POSTPONED: Witold Gombrowicz's Theatrophobia: The Playwright and His Double

Jan. 27 update: 

Dear CREECA community:

We regret that the lecture scheduled for this Thursday 1/29, Allen Kuharski’s talk on “Witold Gombrowicz’s Theatrophobia: The Playwright and His Double” is canceled, due to speaker illness. We apologize for any inconvenience and will explore options for rescheduling this talk with Professor Kuharski for a future date.

UW Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia (CREECA) lecture series, Room 206. Coffee/tea and cookies at 3:45 pm.

media release: 

Allen Kuharski is professor emeritus and senior research scholar in theater at Swarthmore College, where he taught directing, performance theory, and theater history. He is a widely published authority on contemporary directing theory and practice, as well of Polish theater and drama, in particular the work of Witold Gombrowicz. 

This talk will discuss Gombrowicz, Poland’s most produced playwright around the world. His first play Ivona, Princess of Burgundia is the most-produced Polish play of all time outside of Poland. This lecture discusses how Gombrowicz’s theater leads a double life: it has always been simultaneously performed in the most “classical” established institutional settings and embraced by the theatrical avant-garde. Gombrowicz’s writing also crosses an astonishing variety of performance genres, including film, radio, opera, and dance.

At the same time, no playwright was so deliberately distanced from his own work in performance. While both outspoken politically and courageously open regarding sexuality and desire, including his own, he demonstrated a profound avoidance behavior around the concrete theatrical embodiment of his writing.