Through the Absurd in the Search for Alternative
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33057609 SOMETHING OLD… SOMETHING NEW… SOMETHING BORROWED… SOMETHING ORANGE THROUGH THE ABSURD IN SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVE NORMALITY - A CASE STUDY OF ORANGE ALTERNATIVE’S HAPPENINGS - INTRODUCTION The definition proposed by Oxford English Dictionary contains the following explanation for the meaning of absurd: ‘Out of harmony with reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical. In modern use, esp. plainly opposed to reason, and hence, ridiculous, silly.’1 Absurd, expressed in the idea of the possibility of the impossible, and the hopeless but dedicated search for the ideal forms of independence of thought and expression accompanied Poles through the partitions, World War I, and into the interwar period. A note of absurd that accompanied Polish artists can be seen through the literature of artists ranging from Juliusz Słowacki to the makings of Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Bruno Shultz, Wojciech Fangor, Zdzisław Beksiński, among others. During Communism, this absurd was well expressed through the plays of Tadeusz Różewicz and Sławomir Mrożek and filmic creations of Stanisław Bareja and Marek Piwowski.2 This mode of thinking was carefully cultivated within the Polish psyche for generations of occupations. It resulted in creation of abstract wishes of homeland regaining an almost anarchistic independence (for which one of the most common symbols was the memory of the days of the Golden Era of the Polish kingdom, when one senator could dismiss 1 Simpson, J.A., Weiner, E.S.C., The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, Vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 57, 2 For basic information and examples of their works, see appendix, p.42-45 1 33057609 a law with a single vote – the famous liberum veto3), and has grown into an unreachable ideal. Throughout the years of struggle for freedom first in Romantic period and similarly in the 20th century, national uprising has often been a priority for Poles. It was only after World War II, that the Communist system imposed on Poland by the Soviet Union (in the post-war conferences held in Yalta and Potsdam) brought these ‘Platonic’ dreams of greatness into an area of revision. The very structured and controlled makeup of the Communist system and the one-way philosophy was meant to direct Poles (used to personal individualistic values but also with an ever strong sense of national belonging) to a single objective of following the Party’s central planning. What was once believed, now has seemed to turn into a certain kind of social schizophrenia, where normality, as seen through Socialist lenses was contradicted with an ever-present, but blurred and confused by Communist mind game image of an ideal. The particularities of the Polish psyche gave way to a very specific brand of Communism that developed in Poland. The Polish romantic ideals were substituted with Communist propagandistic notions of ‘independence’ and ‘equality’, which within four decades turned to be a tiring reality of a man living in People’s Republic of Poland, fed with propaganda of ideals that did not find its equivalent in the ‘real world’. The endless search for an exit from social and psychological control led to a feeling of lost hope and certainty of life’s meaninglessness. The life of Poland in the 1980s could be compared to the absurdist plays such as Adamov’s Invasion or even Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. People felt that ‘the quest for meaning in life is hopeless and that any search for a sense of direction is a waste of 4 time.’ 3 Liberum veto, from Latin means ‘free not to agree’, as according to Norman Davies in Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland (1984), it was ‘the right of any one man to reject the legislation of the Diet.’ It was introduced by Prince Radziwiłł and voted legal in 1652 by the Polish Diet. This notion became a symbol of Polish, almost anarchistic democracy. 4 ‘Deciphering the Indecipherable’ in: Bert Kardullo & Robert Knopf, Theater of the Avant-Garde: 1890-1950, A Critical Anthology (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2001), p.468 2 33057609 Absurd, expressed artists such as Adamov and Beckett in the post-war existential expression of the loss of values, however, has prolonged its stay in Poland much further, making it a part of everyday reality. In Poland, the destruction of values never finished and, under a totalitarian system, changed into their constant mutation. Therefore, it came natural, almost inborn, for Polish artists to use absurd in their means of communication. As Martin Esslin puts it, ‘While the absurdist writers of the West could abstract themselves from an immediate political presence, the Central Europeans confronted an existential anguish transmuted into the daily madness of living in an artificially distorted daily reality.’5 Overall, people in the 1980s’ Poland felt oppressed and tired by constant struggle with the government of