at your brand new daughter-in-law! (Dulski approaches with interest) Well, think of something, man! You are the father! Curse him, do something, perhaps he’ll come to his senses!

ZBYSZKO

It won’t make a blind bit of difference. That’s that. Once and for all let the dregs sink well and truly to the bottom.

DULSKA

Sweet Jesus! What if someone asks me a question about my daughter-in-law’s family…?

ZBYSZKO

Then, Mother, you will have to tell them that she comes, not from a home, but from a hovel. That will be the supreme punishment. Hanka, down on your knees and ask for Mother’s blessing…

HANKA

Please, Madam, I didn’t mean to…

DULSKA

Get out! Felicjan, say something!

DULSKI

The devil take the lot of you!!! (Exits to his bedroom)

DULSKA

(Collapses onto the couch) I cannot endure it! Upon my word, I cannot endure it!

ZBYSZKO

Be seated, Hanka, sit here, next to Mother. From now on, this is where you belong. (He seats Hanka forcefully on the couch)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Zbyszko!

ZBYSZKO

Sit! Don’t you move a muscle!

HANKA

I want to open the…

HESIA

Someone’s coming.

ZBYSZKO

(Seats Hanka firmly onto the couch, stands in doorway and says)

(Doorbell – Hanka leaps up and runs to answer it)

Let cook answer the door, and say that both Mrs. Dulskas are home and receiving guests. (Curtain.) 70


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Notes 1. The Wysoki Zamek, or High Castle. A hill in Lwów on which could be found the ruins of a medieval castle and a park, a popular walk with Lvovians. 2. The street leading up to the High Castle, ulica Teatyńska. 3. A hill in the same area as the High Castle, further from the town centre. 4. The Polish word used is 'regolo'. Dulska means 'rigollot', a type of compress to relieve flulike symptoms. 5. The phrase used is Polish/German macaronic; ‘Fur die obere(n) zehn tausend Millionen koltunen!’ 6. Here Dulska says 'secesja' (secession) when she should say 'scysja' (a misunderstanding). 7. There are no stage directions in this scene to indicate when Hesia and Mela leave the room to get their exercise books and workbasket. . . 8. Dulska says 'Cóz to za iluzje?' (What illusions are these?) instead of 'Cóz to za aluzje?' (What allusions are these?)

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ACT III (The same room. It is morning, the blinds are raised. Grey winter daylight. Hanka naps beside the unlit stove on a low little stool. She is wrapped in a black shawl. After the curtain has risen, the wind can be heard rattling the windowpanes. Pause. We hear only Hanka’s laboured breath and her occasional moan of ‘Jesus’. The door opens. Mela enters quietly in a white fustian skirt, a blouse and a fustian kaftanik thrown over her shoulders. Her hair is loose. In her hand she carries a roll and a cup of coffee. She hesitates momentarily. She runs to the door of the master bedroom, listens, finally returns, leans over Hanka and gently, carefully, wakes her up.)

SCENE I (Mela, Hanka, then Hesia.)

MELA

Andzia! Andzia! Wake up!

HANKA

Mm? What?

MELA

Wake up, my poor, dear Andzia!

HANKA

Oh… it’s you, Miss… just a moment… I’ll fetch the milk… (Rubs her eyes)

MELA

No, no. You won’t be fetching milk any more. Cook has already

HANKA

And Madam?

HANKA

Mama is a little weak, she’s lying down. Here’s some coffee. Have

brought it. And I have attended to breakfast.

a drink! And eat this roll. HANKA

(Remembering) Oh… yes, yes… I’d forgotten – now I know. (She starts to cry) Oh, Jesus! Dear, sweet Jesus!

MELA

Why are you crying? It’s taken the best possible course. The worst is over. Mama knows everything. She doesn’t want to give her permission, but she’ll simply have to. You and Zbyszko must stand firm and overcome each and every obstacle with your love. Even Mama herself cannot fail to be moved…

HANKA

I’ll go and light…

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MELA

No, no! Do stop it. Better if you don’t get involved. Because if you start being a servant again, things will get even worse. Sit here quietly and wait and see what happens.

HANKA

But the linen isn't mangled…

MELA

Calm down. They’ll take on a chambermaid now and she’ll do everything in your stead. You are Zbyszko’s fiancée and so you cannot attend to the mangle or light stoves. Drink your coffee… dear heart…

HANKA

Thank you, Miss, but I can’t. After all that business yesterday I’m so… ha… (Blows her nose) Ah, Jesus!

MELA

(Crouches before her) My dear Andzia, I know it’s an upsetting experience for you but there’s really nothing else for it. You’ll see – you can still be very happy with Zbyszko. You’ll dress differently, I’ll massage glycerine into your hands – I’ll teach you to write nicely, you won’t have to lift a finger.

