One of the finest Polish theatre directors, founder of the Polish monumental theatre, born 14 March 1887 in Cracow, died 25 March 1954 in Warsaw.

Schiller, whose real name was Leon Jerzy Wojciech Schiller de Schildenfeld, came from a family which had originally been Austrian yet had become Polish in the course of time. He was educated at the Nowodworski St Anne's Gymnasium and passed his baccalaureate examinations as an extramural student in 1906. His home education acquainted him with the French language and with music. While at school, Schiller made friends with Juliusz Osterwa, acted in the Zielony Balonik cabaret, singing old Polish, French and own songs, and watched Cracow's theatrical life. After his baccalaureate he enrolled at the Department of Philosophy of Jagiellonian University, where Romantic studies became one of his areas of interest. As a student, he continued to appear in the cabaret as well as sang French and own songs in Arnold Szyfman's Figliki Theatre.

In 1907 he gave up his studies in Cracow and went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. There he got in touch with Edward Gordon Craig, one of the famed reformers of the twentieth-century theatre, who would exchange letters with him and print his essays in his theatrical magazine "The Mask" (including the one on Stanisław Wyspiański's theatre). The two men met in person in 1909, in Paris, where Schiller lived on and off until 1911. His stay in Warsaw in 1911 was marked by his performances in Szyfman's literary cabaret Momus. During his short sojourns in Munich he saw the theatrical projects of Max Reinhardt's (1910) and in 1911 may have visited Emil Jacques-Dalcroze's Eurythmics Institute in Hellerau.

Upon his return to Cracow in 1912, Schiller completed the Commercial Academy's Undergraduate Course and joined his father's company. He did not, however, part with the theatre – he became a reviewer, contributing to the magazines "Goniec Poniedziałkowy", "Krytyka" and "Museion", and proving himself an accomplished expert on European theatre. In 1913 he was a co-organiser of the Modern Stage Painting Exhibition in Warsaw. He spent World War I mostly in Cracow, making trips to Berlin and Vienna. During his six-month stay in Vienna he studied music composition at the Viennese conservatory. He established the Formist group with Tytus Czyżewski and Zbigniew and Andrzej Pronaszko in 1917, the year in which he settled in Warsaw and joined the city's Teatr Polski. The same year saw his debut as a director (with Konstanty Tatarkiewicz) of Tadeusz Konczyński's "Krolewna Lilijka / Princess Lilijka". His first entirely own production - "Miłość i loteria / Love and Gamble" after Jean Pierre Florian – followed in 1918. The same year Arnold Szyfman, who took over as Teatr Polski's manager from Ludwik Solski, made Schiller the Theatre's music and literary manager. It was then that Schiller wrote the script of "Szopka staropolska", a nativity play styled as folk poetry; Aleksander Zelwerowicz put it on stage in 1919. In 1920 Schiller and Ryszard Bolesławski produced Moliere's "The Would-be Gentleman".

In the 1920s Schiller was first the director and literary manager of the Society of the Warsaw Theatres and then the artistic manager of the Maska Theatre. In 1922-4 he associated himself with Juliusz Osterwa's Reduta Theatre and it was there that he created the first two of his grand, styled shows in 1922 and 1923, respectively: "Pastoralka / The Nativity Play", incorporating excerpts from old Polish Christmas mystery plays, and "Wielkanoc / Easter", a sixteenth-century mystery of Christ's Passion, using texts by Mikołaj from Wilkowiecko. Schiller based both scripts on "excavated" old Polish works, yet gave them an original shape. He interspersed "Wielkanoc" with his own, period additions, some of them comic interludes, others as if borrowed from the liturgical theatre. He would revisit old Polish writings a number of times, creating a music theatre based on his own scripts. His "singing pictures", brimming with spontaneity and joy, reflected his vast knowledge of old Polish literature and his musicality, and drew extensively from national and religious tradition.

Schiller did more productions at the Reduta, notably "Pochwala wesolosci / In Praise of Merriness" (1924), a show consisting of staged songs, and "Dawne czasy w Piosence, Poezji i Zwyczajach Polskich / Old times' polish Songs, Poetry and Customs" (1924) as well as Aleksander Fredro's "Nowy Don Kichot / New Don Kichote" to music by Stanisław Moniuszko (1923).

