Parisian Night in Kraków – Sławomir Mrożek, Piotr Skrzynecki, Janina Garycka, Zbigniew Preisner

On 29 June 1990, Sławomir Mrożek celebrated his 60th birthday. Two years earlier, Józef “Żuk” Opalski, a local theatre and literary studies celebrity, spoke to the author and proposed organising a jubilee bash in Kraków. Two years in the making, the event coincided with sweeping political and social changes. The festival, which went down in history as “Parisian Night”, became a fitting occasion for the society to release their unbridled joy.
The Cellar Under the Rams actively participated in the organisation of Sławomir Mrożek’s 60th bash. After all, the birthday celebrant was back in the day part of the inner circle that founded the cabaret in the 1950s. Years later, Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, a writer and co-founder of the Cellar, recalled that he would always wear a sheepskin coat at that time. He usually stood in the corner, taking it all in. He was reticent. Mrożek himself stated that to his generation the cabaret was a safe haven. Children prefer playing in the basement or in the attic, where they hide from overbearing adults, and where they feel ensconced and secure. But during that moment in Polish history, the sense of fear was shared by adults. The Cellar gave them a guarantee of free, unmonitored play. As a writer, Mrożek benefited from the group’s fun and games.
Mrożek wrote a diversity of texts for the Cellar, but some of them were short-lived. For instance, A Military Parade, his short story performed with a zeal by Tadeusz Kwinta, was banned by state censors who feared its political overtones.