HANKA

Huh! Rotting away with no work to do…

MELA

Aha, but you’ll have other duties. And of course I'll always be there for you, by your side. I won’t get married because I’m not well enough, and Mama says, a robust constitution is essential for matrimony. Also, I wanted to tell you… about the child… what you told me and I don’t really understan… well, if you’ve been married before and you’re afraid that men don't like marrying widows who already have children, or so I’ve heard… then you can stop worrying. I will take care of the child, I will raise it. Whatever Mama has set aside for my trousseau or my dowry, I will give in total to the child. I thought the whole thing through last night. I did want to enter a convent, because it’s so quiet and

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peaceful there and it must be very lovely within the cloister walls, when the bell rings for matins in May. But of course one can also find peace and quiet in the world outside. I would much prefer to devote myself to you. Well then… finish the roll… eat it up… And in return you must be very good to me and say, ‘My dearest, good, beloved Mela’… go on, repeat after me… HANKA

Miss… what are you… what are you… Miss…

MELA

You call me Mela and I will call you… Andzia.1

HANKA

But I am Hanka.

MELA

No, as Zbyszko’s wife you are Andzia.

HESIA

(Rushes in wearing one stocking, hopping) Drat! It’s nearly nine, the whole house is like a morgue… not a chance of going to dratted school today… drat!

MELA

Quiet! Mama is ill.

HESIA

Today the entire household is ill. No one is going to work, only Papa, naturally. (To Hanka) What’s with the long face? Belle soeur! Ah! Ha, ha!… Greetings, you old scarecrow!

MELA

Hesia, how could you!

HESIA

Why do you take it all so seriously? That’s the funniest thing about it. Games – that’s what all this is about! Brrr! It’s cold in here. None of the stoves have been lit. How tiresome family disputes can be! (Suddenly sits down beside Hanka) Tell me, were you the first to go after Zbyszko or did he go after you?

HANKA

Where's your fear of God, Miss…

HESIA

Oh! I see you’ve already learned to take God’s name in vain. And you don’t even belong to our family yet. Ha, ha! Do you honestly imagine, clod brain, that Zbyszko will really take you to be his

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lawful, wedded wife? (Hanka starts crying) MELA

Hesia, don’t you upset her.

HESIA

Of course not, no. I can even promise to be her bridesmaid and escort the charming bride to the altar. Mela, how my legs have grown since yesterday!

MELA

You’ll catch a chill.

SCENE II (The same. Dulska.)

DULSKA

(Pale, in her housecoat, her head bound) What’s going on? Are you still here? Is today not a school day?

HESIA

There’s no one to take us.

HANKA

I will.

DULSKA

You? Accompany the young ladies? Well, well! (To Hesia and Mela) Go and get dressed.

HESIA

Nothing will come of school today, Mama.

DULSKA

Naturally. The same goes for everything. All because of… (Mela kisses her mother’s hand) What do you want?

MELA

Dearest Mama, be lenient! Don’t be angry with them! All her life

DULSKA

Please refrain from involving yourself in this.

she has… (Mela exits to her room with head lowered) (To Hanka) You, go to the little room where we put the dirty linen. Stay there – don’t move until I call you. Not a word to cook or anyone else. Understand? Your godmother, that Tadrachowa woman, who did our laundry twice – does she still live on St Józef ’s2 street? HANKA

Yes Madam, she does.

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Hesia (Laura Farrell). University of Reading and POSK Theatre, London, 2003/4, dir. Teresa Murjas.

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DULSKA

Good. Now go. (Hanka exits through master bedroom) (To Hesia) Have you sent the letter to your Aunt?

HESIA

I’ve sent it. And I told the caretaker to tell Auntie that you’ve asked for her to come here at once. (Dulska sits, depressed) Please Mama, should I do some dusting? (Dulska makes a gesture – it’s all the same to her – pause) Please, Mama, will Zbyszko really marry that thing?

DULSKA

Leave me in peace.

HESIA

I didn't think he'd go through with it either – if only for our sakes. Would any decent man ask for my hand in marriage… or even Mela’s… after something like that?

DULSKA HESIA

Leave me in peace. Anyway, it's not Mela who matters here – she's well on her way to becoming a spinster, whereas I…

DULSKA

I said, leave me in peace, or you will have to bear the brunt.

HESIA

Only, if you please, Mama, I can’t for the life of me understand why you didn’t see it coming. I penetrated to the bottom of the matter a long time ago! I…

SCENE III (Dulska, Hesia, Zbyszko.)

ZBYSZKO

(Dressed to go out, moves about the room for a while) Where’s Hanka? (Pause) I said, where’s Hanka?

HESIA

The bride from Lammermoor, fair Lucia, is washing the pots.

ZBYSZKO

In future, please refrain from using her to do the chores. Where did Hanka sleep last night? (Pause) I said where did Hanka sleep last night?

HANKA

On the little stool by the fire, eyes down, hands crossed. 77


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ZBYSZKO

She needs to be treated differently. (Pause) Because… if… well… anyway, I’m going out, I’ll be back shortly. I have to put things in order.

HESIA

(Laughs) Why don’t you put a four-poster bed in the middle of the

ZBYSZKO

Silence!

HESIA

I don’t feel like it! I don’t feel like it! Cakewalk! Cakewalk!

drawing room…?

(She does a few steps) Dear little Hanka, sweet fiancée… cheeks like redcurrant stains… ZBYSZKO

You… be quiet… (He exits rapidly)

HESIA

Horrendous! I have seen nothing to equal it in my entire life. (Listens) The caretaker is in the kitchen. I’ll see what he has to say. Only… Mama… I do have my doubts as to whether Auntie will come at all, because yesterday she was extremely put out.

