Hello again theaterlover
Thanks for getting back to me. I enjoyed this research and am pleased
to think it will be useful to you.
It should be fairly straightforward for you to get hold of the
relevant article in Theatre Quarterly (see below), but if you have any
difficulty with this please let me know so I can help locate a copy
for you.
Twenty-four years ago in Poland a mime version of Hamlet was directed
by the influential Henryk Tomaszewski. His company often performed
west of the iron curtain, and it seems likely that Hamlet was included
in the repertoire for at least one tour. A British newspaper called it
one of his "most notable" productions.
Tomaszewski and his Wroclaw Pantomime Theatre (Wroclawski Teatr
Pantomimy) are important names in the history of mime. Their "Hamlet:
Irony and Mourning" (Hamlet: Ironia i Zaloba) had its debut on 26 July
1979.
Here are a few excerpts from online sources, with links leading to
more information about Tomaszewski and his company:
"From the beginning, Tomaszewski's intent was to create a new kind of
theatre, based on group pantomime. Beginning with illustrative
pantomime, based on plots taken from literature, this path led to
autonomous full-length productions.
[...]
Henryk Tomaszewski shaped his group for forty-five years in a
conscious and determined manner. He was the group's best actor,
appearing on the stage until 1963, as well as stage manager, author
and choreographer. Together with the group, he created a unique
pantomime theatre. He replaced words with movement, capturing thoughts
and abstractions, embodying non-verbal dreams and imaginings. Creating
modern body language, he drew on methods ranging from the ascetic to
the Baroque, but also in a communicative and precise way. He
introduced the art of mime into the sphere of philosophy. In his
theatre, it was concepts that drove what was happening on the stage.
He was inspired not only by the art of dance and movement, but also by
literature and painting, and the great world myths, such as Faust,
Orpheus, the Minotaur, Pan Twardowski, King Arthur, the Prodigal Son
and Gilgamesh."
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_tomaszewski_henryk
========================================================
"Henryk Tomaszewski was one of two Central European artists who,
separately but concurrently, developed a richer alternative practice,
he in Poland and his contemporary Ladislav Fialka in Czechoslovakia.
They set out to use mime as an expressive medium on its own account,
avoiding the frequently met dangers of seeming like dance without
choreography or, on the other hand, drama without words: in either
case a kind of cheap imitation of the real thing.
Fialka performed with a small supporting ensemble; Tomaszewski was
content to stay out of the limelight himself, and he worked on a
bigger scale, creating narratives for a cast sometimes as large as
thirty performers.
[...]
Born in Poznan, Henryk Tomaszewski first studied at the Cracow Ballet
School, and danced with the company of Felix Parnell before joining
the Polish National Ballet at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw. He started
his Polish Mime Ballet Theatre in Wroclaw in 1955 and subsequently
toured the world."
http://www.teatry.art.pl/!inne/pantomima/henrykt.htm
========================================================
"Tomaszewski founded the Wroclaw Pantomime Theatre and created more
than 20 long pantomime pieces acclaimed for unique combinations of
gesture with literary texts. Most notable were his adaptations of
Hamlet, The Prodigal Son and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
[...]
"His greatest dream was to create a theatre that would present classic
literary works to audiences in the universal language of gesture,"
[...]
"He created impressive scenes composed of several dozen people,
colourful and symbolic like paintings."
"Pantomime Choregrapher"
The Scotsman, Mon 8 Oct 2001
http://www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1785172001&rware=IWZXKQFDOAPV&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=1
(free registration required to use their archives)
========================================================
"Henryk Tomaszewski, a Polish theater artist who surprised the West
with his dreamlike, wordless presentations and influenced American
avant-garde artists like Robert Wilson and Meredith Monk"
"Henryk Tomaszewski, 81; Known for Wordless Theater"
By WILLIAM H. HONAN (New York Times)
October 23, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/search/advanced/
(fee payable to read the whole article)
========================================================
"Tomaszewski's own view is this: “The pantomime theater can only deal
with human beings—as they experience the world and come into conflict
with it. But we must describe them through the objects they meet, that
is, objectify them completely. The literature of the future must be
created wholly from the stage and not from the desk—we can only renew
the theater by going back to its basic elements, and distancing
ourselves from all those things from which the technical mass media
liberate us.”
http://home.att.net/~emurer/texts/theater.htm
========================================================
The article you want to read was published in "Theatre Quarterly", the
forerunner of "New Theatre Quarterly":
‘Tomaszewski’s Pantomime Theatre: a Hamlet without Words’
by Gary Mead and Halina Filipowicz,
Theatre Quarterly, volume X, issue 40 (Autumn–Winter 1981), pages
16-28
"an English classic – translated into Polish silence"
(listed on page 19)
http://www.bruford.ac.uk/PDF/ntq_indexes.pdf
You need Adobe Reader for the document above. If you don't already
have it, download it from here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
This journal is certainly available in some US university libraries
(hope I'm not wrong to assume you're in the US?) but if you have a
hard time finding it please tell me so I can help. Although I am
posting this as your "official answer", the answer process is not
complete until you are sure of being able to read the article you
want.
