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22 March 2010

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Jerzy Jarocki
languages: Polish  / English 
 

One of the most important theatrical and television directors in the Polish post-war theatre, born in 1929.

 fot. Photopass.pl 
He studied in Moscow in the class of Konstanty Stanisławski's collaborator - Gorczakow. He debuted in 1957 with Bruno Jasieński's "Ball of the Dummies" in the Stanisław Wyspiański Theatre of Silesia. In 1959, he prepared the Polish premiere of Witold Gombrowicz's "Wedding", with a students' theatre created especially for this occasion at the Technical University of Gliwice. The play was taken off after five shows.

Jarocki's work is dominated by contemporary literature such as Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Friedrich Durrenmatt, Włodzimierz Majakowski. His three favourite authors are Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Witold Gombrowicz and Tadeusz Różewicz. The staging of Witkiewicz's "Mother" with Ewa Lassek in the main role, realised for the Theatre of the Television in 1976 was generally found to be purely canonical. A similar opinion is attached to Calderon de la Barca's "Life Is a Dream" (Old Theatre, 1983), Gombrowicz's "Wedding" at the Old Theatre (1991) with the outstanding performance of Jerzy Radziwiłowicz and "The Trap" of the Polish Theatre of Wrocław (1992). Jarocki directed the premieres of most dramas by Tadeusz Różewicz: "He Went Out", "My Daughter", "Old Woman Incubating", "On All Fours".

The 1990s were a particularly important period for the director. It was then that he created the renowned stagings of Anton Czechow's "Platonov", Heinrich von Kleist's "Cathy from Heilbronn" and Czechow's "Uncle Wania" in the Polish Theatre in Wroclaw, and "Burying" based on Witkiewicz and Johann Wolfgang Goethe's "Faust" in the Old Theatre in Krakow.

Jerzy Jarocki's shows are characteristic through their realism, a deep, even mathematical analysis of the text and its very detailed reading. Jarocki reveals a universal aspect of the plays he stages, he composes meticulously all elements of the staging, starting with the set design, costumes, through music, to the actors, from whom he requires absolute subordination to his vision of the scenic world.
"Jarocki, called Herod among the directors, is a very demanding artist", said the outstanding actor, Gustaw Holoubek. "For years our theatrical tradition was shaded by a 'cloud of romanticism'. Polish actors believed that in order to exist on the stage, it was enough to follow the words themselves and the emotional, affective side of the part. This way, for many years, we have been making our romanticism stupid by separating it from the intellectual layer. From all this, which is its wisdom, besides the emotional charge. Jarocki is one of the first directors to wake up from this marasmus".
The "acting school" of Jerzy Jarocki attended such actors as Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, Krzysztof Globisz, Kinga Preis, Jolanta Fraszyńska and Ewa Skibińska.

Selected awards:
  • 1967 - the Schiller award for achievements in the field of theatre directing with a special mention of directing Polish contemporary plays in 1965-67
  • 1971 - the award of the Ministry of Culture and Art of the First Degree for the whole output of directing achievements, and especially for directing the plays: "Mother", "He Went Out", "My Daughter"
  • 1977 - the Konrad Swinarski Award
  • 1994 - 3rd Prize for the staging of "Platonov" in the Polish Theatre in Wrocław, during the Festival of Torun
  • 1997 - the Award of the Minister of Culture and Art for the achievements in the field of artistic creation
  • 2000 - the Honoris Causa Doctorate of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow

Prepared in 2001.

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