DULSKA

Get along, then – go on… (Exit Hesia) (Dulska binds her head more tightly, hears rugs being beaten, listens, rouses herself, jumps up, runs to the window, opens it and shouts in a completely different tone) That is not permitted! You should beat your rugs in the yard… not permitted! (Returns)

HESIA

Auntie has said that she will come at once.

DULSKA

Now go and get dressed.

HESIA

Afterwards, a little stroll might be nice? Do you think?

DULSKA

What on earth goes on in that head of yours? Here we have a scandal in the making and she wants to go for a stroll!

HESIA

Oh alright, alright. I’m going now. (Runs to her room) 78


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SCENE IV (Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa.)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(In her morning coat, with dignity) You summoned me, Aunt.

DULSKA

Yes, I did.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

To be perfectly honest, I shouldn’t really be here at all, having endured such a hurtful insult, however, in times of trouble, one should forgive certain shortcomings. Well, Aunt? What is it you want?

DULSKA

(Bursting out suddenly) Have mercy! Save me! Deliver me from my predicament! Such a union will be the final nail in Zbyszko’s coffin! How can I ever look people in the eye again!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

My dearest Aunt… you have made your own bed. I did advise you to send Hanka away.

DULSKA

But when I explained my reasons for keeping her on, you agreed yourself – that was the better course. Don’t you see – it was for his own good! I couldn’t stand by and watch him turn into some goodfor-nothing. It is common practice, you know. I’m not the first and I will most certainly not be the last.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

No, I am sure you will not…

DULSKA

Advise me! Save me! You are a remarkably ingenious person, just like a thief, you’ll think of something. To begin with, take that, that Hanka, over to your place. I can’t throw her out because she is bound to spread the news all over town. At your place, you can keep an eye on her – make sure she doesn’t blab to anyone.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Anything but that… thank you indeed… unnecessary clutter! One never knows what skeletons these people have in their cupboards. Having said that, I must agree that drastic action is required, because this could also turn out to be most unpleasant for both my husband and myself. In fact, when he found out about it, my husband could barely eat his supper. Does she have any relatives? 79


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DULSKA

There is only her godmother who lives close by… a washerwoman…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You should summon her here…

DULSKA

I’ve sent the cook.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Something about this Hanka may yet come to light. Perhaps she has already spent time amusing herself down in the village. If Zbyszko were to find out… though it must be said, as far as I can see, Zbyszko is only doing this in order to vex you, Aunt.

DULSKA

(Bursting out) Vex me, his own mother? What, I ask you, is the sense in having children! Is this how I brought him up! I drove with him all the way to Rabka after his matriculation… well… wasn't I the one who steered him towards the treasury… and now… and now… (She weeps)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Aunt, pray calm yourself. This is of no help to anyone. The matter should be tackled with vigour. What does she say?

DULSKA

What can she say? Nothing.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

It is extremely fortunate that she seems to be a rather stupid girl, because if she had a mind to seize the bull by the horns… Why don’t you give her a little vodka, a little bread and butter.

DULSKA

What?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I know exactly what I’m talking about! Flytraps are made of honey, not vinegar.

SCENE V (Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa, Tadrachowa.)

TADRACHOWA

God’s blessing on this household.

DULSKA

Oh, it’s you. (To Juliasiewiczowa) That washerwoman.

TADRACHOWA

Most sincere respects to the lady of the household! What can I do

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Please, leave this one to me, Aunt.

for you? Another big wash, so soon?

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(To Tadrachowa) No, my dear woman. We have summoned you here in connection with an entirely different matter. TADRACHOWA

Most sincere respects…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

It’s about Hanka.

TADRACHOWA

Oh…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Now, here’s the crux of the issue. Hanka appears to be in the running for a first-rate husband.

DULSKA

What are you…?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Just a moment, please… a first-rate husband. And since he’s a kind-hearted tradesman, a protégé of my Aunt, we wish to make a few preliminary enquiries regarding Hanka’s reputation prior to the happy event. In a small place, how can I put it, off the beaten track, things can quite often, as I am sure you know, Mrs. Tadrachowa, go one way or another.

TADRACHOWA

Well, well… yes, Madam… I must say, you do have a point…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Precisely… and so let us return to Hanka. What was her behaviour like when she lived at home? Only make sure you reply as if under oath, Mrs. Tadrachowa, as though confessing your sins, because this is a matter of grave importance.

TADRACHOWA

Alright! About Hanka? All due respect, Madam, that girl was clear as a glass. Not a chip or a scratch to be found.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Could you swear to that?

TADRACHOWA

On the Most Holy Sacrament. On her behalf, as well as my own.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

And what about a certain guard from customs?

TADRACHOWA

Something and nothing. He got engaged to her. As for you know what – think again! No money to set up home, that was all and without that, things always grind to a halt. Completely above board, though, the whole affair, honest and decent – the parish priest himself can vouch for that.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Alright. And what about here, in the town?

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TADRACHOWA

Ah… well… surely the gracious lady of the household ought to know about that, because the girl has been here… has she not… under her protection. (Pause)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Mrs. Tadrachowa, perhaps we could offer you a little sip of vodka?