Schiller left the Reduta in 1924 because of the conflict with Osterwa; some of the theatre's crew left with him. Shortly afterwards he was appointed artistic manager of the Boguslawski Theatre, a tenure he was to hold for two years (the municipal authorities closed the theatre down in 1926 and opened a cinema on its premises). Schiller had managed the Boguslawski Theatre on his own for two seasons and then he co-ran it with Wilam Horzyca and Aleksander Zelwerowicz. The Theatre had opened as a popular venue for the masses, and Schiller aimed to combine this mission with top intellectual and esthetic standards of performances. He managed to create an avant-garde venue with an ambitious repertory, a cradle of modern Polish production integrating various domains of theatre activity and working with the finest artists and musicians. He produced spectacular performances with Formist sets designed by Zbigniew and Andrzej Pronaszko and Wincenty Drabik, and used light in a modern way, it and the music marking the rhythm of the shows. It was at the Boguslawski Theatre that he prepared premieres of three plays: Tadeusz Micinski's "Kniaź Patiomkin" (1925), a historical work on revolution set in a mobile, three-dimensional design; Stanisław Wyspiański's "Achilleis" (1925) and Stefan Żeromski's "Roza / The Rose" (1926).

"Schiller's staging of 'Róża', emphatic and man-like, evoked the metaphysical dimension of the struggle for national freedom as well as being an ecstatic cry of protest against the abuse of freedom in free Poland", wrote Henryk Rogacki (H. I. Rogacki, "Leon Schiller. Człowiek i teatr" / The Man and the Theatre, Lodz 1995).

Schiller also staged Shakespeare at the Bogusławski Theatre: "The Winter's Tale" in 1924 and "As You Like It" in 1925. It was also there, in 1926, that he first tried tackling a Romantic drama. His choice was Zygmunt Krasiński's "Nie-boska Komedia / The Un-Divine Comedy", and Schiller filled Krasiński's vision of the revolution with many a reference to the Bolshevik upheaval. Meanwhile, his passion for music shows prompted him to produce two more "singing pictures", "Podróż po Warszawie / Travelling across Warsaw" and "Bandurka" (1924).

Schiller's work at the Bogusławski Theatre brought to the fore the characteristics of his multi-faceted theatrical pursuits: modern staging and respect for the word, expressive courage in tackling social issues, interest in revolutionary changes and, concurrently, metaphysical musings of the world.

After the closure of the Bogusławski Theatre, Schiller returned - as a director - to the Teatr Polski; it was still managed by Arnold Szyfman. There he made a naturalistic and socially involved production of Stefan Żeromski's "Dzieje Grzechu / A Story of Sin" (1926), a show which came under attack of the press and the audience, yet was highly popular and attracted huge audiences owing to its scandalous reputation and charges of pornography, brutality, anarchy, and a Bolshevik flavour.

When Juliusz Słowacki's ashes were brought to Poland in 1927, the coffin waited at the Warsaw St John's Cathedral before interment in the Wawel compound. Schiller marked this occasion with "Królowi duchowi w dniu jego powrotu / To King-Spirit on His Day of Return", an open-air show in the Old Town Marketplace based on Słowacki's "Kordian" and "Ksiądz Marek / Father Marek". His other 1927 production - this time put on the stage of the Teatr Polski - was Słowacki's "Samuel Zborowski". Received as a national mystery play, this production was not intended as a grand show; instead, it highlighted the poetic and dramatic qualities of the text.

The following year Schiller revisited Shakespeare, producing "Julius Caesar", and 1929 saw him put on Bertolt Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera". This premiere provoked a scandal, as a result of which Szyfman decided not to renew Schiller's contract. Wrote Edward Krasinski:

"Bold and audacious, Schiller's production got Szyfman into major trouble, brought financial, moral and political losses. Some of the audience left the theatre before the end, censors interfered, critics (...) protested against the abominations, sadism, naturalistic bluntness, low-life and thieving jargon, trivial music (E. Krasinski, "Leon Schiller w Teatrze Polskim 1917-1952" / Leon Schiller at Teatr Polski, Warsaw 1987).

Schiller was a great artistic personality by then and so side by side with the attack there came voices defending him and protesting against his leaving the Teatr Polski. Before he left, he had produced Wyspiański's "Boleslaw Smialy" in 1929, using Wyspiański's premiere staging of 1903 and set design by Karol Frycz, as well as Wojciech Bogusławski's "Krakowiacy i gorale / Cracovians and Highlanders", an open-air performance shown in the Old Town the same year.

At that time Schiller sympathised with the communist left and worked with the Workers' Theatre Studio operating under the auspices of the Communist Party of Poland. He had always been open about his left-wing views, and it was not the first time he got attacked and expelled from the theatre for them.

In 1929 he moved to Lodz as a director of the town's Teatr Miejski run by Karol Adwentowicz. There he produced Anderson and Stallings' "The Rivals" in Carl Zuckmayer's adaptation (1929), "The Good Soldier Svejk" after Jaroslaw Hasek (1930), and Friedrich Wolf's "Cyankali" (1930). This way he implemented his programme of contemporary, left-wing, socially and politically involved theatre, called "Zeittheater", that is a theatre strongly rooted in its time, inspired by expressionism and German avant-garde. "The Rivals" contained a powerful anti-war appeal, "Cyankali" dealt with abortion, and "Svejk" turned out to be a biting political satire.

