Manuscript of the Drama "In a Small Country House" by S. I. Witkiewicz

Witkiewicz's plays are a paramount literary phenomenon of the Polish inter-war drama. This writer, painter and philosopher was an advocate of avant-garde drama, and his philosophical and aesthetic writings clearly picture his concept of “pure form”. The pure form theory stemmed from a desire to break with classical and realistic theatre in favour of theatre that deformed reality in a way that would shock the spectator and thus induce an authentic experience.
"W małym dworku" (eng. In a Small Country House) is a very important play in Witkiewicz’s bibliography. The author wrote it in 1921 and it was first staged in 1923, which is all the more interesting as some plays were not staged until many years after the writer’s death.
The manuscript of the play presented here is complete and includes the final fragment written in 1925. Although – typically of Witkiewicz – this play is imbued with oneiric motives and evokes the impression that the worlds of ghosts, spectres and ordinary people intertwine, the author places greater emphasis on the aspects of the grotesque and the absurd. The deformation and the apparent lack of logic in the subsequent scenes show that Witkiewicz is a unique phenomenon in Polish avant-garde literature. Text in Polish. Full title of the manuscript : "Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz: W małym dworku. Sztuka w 3 aktach. Poświęcone matce" (eng. "Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz: In a Small Country House. Play in 3 acts. Dedicated to the mother".