The Cricot Theater and Politics

Maria Jarema was a co-founder of the famous interwar Cricot Theater. She served as a set designer and actress in several productions, and the role of the Modern/Contemporary Woman in the plays written by her brother, Józef Jarema, was written specifically for her. In her lecture, Karolina Czerska, a researcher of the history of the Cricot theater, will discuss its experimental activities and the role Jaremianka played within it.

 

Was the experimental Cricot, active from 1933 to 1939, a theater of the Krakow Group? Or was it rather a theater operating under the banner of the Association of Polish Visual Artists? To what extent was Cricot entangled in politics? Was it a workers’ theater? Did censorship influence its repertoire? How did the struggle for a new art relate to the reality of 1930s Poland? Karolina Czerska will address these and other questions in her presentation.