CC BY
46
UDC 792.9 LBC 85.33(3)
DOI: 10.30628/1994-9529-2019-15.3-57-72 recieved 30.06.2019, accepted 27.09.2019
MAREK SOKOtOWSKI
University of Warmia and Mazury Olsztyn, Poland ORCID: 0000- 0003-2658-9880 e-mail: marek.sokolowski@uwm.edu.pl
SILENT COMEDIANS.
THE OLSZTYN PANTOMIME OF DEAF
(1957-2009).
IN SEARCH OF A NEW AESTHETIC OF EXPRESSION
Abstract. The purpose of this article is to recall the significance of the Olsztyn Deaf Pantomime in Polish theatre culture, and a special role in its creation of professor Bohdan Gtuszczak, who was an actor, theatre director, and artistic visionary. Professor Gtuszczak, despite many adversities, created a pantomime theatre, with deaf actors. In the following article, the historical aspect of Pantomime is briefly recalled in the first two parts of the article, followed by a short bio of its creator Bohdan Gtuszczak and his vision of work with deaf artists. His work was based on the concept of art-therapy treatment, and education (including aesthetic) participation in theatre classes (1).
Next, Pantomime's artistic heritage (from twenty-two performances by Gtuszczak) is presented, with emphasis on the most popular performances that were ultimately exhibited in many countries around the world. The issue of the how the stage visions was reflected in eight films, created both on the basis of ready pantomimic performances, as well as inspired by the mimes from Olsztyn remains an important cognitive issue for the author
of this article. The hypothesis of the author is that a film is so distinct from the pantomime theatre, that the audience who had not previously experienced the performances of the Olsztyn Deaf Pantomime could not fully feel the artistic power directly emanating from the performances. The power of performances was especially captivating for live audience, both in the aesthetic of the performances, their choreography, music, costumes, stage design, as well as the artistic skill and excellence of the actors. It is also noteworthy, that actors were amateurs, lacking a professional training. The study ends with an attempt to summarize this special and unique artistic phenomenon, which was certainly the Olsztyn Deaf Pantomime. Keywords: Polish theatre culture, Olsztyn Deaf Pantomime, Bohdan Gtuszczak, Art-therapy treatment, Olsztyn Mime Ensemble, International Stage and Film Festivals
1. PROLOGUE. THE AMATEUR THEATRE OF THE DEAF-MUTE In the 1950s, at the Provincial House of Culture (Wojewodzki Dom Kultury) in Olsztyn, an amateur theatre functioned; one of its members was Mirostaw Ostaszkiewicz (2, p. 7). At the end of 1956 his deaf brother Tadeusz, who had been fascinated by theatre for a long time, began to accompany him to rehearsals. Later, he would bring along his deaf friends from the disabled people's cooperative.
After a few months they showed three mime humoresques in sign language in the sitting room of the Olsztyn branch of the Polish Association of the Deaf (2, p. 7). Another couple of months passed before they ventured to perform at the Provincial House of Culture. After the presentation, director Wtadystaw Jarczewski offered them mentoring and space for rehearsals. In this way the deaf people's amateur theatre company became an ensemble of the Provincial House of Culture. They called themselves the Amateur Theatre of the Deaf-Mute at the WDK in Olsztyn.
The first production by the Amateur Theatre of the Deaf-Mute was opened in January 1958. A one-act comedy by Aleksander Fredro, "I Am a Killer", was directed by Witold Dowgird, artistic director of the Provincial House of Culture. The audience was composed of the deaf, their families, and members of other amateur ensembles at the WDK.
In mid-November 1958 the deaf actors put their skills in competition with those of similar companies during the fourth National Presentation of Artistic Ensembles of the Deaf, held in Olsztyn. The contest was organised by the Olsztyn branch of the Polish Association of the Deaf, and the Provincial House of Culture. Two companies applied: one from Wroctaw and one from Warsaw; the hosts, with "I Am a Killer", was the third one. The Olsztyn ensemble took last place, and the jury and the press noted that they had acted very well, yet the sign language had made it difficult to understand their play. The verdict of the jury underlined the social and educational value of the project. Not a single word was dedicated to the artistic quality of the performance.
In August 1959 Bohdan Gtuszczak, then a fourth-year student of the todz State Higher School of Film and Theatre (shortly before his studies, he had become a theatre instructor at the WDK), began working with deaf actors. When taking over the artistic direction of the company he assumed that its productions could not be staged in sign language, but in a universal one, understandable to everybody, as was pantomime, the stage art discipline closest to the deaf actors' natural way of being (3).
