Studies

FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO

BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK AND ITS PRODUCTION
ON THE STAGE OF THE SLOVAK NATIONAL THEATRE

M AR EK GO DO VIČ
Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, Bratislava

Abstract: The study analyses the text of Tango by Sławomir Mrożek. It maps out the author’s shift
from grotesques to dramatic text, in which he prophetically predicts the future of Polish and
Central European societies. His capacity to reflect on actual reality, to make it unique and to
derive from it the absurdity of the situation is not only a peculiar feature of the author but it also
is characteristic of the East European style. The study also analyses social and family aspects
of the play and their portrayal in the productions of the Slovak National Theatre (SND; 1967,
1997). Tango was performed on Slovak stages under different political regimes, which have
markedly affected the concepts of individual directors. Despite the fact that it is not primarily
a politically focused theatre play, it reflects upon the quintessential questions of the period ha-
ving no straightforward answers. The study focuses on the naming of thematic lines, especially
those that relate to social and family aspects which are most prominent in the concept
of the play and to their transformation to stage form.
Key words: Slawomir Mrożek, Tango, absurd drama, Slovak National Theatre

In the early 20th century, Slovak theatre professionals and audiences were not
much exposed to the theatre of the absurd. At that time, several plays were written
which employed the devices of absurd drama: the plays by Rudolf Skukálek (Hodinky
[Watch], 1963; Metla [The Broom], 1964; Piliny [Sawdust], 1965) or Veľká parochňa [The
Big Wig] by Peter Karvaš (1964, book publishing in 1965). Absurd dialogues during
afternoon sessions in Tatra Revue Bratislava were entertained by Milan Lasica and
Július Satinský. A more intensive contact with absurd drama was established in the-
atre production. The playwright Slawomir Mrożek was a new phenomenon in Slovak
theatre; he keenly reflected upon the then social atmosphere and his plays were more
understandable than the plays by Samuel Beckett or Eugène Ionesco. The very first
dramatic text by Mrożek that was produced on Slovak theatre stages was Moriak [The
Turkey] (Slovak National Theatre, abbr. SND, 1963), followed by Veselica [The Party]
(Academy of Performing Arts, abbr. VŠMU, 1963) and Policajti [The Police] (Nová
scéna [The New Stage theatre], 1963; J. Gregor Tajovský Theatre in Zvolen, 1964). The
apex of the early experience with Mrożek’s creation was the staging of Tango by three
Slovak theatres over a three-year time span.

Mrożek’s Tango: a little history of Poland and of Central Europe

The play Tango, published in the Polish theatre monthly Dialog, in 1964, is an
important cornerstone in the creation of Sławomir Mrożek. He wrote the play sub-
sequent to his one-act plays and plays Policajti [The Police] (1958), Mučeníctvo Petra
282 MAREK GODOVIČ

Oheya [The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey] (1959), Moriak [The Turkey] (1960), Strip-tease
(1961), or Veselica [The Party] (1962). In his drama, Mrożek engaged the elements of
grotesque, irony and caricature. He made his name as a keen observer of the lan-
guage of socialist realism with its empty phrases and subtleties and as a playwright
who was able to work with it very effectively. Once Tango was published in Poland, it
was soon staged abroad (France, Germany, USA).
The publicist Martin Bútora maps out Mrożek’s transformation of a playwright of
one-act plays to an author of full-length plays: “Tango is both horrible and remarkable
theatre. The latter applies especially because it constitutes a kind of dividing line in
Mrożek’s hitherto dramatic creation. In it, Mrożek, satirist and master of grotesque,
‘for the very first time, catches the breath’ of a playwright of high calibre who wrote
his earliest fairly standard theatre play.“1
In Tango, unlike his grotesque one-act plays, Mrożek employs (put in the words
of Jan Bloński) coordinated absurdity, while combining the elements of grotesque
and farce with the period facts of life, thereby achieving greater naturalness and
credibility. He works with the facts of a real-life family tragedy, but the absurdity
does not ensue from the symbol, it is not a woman buried in sand as is the case of
Bec­kett’s Šťastné dni [Happy Days] or a character acting in an environment of noth-
ingness, devoid of any humanity. He works in a fashion similar to that in his play
Strip-tease, in which absurdity is not created by an omnipresent hand, but rather by
the situation of two men who are manipulated by it. The characters of Tango live their
real-life days in their household, in concrete time and cope with real-life situations
(generational conflict, wedding, infidelity, interpersonal relations), however, they are
trapped in them in a bizarre way. Each individual advocates the philosophy of his/
her life and individual beliefs.
Paradoxically, Artur, member of the young generation, is a proponent of tradi-
tion, which the family is bound to rediscover, if its complete collapse is to be averted.
Son Artur rebels against his father Stomil and mother Eleonora and her frivolous life,
against his grandma Eugenia’s  love of card-playing and his uncle Eugeniusz’s  in-
clination to shun responsibility. He is determined to demonstrate this opposition
through marriage with Ala, his sister-in-law. At the outset, the events are tartly and
artlessly, almost childishly, commented on by a noisy and disorderly unscrupulous
newcomer Edek. Bigger and minor characters based on real people come and go and
the grotesque elements of the play are a  paraphrase of Shakespeare’s  Hamlet, not
only by text innuendos (early in the play Eugenia sends Artur to a monastery) but
also by underlying motives. Artur, like Hamlet, fights his family in a similarly crazy
and unconventional manner. The Polish drama theorist Jan Kott was the first to have
used this comparison: “Artur, like Hamlet, is the last of ideologists and like Hamlet
of the theatre of Shakespeare and of Artaud, he dies murdered. Fortinbras will come
after him.“2
Mrożek combines tragic aspects with comic and grotesque aspects. As opposed to
Shakespeare, he foreshadows the repercussions after the death of his hero. He does
not develop full-fledged characters, it is only Artur who undergoes a thorough trans-
formation as the plot evolves. He is the only one to trigger the audience’s empathy,

