Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016), Oscar-winning, legendary Polish theatre and film director is considered one of the most prominent figures in Polish cinema and one of the most influential filmmakers of the twentieth century. Wajda’s career spanned over six decades, during which he directed over forthy feature films, numerous documentaries, television dramas, and theatre shows. Wajda was a member of the Polish Film School, a group of filmmakers who emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s whose work focused on psychologically complex situations, human emotions, and choices made in extreme circumstances. He was best known for his war trilogy consisting of the films A Generation (1955), Kanal (1957), and Ashes and Diamonds (1958), which explored the experiences of Poles, particularly Polish Underground Army (Armia Krajowa) during World War II and the post-war period. Wajda’s films often dealt with social and political themes and moral and political dilemmas faced by Poles and Polish fighters caught in a double bind of Nazi and Soviet occupations.

Not many people know that in addition to his prolific career as a filmmaker, Wajda was also a renowned theater director who directed productions at some of the most prestigious theaters in Poland, including the Stary Teatr in Kraków, the Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw, and the Teatr Współczesny in Wrocław. Wajda’s approach to theatre was known for its elaborate psychology, moody and somber mis-en-scéne, and heightened tension. Wajda directed his own adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment in 1984 at the Stary Teatr im. Heleny Modrzejewskiej, in Kraków.[1] However, this was not Wajda’s first encounter with Dostoyevsky; in 1971, at the same theatre, he directed Demons, adapted for stage by Albert Camus. [2] That staging was inspired by Pushkin and Japanese theatre. In 1977, Wajda directed Nastazja Filipowna, based on Dostoyevsky’s Idiot. The Dostoyevsky trilogy is considered a cornerstone of Wajda’s theatre, often called the Theatre of Conscience.[3]

Magda Romanska, theatre scholar, playwright, dramaturg, and translator, is a Professor of Performing Arts at Emerson College in Boston, MA, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, and a Principal Researcher at metaLAB (at) Harvard. Romanska is the author or editor of five critically acclaimed theatre books, including The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor (2012); TheaterMachine: Tadeusz Kantor in Context (2020, co-edited with Kathleen Cioffi); Reader in Comedy: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2016, co-edited with Alan Ackerman); and The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, a leading and best-selling handbook of dramaturgy.  She translated a collection of plays by Polish playwright and composer Boguslaw Schaeffer: Boguslaw Schaeffer: An Anthology (2012). She is also the sole editor of a series, Focus on Dramaturgy, from Routledge.  As a playwright, Romanska is a recipient of the MacDowell Fellowship, the Mass Council Artist Fellowship for Dramatic Writing, the Apothetae and Lark Theatre Playwriting Fellowship from the Time Warner Foundation, and PAHA Creative Arts Prize. Her play Opheliamachine premiered in Los Angeles and was staged recently at the Berliner Ensemble.  As a dramaturg, she has worked on over 30 theatre and opera productions, including at Yale Rep, Arts Emerson, Boston Lyric Opera, and with SITI Company.  Her public writing appeared in The Reed Magazine, The LA Review of Books, The Boston Globe, The Conversation, Salon, PBS, and The Cosmopolitan Review. She is the Founder, Executive Director, and Editor-in-Chief of an award-winning TheTheatreTimes.com, the largest global digital theatre portal. She’s a graduate of Stanford and Cornell’s doctoral program. She has taught at Yale School of Drama, Harvard, and Cornell University. More information…