As pantomime, we define a silent stage performance in which the content is communicated through gestures, movements, and sometimes also facial expression. It was not born as an independent art; its elements were contained in dance and dramatic theatre. The beginnings of mime date back to Etruscan dances and fescennine verses, i.e. Italic poems or folk songs in the form of a satirical dialogue of young people, performed during weddings and harvest festivals (6th-4th century BC), Greek dance theatre, and Greek and Roman mime. In ancient Greece, it was a plebeian, "careless and flippant" spectacle (4, p. XI), composed of acrobatic shows, demonstrations of agility, singing and dancing. The main source of modern mime is the commedia dell'arte, where gesture and facial expressions prevailed over words, thanks to which it was toured internationally, and was understandable to foreign audiences who did not know the language of the dialogues (5).
Two types are distinguished in modern mime. The first one is a solo performance by a mime artist who, when expressing thoughts, ideas and
phenomena, acts only through body movement and facial expression, identifying themselves not only with the character portrayed, but also with the elements of the world surrounding it. The other type is a dramaturgically developed staging in which a mime company performs accompanied by music, set, props, and very often costumes.
2. FROM THERAPEUTIC EXPERIMENT
TO INTERNATIONAL STAGE SUCCESS
When beginning his work with deaf amateur actors, the only thing Bohdan Gtuszczak knew was that they could not hear. He agreed with the theory that theatrical work with them was supposed to be a form of therapy. But his intention was to go for more. He thought art should, first of all, dignify deaf people through the public creation of a work of stage art. It was also a chance to show deaf people as a community capable of creating and co-existing in the hearing people's world (3).
The company, under the supervision of visual artist Zbigniew Borejsza, was then finishing preparations for the production "Sketches in Colour", a half-mime play composed of seven short stories: "The Park", "Abstract", "The Defeat of Pierrot", "Corrida", "The Tale of the Zodiacs" "Circus" and "The Ending in the Windows". The opening of the "Sketches" was held on the stage of WDK in Olsztyn on 19 September 1959. According to Bohdan Gtuszczak, it was a spectacle created "in a painterly manner and with painterly imagination. That was already theatre of pure movement, in which the word proved unnecessary" (6, p. 18). It was also when the Amateur Theatre of the Deaf-Mute was renamed to become the Workers' Theatre "Olsztyn Mime Ensemble of the Deaf."
The first production by the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble of the Deaf, directed by Bohdan Gtuszczak, was "The Umbrellas" (1960), inspired by Marcel Carne's famous film "Children of Paradise". It was followed by the mime play "The Carnival", prepared by the same director and artists. In 1962, both works were united into a larger whole—"The Silent Comedians", which the Ensemble began to perform on a regular basis, although not very often, on the stage of the Provincial House of Culture. It was also shown in Poznan and Bydgoszcz, where it met with great interest.
At the beginning, the deaf mime artists' stage activity was treated as an interesting therapeutic experiment. However, from 1971 onwards, as the company began to win awards at international theatre festivals and competitions, they were no longer considered as a disabled people's company: after twelve years of hard work success finally came. The first show, after the première of which in 1971 the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble of the Deaf became famous in Poland and Europe, was "The Caprices", after drawings by Francisco Goya (7). The vision of the world as seen by a deaf painter, in which the Inquisition destroyed or distorted all ideational values, was extremely realistic and shocking. Deaf actor Tadeusz Ostaszkiewicz, just like Goya, was questioned by the Inquisition, experienced a lot of evil, including imprisonment and interrogation. He saw the horrors of war, hanged people, executions, war and he experienced contemporary disasters. For Ostaszkiewicz, Goya's drawings were not historical. Why not show then, on stage, the world observed by a deaf artist-actor who sees it in similarly horrific images? (3)
Such a message provided a foundation for "The Caprices" by the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble of the Deaf. The play was written, choreographed and directed by Bohdan Gtuszczak, with music by Krzysztof Penderecki, on a set designed by Barbara and Eugeniusz Jankowski. The opening took place on 29 March 1971 at the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn.
"The Caprices" remained on stage for more than twenty years, to be performed for the last time in 1993. The play strengthened Bohdan Gtuszczak's belief that further work should be supported, most of all, by painting. In the subsequent production, "Apocalypse", premiered on 26 May 1973 at the Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn, inspired by the prophecy of St. John, Gtuszczak created the script and choreography using Albrecht DQrer's engravings (8). He directed the play together with Jerzy Obtamski, using music by Krzysztof Penderecki and Henryk Mikotaj Gorecki. The set was designed by Jozef Zboromirski.
