The History of the National Theatre

Natręci

On 19th November 1765 His Royal Highness Stanisław August Poniatowski's Operatic Players presented their first performance of Józef Bielawski's comedy The Interlopers (Natręci) based on a play by Molière.

Since the Operatic Players were the first professional company to play in Polish, it has become a tradition to commemorate the date as that of the birth of Polish National Theatre.

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Two years later, the Players' activity was interrupted by the political disturbances, which led to the First Partition of Poland (as a result of which parts of the country's territory were annexed by its three powerful neighbours: Russia, Austria and Prussia). The theatre bill passed in 1774 allowed the company to resume its activities. No longer boasting the title of court players, from then on it was directed by private entrepreneurs. The actors performed in Radziwiłł Palace (now the residence of the President of Poland) where Wojciech Bogusławski - actor, playwright, theatre producer and stage director, considered as the 'father of Polish theatre' - made his debut in 1778.  

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In 1779 the theatre acquired its own building, which was to become its permanent seat for the next thirty years. In 1825, in view of the growing dilapidation of the old building, the decision was taken to construct an entirely new theatre complex, to be designed for this purpose by Antonio Corazzi.

Inaugurated on 24th February 1833, it took the name of the Grand Theatre (as a result of the successive partitions of Poland, the eastern part of Poland, including Warsaw, was incorporated into Russia, whose rulers, especially after the unsuccessful Polish national uprising of 1830-1831, were unwilling to tolerate the functioning of a 'National' theatre).

In the intermediary period of 1829-1833 the Variety Theatre came into being which presented light plays in the public hall of the Charitable Society building. 

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In 1833 the Variety found shelter in the Grand Theatre's right wing: initially in the Sale Redutowe (Mask Ball Rooms), and eventually in its own separate premises (1836). Until 1916 the whole enterprise known at first as Warsaw Theatres and then as Government Theatres of Warsaw, was administered by Russian officials.

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The early 19th century saw the growing division among companies specializing in either opera, ballet or drama performances, and the fact of acquiring a permanent multi-stage theatre house helped legitimized this division. 

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This period in the history of the Grand Theatre was marked among others by the successful parade of French plays, the appearances of Helena Modrzejewska (Modjeska), the first performances of works by Polish playwrights and Stanisław Moniuszko's operas, but also by major patriotic manifestations in the country, the fire which partly consumed the Variety Theatre in 1883, and the revolutionary upheaval of 1905.

After the withdrawal of the Russian authorities from Warsaw in July 1915, the management of the Variety was taken over by the 'association of comedy and drama actors' and its repertoire immediately broadened to include Romantic plays as well as the most famous works of modern drama ( by Ibsen, Gogol, and Shaw); it was also in that period that the celebrated first performance of Stanisław Wyspiański's Noc listopadowa (The November Night) took place. 

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In 1919 (a year after Poland regained her state independence) the Variety gained itself a status of a municipal theatre, only to be ravaged by fire a few months later. The company moved to the nearby Summer Theatre first and then to the Bogusławski Theatre. When its own stage in Corazzi building was restored in 1924, the Variety changed its name to the National Theatre. 

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Four years later, the small-stage Nowy (New) Theatre was set up in the Sale Redutowe (Mask Ball Rooms, which in 1919-1925 witnessed the theatrical experiments of Juliusz Osterwa's Reduta Theatre). It was in this form that the National Theatre (managed by the Society for the Propagation of Theatre Art since 1934) functioned until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.

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After the cataclysms of the war years, during which Corazzi building was damaged twice - first in September 1939, and then during the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944 - the renovated National Theatre in Warsaw reopened in 1949. Its postwar fates did reflect to a large extent the major events in the history of Soviet-dominated Poland: the officially imposed madness of the so-called socialist realism, the short-lived period of relative intellectual liberty following Stalin's death in 1953, the National's involvement in the events of 1968 (when the communist leaders' decision to ban the production of Adam Mickiewicz's The Forefathers' Eve staged by Kazimierz Dejmek ignited a students revolt), and the gloomy years of the martial law in the early 1980s.