1
BÚTORA, Martin. Tango na výbornú. In Študentská Praha, 18 July 1967, Vol. 3, Issue 27, p. 12.
2
KOTT, Jan. Rodzina Mrożka. In Dialog, 1965, Vol. 10, Issue 4, p. 73.
FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK... 283

although his ideological and emotional confusion is hard to understand. Rather than
revolting against established conventions, Artur rebels in their favour: he defies the
morals of his parents, he defies their past which they remember as a time of freedom
and the breaking down of prejudice. The young man is convinced that such social
tension is offensive and disheartening. He wants to recreate the moral status of his
family, its conventional role and dignity. Artur wants to change society and restore
the old order, tradition and, put in his own words: “You have been non-conformists
for such a long time that, eventually, the last of norms, against which one could re-
volt, has collapsed.“3 He feels strong sentiment for Ala who is still imbued in child-
ish indecisiveness, lacks experience and has a limited intellectual background and
shamelessly offers him physical love as a mere enticement without feelings or emo-
tions. Formally, Artur wins her consent to marry him. However, he is only capable of
advancing his “traditionalist” experiment to a point when he realises that tradition
without content is dysfunctional and meaningless. Artur needs a new content, which
is death. He turns to Edek for help who, through a brute-force attack, benefits from
the situation: he kills Artur and becomes a new primitive and ruthless household
leader. “From the knowing of nothingness there runs a direct way to the absolute
dictatorship of Camus’ Caligula and it is no different in Artur’s case. (...) While Ca-
ligula eventually realises the absurdity of his theory, Mrożek’s Artur has no time to
realise this and to learn his lesson, because he dies.“4 In Tango, with the replacement
of the head of household/society, no purging takes place in the meaning of hope for
the rehashing of eroded life and family ties in a dilapidated middle-class flat. Instead,
fear sneaks in. It should be noted that Tango is more a masculine view of family ties
and social relations. Four men intervene in the plot, whose energy radius becomes
weaker with growing age. The exchange of views between Artur and Stomil in the
first act and between Artur and Edek in the third act has a profound impact upon the
thinking of the females in the family. All they can do is talk back and object meekly.
The second, social dimension of Mrożek’s Tango, continues to be very current de-
spite a  time span of fifty years since it was written. Traditional and liberal world
outlooks clash in the play. Son Artur, the representative of the conservative wing
of the family, challenges his father Stomil and his reckless, almost avant-garde, ex-
periments. It is only uncle Eugeniusz who becomes Artur’s temporary ally. However,
Eugeniusz’s resoluteness lasts until a moment when he no longer understands Artur
and is lured by Edek.
Last but not least, the political dimension is also present, as Tango communicates
an accurate and undistorted perception of society. Even with the best phrased ideas
an ideology may converge on totalitarianism and brutal power, which is best evi-
denced by a breathtaking finale. Brutal power embodied by Edek gains control over
the family and there comes he, a  dauntless individual and aggressor attracting all
social attention. The Czech drama theorist Milan Lukeš puts it this way: “The plot of
Tango does not draw a circle; the final situation is not an imprint of the introductory
situation. On the contrary, a kind of a new quality is introduced. He who understands
the futile waiting for Godot as the climax of hopelessness, is reminded by Mrożek