The two productions opened the door into Poland and the world for the Mime Ensemble. During numerous appearances in Europe they were often shown in combination, with "The Caprices" as the first part. Both also became a turning point in the history of the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble
of the Deaf. That was when, after many years of following the model of the great mime artists: Marcel Marceau and Henryk Tomaszewski, the director and the company found their own means of expression. Gtuszczak made his actors realize how to show and communicate emotions through rhythm. They no longer imitated anybody, and stopped using so-called pre-composed, sophisticated ("wheat meal") gestures. The form and "whole-grain taste" presented by the deaf mime artists from Olsztyn, i.e. certain severity, roughness, edginess of the stage movement, so different from the pre-composed gesture of Henryk Tomaszewski's Wroctaw Mime Theatre—in which, moreover, Bohdan Gtuszczak took part in several artistic internships—or from Marcel Marceau's mime art, became henceforth the hallmark of the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble (3).
The following production, "The Polish Nativity Play", was prepared specially for the Polish community in the United States. The libretto was created and directed by Bohdan Gtuszczak, using music by Ludomir Rozycki and Karol Szymanowski; the set was designed by Jozef Zboromirski. The première took place in New York on 12 August 1975, during the company's two-month US tour (9, p. 21).
The production following it—"Galatea"—opened on 4 March 1978, written and directed by Bohdan Gtuszczak, with music by Czestaw Niemen and set by Jozef Zboromirski). It was a story about how the ideal loses its living form to become an object (10, p. 23). The content of the play, composed of nine mime images, was an allegory going beyond the mythological anecdote. The company was significantly rejuvenated, which resulted in the critics' flattering opinions of the stage movement. One of them noted that the collective movement "symbolises instead of imitating, works through allusiveness, poetic metaphor, and beautiful visual composition" (11, p. 62). In Bohdan Gtuszczak's opinion, the work did not attain, however, the degree of universalism of the "Caprices" and, especially, of "Apocalypse", their clarity, message, or dramaturgy. It never gained such popularity, either (3).
Four years later the mime theatre from Olsztyn prepared "The Banquet", after Gombrowicz's works (with the script written by Bohdan Gtuszczak, assisted in directing by Jacek Wierzbicki, music by Czestaw
Niemen and set design by Andrzej Markowicz), a play about power and its temptations. "The Banquet" was received with more aloofness than Bohdan Gtuszczak's previous works. Yet the director thought that it was a very good play after all (3).
In 1988 the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble showed the last production by this author: "The Polish Requiem", using music by Krzysztof Penderecki, set design by Andrzej Markowicz and masks by Sylwin Mydlak. Its world première took place in West Berlin at the end of August 1988, during the European Culture Days, to be opened two weeks later, on 10 September, on the stage of the Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn. According to Bohdan Gtuszczak, the production was a historical and poetic reflection on our thinking about history, about Polish martyrdom, its causes and consequences, a polemic with a certain variant of Christianity, the national messianism, the nineteenth-century thinking about Poland (12).
A year later, Bohdan Gtuszczak gave up the direction of the Mime Ensemble. Professor Bohdan Gtuszczak died on 3 February 2016 at the age of 80, after a long illness.
During the thirty years of his leadership, the Olsztyn mime company gained recognition and fame at home and abroad, winning numerous awards. Their most important achievements included first prizes at international deaf people's festivals in Warsaw and Brno, a prize at the International Biennial of Visual Theatres in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the prestigious Deburau award for the whole artistic work (awarded in honour of the nineteenth-century mime master Jean-Gaspard Deburau), the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and an Award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
3. TOWARDS INTEGRATION
After Bohdan Gtuszczak's resignation the management and artistic direction were taken over by his former assistant Krzysztof Gedroyc. Two years later the company became independent in organisational and financial terms, passing from the structures of the Regional Cultural Centre (into which the Provincial House of Culture had been transformed) under the patronage of the "Olsztyn Mime Ensemble" Art Foundation.
The foundation was established by a group of admirers of this kind of theatre.
The Olsztyn Workers' Mime Ensemble also changed its name to the New Olsztyn Mime Ensemble and adopted the formula of an integrated company, as the deaf actors' troupe was joined by hearing members. Director Eugeniusz Ozga staged here visual productions: "The Labyrinth" (1990) and "Babel" (1992). Successfully touring around Poland and Europe, they initiated the company's new style (13).