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Headed by several eminent directors and famous for its celebrated actors and over a dozen splendid productions, the National was nonetheless often severely criticised by both public and theatre reviewers.

In 1985 the theatre again burned out. Its reconstruction which took twelve years , was completed only after the overthrow of the communist rule in Poland. In 1997 the National Theatre was reopened under the artistic directorship of Jerzy Grzegorzewski.

Grzegorzewski formulated the programme of the national stage as 'the domain of Wyspiański:

We are constantly looking for ways of expressing his intentions in a modern stage arrangement by a modern gesture, by the modern way of speaking on the stage (...) What I have in mind here, is a manner that does not dismiss the whole experience of 20th century art, that does not reject the changes that have occurred as a result of the new experience in which the generations living after Wyspiański have taken part up to our time."
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Under the artistic directorship of Jerzy Grzegorzewski the National has regained its traditional position of the foremost drama theatre in Poland. Following his resignation, in September 2003, Jan Englert was appointed as a new Artistic Director of the National Theatre in Warsaw.

  • KING LEAR

    King Lear may be Shakespeare's boldest examination of human nature. Jan Englert will play the title role. The premiere of the tragedy directed by Grzegorz Wiśniewski will take place on February 24, 2024.

  • WAITING FOR GODOT

    Piotr Cieplak directs Waiting for Godot by Beckett. Is this a classic yet? Does it still have its avant-garde power? And, are we still waiting?


  • FREDRO. THE JUBILEE YEAR

    To celebrate 230 years since Aleksander Fredro's birth, the National Theatre invites you to an evening dedicated to the life and works of Poland’s greatest comedy writer. 

  • TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS

    Vienna in economic crisis and its lost inhabitants; portrait of the society in which fascism is born. Małgorzata Bogajewska directs Ödön von Horváth's 1931 drama.

  • THE THEATRE MAKER

    The play by Thomas Bernhard, one of the most outstanding playwrights of the second half of the 20th century. In the title role – Jerzy Radziwiłowicz. 

  • ALICE'S WONDERLAND

    Have you ever quarreled with the Time or visited a forest where things have no names? The musical performance based on the famous novels by Lewis Carroll. 

  • THE MISANTHROPE

    Jan Englert stages a classic play by Molière. What is Alcest's misanthropy: an uncompromising commitment to the truth or a doomed uprising against social conventions?

  • THE BOOKS OF JACOB

    Staging the most important novel by Polish Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk directed by Michał Zadara. 

  • THE DECALOGUE

    An iconic work of Polish cinema, rethought thirty-five years after its creation. Wojciech Faruga directs The Decalogue by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. 


  • MARY STUART

    Grzegorz Wiśniewski returns to the classic drama about human passions interwoven in a ruthless machinery of history and intrigue.

  • MÜNCHHAUSEN FOR ADULTS

    Maciej Wojtyszko directs his own play about Baron von Münchhausen, a famous adventurer and swindler.


  • Solidarity with Ukraine | Солідарні з Україною

    The ensemble of the National Theatre stands in solidarity with the Ukrainians who are fighting for the independence of their homeland.

  • TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL

    Complicated love intrigues and music. Piotr Cieplak directs Twelfth Night, or What You Will, one of Shakespeare's most important comedies.


  • PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

    The new theatrical version of the Australian prose classics directed by Lena Frankiewicz. In the role of Mrs Appleyard – Ewa Wiśniewska.


  • SNAKE SKIN

    Artur Urbański directs his own play which main character is Ruth Berlau, one of Bertolt Brecht's closest associates and life companions.


  • SNOW

    Staging of the Young Poland movement modernist drama by Stanisław Przybyszewski – Snow directed by Anna Gryszkówna.


  • AUTUMN SONATA

    A theatrical version of the famous film by Ingmar Bergman directed by Grzegorz Wiśniewski. Danuta Stenka as Charlotte.


  • MOTHER JOAN OF ANGELS

    How does evil arise that we do not understand?Mother Joan of Angles by Iwaszkiewicz directed by Wojciech Faruga. 


  • The National Theatre at Google Cultural Institute

    Virtual exhibition 250 Years of Teatr Narodowy (National Theatre of Poland) is available online at Google Cultural Institute.


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