3
MROŻEK, Sławomir. Tango. Translation by Milan Lasica. Bratislava : DILIZA, 1967, p. 12.
4
PORUBJAK, Martin: Tango pre Katušu. In Kultúrny život, 1967, Vol. 22, Issue 17, p. 10.
284 MAREK GODOVIČ

that by Godot’s arrival, the situation may get even worse. It depends on Godot.“5 In
Mrożek’s case, Godot is very real, it is lout Edek who is present on stage while the
plot evolves and as the play draws to a close, his personality is unveiled and a char-
acter who until then used to put smiles on audience’s faces, turns into a dangerous
tyrant.
Jan Błoński6 also refers to these rude and rough persons, called chams in Polish.
A  cham is a  person who ends up on the bottom and has the power to pull down
other people. Mrożek’s play is based on the principle of gradual fall. Family mem-
bers defend positions that are so wide apart that instead of salvation there comes
a  gradual fall to the bottom. To illustrate opposite poles and themes, Błoński uses
Mrożek’s one-act plays. In Tango these opposites are: reason versus the physical body,
hypocrisy versus brutality, civilisation versus barbarity, effort versus inaction.7 In the
end, the victory of negative phenomena is obvious, despite that, catharsis takes place:
the finale is disturbing and at the same time, it gives hope for change. It is interest-
ing to watch Mrożek’s work with language and form. He is very resourceful in using
empty phrases, sayings and jingles. He employs changeable language – at times, it is
full of conventional social subtleties, on other occasions his characters would speak
slang.
When writing the play, Mrożek was inspired by sociobiology which connects so-
cio-political phenomena with the world of biology. That which is imported in society
seems to have a remote archetype in the childhood of mankind, in animal organism.
The tension between the animal and human, between the animalistic and emotional
is generated during the clashes between Artur and Edek, which establish the basis for
verbal absurdity. Intertextually, Mrożek employs the elements of various literary in-
spirations. Tango is a syncretic drama in which diverse dramatic conventions and mo-
tifs having far-reaching consequences are used. Realistic action epitomising genera-
tional conflict implanted in the commonplace reality of the life of the commoners has
been written according to the canon of a classical dramatic text, which meticulously
observes the unity of time and location of an action.8 Unlike earlier Mrożek’s works
in which absurdity and grotesqueness are more prominent and, therefore, closer to
absurd drama, in Tango, the motives of protagonists and of their characters are partly
revealed. Having said that, Mrożek failed to avoid certain flattening of the protago-
nists’ characters. They are grotesque types of characteristic manifestations. Indeed,
they are more individualised than the characters in his one-act plays from the earlier
period, however, except for Artur, they do not undergo any significant transforma-
tion. They turn into instruments through which various social views are manifested.
Such one-dimensionality also transcends the relations between the protagonists.
Mrożek, more than other authors of absurd drama, works with “micro community”
(as Marta Piwińska puts it)“9.

5
LUKEŠ, Milan. Hamlet and Artur. In Divadlo, 1966, Vol. 17, Issue 2, p. 16.
6
BŁOŃSKI, Jan. Wszystkie sztuki Sławomira Mrożka. Kraków : Wydawnictwo literackie, 1995, pp. 56 – 57.
7
Ibid.
8
GUTKOWSKA, Barbara. O  „Tangu“ i  Emigrantach“ Sławomira Mrożka. Katowice : Wydawnictvo
Książnica, 1968.
9
PIWIŃSKA, Marta. Mrożek, czyli słoń a sprawa pol­ska. In Dialog, 1966, Vol. 11, Issue 5, p. 104.
FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK... 285

There is a clear link between Tango and Svadba [The Wedding] by Stanisław
Wyspiański, who was a  representative of the literary movement Young Poland,
which is the Polish version of a modernist stream in arts on the verge of the 19th and
20th centuries. Ideologically, Wyspiański paraphrases the romantic and real worlds:
intellectuals meet burghers and peasants at a wedding. At the wedding, they all are
haunted by the phantoms of Polish history. Mrożek also paraphrases Ferdydurke,
a novel by modernist Witold Gombrowicz, in which one of the most acclaimed 20th
century Polish authors links up the world of the main character with the outer envi-
ronment. The hero is not mature enough to fulfil his ambition, he struggles against
his immature nature. The author employs surrealistic elements, grotesque and irony.
Gombrowicz’s Jóżo Kowalski is similar to Mrożek’s Artur in his striving to change
big history without having to undergo a process of inner transformation himself.
However, there is a difference – the world of Gombrowicz remains to be integral and
the commoners form an indivisible whole, thus giving an impression of a society that
can survive on the condition it undergoes a reform.
Mrożek also has affinity to the poetics of the formalist and avant-gardist Stanislaw
Witkacy Witkiewicz, who is known in Polish literature for his plays with a psychedel-
ic dose of irony, sarcasm and grotesque. According to the Polish drama theorist Jan
Kott, “Witkiewicz has arrived too soon. Gombrowicz lives in exile. Mrożek arrives
just in time. Not too early, not too late, on both the Polish and the Western watches.“10
Hence, Mrożek is not the first author to have introduced absurd elements, criti-
cism and irony to the Polish literature. His forerunners gave him a momentum to be
able to implement a platform of absurdity and hidden metaphors, paradoxically, at
a time which opposed it. Given the fact that such tradition and context were not at
hand for Slovak theatre professionals who were exposed to Mrożek’s texts, they had
to devise a specific way of capturing his works without becoming pathetic, superficial
and incomprehensible. Facts of life that refer to family life and political situation have
become the main bridging points to understanding Mrożek by Slovak theatre profes-
sionals and audiences.