By expanding its formula the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble also carried out stage work among disabled children and young people, becoming a theatrical integration centre which brought together several artistic groups. The so-called big Mime Theatre (a company of adult actors, directors Bohdan Gtuszczak and Pawet Aigner) continued the tradition of classical mime art and its contemporary current, presenting, in 1997, "Mosquito Scream", directed by Pawet Aigner and, in 1998, "The Fool and the Actor", directed by Bohdan Gtuszczak, with music by Czestaw Niemen and set by Ryszard Kuzyszyn.
One of the groups of the so-called small Mime Theatre (children's groups) used the original authorial method created by director Maria Burniewicz, which combined the art of dance with live music on the foundation of eurhythmics. Until 2005, the children's theatre "Eurytmia" prepared six premières: "The Rainbow Bridge", "The Three Gifts", "Festive Days...", "Eurhythmic Dances", "Lead Me Little Path" and "The Enchanted Box".
Another group of youngsters developed the performances of the Little Shadow Theatre, led by Matgorzata Sienkiewicz and Ryszard Choinski. The group was composed mainly of children from Gypsy families and educationally disadvantaged ones, often with different dysfunctions.
The so-called small Mime Theatre also included a visual arts group, led by Julia Tarnowska and Ryszard Choinski. It was composed of children from dysfunctional families, poor Gypsy children and disabled ones. The activities involving them were meant as initial work, preparing for
performances in the theatre group. They ended in June 1998 with an exhibition of the achievements of the arts group members (accompanied by a mini-catalogue).
In this way, under the auspices of the "Olsztyn Mime Ensemble" Art Foundation, a long-term comprehensive integration programme "To Be Together" was carried out until 2002. It was intended to help the disabled from the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble—and children's ensembles operating under the aegis of the foundation—adapt to the world of healthy people. The classes were led by a group of experienced theatre creators, directors and teachers. Using the expression of the disabled, triggered by theatre, dance and visual arts, they strived to integrate them with healthy people.
The headquarters of the Mime Ensemble at 15 Okopowa Street also hosted regular events called "Theatre Night", created by Krystyna Spikert. They allowed the debuting and presentation of young authors, gathering a large number of young artists and volunteers around the theatre. Many of them later graduated from art colleges.
Shown for the first time in 1997, "Mosquito Scream" was the last première under the direction of Krzysztof Gedroyc, as he resigned from all functions and moved out of Olsztyn shortly afterwards. With "The Fool and the Actor", created a year later, the Mime Ensemble celebrated its fortieth anniversary. The play was also a benefit production in honour of Romuald Orzet, a deaf actor, who had been associated with the company for 35 years. The production included self-quotations from former plays. It spoke of the clash of "high" and "popular" art, but it was also an honest statement about art, buffoonery, authenticity in life and on stage, humility and pathos.
In the first half of 2002 the "Olsztyn Mime Ensemble" Art Foundation was dissolved. The only companies remaining out of those which had operated under its patronage were the gradually shrinking Olsztyn Mime Ensemble, and the "Eurytmia" theatre, gathering twenty children. In mid-2002 both were taken over by the Socio-Cultural Association "Gest", under the aegis of which they started to work in the space of the Centre
for Education and Cultural Initiatives in Olsztyn (formerly the Regional Centre of Culture, ex-Provincial House of Culture). Wiestaw Piesak, director, composer and graduate of a Swiss visual arts college, took care of the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble. In April 2005 he and the Olsztyn mime artists presented their second show (the first one being "Reading Beckett" in January 2003).
In its heyday the company had about 120 rehearsals per year, in addition to workshop camps, and touring productions in Poland and abroad. Altogether, the deaf mime artists often spent more time on stage and in the theatre than professional actors. They also frequently assisted the troupe of the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn—performing in "Hamlet" by W. Shakespeare (1968, 1983), "Medea" by Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (1975), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Dale Wasserman after Ken Kesey's novel (1979), "Equus" by Peter Schaeffer (1981), "Father Marek" by Juliusz Stowacki (1982), and "Kordian" by the same author (1984), "The Old Woman Broods" by Tadeusz Rozewicz (1985) and "The Great Fryderyk" by Adolf Nowaczynski (1986).
The worldwide phenomenon of the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble also resulted from its pioneering therapeutic approach, which was Bohdan Gtuszczak's undoubted merit. He was the first to begin rehabilitating the disabled through art, thus helping them find the meaning of life. He later travelled around the world, sharing his experiences at many universities.