I checked the used books sites, but could only find other issues of TQ
on sale. No luck with the current publishers of the New TQ (Cambridge
University Press) who had nothing to do with the earlier journal.
However, I am confident a good library should find it for you. This is
the Library of Congress listing:
Title: Theatre quarterly.
Published: London, England : Methuen, Eyre & Spottiswoode,
[c1970-1981]
Description: 10 v. : ill. ; 25 cm.
LC Call No.: PN2001.T435
Dewey No.: 792/.05
ISSN: 0049-3600
Notes: At head of title: TQ, Mar.-May 1975-
Publisher varies: TQ Publications, -
Title from cover.
Continued in Feb. 1985 by: New theatre
quarterly.
SERBIB/SERLOC merged record
Subjects: Theater -- Periodicals.
Drama -- Periodicals.
Theater -- Great Britain -- Periodicals.
Control No.: 11204134
Please note that the publisher at the time of issue 40 was not Methuen
but "TQ Publications", referred to in the notes.
http://lcweb.loc.gov/
========================================================
FURTHER INFORMATION
These pieces of information came up in searches and might be of
interest to you.
People who worked with Tomaszewski:
"Christopher Vened was, for eight years, a star of Henryk
Tomaszewski's world-famous Wroclaw Mime Theatre. In 1981, while on
tour in Western Europe, Vened defected from communist Poland and
rebuilt his career in the West. He now lives in Santa Monica,
California, where he teaches acting at UCLA."
http://www.heinemann.com/shared/authors/1342.asp
Ella Jaroszewicz
http://www.magenia.org/gb/ellagb.htm
Stefan Niedzialkowski
http://www.alitheacreations.com/stefan-bio.htm
Miroslaw Miroslawski - in post-1987 revival of Hamlet
http://www.tok.pnet.pl/html/mm1.html
*
This book was published in 1975, before "Hamlet: Irony and Mourning"
was staged:
Tomaszewski's Mime Theatre
by Andrzej Hausbrandt
http://www.mime.info/bk-Hausbrandt.html
It's easy to buy a used copy:
http://used.addall.com/
*
Reference to a cancelled US performance of Tomaszewski's Hamlet
http://www.centre.edu/web/library/sc/records/cc012.html
*
From the Wroclawski Teatr Pantomimy's own website:
Program "HAMLET IRONIA I ZALOBA"
Premiera : 26 lipca 1979, Teatr Polski (Wroclaw)
http://www.pantomima.wroc.pl/historia_nowy.htm
Wroclawski Teatr Pantomimy
53 - 121 Wroclaw
al. Debowa 16
tel. 337-21-03
tel./fax 337-21-04
http://www.pantomima.wroc.pl/index.htm
I want to thank you for sending me off on an interesting exploration.
Please let me repeat that you must not hesitate to ask for further
assistance if there is any problem in locating issue 40 of Theatre
Quarterly, or if you have any other query.
Best Wishes - Leli
Notes
1 I didn't used the special Polish characters, like the L with a line
through, for fear they wouldn't come out right in the final text. Hope
this isn't a nuisance.
2 Don't confuse this Tomaszewski with another Henryk Tomaszewski of a
similar age who designed many well-known posters, including one for an
earlier production of Hamlet (with words).
Search strategy:
I won't bore you with the many fruitless searches. (I expect you
already know that, for obvious reasons, "Hamlet mime" produces nearly
6000 results!)
Almost simultaneously, I had two ideas that were the breakthrough.
1 I thought of a Polish theatre piece I had seen and tried searching
with:
Polish Hamlet mime
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=polish+hamlet+mime&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
2 "Hamlet without words"
://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22hamlet+without+words%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
After that, I searched with combinations of Hamlet, mime, pantomime,
Wroclaw, Tomaszewski, Wroclawski etc. and also "Henryka
Tomaszewskiego". |