TADRACHOWA

Eternally grateful to you, Madam, but I’ve sworn off the vodka. (Laughs)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Laughing) What about the liqueur, then?

TADRACHOWA

Well, maybe just a…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(To Dulska) Dear Angela, something to sweeten us up. (Dulska exits) So, Mrs. Tadrachowa, you evidently seem to think that Hanka can marry her suitor with a clear conscience?

TADRACHOWA

Madam, if he really likes her, then surely he won’t be so very scrupulous. That's just upper class nonsense. Besides… what do I know? (Dulska returns with a glass of liqueur and places it before Tadrachowa)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Drink up!

TADRACHOWA

Most sincere thanks, most sincere thanks. (Drinks) Hi, hi, hi!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

It’s good, is it?

TADRACHOWA

So good, a mist has descended.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

And so, shall we…

SCENE VI (The same. Zbyszko.)

TADRACHOWA

Most sincere respects to the young master of the house, most sincere respects…

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ZBYSZKO

Wait a minute… aren’t you the one who took my clothes to the

TADRACHOWA

That I am sir – after I last did the laundry.

ZBYSZKO

You’re related to Hanka, aren’t you?

TADRACHOWA

Her godmother.

ZBYSZKO

What a happy coincidence! I should inform you that I intend to

tailor’s?

marry Hanka. TADRACHOWA

Now then, sir – stop teasing.

ZBYSZKO

I’m going to marry her. (Looks at Dulska) I am going to marry her and, in addition, very quickly. I’ve just been to enquire about the formalities. Where was Hanka baptised? Her certificate is required urgently. Understand? You’ll be here tomorrow, of course, and we’ll arrange everything. (Exits to his room)

TADRACHOWA

Saints in heaven… Surely the young master is stark raving mad or else very aware of his responsibilities.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

What do you mean by that?

TADRACHOWA

Oh… well… I’m not blind, ladies. It dawned on me quite some time ago. It’s enough to see how wretched Hanka’s become. Blubbering in corners… she did visit me once in a while… Stop your crying, I said to her, every time – he’s a worthy gentleman, born of sainted parents, he'll see you right – but as for marriage…

DULSKA

You don't honestly think I'll sanction this marriage, do you?

TADRACHOWA

Heaven preserve us! We won’t take a single step to the altar without his Mama’s blessing. But surely, Madam, you wouldn’t stand in the way of an honest and decent action… If this is what the young gentleman wants, he's been inspired by God not to harm a poor orphan. Her honesty was the sum total of her dowry and today no-one will want her because she won’t be able to conceal

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her disgrace behind wealth – and money is still the only thing that can make people see less than clearly… JULIASIEWICZOWA

Yes – of course, you are quite right – money. Perhaps you would care for another glass? Angela, dearest?

DULSKA

I haven’t got any more.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Takes Dulska to one side) Aunt, the offer of a certain sum might perhaps be advanced…

DULSKA

Mother of God! Keep a hand on your pocket!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

There’s no other way.

DULSKA

Do have another of your talks with Zbyszko, dear girl, he may listen to you. Good Lord – pay her off! One word from him, that he's changed his mind, everything will fall into place. Talk to him!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Alright I will. But you do know it’s going to be very difficult.

TADRACHOWA

That's the bottom line, Madam. That's the way of the world. One

(To Tadrachowa) You say that money… Judas sells another for ready cash. Oh, what times, what times we have lived to witness! No hay for the flock – no human integrity. JULIASIEWICZOWA

Indeed, you are quite right. The lady of the household and I require a little time for consultation.

TADRACHOWA

Regarding Hanka? What's to consult about? The young people want one another. Surely Madam won’t be too harsh. This sort of thing happens in aristocratic households too – they wed those beneath them, and Hanka's a marriageable girl, not just anyone – she comes from a well-established family, landlords or no.

DULSKA

Please, go through to the dining room, would you, and wait until

TADRACHOWA

Most sincere respects to the lady of the household! Off I go,

we call you. leaving the whole affair in the hands of our Lord Jesus. Most sincere respects! And don’t you be too harsh now, Mama… (Exits)

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SCENE VII (Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa, Mela.)

DULSKA

Did you hear that? ‘Mama’! Such liberties, so very soon! She is bleeding me dry politely. Well, well…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I’m going to have a word with Zbyszko. Would you please go

DULSKA

Have mercy! Do everything within your power… say that Felicjan

through to your room? and I will fail to survive the ordeal, say we'll disinherit him, not even chickenfeed will he get, say that… JULIASIEWICZOWA

Alright, alright, I know. Only, please, make sure we’re left alone. (Exits)

MELA

(Standing in the doorway) Pst! Psst! Auntie!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Ah! What do you want?

MELA

What about Mama? Has she said yes?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Mela, please go through to your room and don’t show your face in here again.

MELA

Oh dear! Dear Lord! Whatever will happen next! (Disappears)

SCENE VIII (Juliasiewiczowa, Zbyszko.)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Hesitates for a moment, then approaches Zbyszko’s door) Zbyszko! Come out for a moment, would you?

ZBYSZKO

What’s the matter?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well, come here, then. Not the done thing, for me to enter your

ZBYSZKO

(In the doorway)

room. I’m too old for that and… too young. What exactly do you want?

