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Eimuntas Nekrošius's Transnational ‘Voice from Lithuania’: Reinterpreting Polish Classics within Frames of the Theatre of Sensual Metaphors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2022

ARTUR DUDA
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Abstract

The aim of this article is an interpretation of Eimuntas Nekrošius's performances staged in the National Theatre Warsaw in the last years of his life. In the context of complex political and cultural relationships between Poland and Lithuania, the aesthetics of the theatre of sensual metaphors invented by Nekrošius might be perceived from an uncommon perspective – not as a type of universal art presenting crucial issues of mankind, but as a transnational reinterpretation of Polish classic plays – first of all, the nineteenth-century Forefathers’ Eve by Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish poet born near Vilnius in Lithuania. From this point of view, the theatre of Nekrošius reveals his political potential to create a transnational bridge between neighbour states. The author tries to apply notions of ‘subaltern agency’ (Gayatri Spivak) and the ‘cosmopolitan subject’ (Yana Meerzon) to present the complex issue of empowerment of Polish and Lithunanian subjects – from rejection of the false messianic consciousness to transnational rapprochement.

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Article
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , October 2022 , pp. 252 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2022

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References

NOTES

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4 Ibid., p. 247.

5 Meerzon, Performance, Subjectivity, Cosmopolitanism, p. 24.

6 Ibid., p. 10.

7 See Meerzon's comment on Kwame Anthony Appiah's notion of cosmopolitanism in ibid., p. 22.

8 Ibid., p. 17.

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37 Mickiewicz, Dziady, l. 44, p. 111, translation Artur Duda.

38 See the review of this performance: Artur Duda, ‘A Lithuanian Marriage in Warsaw or The Last Production of the Great Eimuntas Nekrošius’, European Stages, 13 (2019), at https://europeanstages.org/2019/06/14/a-lithuanian-marriage-in-warsaw-or-the-last-production-of-the-great-eimuntas-nekrosius/ (accessed 14 September 2022).

39 Zbigniew Majchrowski, Krypta Gustawa (Warsaw: The Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, 2021).

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