The Americans began dealing with this problem fifteen years after Gtuszczak. In 1974, in the US, Jean Kennedy Smith (sister of the tragically deceased US president) founded the Very Special Arts organisation, helping the disabled cultivate art and educating teachers-artists to work with the disabled.1
1 Very Special Arts Foundation - organisation with a global reach, part of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Education Office (J. F. Kennedy Institute for Artistic and Educational Achievements) in Washington.
4. EPILOGUE. FILMS AND BOOK "THE SILENT COMEDIANS"
Until mid-2005 the Olsztyn Mime prepared 20 premières (some of them being great theatre productions), and it became the subject of eight ballet films and documentaries.
An interesting artistic project, however not having any kind of spectacles, were film made with both pantomime and with the participation of its actors. At the beginning it is worth noting, that the choreography for all film was developed by Bohdan Gtuszczak.
The first of the film, which he undertook to face with the difficult task of filming the pantomime, is "In the Circle of Silence" (W krçgu ciszy) directed by Jerzy Ziarnik. As a curiosity it is worth noting the fact, that Jerzy Ziarnik (1931-1991), is a graduate of VGIK in Moscow (1956). In 1960, the film was produced by the Warsaw Documentary Film Studio (Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych w Warszawie), which achieved significant artistic success: unmonirsed "Bronze Dragon" (Brgzowy Smok, third prize) in the category of documentary films at the Short Film Festival in Krakow. Another award received by the film was the "Goden Cup" (Ztoty Puchar), won at the Film Festival in Florence, Italy, in the category of "film about art".
The television show is "Faust—Walpurgis Night" (Faust—Noc Walpurgii), made in 1978 by Grzegorz Krolikiewicz. The combination of three independent pantomime performances: "Caprichos", "Apocalypse" and "Galatea", is the film "Sculptors of air" (Rzezbiarze powietrza), which he made for the label "Poltel" in 1980 Mieczystaw Poptawski. In a slightly different artistic convention, a ballet film for the music of Krzysztof Penderecki "Psalmus", made in 1981, which received the second prize at the International Film Festival in Monte Carlo (1985). Director Mieczystaw Poptawski against tries to face the difficult matter of the pantomime spectacle and in 1983, based on the performance of "Bankiet", he makes a film of the same title.
The next ballet film, with the participation of artists from Olsztyn, is "The Odyssey of the Artist" (Odysea artysty), a work created for the music od Augustyn Bloch, realized by Bogdan Moscicki for Educational
Films Studio in todz (Wytwornia Filmow Oswiatowych w todzi). The third attempt to address the original work of the silent actors by Mieczystaw Poptawski was his "artistic reportage", titled "Theater in Silent" (Teatr w ciszy), created for Poltel label in 1994. The only so far, and probably the last foreign performance, due to the closed chapter, which is the activity of the Olsztyn pantomime of the Deaf, is the "Apocalypse" (Apokalipsa), based on a performance of the same title in the Horst Kaminski, directional set up in Germany (1997), for the Circe Film Studio. After the activity of the Pantomime, only the memories of her unusually original, tastefully art performances remained, breaking many artistic and aesthetic schemats. The remaining films, howewer, belong to the world of different medium, completely different from the one which is theater and pantomime.
Pantomime activity involved nearly 250 deaf people. In its 15 tours it performed in 21 countries (several times in some of them) in Europe, North America, Africa and Japan.
At the end of 2015 the book "The Silent Comedians. A Study on Bohdan Gtuszczak and the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble" was published. This book relates the story of the unique theatre and, at the same time, that of its creator, and the more than thirty creative years spent together by the director and actors. It is the story of the genesis of some great stagings which the company toured around the world, winning awards at festivals (14, p. 5).
The Olsztyn Mime Ensemble—the first theatre of the deaf— despite the fact of having been founded by Tadeusz Ostaszkiewicz, was the "child" of Bohdan Gtuszczak, his authorial work. He wrote scripts for its productions, and choreographed and directed them. For hearing-impaired artists he was the spiritual and intellectual guide and, often, a father and a mother in their everyday life.
For a long time the activities of the deaf mime amateurs from Olsztyn were regarded as a therapeutic experiment. Success came after twelve years of hard work for Bohdan Gtuszczak and his deaf actors, in 1971. It took the form of "The Caprices", basoed on the paintings and drawings
by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya; the production was presented on stage for more than twenty years. After that, the Olsztyn mime theatre was no longer regarded as a disabled people's company. They were recognised as artists denoted with a capitalised name (14, p. 5).
