Feliks Koneczny : Szekspir dla teatru czy teatr dla Szekspira?

Abstract

Feliks Koneczny reviewed in Przegląd Polski adaptations of the following works by William Shakespeare: The Tempest (1901), Cymbeline (1902), Hamlet (1898, 1899), Henry IV (1902), The Comedy of Errors (1901), All’s Well That Ends Well (1904), King Lear (1899), The Merchant of Venice (1897, 1904), Macbeth (1903, 1904), Othello (1898), The Taming of the Shrew (1904), Romeo and Juliet (1897), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1902), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1897), Twelfth Night (1897), Much Ado about Nothing (1903), The Winter’s Tale (1898). The foundation of aesthetics was for Koneczny the logocentric conception of the theatre (“the theatre for Shakespeare”), therefore he treated Shakespeare’s plays with care, who was considered to be the co-author of the “dramatic poetry”. He wanted to bring them into the repertoire permanently, in order for them to become an artistic assessment of the Cracovian Theatre and its audience’s taste. Shakespeare’s adaptation was for Koneczny an occasion to scrupulously chart the actors’ performance. According to the rule that criticism is a form of a science, a lengthy description of gestural, motorial, vocal expression forms - for example, those of Stanisława Wysocka performing as Lady Macbeth - was transformed into their record.