In 1930 Wilam Horzyca employed Schiller as artistic manager of the Lvov City Theatres. There he produced "Victory" after Joseph Conrad (1930), Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" (1931) as well as contemporary "Zeittheater" plays, such as Gerhart Hauptmann's "Dorothea Angermann" (1930) and Arnold Zweig's "The Case of Sergeant Grischa" (1931). All of his performances used stage design by Władysław Daszewski.

Schiller did not stay in Lvov for long. He soon spoke in favour of a country-wide actors' strike and came under attack of right-wing press. He went to Warsaw to run the Teatr Melodram, but in 1932 Horzyca re-employed him at the Lvov Theatres despite the protests of the municipal authorities. It was Horzyca's idea for Schiller to produce Adam Mickiewicz's "Dziady / The Forefathers' Eve" with Andrzej Pronaszko's stage design. This production was an excellent example of the idea of monumental theatre, also called the "Total Theatre", growing out of the thinking of Adam Mickiewicz, Stanislaw Wyspianski and Gordon Craig. Already manifest in "Kniaz Patiomkin" and then in "Samuel Zborowski" (Teatr Polski in Warsaw, 1927), "Ksiadz Marek" (Teatr Nowy in Poznan, 1928) and "Kordian" (Teatr Wielki in Lvov, 1930), this trend was kept up in Schiller's subsequent productions of Polish romantic dramas, modern and using avant-garde means.

Lvov saw Schiller first produce the entire "Dziady". Highlighting the drama's mystery qualities, his production was a polemic with Stanislaw Wyspianski's 1901 staging of the work. The following year Schiller produced Mickiewicz's drama in the Vilno Teatr na Pohulance and in 1934 he staged it at Warsaw's Teatr Polski. The story unveiled at the foot of Three Crosses erected on what was almost an empty stage, with changing colours of the sky. The sets included grey and brown platforms and, as the story moved on, there appeared additional items such as a cross-section of a little Orthodox church, a grille, a window, a door arch.

"One of the most interesting qualities of this production was the inter-penetration of spheres of human drama, even though the director set them apart all the time ...", wrote Zbigniew Raszewski. "Underlying the entire production was the need to penetrate to the deepest layers of truth, the ones which, though still accessible to our experience, are difficult to express in an ordinary language" (Z. Raszewski. "Krotka historia teatru polskiego" / A Brie History of the Polish Theatre, Warsaw 1990).

Schiller's last production of "Dziady" was at the National Theatre in Sophia in 1937.

Sergey Tretyakov's "Speak Out, China" and Juliusz Słowacki's "Sen srebrny Salomei / Salome's Silver Dream" were two other Lvov productions of the Schiller-Pronaszko team, made in 1932; the press accused "Sen Srebrny Salomei" of being anti-Polish. The same year Schiller was temporarily arrested, due to both what some found to be his "left-wing" art and to his widely known political views. At that time Schiller signed an anti-war appeal containing a backing for the politics of the Soviet Union. This triggered off a sharp press campaign against the supposed promoter of "the red theatre", and Schiller had to leave Lvov.

A helping hand was extended by Stefan Jaracz, who invited Schiller to co-manage the Ateneum Theatre. As a result Schiller again tried his hand in the contemporary repertory, producing Carl Zuckmayer's "The Captain of Koepenick" (1932) with Jaracz as a superb Voigt the cobbler, as well as Tretyakov's "Speak Out, China" (1933), his third production of the play, this time staged as a photomontage.

In 1933 Schiller established the Department of Directing Art at the National Institute of Theatrical Art; he would lead it until the war. Meanwhile, after a period of stormy co-operation, he had parted with Jaracz, who left the Ateneum. From 1934 Schiller ran the Nowe Ateneum Theatre together with Karol Adwentowicz, and started to work with the Society for Promotion of Theatrical Culture. As the Society included the Warsaw Teatr Polski, Schiller resumed directing there and produced "Crime and Punishment" after Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1934) – a universal, deeply human and modern tale of mankind, Shakespeare's "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (1934) and "King Lear" (1935), Stanisław Wyspiański's "Wyzwolenie / Liberation" (1935), and Słowacki's "Kordian" (1935).

In the 1930's Schiller's heterogeneous, yet invariably distinctive and expressive staging style gave way to what is called neorealism, with sparser use of theatrical means and rejection of naturalism and radical avant-garde. Still, Schiller remained close to the human being, speaking for respect for humanity and against disregard for the tragic fate and choices of individuals.

