2024/01/19 by Kowal, Justyna
paper · doi:10.34762/40nh-8450
The main purpose of the article is to examine the reconstruction method as one of the most important features of Jakub Skrzywanek’s theatrical language. His own model of reconstruction of reality, placed against the background of Rebecca Schneider’s theory of reenactment, appears to be a tool for social intervention. An analysis of Skrzywanek's performances that use reconstruction – Opowieści niemoralne (Immoral Tales), Spartakus. Miłość w czasie zarazy (Spartacus. Love in the Time of Plague) and Midsummer Night’s Dream (co-directed with Justyna Sobczyk) – confirms the thesis of the political nature of reenactment and shows an evolution of the method of reconstruction as well as the various strategies for replicating reality employed by the director. The article also attempts to find common featuresand – to chart a certain poetics of reconstruction. This reconstruction consists of the use of archival documents in the performance, collaboration with groups of experts and specialists, exposing the corporeality of the archives, affective influence, Brecht's V-effect and framing stage action with media and text indicators. The method of reconstruction, additionally equipped with a strong exposure of meta-theatricality and the entanglement of theatre in media negotiations, finds its most perfect development in Skrzywanek’s latest premiere, Zbrodnia i kara. Z powodu zbrodni Rosjan, których nie potrafimy zrozumieć (Crime and Punishment. Because of the Russian Crimes that We Cannot Understand).