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JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well, to begin with, don't look on me as your enemy, because that I am not – in spite of the way you’ve been treating me. As a matter of fact, I have an inkling that you’re just about ready to hold a conversation with someone who has a great deal of common sense and can contemplate your behaviour from a certain distance. Come over here? Don’t be angry. Surely we can at least manage to talk things through?

ZBYSZKO

(Entering the room) If this is to do with Hanka, then there’s nothing to discuss. It’s going to happen – that’s that.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Of course it is – and you needn’t imagine that I oppose your project. On the contrary – since you want to ‘fix things’, there’s nothing for it but to offer one's encouragement. Auntie did want me to take your fiancée in, but…

ZBYSZKO

But what?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I have a husband and… with a girl like that, lacking any sense of morality… once she's over the first hurdle… one never knows when or how…

ZBYSZKO

Is that all you wanted to say to me?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Oh, just a minute! Something must be done with Hanka. She won’t be able to find a new position. Will you put her in a boarding house? Dear God! Such a milieu must be the very seat of moral decay and debauchery, and to live in close proximity to those impulses before one’s wedding day… Perhaps a boarding school would do – but I doubt whether they would take her… and then…

ZBYSZKO

I am well aware that you're mocking me.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I doubt whether your mama will be able to keep her in the storeroom for much longer… So what are you going to do? (Zbyszko paces about and is silent. Juliasiewiczowa watches him)

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And naturally any sort of intercourse with the outside world will be impossible from now on. ZBYSZKO

I whistle at the world!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You are quite right. I agree. But… we do live in close contact with it.

ZBYSZKO

I spit on contact!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Naturally. Only… you must both be sufficient for each other's fulfilment. I don’t know her – she must have great inborn intelligence. (Zbyszko is silent) As have you – and so from a moral point of view there’s absolutely nothing to fear. Only from a material point of view.

ZBYSZKO

I have her eating out of the palm of my hand.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

It’s easy to say that. But you have an income of sixty Rhenish zlotys.3 Besides which, you have a lot of debts – a very poor credit rating. The three of you, on that amount, that is poverty. Hanka won’t be earning a thing, assuming she’ll be a servant in her own home, but even so… and you are accustomed to letting both your own and other people’s money slip through your fingers…

ZBYSZKO

(Sits down in the armchair) Everything will happen exactly as I have said.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Yes – but focusing on the money… What will you live on? You could do some writing in the evenings. My husband would be able to slip a few projects your way – you could work on them from home, but even so…

ZBYSZKO

Leave me in peace!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Let’s be logical, shall we? An apartment, let's say one room with a small kitchen, that’s 25–30… living expenses, one gulden4 at a bare minimum – but that is the poverty line. However, if you love one another… That’s the sum total of your salary gone already. Where is the rest to come from?

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Gabriela Zapolska


Zbyszko and Juliasiewiczowa. Teatr Powszechny, L/ ód´z 1997, dir. A. Glińska.

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ZBYSZKO

I will take out a loan… or two.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Mama will spread the word – not even chickenfeed will you get, from anyone. And your parents may still live for another thirty years quite comfortably. You will be destitute for a long time to come, a very long time. However, if you…

ZBYSZKO

Leave me alone!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Dear Lord! If one could only say to life, just like that, ‘leave me alone!’ But it clambers onto your back like a hydra and… it strangles you. (Approaches him and sits on the armrest) Zbyszko – look me in the eye. You regret what you’ve done.

ZBYSZKO

Let me go!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

I will not! There’s more at stake here than some attempt to ‘vex

ZBYSZKO

This has got nothing to do with vexing her. I wanted to grind it to

mother’. a powder, all that is vile, all that is black, within these walls, haunted by evil deeds. I wanted, just this once, to lock shoulders with it, whatever it is… JULIASIEWICZOWA

And so you locked shoulders with it, had a tussle, bared your teeth, and now you have to submit.

ZBYSZKO

I do not. I will not submit.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Do you have the strength for constant struggle? (Zbyszko is silent) Aha! Aha! You won’t even give me an answer. You’re completely exhausted. One single night has overcome you – just think what a whole lifetime will do…

ZBYSZKO

Oh you… you!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

What about me? My Aunt has assured me that I have the ingenuity of a thief. She’s right! Because I have come to terms with life and I steal away with whatever is most agreeable. That is the pinnacle

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of wisdom. Struggle? Don Quixote! It’s laughable! Besides, as you yourself have said, we will all kick the bucket. ZBYSZKO

You know exactly how to stir my inner philistine…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

But he’s been awake the whole time! Stop wrestling with him. It’ll come to nothing. You know that well enough. And anyway, what exactly do you want from my Aunt? She loves you. She gave you life…

ZBYSZKO

Ha, ha! I didn’t ask to be brought into the world…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

That's a cliché if ever I heard one. She brought you up in the best

ZBYSZKO

The best! It shocks me to hear you say that!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

The best way she knew. She did everything out of love for you.

way she knew.