Closer to the war Schiller staged his productions in a number of cities, including Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna and Lvov. His most notable productions from that period were "Anna Karenina" after Leo Tolstoy at the Warsaw Teatr Kameralny in 1938 and Thornton Wilder's "Our Town", which he did three times in 1939, at the Teatr Narodowy in Warsaw, Teatr Miejski in Łódź and Teatr Wielki in Lvov.

During the war he initially lived in Warsaw, writing and managing the Underground Theatre Council with Bohdan Korzeniewski, Edmund Wierciński and Andrzej Pronaszko. In mid March 1941he got imprisoned in the Warsaw Pawiak prison. From there he was transferred to Auschwitz, but his family's financial assistance made it possible for him to get out by the end of May 1941. While a prisoner at Auschwitz, he underwent a profound religious conversion, his feelings bordering on the mystic and prompting him to become a Benedectine oblate. He directed some poignant performances with the inmates of the Samaritan Sisters' Home for fallen girls in Henrykow: "Pastoralka" (1942), "Gody weselne / Nuptials" (1943) and "Wielkanoc / Easter" (1944). During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 he led the theatre brigade, and they would make productions at the front line. After the Uprising collapsed, Schiller, by then a second lieutenant of the Home Army, was taken to the Murnau oflag. There he was involved in theatrical activities and wrote a lot. After the oflag was liberated by the US army, he moved to Lingen near the Dutch border, where he set up the Boguslawski Teatr Ludowy under the patronage of the Polish YMCA. There he produced "Gody Weselne" and "Kram z piosenkami / The Song Stall", and showed them in a number of places within the English occupation zone in Germany as well as in Holland.

He came to Warsaw in 1945, but moved to Lodz and lived there until 1949. He took the side of the authorities, easily accommodating to the new realities. Indeed, he involved himself intensely and zealously in political activities: joined the Polish Workers' Party, served as a deputy to the Sejm in 1947 and was a delegate to the workers' parties uniting congress. He was appointed chancellor of the National Higher School of Theatre, initially based in Lodz. He edited the theatrical magazine "Lodz Teatralna" and was appointed editor of the magazine "Teatr". From 1946 he managed the Teatr Wojska Polskiego (Polish Army Theatre) in Lodz, where his most noted productions were Boguslawski's "Cracovians and Highlanders" (1946) and Fernando de Rojas beautiful, poetic fairy tale "La Celestina" (1947). He also did an excellent, very clear and moving interpretation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (1947) as well as Jan Drda's morality play "Igraszki z diablem / Trifling with the Devil" (1948) and Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths" (1949).

In 1949 he moved to Warsaw and continued as chancellor of the theatre school which had been moved from Lodz. He also took over as the manager of the Teatr Polski from Arnold Szyfman, who had been recalled for political reasons. Soon he, too, was dismissed by the authorities from his positions of the chancellor of the National Theatre Academy and the manager of the Teatr Polski.

"We have nationalised factories and mines, we have distributed land among the peasants, we have thrown me out of the theatre", Schiller would later remark ironically.

In the last period of his creative life he was basically removed from the theatre, although he managed to produce a few guest premieres, notably of Stanislaw Moniuszko's "Hrabina / The Countess" (1951) and "Halka" (1953) at the Warsaw Opera. In 1950 he became chairman of the Association of Polish Theatre and Film Artists, an organisation which replaced the disbanded, dating from the pre-war times Union of Polish Stage Artists ZASP. He also started to manage the Theatre Section of the National Arts Institute. In 1952 he established "Pamietnik Teatralny", a quarterly devoted to the history and criticism of the theatre. At that time he met Bertolt Brecht on his visit to Warsaw, and started to promote his theatrical thinking. He went to Berlin twice and invited Brecht to Poland in 1952.

Schiller died on 25 March 1954 and was buried in the Alley of Merit at the Warsaw Powazki Cemetery.

His key essays and articles were collected in the volume "Teatr ogromny" (Warszawa, 1961) ed. Zbigniew Raszewski and Jerzy Timoszewicz.

Honours and awards:

• 1947 - 1st prize of the Minister of Culture and Art during the Shakespeare's Festival for the production of "The Tempest" at the Teatr Wojska Polskiego in Lodz;
  
• 1949 - Award at the Russian and Soviet Arts Festival in Katowice for the production of Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths" at the Teatr Wojska Polskiego in Lodz; national award in the area of the theatre;
  
• 1950 - National (team) award of 2nd degree for the staging of Stanislaw Moniuszko's "Halka" at the Poznan Opera;
  
• 1950 - Order of the Banner of Labour of 1st class;
  
• 1953 - Gold Cross of Merit.

Author: Monika Mokrzycka-Pokora, August 2006

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