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Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0300

Juliusz Osterwa’s Manuscripts: Problems of Heritage

Wanda Świątkowska — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0300

The article discusses problems related to the handwritten legacy of Juliusz Osterwa (1885–1947), the founder of the Reduta theatre. This legacy poses several challenges for researchers, including ethical ones. Firstly, on his deathbed Osterwa requested that his notes be burned (a wish the family did not fulfil). Secondly, the legacy is dispersed, partly lost, or still hidden as a result of the wartime events of 1939–1945. Thirdly, the diversity of the material makes it difficult to distinguish coherent thematic units suitable for scholarly editing and publication, and, finally, Osterwa’s handwriting itself poses a considerable challenge to decipherment. Nevertheless, the legacy of documenting Osterwa’s theatrical ideas, personal life, and the broader contexts of his artistic activity is of such importance and value that since the 1970s scholars (Józef Szczublewski, Zbigniew Osiński, Ireneusz Guszpit, Dariusz Kosiński, Andrzej Kruczyński, and the present author among them) have undertaken the study and publication of selected parts of the archive. Initiated in 2019 by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, the publishing series ‘Reducie na stulecie’ [For Reduta’s Centennial] aims to disseminate and popularize the heritage of the Reduta, including the publication of source materials. The recently published fourth volume of the series – Juliusz Osterwa’s Dziennik 1934–1935 [Diary], whose original has unfortunately not survived – serves here as a case study.

Grotowski in Opole. A Case Study

Agnieszka Wójtowicz — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0300

Jerzy Grotowski’s theatre, especially in the period of his work in Opole (1959–1964), has most often been interpreted through the prism of aesthetics, actor training, and the evolution of the so-called ‘poor theatre’. Much less attention has been paid to its political dimension, frequently obscured both by contemporaneous critical discourse and by deliberate strategies of camouflage employed by Grotowski and his collaborators. This article argues that Studium o Hamlecie (1964; The Hamlet Study) constitutes Grotowski’s most explicit and radical political intervention, in which theatrical form became a vehicle for diagnosing the deepest tensions within Polish society under state socialism. The performance not only reflected but also critically reworked the ideological conflicts, social divisions, and latent violence characteristic of the Polish People’s Republic in the early 1960s.

Dramaturgies of Memory: Generative Procedures in the Theatre of Wajdi Mouawad, Oliver Frljić, and Robert Lepage

Tomaž Toporišič — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0300

The article examines the artistic approaches of three major contemporary theatre makers – Wajdi Mouawad, Oliver Frljić, and Robert Lepage – whose intercultural backgrounds shape their work. It explores how they challenge the tension between official historical narratives and fragile, subjective personal memory. Drawing on the legacy of ‘memory-theatre’ developed by figures such as Samuel Beckett, Heiner Müller, Ariane Mnouchkine, Hélène Cixous, and Thomas Bernhard, these artists treat memory as a fluid, evolving construct made of texts, images, and narratives. Through this, they create performances in which the real intrudes upon representation, revealing memory as unstable, porous, and politically charged.

Performing AI-Augmented Dramaturgy: The Case of The Frankenstein Complex

Rūta Mažeikienė — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0300

The article analyses the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in contemporary dramaturgy and the challenges it poses for the actor’s creative work. The object of this research is the production The Frankenstein Complex, a collaborative production of the National Kaunas Drama Theatre (Lithuania) and the Dirty Deal Teatro in Riga (Latvia), based on the play The Frankenstein Complex by the Latvian playwright Kārlis Krūmiņš and AI. The article seeks to explore how the concept of character changes in an AI-generated text and the impact this has on the actor’s creative process.
Based on theoretical literature, the analysis of the play, and the production, it is argued that AI-augmented dramaturgy gives rise to a new type of character – the ‘generated character’ – which emerges not as a coherent dramatic subject but as a fragmented linguistic structure. These changes in dramaturgy also lead to a shift in acting practice: the role is created not so much by analysing and interpreting the dramatic character, but by performatively constructing the character from fragmented textual material.

Collaboration Between Performer and Composer: The Case of Loreta Narvilaitė’s Violin Concerto Early Will the Sounds Rise High

Julija Andersson, Judita Žukienė — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0300

The article examines the collaboration between composer and performer (creative collaboration) within the process of musical creation. In recent decades, composers in the field of academic music have increasingly tended to engage performers in the creative process, taking their observations and recommendations into account. For composers and performers who lack such experience, it is important to learn from the practice of others, while for researchers it is essential to gain a deeper understanding of the process itself.
After examining the theoretical concepts published by the researchers Farell and Rosiak and conducting an artistic study based on empirical data, a model of the creative collaboration process was distilled. This model identifies the stages and sub-stages of the process: pre-collaboration (consisting of exploration of the creative field and the formation of a relationship), collaboration (including negotiation of the vision, the composer’s creative activity, and the performer’s contribution), and post-collaboration (the result). The experience of an experimental creative collaboration of the violinist and co-author of this article, Julija Andersson, with the composer Loreta Narvilaitė provided the article with authentic empirical data.
In order to determine the type of collaborative relationship between composer and performer, after reviewing similar theoretical concepts (Hayden and Windsor 2007; Budai 2014; Rosiak 2018), the study proposes a typology of creative collaboration that reveals the nature of this relationship. Four types of collaboration are identified: (1) directive, (2) indirect, (3) direct, and (4) symbiotic. Following a review of the creative processes behind post-minimalist violin concertos and a survey of composers and performers involved in these processes, appropriate examples were selected for each type. An analysis of the collaborative relationship between the composer Loreta Narvilaitė and the violinist Julija Andersson during the preparation of the premiere of the Concerto for Violin and Chamber Orchestra Early Will the Sounds Rise High (2025) identified their interaction as an example of direct collaboration.