Fredro. The Jubilee Year

In 2023 we celebrated the 230th anniversary of the birth of Aleksander Fredro. He came from an illustrious family though soon he got to know the darkest sides of the world. When he was 16 he joined the army where he experienced the savagery of life. In Napoleon’s headquarters he saw the cynicism of imperial policy. During the winter retreat from Moscow he experienced such horrible things that his psyche wiped them out and he was not able to talk about them for a long time. He returned home humiliated by the defeat, with no post-partition hope and after some time he started to write – comedies. Anonymously.       

His debut one-act play had one performance on a Lvov stage. His later full show plays were put in National Theatre where in 1823 – 201 years ago – due to the audience applause he decided to reveal his name. He became famous as the author though the critics hammered him. An then in 1839 he broke his pen. Though after some time he returned to writing prose, poems and dramas, but he neither published nor staged them.   

He did not take part in public life with the exception of a short period during Spring of Nations, and for that he was brought to trial in Austrian court for treason. The trial drumbled for several years and finally his lawyers succeeded in removing the danger.   

After Fredro’s death in 1876 his comedies returned to theatres and became classics; up to this day they have provoked extreme opinions. Fredro as a prose-writer, aphorist, a poet, a society observer, author of original thoughts, observations and narrative forms has been less known.

Fredro reflexive, getting old, branded with infamy, brought to trial and put on monuments…  

„(…) in this theatre there must be a routine to praise acting. […] my impression is that if not for Marek Barbasiewicz, Hubert Paszkiewicz, Waldemar Kownacki, Kacper Matula or the court president Wiesław Cichy we would not watch the trial with such tension. It also concerns the scenes taken out of comedies. When Grzegorz Kwiecień, Dominika Kluźniak, and for a moment Kacper Matula show us a triangle from „Man And Wife”, not a love one because they are three bored persons, we feel that this situation is close to our times. When Paweł Paprocki revels as Papkin buffoon and soon he becomes a melancholic or even tragicomical Papkin we understand that it is worth looking for truth about man in <<small comedies>>.

Maiden’s vows are taken on stage first by young and proficient actresses: Ewa Bukała and Justyna Kowalska and later… Anna Seniuk and Ewa Wiśniewska. This is a double joke, a little bit surreal. But maybe expressing the lines by great actresses of our generation lets us deeply live through their generality. On the other hand Anna Seniuk is also very convincing as Fredro’s wife dedicating him a few words of defence.   

Grzegorz Małecki as young Fredro is very impressive. But it is Jan Englert who has the last word. He speaks Fredro’s texts from „Notes of an Old Man”, about old age, about the fear of the process of dying and we have the feeling that he sells us not only Fredro but a piece of himself, his experience, his life credo. When I find such accents in theatre I want it to last as long as possible”, Piotr Zaremba wrote in his review.     

„And this has been for many years, which is proved by a special tribute of the creators and actors of the spectacle in audiovisual form on two screens, lines from Fredro’s works are spoken – in an actors’ generation relay – by most outstanding actors, from Ludwik Solski, Jacek Woszczerowicz, Tadeusz Fijewski and Tadeusz Łomnicki to Andrzej Łapicki, Gustaw Holoubek, Wojciech Pszoniak, Roman Polański, Janusz Gajos, Andrzej Seweryn, Jan Peszek and to Joanna Szczepkowska and Danuta Stenka”, Jacek Cieślak noticed in his review.     

The performance is recommended for spectators over 15 years of age.