The first Tango in SND: Absurdity in real time

Tango saw its Slovak premiere at State Theatre Košice, on 15 April 1967, under the
direction of Oto Katuša and in translation by Jozef Marušiak. The phenomenon from
Poland was repeated: there, Tango was premiered in the regional theatre in Byd­goszcz,
in 1964, and only afterwards it was premiered in Warsaw, in Teatr Współczesny, un-
der the direction of Erwin Axera (1965). The stage director Oto Katuša ventured to
capture the text literally; however, judging by reviews, acting and dramaturgy gave
a highly inconsistent impression. The production indicated potential pitfalls of ab-
surd drama in Slovak theatre: Katuša’s effort to produce absurd drama by employing
absurd means proved a failure.
In 1963, a young stage director Peter Mikulík joined the Slovak National Theatre.
He capitalised on his proverbial sense of irony, paradox and grotesque in the produc-
tions of playwrights moving on the edge of grotesque and absurd drama (Sławomir

10
KOTT, Jan. Rodzina Mrożka, p. 16.
286 MAREK GODOVIČ

Sławomir Mrożek: Tango. The Slovak National Theatre Drama ensemble, premiered on 17 June 1967.
Božidara Turzonovová (Ala), Jozef Adamovič (Artur). Direction Peter Mikulík. Photo by Jozef Vavro.
Theatre Institute Archives.

Mrożek: Moriak, [The Turkey] 1963; Samuel Beckett: Šťastné dni, [Happy Days] 1964;
Václav Havel: Záhradná slávnosť, [The Garden Party] 1965). Prior to that, in coopera-
tion with Milan Lasica, he had staged one-act plays on the scene of The Academy of
Performing Arts in Reduta: Veselica [The Party] and Strip-tease (1963), with the then
students of The Academy of Performing Arts Stano Dančiak, Milan Labuda and Pavol
Mikulík. The early productions by Peter Mikulík are based on the predominance of
text and acting, while direction interpretation is subdued.
The dramaturgic feat of staging Sławomir Mrożek’s play by the SND drama en-
semble rather than by a smaller alternative theatre proved to have its limits. The is-
sue largely concerned actors’ interpretation of absurd drama which was uncharted
territory for both Slovak actors and theatre makers. The staging of absurd drama by
employing absurd means missed the true essence of Mrożek’s texts.
As distinct from Oto Katuša, director of Košice production, Peter Mikulík made
use of realistic, almost civilian, elements in his production of Tango. His Tango has no
complex construct: the director gave prominence to the text per se. He did not resort
to the older translation by Jozef Marušiak, which was too literary for his taste. A new
translation for Mikulík’s  production by Milan Lasica was more colloquial. Despite
a fairly meaningful bringing together of a realistic basis and grotesque unconven-
tionality, actors’ interpretation and their individual approaches varied greatly. The
theatre critic Milan Polák commented on the production: “It is apparent that he [Mi-
FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK... 287

Sławomir Mrożek: Tango. The Slovak National Theatre Drama ensemble, premiered on 17 June 1967.
Mária Kraľovičová (Eleonora), Ondrej Jarjabek (Eugeniusz), Oľga Borodáčová (Eugenia), Ivan Rajniak
(Edo). Direction Peter Mikulík. Photo by Jozef Vavro. Theatre Institute Archives.

kulík] has drawn a lesson from his previous encounters with the plays by Mrożek,
Havel, Topol and Pinter. Using sharp moves and distinct contours he makes a rough
outline of the character which must be filled with a  highly realistic life-giving sap
within the parabolically outlined contours. Mikulík’s  direction is noted for several
distinctive strengths: refined sense of drama synthesis, of the composition of mise-
en-scene, rhythm, a subtle and simple development of interpersonal relationships
and, last but not least, the capacity to offer his idea to the actor and guide him to its
realisation.“11
A clear direction vision has also been viewed positively by the theatre critic and
dramaturg Martin Porubjak: “One should not discount Mikulík’s  effort to materi-
alise all interpersonal relations, his particular concern for veritable and natural action
of actors and his sense of authenticity in the building up of compact situations on
stage and his ability to discreetly and effectively accentuate a  thought by employ-
ing rhythm and arrangement (towards the close of the performance Edek is seen
slumped down in his chair placed on top of a table – it is the chair from which the
now dead Artur used to loudly proclaim his theories of power).“12 Natural and real-
istic action with grotesque and irrational elements are unique to Mikulík’s direction.

