Our Take

Krasinski's Undivine Comedy savaged at the National Theater

To our great amazement, this powerful plot was grotesquely distorted by producer Jerzy Grzegorzewski. Krasinski's message was loud and clear: the old order is corrupt and it has ever been so, but it provides a place for values essential to human dignity. The revolutionaries are corrupt to the point of being incapable of embodying any values. Their leader is a cynical manipulator of crowds whom he despises, and he is motivated by gigantic resentment against those presently in power. Above this dark reality loom the teachings of Christ whose death on the cross was the ultimate guarantee that values have meaning and that not all in the universe is a product of greed, resentment and hatred. In a clear distortion of Krasinski's text, Mr. Grzegorzewski added words to it and eliminated others. He made the nihilistic element of the play into its only element. He made Undivine Comedy into a display of vulgar sex couched in the self-preservation instinct. The element of nobility in the old system was entirely eliminated: Wife's and Priest's admonitions were made to sound ridiculous, and passages in Count Henry's monologue referring to the aristocracy's feudal obligations were cut out. Pankracy's monologue was also rewritten, and words of contempt directed at Polish language and national solidarity were added to it. This falsification of a classical text is like a business crook's falsification of records, and should lead to similar consequences. On balance, it appears that the producer's mind was too petty to accommodate Krasinski's grand themes. Grzegorzewski's mentality was unable to comprehend the subject matter of Krasinski's drama. The producer was intellectually unsuited to direct the play.

One wonders why persons such as Mr. Grzegorzewski are tolerated as artistic directors of the National Theater. Surely this post should be given to a person who is able to present literary traditions in a light that encourages the viewer to become familiar with them. We asked knowledgeable people, who appoints artistic directors and producers at the National Theater? Is it director-in-chief Krzysztof Toronczyk? And who appoints the director-in-chief? The Communist-induced secrecy and apathy about details of appointments is such that no one could give us an authoritative answer. But we found some of the sponsors of the National Theater. These are: Telewizja Polska SA, Polskie Radio SA, Bank Pekao SA, Anpol-Reklaman na City Lightach.