Also, their following mime productions: "Apocalypse" based on the revelations of St. John the Evangelist and engravings by Albrecht Dürer, "The Polish Nativity Play", based on old Polish ceremonial plays, "Galatea"—the story of Pygmalion and his oeuvre, and the not less theatrical and expressive "Banquet" and "Polish Requiem" also went down in the history of theatre—and not only Polish theatre.
The productions of the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble were inspired by mythology and the Bible, as well as by music, painting and sculpture. They used compositions by Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Mikotaj Gorecki, Ludomir Rozycki, Karol Szymanowski, and Czestaw Niemen (15, p. 16).
Deaf mime amateurs also performed in professional theatre productions, most frequently at the Olsztyn Stefan Jaracz Theatre. The first play involving a deaf actor was opened on a professional stage on 3 February 1968, in Olsztyn ("Hamlet" by Shakespeare). They also played in Goethe's "Faust" directed by Grzegorz Krolikiewicz for the Television Theatre, where they appeared in the famous sequence of "Walpurgis Night". At the Television Theatre Festival in Varna, Bulgaria, the prize was not awarded to "Faust" but only to its fragment, "Walpurgis Night".
Besides the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble, director Bohdan Gtuszczak co-authored nearly a hundred plays for twenty-two other stages. In many of them he made use of the experience taken from the company he led, as well as from mask theatre. On the other hand, he enriched the Mime Ensemble with means of expression observed on other stages, in the work of outstanding directors and professional actors (including Jerzy Grzegorzewski, Jerzy Jarocki, Stanistaw Hebanowski, Adam Hanuszkiewicz, Gustaw Holoubek, Piotr Fronczewski, and Marek Walczewski).
In the 90s, the company of deaf mime artists changed. Many of them left, to be substituted with hearing people, in connection with the
broadening of the company's formula. The managers and stage directors changed, while Bohdan Gtuszczak devoted himself to teaching. In addition to many years of teaching mask theatre and stage movement at the Department of Puppetry in Biatystok (belonging to the Theatre Academy in Warsaw), he gave classes, from 1992 onwards, to students of the Higher School of Pedagogy and, after the founding of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, he continued in that institution until 2008.
For its last few years, the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble existed as an amateur theatre group under the patronage of the Centre for Education and Cultural Initiatives in Olsztyn (formerly the Provincial House of Culture). It left the stage on 30 November 2009 with the performance "To Name the Momentary Forever", thus closing its 52-year activity.
"The Silent Comedians" is the first book on its history and—as time has shown—a kind of epitaph. The artistic message brought by Olsztyn Deaf Pantomime cannot be assessed in purely aesthetic terms, although it was previously highly evaluated even without acknowledging the challenge that it was for the disabled actors. Performances were both therapeutic in terms of communicating through art, working together in a team, as well as exploring the world of art, including drama, stage design, film and television. It gave the actors a great sense of agency, proved that their limitations, or disability are not an obstacle to in terms of applying the artistic vision of their mentor—Professor Gtuszczak. The artistic power of performances, after years that have passed since the dissolution of the theatre, can be appreciated, admired and contemplated in films and TV shows.
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12. Gtuszczak B. Wyscie z „polskiej otchtani"—rozmowa Bohdana Gtuszczaka z Bohdanem Kurowskim (Getting Out of the „Polish abyss"—Bohdan Gtuszczak's interview with Bohdan Kurowski) (in:) programme booklet for „The Polish Requiem", choreodram in 10 images. Olsztyn: Stefan Jaracz Theatre. 1978. 14 s.
13. Program integracyjny „Byc razem" („To Be Together" integration programme), programme information booklet, Olsztyn, 1996. 16 s.
14. Prusinski T. Milczgcy komedianci. Rzecz o Bohdanie Gtuszczaku i Pantomimie Olsztynskiej (The Silent Comedians. A Study on Bohdan Gtuszczak and the Olsztyn Mime Ensemble). Olsztyn: Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna w Olsztynie and Pracownia Wydawnicza ElSet, 2015. 303 s.
15. Sokotowski M. Speaking by Gesture (Mówigcy gestem). Film. 1988, № 4. Ss. 12-17.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: MAREK SOKOtOWSKI
Head of Department of Sociology, Professor (ordinary professor),
Faculty of Social Science,
Doctor of Sciences in Sociology of Culture,
University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (POLAND)
ORCID: 0000-0003-2658-9880
e-mail: marek.sokolowski.uwm.edu.pl