11
POLÁK, Milan. Potlesk autorovi i predstaveniu. In Pravda, Vol. 48, p. 2, 22. 6. 1967.
12
PORUBJAK, Martin. Realistická fraška, In Práca, Vol. 22, p. 4, 29 June 1967.
288 MAREK GODOVIČ

In the background there resounds

a Dűrrenmattian idea that our era
can only be grasped through farce.
The theatre critic Ladislav
Obuch writes in similar spirit.
What he especially valued about
Mikulík’s  direction was “smart
unveiling and revelation of the
background behind the thought
process of the source text“13, which
he managed to implant in the pro-
duction as a whole and this is ap-
parent “from the mood and the
Sławomir Mrożek: Tango. The Slovak National Theatre atmosphere of the performance,
Drama ensemble, premiered on 17 June 1967. Mária Krá- accurately capturing the basic
ľovičová (Eleonora), Ivan Rajniak (Edo). Direction Peter characteristics of the source text“14.
Mikulík. Photo by Jozef Vavro. Theatre Institute Archives. Peter Mikulík’s  direction concept
approached society as a space in
which the enforcement of any ideas
may be thwarted by brutal and cruel force. Unambiguous indications communicated
from the stage at a time of communist “thawing”, when Slovak society was at the
crossroads of two worlds, were the proverbial raised thumb: ”It is not Mikulík’s aspi-
ration to accentuate anything with cold and rational forthrightness; his concern is to
appeal to the hearts of his audiences rather than to their reason, to shatter and shock
their emotions and perception.“15
Mikulík’s Tango is to be given credit for its direction as a whole, while critics re-
main split on the quality and persuasiveness of acting. Paradoxically, the acting of the
older generation is generally viewed more positively than the acting of the younger
generation of actors. The actress Oľga Borodáčová was highly rated in the role of
Eugenia: “For her verity and meticulously rendered real-life types with their charac-
teristic and natural action in all situations.“16 It should be noted, though, that the por-
trayal of the character by Borodáčová was determined by the inner state of the actress
and by her peculiar “singing” diction, which in itself sounded absurd. Some critics
raised objections against the dullness of acting of Jozef Adamovič in the role of Artur.
In Milan Polák’s opinion, Mikulík’s production was deficient of an actor worth the
role of Artur: “It was not that much the linearity of acting and its occasional shallow-
ness that did harm to the performance, but rather the fact that it deflected its centre
of gravity.“17 On the other hand, Adamovič proved very convincing in distinguishing
between Artur’s inner transformations in all three acts. He managed to meaningfully
fill in long monologues so as not to sound as empty talk (although, given the context

13
OBUCH, Ladislav. Mrożkove hľadanie nového obsahu života. In Večerník, Vol. 12, Issue 143, p. 3,
20 June 1967.
14
Ibid.
15
PORUBJAK, Martin. Realistická fraška, In Práca, 29 June 1967.
16
Ibid.
17
POLÁK, Milan. Potlesk autorovi i predstaveniu. In Pravda, 22 June 1967.
FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK... 289

Sławomir Mrożek:
Tango. The Slovak
National Theatre
Drama ensemble,
premiered on 17 June
1967. Jozef Adamovič
(Artur), František
Zvarík (Stomil), Mária
Kráľovičová (Eleonora).
Direction Peter
Mikulík. Photo by Jozef
Vavro. Theatre Institute
Archives.

of the play, they indeed are empty phrases).“18 His style of acting was romanticising
and lyrical and he used declarative tone of voice. He almost sounded like a poet de-
claiming his truths. Rather than being assaultive, his arguments in favour of family
reformation based on genuine values are versified. He gets carried away with form
more than content.
“Cham” Edek, rendered by Ivan Rajniak, was portrayed “more on the outward
and over-exposed side“19, although, on the other hand, Rajniak was veritable in ren-
dering Edek as “a savage with good choppers and excellent digestion“20. He dramati-
cally escalated Edek’s side of a convivial lout who tries to sneak into family relations
and to relativise them; at the same time, he purposely worked on the decomposition
of this family. Critics also commented on the performance of Božidara Turzonovová

18
PORUBJAK, Martin. Realistická fraška. In Práca, 29 June 1967.
19
Ibid.
20
POLÁK, Milan. Potlesk autorovi i predstaveniu. In Pravda, 22 June 1967.
290 MAREK GODOVIČ