And now she is weeping. Zbyszko, she is weeping… ZBYSZKO

Oh, really!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Not ‘oh really’ – that is… your mother… (Zbyszko sits down in the armchair, despondent. Juliasiewiczowa approaches) Well… Zbyszko, what is to be done? (Zbyszko is silent) Dear, dear…

ZBYSZKO

There’s still time.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

No there is not. These things need to be dealt with immediately! Without delay! You’ll see – you’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief once all this is over.

ZBYSZKO

(Quietly) But how?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

We’ll manage something.

ZBYSZKO

There will be a scandal.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

There you are, you see! And you said this has nothing to do with the world. (Pause) So you won't be getting married? (Zbyszko is silent) And you'll apologise to your mother? 90


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ZBYSZKO

For what?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Do so. You have offended her greatly. She is sick, she is forlorn. (Runs to the door) Auntie!

ZBYSZKO

But… no harm will come to her?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Please – let me deal with this. Auntie!

SCENE IX (Zbyszko, Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa.)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Zbyszko has retracted. He has come to his senses… and he apologises… (Dulska weeps)

ZBYSZKO

(Approaches her, kisses her hand and says quietly) I apologise, Mama, for… Oh, damn it… Hell and damnation.

DULSKA

(To Juliasiewiczowa) Look… he’s started cursing again!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Oh, stuff and nonsense! It doesn’t mean anything.

ZBYSZKO

(Bursts out) It does, it does mean something! It does!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Are you backing down?

ZBYSZKO

Yes… yes… I will be the man I was! Aha! I’ll give you something to be proud of! (In a nervous outburst) Oh yes! From now on I will prove to be a real scoundrel – a real scoundrel!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Until you get married… you'll marry well… a lovely young lady, from a good home.

ZBYSZKO

Until I get married to a dowry, a fine stone tenement building, the devil, Lucifer… (He rushes to his room)

DULSKA

Good God!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

He’ll rant and rave, Aunt – let him. We’re over the most important hurdle. Now it’s her turn. You give me carte blanche? 91


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Gabriela Zapolska

DULSKA

Pardon me?

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Approaches the door) Tadrachowa!

SCENE X (The same. Tadrachowa.)

TADRACHOWA

Sincere respects! Here I am…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Mrs. Tadrachowa, my good woman, certain changes have come into effect. The young gentleman no longer wishes to marry Hanka.

TADRACHOWA

How can that be? He announced it most graciously in person.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

But he's now had some time to reflect

TADRACHOWA

Oh – just like that.

DULSKA

His mother grants her benediction.

TADRACHOWA

What a big word. Well, now – this will harm Hanka and I refuse to look on while someone harms a child whose baptism I witnessed.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

No one wants to harm her. The lady of the house is an extremely upright individual and may perhaps give… Hanka a little something in compensation.

DULSKA

(Quietly) Not so fast. (Tadrachowa is silent)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well, I’m really not sure how else…

TADRACHOWA

If you please, Madam, the holy bond of matrimony and money – they are like chalk and cheese.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well, yes – but it would be better than nothing. Any other mother would throw the girl out without a single good word. But here everyone is showing their concern and wants to make a contribution… Go on, Tadrachowa, admit it – there aren’t many people like that in the world.

TADRACHOWA

I’ve always said it – this is a sainted household. But whichever way you look at it – harm is harm…

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JULIASIEWICZOWA

Aha, but we all heard you mention the fact that money covers a multitude of sins. If Hanka has a little something saved up, no one will make further enquiries.

TADRACHOWA

You may be right.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

What do you think, how should we proceed?

TADRACHOWA

If you please, the rest is up to Hanka. I need to talk to her.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Of course you do. We’ll send her to you directly. Let’s go, Auntie.

TADRACHOWA

My most sincere respects to the gracious ladies! (Dulska exits)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

And… do have some sense! Because it's all down to that lady's goodness of heart. No pressure, understand?

TADRACHOWA

I suppose so… (Enter Hanka. Juliasiewiczowa exits)

SCENE XI (Tadrachowa, Hanka.)

TADRACHOWA

(Looks around) Come over here, come on!

HANKA

How are things with you?

TADRACHOWA

This really is something! It really is!

HANKA

You know? Well then.

TADRACHOWA

Of course – he wanted to marry you.

HANKA

Oh!

TADRACHOWA

But now he doesn’t.

HANKA

Huh, may he choke on all his good intentions! What use are they to me? You think it suits me, all this? They’ve been making a scapegoat of me since yesterday. I'm sure it gives them no end of amusement.

TADRACHOWA

Negotiate – show some self-respect!

HANKA

Huh!

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TADRACHOWA

You could be a lady – landlady of a fine, stone tenement building.

HANKA

Huh!

TADRACHOWA

Better than marrying that guard from customs. Seemed like something at the time, perhaps it did – but his sort just sit on the fence.

HANKA

That’s my business. Besides – no-one would have treated me like dirt. Honour matters to everyone.

TADRACHOWA

So you won't insist that the gentleman marries you?

HANKA

I told you – I need him like I need the plague. I’ll take the harm

TADRACHOWA

They won’t let you come to any harm. They want to give you a

onto myself. handout. HANKA

(Weeps) Would you let me alone, Godmother! Just let me alone.

TADRACHOWA

You’re a fool, a complete fool! You’re young and you've no idea how the world works. You'll be stronger if you have money… What are you wailing for? Some things, once lost, are gone for good. From now on the main thing is that they don’t harm you.