paradoxical values. The normality they experienced neither paralleled the normality they were longing for nor the normality they were convinced to believe in by the government. Life resembled a constant poker game, where the faces of reality did not correspond with the status quo. The invasion of government into every aspect of life plunged the absurdity of Polish paradox even deeper, constrained the free expression and fixated the Poles in their schizophrenia. As Janine Wedel expresses it in her book Unplanned Society, in 1980s ‘“normal” had two meanings in Polish life: the way things are, and how things really ought to be.’6 This schizophrenic search for freedom as well as the deformation and loss of ideals can be well seen through literature of, earlier mentioned, Sławomir Mrożek,7 who uses ‘deadpan irony to probe searchingly the incongruities of contemporary life. […] He believes that humor immunizes against both the harshness of everyday life and the historic 8 reminiscences so full of bitter, tragic memories.’ 5 Esslin, Martin “Mrożek, Beckett, and The Theatre of the Absurd”, New Theatre Quarterly. vol. X (40), 1994. p. 379 6 Janine Wedel, The Unplanned Society: Poland During and After Communism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p.16 7 Stanisław Mrożek is a Polish playwright and prosaist (born in 1930). To read ‘The Elephant’ – a short story by Mrożek, which portrays the disintegration of ideals, see appendix, pp.46-47 8 M.K. Dziewanowski, Poland in the 20th century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), p.240 3 33057609 Through the disappointment with the status quo a strong opposition was born. An independent Trade Union Solidarity9 formed soon to constitute one-third of the country’s population, and together with the Church protested against the governmental tactics. However, something was missing in this serious battle against the authorities, who, with a poker face, managed to put all attempts of reform to naught. The peak of this game was a declaration of martial law10. Thousands of people were interrogated, arrested and interned. Curfew was induced and food was rationed, among others. With a degrading economy hidden within the cards, the government managed to cheat the people once again into a mindless scare. An alternative, distant view at the system was necessary to show these people the emptiness of the proclaimed ideals and expose them to the system’s ‘rules of the game’. Orange Alternative, not willing to join this power-struggle, instead of joining as another player in the game, decided to add a little humor. Bringing out a mirror into the poker table, Major and his peers showed what this game really was about, and meddle with the contestants. Disagreeing with the government, but not keen on the fight on the side of the structured makeup of the Opposition, a group of students with a leadership of Waldemar Fydrych aka ‘Major’, have decided to take a different stance – an alternative road to freedom. Picking ‘orange’ as their representative color, they tried to show that the reality lies outside of the authoritarian, closely censored life of Communism (red) and structured, reactionary Opposition of the Church and Solidarity (yellow stands for Catholic Church). They searched for their way through spontaneous action that could draw inspiration from the surroundings, but fought for completely new ideals and not the spent wishes of the past generations. 9 Solidarity in Polish: Solidarność, was a first self-governing independent trade union in a Communist state. It was founded in September 1980 in the Gdańsk Shipyard, and originally led by Lech Wałęsa, who, in 1990 became the first president of independent post-Communist Poland. 10 Martial Law is a system of rules, which gives the controlling power to the military, usually imposed during wars or occupations. In Poland martial law was declared by General Jaruzelski on December 13, 1981 and lasted until July 22, 1983, and was a government’s attempt to crash the opposition. Series of restrictions were imposed as well as thousands of arrests and internments of oppositionists took place. 4 33057609 Overall, one might argue that the Communist rule in Poland resembled a poker game. The authorities were experts in bluffing. To win the psychological battle they set up, it was essential to stop taking their threats and promises seriously. The opposition, first expressed through art, literature and theatre (developing its own form of language, where the meaning was portrayed through metaphors and symbols that only Polish people were acquainted with and so only they could understand)11 constituted a worthy opponent, however, their actions were always a response to the government’s game. A set of new ‘tricks’ had to be made to surprise a rival and bring a game to another level – an alternative normality, where this time the Party can be beaten by their own weapons. In this essay I will examine the suppositions of Orange Alternative – an alternative theater movement that developed in the midst of the absurdist chaos of decaying totalitarian regime in Poland.