rendering Ala. According to Martin Porubjak, “she is compelling in any such situa-
tion when contempt and superiority are demonstrated, or when she distances herself
from the debauched family and introvert Artur. She does not deliver in situations that
require emotions, passion or sensuality. The character of Ala is flattened to that of an
ironical intellectual.“21 In Martin Bútora’s view, by her ironical expression and cold
detachedness, she stylised herself in the position of a bored and indecisive woman
of the world. “A little more femininity would do the job, her grief over dead Artur
would be more veritable.“22 On the other hand, critics appreciated her effort at prag-
matism and natural acting. Both actors, representatives of the young generation of
actors, were guided by their teachers (for instance, by Karol L. Zachar) to classical
psychological style of acting and, therefore, stylised approach to their parts and to the
absurdity of the text were remote and unknown to them.
Stage design is the work of Ivan Štěpán. The space is decorated as a burgher draw-
ing room cluttered with period furniture and useless items. The characters look as if
they live in a museum in which interpersonal relations are mothballed only to evolve
in a gradual tragedy which establishes a new order. Several years after Tango had
been premiered in Bratislava, the so-called normalisation was ushered in by new or-
der. The costumes by Helena Bezáková reflected the generation to which the char-
acter belonged (for instance, Eleonora and Stomil looked like hippies who failed to
grow up), although the attire of each character was marked by a detail which rela-
tivized their generational affinity (for instance, Eugenia wore an interwar dress and
a baseball cap).
Through the works of Sławomir Mrożek absurd drama was presented to the pe-
riod audiences of SND in a form different from the one known to them in the texts of
Samuel Beckett. His works are no heavy existential drama with philosophical, meta-
physical even, overtones, but rather plays that emanate human warmth and humour.
Interestingly, Mrożek’s one-act plays do not shun brutality and aggression and there
are times when man succumbs to them easily. The director Peter Mikulík, after the
staging of Tango in SND, worked with Mrożek’s texts as guest director of Divadlo na
Korze [Theatre on the Promenade], which staged three one-act plays by Mrożek in
1969: Strip-tease, Karol [Charlie] and Stroskotanci [At Sea]. After 1970, there was a ban
imposed on Mrożek’s  plays in Slovakia. Before that, Tango, directed by Stanislav
Párnický, had been staged by Divadlo Slovenského národného povstania in Martin
[Theatre of the Slovak National Uprising |Theatre], in 1969.

The second Tango in SND: The funeral of a family

After November 1989, a new wave of demand for Mrożek’s Tango was raised by
Slovak theatres. In 1990, the play was staged by the New Stage theatre Bratislava
under the direction of Stanislav Párnický and by J. G. Tajovský Theatre in Zvolen (di-
rection Andrej Turčan). Tango re-appeared on the stage of SND in 1997. The election
of Martin Porubjak as senior dramaturg of the drama ensemble perfectly correlated
with the then atmosphere of socio-political upheaval. The management of the theatre
approached the representative of the younger generation, Štefan Korenči, to produce

21
PORUBJAK, Martin. Realistická fraška. In Práca, 29 June 1967.
22
BÚTORA, Martin. Tango na výbornú, In Študentská Praha, 18 July 1967.
FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK... 291

Sławomir Mrożek: Tango. The Slovak National Theatre Drama ensemble, premiered on 14 June 1997.
Róbert Roth (Artur), Michaela Čobejová (Ala). Direction Štefan Korenči. Photo by Jana Nemčoková.
Theatre Institute Archives.

the play. True, Korenči did not have prior experience with Mrożek’s plays, but his po-
etics converged on grotesque and irony. The majority of critics and reviewers agreed
on the currentness of his direction concept which perfectly reflected the then social
atmosphere in Slovakia, when fragile democracy was undermined by harsh power
interventions (murdering of a  staff member of the secret service, abduction of the
son of Slovak president abroad, bureaucratic encroachments upon the functioning
of culture).
Drama theorist Dagmar Podmaková examines the dramaturgical interventions
into the older translation by Milan Lasica, which brought the text closer to the pres-
ent (allusion to the Velvet Revolution, the jingling of keys).23 There was no dramatic
editing of the text by the director and the dramaturg Martin Porubjak; instead, they
made it more current and certain phrases were reworded to have it correspond to the
then colloquial language. Although the translation was made in the 1960s, it sounded
current three decades on: it used the language of contemporary intellectuals which
they would speak in privacy rather than in public.
Štefan Korenči produced Tango as a portrayal of a forlorn and loudly declaimed re-
volt of young Artur, whose step into the unknown is passively watched by the rest of

23
PODMAKOVÁ, Dagmar. Porevolučné tango v SND. In Pravda, Vol. 7, Issue 139, p. 7, 18 June 1997.
292 MAREK GODOVIČ

Sławomir Mrożek: Tango. The Slovak National Theatre Drama ensemble, premiered on 14 June 1997.
Marián Geišberg (Stomil), Anton Korenči (Eugeniusz), Anna Javorková (Eleonora), Viera Topinková (Eu-
genia). Direction Štefan Korenči. Photo by Jana Nemčoková. Theatre Institute Archives.

the family. His concept was neither uncontrollably power-oriented nor instinctively pas-
sionate. The scenes looked like they had been cut out of a filthy and dusty hole, where
nothing works, and apathy creeps into relations and into the inner states of characters.
The production moved in sinusoidal oscillations, with abrupt changes in the rhythm of
actions: the director created suspense in dramatic situations only to let it drop abruptly,
while creating an empty interspace filled with awkward pauses and silence.
The production is situated in a drawing room which is in complete disarray. The
drama theorist Ladislav Čavojský wrote the following on the impression given by
the stage design: “Director Štefan Korenči and stage designer Jaroslav Valek arrived
from the countryside and their shoe soles were stained with the filth of poultry pens.
What we see is not a burgher drawing room from half a century back, as the author
would wish to see, but rather a sterile “whitened” room with white chairs and a table.
Contrasting life programmes have contrasting milieus. (...) I fear that I may affront
producers – postmodernists, by using a old-fogyish comparison, but their production
is reminiscent of Záborský’s “Chujava”24 view of reality – first comes the bad day,
then comes the good day, while everything happens somewhere in the backwoods.“25