HANKA

(As before) Let me alone, Godmother…

TADRACHOWA

It’s no great favour on their part. I’ll do the talking. I won’t let you come to any harm.

HANKA

(Irritated) Godmother, would you let me alone…

SCENE XII (The same. Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa.)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well? Talked it through, have you? We should make haste because it’s getting late. Time to make a move.

TADRACHOWA

(In a different tone) If you please, ladies, it’s like this. Hanka says, that the gentleman himself promised to marry her…

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JULIASIEWICZOWA

He was joking. Hanka doesn’t honestly believe that.

TADRACHOWA

If you please, madam, there were witnesses.

DULSKA

Who?

TADRACHOWA

The lady of the house.

DULSKA

The sheer insolence.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Wait a minute. This isn’t about marriage any more. I repeat, the gentleman was joking. Hanka knew exactly what she was doing.

TADRACHOWA

I swore for the both of us…

JULIASIEWICZOWA

You should be grateful – my Aunt is very generous and wishes to set things straight. I really think that…

DULSKA

(Quietly) Not so fast.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Well – a few kronen or so… (Suddenly, Hanka approaches the table and stands boldly in their midst)

HANKA

Now it’s my turn to speak.

TADRACHOWA

Hanka, my dear. Wait… for me.

HANKA

Let me alone, Godmother. If they want to pay for the harm they’ve

DULSKA

See, how bold she’s become!

HANKA

Pay up, then! Pay up, if you please. If not, then we really should be

done me, let them pay!!!

making a move, Godmother. One way or another, they will have to pay. There are courts and there is alimony and I will swear an oath. DULSKA

Holy Mother of God! This is all we need!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

And you would do this with a clear conscience, would you, my girl?

HANKA

Ah! And those who did what they did to me, they had a conscience? If they did not have a conscience, let them weep for it now!

TADRACHOWA

Hanka, stop shouting!

HANKA

Let me be, Godmother! I can speak for myself. That girl from the village – Jagusia Wajdówna5 – didn’t she get alimony? Well?

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Gabriela Zapolska


Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa, Hanka, Tadrachowa. Teatr Ludowy, Nowa Huta, 1989.

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If someone has behaved towards me without conscience, then I will behave without conscience towards him. DULSKA

(To Juliasiewiczowa) Have mercy, give her whatever she wants only don’t let it come to a scandal.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

How much do you want?

HANKA

Give me one thousand kronen.

DULSKA

What?

HANKA

One thousand kronen. (Pause. The women glare at each other, size each other up)

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(Quietly) You’d better give it to her, Aunt, or there will be a scandal.

DULSKA

Dear God! (To Hanka) Who do you think you are? You want to flay me alive?

HANKA

It was someone in this house, was it not, who stripped me of my dignity. I asked to be let go. Come along Godmother, let’s be on our way.

DULSKA

Wait. I need a signature – that you bear us no grudge and that you have been pacified.

HANKA

(Gloomily) I will sign!

DULSKA

And you will never bother us again?

HANKA

I won’t. What this one does when he's grown – we'll leave that

DULSKA

I'll be dead by then. Come along!

between him and God. (They go through to the master bedroom)

SCENE XIII (Juliasiewiczowa, Mela.)

MELA

Auntie!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

(In the doorway) What’s the matter? 97


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MELA

What’s going to happen, Auntie? Hesia has been eavesdropping

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Nothing. Everything is alright.

MELA

Praise be to God!

and she can’t stop laughing… Whatever is going on?

(Juliasiewiczowa exits to bedroom. After a while, enter Hanka, Tadrachowa, Dulska)

SCENE XIV (Hanka, Tadrachowa, Dulska, Juliasiewiczowa – later Zbyszko, Hesia, Mela.)

DULSKA

Now you get your trunk and get out of here. Don’t you stay in this house a single minute longer!

TADRACHOWA

In that case, we’ll see ourselves out. Most sincere respects…

HANKA

Come along, Godmother, no need for formalities. (Exits with Tadrachowa)

DULSKA

Aaah! (Collapses onto the sofa) Sweet Jesus! What a day! Well! There’s barely a breath left in me… A terrible ordeal! One thousand kronen!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Surely you could see there was a knife to your throat.

DULSKA

Yes, yes!

JULIASIEWICZOWA

Good day, Aunt. I’m going home. All this has given me a migraine. But before I do – perhaps now you might consider letting us rent the apartment?

DULSKA

Never! My dear, I have a peaceful home. It may just happen that you are unable to pay, and I urgently need to recover the amount extorted from me.

JULIASIEWICZOWA

It seems that nothing will teach you, Aunt.

DULSKA

(With elevation) What is it that I’m to be taught, and by whom? I myself always know, thank God, precisely what is required. (Juliasiewiczowa shrugs her shoulders and exits. Dulska runs to Zbyszko’s door) 98


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Zbyszko, go to the office! (To the girls) Hesia, do the dusting! Mela, your scales. (To the bedroom) Felicjan, to the office! (Hesia bursts in) At the double, Mela. (Enter Mela) Open the pianoforte… good! At last we can resume our godly way of life. (Rushes into the kitchen) (In the background, through the hallway, Tadrachowa and Hanka can be seen moving a trunk) MELA

(Runs towards them) Andzia! Andzia! Where are you going? You’re not leaving for good?

