250 years of public theatre in Poland marked with The Wedding
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
28.01.2015 12:25
A new production of Stanisław Wyspiański's celebrated play The Wedding is being staged in Warsaw to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of a public theatre in Poland.
Andrzej Seweryn (2L) in a new production of Stanisław Wyspiański's The Wedding. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
The play is being put on at Warsaw's Polish Theatre (Teatr Polski), which is itself marking its 102nd anniversary this year, under the baton of Krakow-based director Krzysztof Jasiński.
''It's brilliant that this play was written a hundred years ago, yet it hasn't lost any of its relevance,'' the director told Polish Radio.
''The words are still valid and painful,'' he added.
Seasoned actor Andrzej Seweryn is among ther actors cast in the production.
Wyspiański's 1901 play was inspired by an actual wedding near Krakow between his poet friend Lucjan Rydel and a peasant girl.
At that time, the Polish intelligenstia deeply romanticised the peasantry, arguing that only by the unity of the classes could Poland be reborn as a country after over a hundred years of partition.
Poland's National Theatre (Teatr Narodowy) was founded by the last King of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski, in 1765. (nh)