24
The reviewer alludes to the short story by Jonáš Záborský Dva dni v Chujave [Two Days in Chujava] (1873).
25
ČAVOJSKÝ, Ladislav. Posledné tango v  sezóne, In Literárny týždenník, Vol. 10, Issue 27, p. 15,
3 July 1997.
FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK... 293

Sławomir Mrożek: Tango. The Slovak National Theatre Drama ensemble, premiered on 14 June 1997.
Anton Korenči (Eugeniusz), Róbert Roth (Artur), Marián Geišberg (Stomil), Anna Javorková (Eleonora).
Direction Štefan Korenči. Photo by Jana Nemčoková. Theatre Institute Archives.

Čavojský’s review could not be more apt in naming the director’s two polar view:
during two consecutive days, the family tries to live in different systems. It becomes
integrated; however, a forceful connection during the wedding does not work for
them and the family falls apart. Korenči puts focus on this sharp contrast, which in-
deed triggers change, but, alas, a change for the worse. The space sprinkled with bird
droppings is an image of the decomposition of the intimacy of family life. It is not
furniture, as mentioned by Mrożek in his scenic notes, but rather bird droppings and
piles of dust scattered on the scene like graves that convey destruction. There is just
the table, at which Edek, Eugenia and Eugeniusz play cards. There are groceries and
spirits on the table. There is a chandelier hanging over it, a pram in the background
and a flight of stairs leading to a platform – the bier. When Artur enters the scene,
he immediately assaults Edek. The opening scene suggests a total war declared by
Artur on Edek: he pushes him away from the table, straight in the pram, by that very
act degrading him to an insane person with whom he refuses to enter into a debate.
The stage design also accentuated the breaking down of the play into two parts.
While in the first part Jaroslav Valek managed to create a powerful image of decom-
position and hopelessness, in the second part there was no atmosphere or the pres-
ence of elements that would have helped actors in capturing their exacting roles.
“The greyish scene sprinkled with bird droppings will have an emotional impact on
us before the performance even starts. It is either awesome or awful, choose whichev-
294 MAREK GODOVIČ

er one you want, at any rate, it effectively conveys an atmosphere of an old dovecote
serving its dwellers who blend in perfectly, both physically and mentally.“26
The costume designer Peter Čanecký clad the protagonists in filthy and shabby
clothes. Artur’s  creasy suit long went out of style. The feelings of frustration were
accentuated by the pale masking of actors. In the second part, costumes suggestive
of filth, poverty, material and spiritual destitution were replaced with elegant (wed-
ding) white or black dress, evoking chess pieces.
Artur, the main character, was rendered by Robert Roth. According to the critic
Dagmar Podmaková, “Roth is not a young despot, just the opposite – he seems to be
a  controversial and insecure person who utters semantically unrelated words and
sentences.“27 It should be noted that this was Roth’s first big role with SND drama
ensemble. Mrożek’s Artur predetermined the specific talent of an actor who captures
his role both intellectually and physically. Roth’s style of acting is characteristic by
neurotic gestures and agitated body movements. In Tango, his Artur overtly engages
in conflict with Stomil, when they chastise each other for their opposing world views.
According to the reviewer Barbora Dvořáková, “Roth demonstrates his intellectual
style of acting on Artur. The actor delivers with every part of his body and shows
extraordinary movement disposition, while crafting a psychologically compelling
image of his hero.“28 His Artur is an intellectual wearing a jacket and a pair of Len-
non style glasses, with a book tucked under his arm pit – he is pale and skinny as if
cut out of Andy Warhol’s pop art paintings. In contrast to the earlier production, he
is more intellectual and pragmatic than Jozef Adamovič’s romantic and poetic Artur.
His conflict with other family members is more open and he is reluctant to consent
to a compromise.
Lout Edek, played by archetypal and masculine Ján Kroner, is earthier and more
instinctive compared to Edek from 1967. He solidifies his power status in family by
enforcing ever crude ways. Kroner escalated his acting from infantilism (in the open-
ing scene, he sits in a pram and leafs through a textbook of anatomy) to overt tyranny
demonstrated through crudeness, ambiguous utterances and physical dominance.
His Edek bluntly demonstrates superiority as the play draws to a close – seated at the
table, he is possessively stroking Eleonora, who is on her kneels, while announcing
that he will continue to live in the flat as Artur’s successor.
Marián Geišberg (Stomil), with a face of someone who has just woken up, os-
cillates between a resolute and cross father who counters son’s assaults and a gull-
ible and pliable child. Dressed up in tight flare jeans and a shirt, he has the looks of
a  grown-up member of the Big Beat Generation. Eugeniusz (Anton Korenči), em-
bodying a decent folk man pliable enough to adapt to any situation, can also show
his side of a clumsy manipulator (his suggestion to get rid of Edek in the opening
scene). As for female characters – mother Eleonora (Anna Javorková), grandmother
Eugenia (Viera Topinková) and Artur’s bride Ala (Michaela Čobejová) – their role is
limited to that of playing into the hands of men, and it is no different for Mrożek than
it is for Korenči. In a lengthy “love duet“ Ala climbs down from a chandelier and en-