HANKA

With respect, Miss… you're the only person here who’s worth something. I wish you the very best… as for the others, they can go… (She makes a threatening gesture with her hand)

MELA

(Runs to Zbyszko’s door) Zbyszko! Hanka is moving out! He’s

HESIA

Mela! Have you gone mad!

locked himself in… Zbyszko! (The door is heard closing heavily) MELA

Mama is throwing her out! Zbyszko! The door has already closed behind her. (Runs to the window) I can’t see her… Oh! There! She’s carrying her trunk. Where’s she going? There’s been so much snow! She’s disappeared around the corner. Dear Lord! (She weeps)

HESIA

(Laughing) I know, I know! I heard the whole thing! What's that? There's something glittering down there… a slip of paper… (She crawls on all fours, reaching under the piano)

MELA

(Stands by the window, leaning against the frame) Where has she gone? She was full of tears…

HESIA

(Rolls around on the stage, laughing) I know, I know! 99


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Gabriela Zapolska

MELA

Hesia, don’t laugh. Something very bad has happened here. It’s as though they’ve killed someone. Hesia! She might drown herself!

HESIA

(Rolling from side to side on the floor) She won’t drown herself! She took one thousand kronen and she will wed her guard from customs.

MELA

(With a sort of tragic despair) Be quiet, Hesia – be quiet! Stop laughing, Hesia!

HESIA

(As above) She took one thousand kronen6 and she will wed her guard from customs! (The curtain falls) THE END

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

And-ja You-zef’s. ‘60 zl/otych reńskich’ – 60 Rhenish zlotys, former Austrian (therefore Galician) currency. One Austrian Rhenish zloty. Ya-goo-sha Vai-doo-vna The official name of the currency was Krone (pl. Kronen) in Austria and korona in Hungary. However, currency names in other ethnic languages were also recognised and appeared on the banknotes: koruna (pl. korun) in Czech, korona (pl. koron) in Polish. After several earlier attempts the Austro-Hungarian Empire adopted the gold standard in 1892 according to the plan of Sándor Wekerle, secretary of finance. This plan included the introduction of the new currency, the Krone. It consted of 100 Heller (Austria) or Fillér (Hungary). The value of the Krone was set at 2 Krone = 1 Gulden (Florin, or forint in Hungarian) of the previous silver-based currency. From 1900 onwards, Krone notes were the only legal banknotes of the Empire. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_krone for further information)

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Murjas

The Morality of Mrs. Dulska: A Play by Gabriela Zapolska Translated & introduced by Teresa Murjas

the M O R A L I T Y of M R S . D U L S K A

Gabriela Zapolska (1857–1921) was an actor, journalist and playwright. She was born during the 123 year partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia and wrote over thirty plays. The Morality of Mrs. Dulska, a ‘petty-bourgeois tragic-farce’, is probably her best known work. Zapolska’s uncompromising look at gender construction and class oppression in fin-de-siècle Poland is witty, entertaining and incisive. The English-language translation of this popular Polish classic was prepared by Teresa Murjas. In her illustrated introduction, she discusses how the translation and first UK production which she directed were developed. She introduces Zapolska’s work in its historical contexts, provides the reader with relevant biographical information and considers the play’s performance history up to the present day. She draws these strands together into a narrative of deportation, exile and emigration.

a play by gab riel a zap olska

Teresa Murjas is a Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Reading. She specialises in late 19th/early 20th century European theatre and translation. She supervises student directors in her department as well as directing her own practice as research projects. She has also worked as a Lecturer in Theatre and a director at the University of Lodz in central Poland.

ISBN 978-1-84150-166-6

intellect PO Box 862 Bristol BS99 1DE UK www.intellectbooks.com

9 781841 501666

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Play

Play

Play

A Play of Knaves

A Play of Isaac

Play

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Lords

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Knaves

A Play of Lords

A Play of Treachery

A Play of Treachery

Point Blank: 'Nothing to Declare', 'Operation Wonderland', and 'Roses and Morphine' (Intellect Books - Play Text)

The Morality of Mrs. Dulska: A Play by Gabriela Zapolska (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Alisa, Alice (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Tormented Minds (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Brecht in L.A. (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Morality Play

Morality Play

Morality Play

Digital Magazine Design: With Case Studies (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Play by Play

Play-By-Play Football

The Perfect Play (A Play-by-Play Novel)

Play: A play by Jed McKenna

Wye Plays: The Back of Beyond and The Battle of the Crows (Intellect Books - Play Text)

The Perfect Play Play

Lovefuries: The Contracting Sea; The Hanging Judge; Bite or Suck (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Zapolska's Women: Three Plays: Malka Szwarcenkopf, The Man and Miss Maliczewska (Intellect Books - Play Text)

Play

Play

Play

A Play of Knaves

A Play of Isaac

Play

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Lords

A Play of Isaac

A Play of Knaves

A Play of Lords

A Play of Treachery

A Play of Treachery

Point Blank: 'Nothing to Declare', 'Operation Wonderland', and 'Roses and Morphine' (Intellect Books - Play Text)

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