Lever de rideau i akcja właściwa – „wyobrażone podróże” Kazimierza Brauna albo metateatralność

Abstract

This article deals with the metatheatrical aspects in selected dramas by Kazimierz Braun – theatre practitioner and theorist. The point of departure for the analysis, as indicated by Patrice Pavis, is the basic ways in which metatheatricality reveals itself in a dramatic text: the unveiling of the second communication system (scene – spectator), usually hidden behind the text, the fabrication of theatrical situations, and the discursivisation of theatrical themes. The subject of the analysis is the interconnected dramas, Niewyznane zwierzenia [Unconfessed confidences] and Kwarantanna [Quarantine], in which the author creatively refers to the tradition of commedia dell’arte. The first of the plays, in the style of comedy by Pierre de Marivaux and described more precisely as a lever de rideau, is a reference to the old theatrical practice of preceding the main performance with another small stage form. The article discusses the piece as an overt play with convention, an ‘imaginary journey’ into the ephemeral world of improvised comedy, revealing the laws of theatre that govern it. The second play, set during the pandemic, becomes a pretext for questions about the future and the meaning of artistic creation. The analysis of both texts reveals a clash between the cultural image of conventional play and the theatricalisation of life in Marivaux’s time and the dystopian creation of a dehumanised reality, in which the multidimensional crisis can no longer be hidden under the mask of theatrical decoration and outward playfulness.