26
ULIČIANSKA, Zuzana. Nové poriadky v  starom holubníku, In Divadlo v  medzičase, 1997, Vol. 6,
Issue 3, p. 5.
27
PODMAKOVÁ, Dagmar. Porevolučné tango v SND. In Pravda, 18 June 1997.
28
DVOŘÁKOVÁ, Barbora. Slovenské tango... jasné pravidlá! In Sme, Vol. 5, Issue 137, p. 8, 16 June 1997.
FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT IN TANGO BY SŁAWOMIR MROŻEK... 295

Sławomir Mrożek: Tango. The Slovak National Theatre Drama ensemble, premiered on 14 June 1997.
Anton Korenči (Eugeniusz), Michaela Čobejová (Ala), Róbert Roth (Artur). Direction Štefan Korenči.
Photo by Jana Nemčoková. Theatre Institute Archives.

twines her legs around Artur like a snake. Although Eugenia’s bier which epitomises
Artur’s revenge on her and the image of the farce of their lives have their purpose in
the play, they are lost in the preponderant verbal component of the dramaturgical
296 MAREK GODOVIČ

and directorial concept of the production. Despite several weighty moments, it was
diluted into an amorphous narrative.”29
Tango directed by Štefan Korenči on the Small Stage SND gave testimony of the
time in which it had been written. It reflected the civil attitudes of drama produc-
ers who reacted to an adverse socio-political situation in a manner which was more
candid than what the audiences were normally used to on Slovak professional stages.
The finale contains an aberrantly evocative punchline. Edek, with a revolver tucked
behind his belt, moving with a dispassionate dance step, carries Artur’s dead body to
the pram and then takes a photo in front of Eugeniusz’s camera lens, amidst the dead
family members. A dead body in front of him, a dead body behind him – the tango of
death (or anguish at least) may begin.
Both productions of Tango were staged in SND (1967, 1997) at a time when the au-
dience inherently perceived socio-political changes and debated them in their living
rooms. They were in conflict with them, although the conflict in 1997 was not as im-
minent and fatal. In contrast to Mikulík’s production with diverse generational streams
(petty bourgeoisie, hippies), the characters in Korenči’s production look more subdued,
slow and passive. They are in a space that is half dead and they gradually become de-
composed and mouldered. In the second part, submersed in white, the moderate and
“diplomatic” atmosphere of the first part evolves into an agitated and revolutionary
row. At a time when the majority of Slovaks were wholeheartedly enraptured by the
country’s accession to the European Union, the production may have been looked upon
as an utter disaster, as it gave no hope. “The Tango of Porubjak and Korenči is a deep,
artistic and witty metaphor of the quest for an ideal functioning of society. The fact that
it is about a generation and a revolution way different from those rendered by the ac-
tors of SND in 1967, is alluded to by the subtle jingling of keys. And it is charm of the
“unwanted” if the audience sees yet another picture of the present soaking through the
performance. Having said that does not mean it is unwanted by production devisers.“30
Within the social context of the 1990s, other critics condemned Korenči’s interpretation
of the text. “The quality of staging in almost all respects ousted the mounting of the
play thirty years ago on the very same stage. What it missed then, sticks out from it
now, that is, political background of the entire theatre of the absurd.“31
It is this “political” background which makes Mrożek current and relevant to
modern audiences. Like in Poland, Slovak audiences understand the context of his
plays. They have personal experience with what it was like to live in a totalitarian
regime, where distorted rules based on pretence and fear apply; in a regime where
hero is he who rises to power while the rest are doomed to the silence of amorphous
and anonymous masses. On the stages of Slovak theatres, Mrożek’s Tango has lived
several political turnarounds and even today, it is appallingly current.

The study was developed within the framework of the grant project VEGA 2/0143/16 One
Hundred Years of the Slovak National Theatre. Theatre Productions 1938 – 1970 (drama,
opera).
Translated by Mária Švecová

29
PODMAKOVÁ, Dagmar. Porevolučné tango v SND. In Pravda, 18 June 1997.
30
DVOŘÁKOVÁ, Barbora. Slovenské tango, jasné pravidlá! In Sme, 16 June 1997.
31
LEHUTA, Emil. Sezóna skončila kriminálnym tangom. In Teatro, 1997, Vol. 1, Issue 9, p. 10.