The Journalistic Platforms [Estrady Publicystyczne]

the general name for the ‘textual montages’ prepared and presented by the Theatre of 13 Rows in Opole both in its main building and on tours, particularly around the Opole region. These were performances that were raw and simple in form composed using montages of documentary and literary texts accompanied by photographs and radio recordings. The montages were based in historical facts (hence the use of the term ‘factomontage’ in relation to them) and appealed to the emotions, memory and the lived experiences of spectators (World War Two, the battle for Silesia to be Polish). Thanks to this, these performances generally made a strong impression.

The most important among the Estrady Publicystyczne were the first three, created in 1961: Turyści (The Tourists) and Gliniane gołębie (Clay pigeons) – these had a joint premiere on either 31 March or 1 April 1961) and Pamiętnik Śląski (A Silesian Memoir), which premiered on 9 July 1961 in Markowice. Later programmes, partly performed under the title Estrada Dokumentalna (Documentary Platform), served rather as a strategic cover or a form of tribute paid to the ever less favourably inclined local party authorities. A particularly clear example of this was Oratorium robotnicze (A workers’ oratory), which premiered on 27 July 1962, prepared by Waldemar Krygier. The final two programmes, which are counted among the Poetic Stages, were created by actors who took responsibility for both direction and scripts. Ryszard Cieślak created Maski (using texts from the collection Czerwone oczy maski [The red eyes of the mask], translated by Zbigniew Stolarek, premiere 3 January 1963; stage design: Jerzy Gurawski; cast: Rena Mirecka, Andrzej Bielski, Antoni Jahołkowski, Maciej Prus), while Andrzej Bielski created Pieśni (Hymns) – a montage of poems by Władysław Broniewski, Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, Julian Tuwim, Leopold Staff, Tadeusz Różewicz, Wisława Szymborska, Edward Hołda, Witold Wirpsza and Wiktor Woroszylski, read by: Rena Mirecka, Antoni Jahołkowski, Mieczysław Janowski and Gaston Kulig. This final Estrada, presented in Opole and surrounding towns as Estrada Poetycka (Poetic Platform), was also the Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows’ last premiere before it moved to Wrocław. There had been plans for Jerzy Falkowski, a journalist closely associated with the theatre, and Zygmunt Molik to present in summer 1961 – at the behest of the local institutions in Opole – the literary-documentary montages, which had already been shown several times before, on the subject of the 25^th anniversary of the formation of the Dąbrowszczak Batallions in Spain and the 12^th anniversary of the foundation of the German Democratic Republic in a performance titled Droga do świata (The way to the world).