Parisian Night in Kraków – Decorations in Floriańska Street

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.

He 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.

But on 29 June 1990 it was not censorship that Sławomir Mrożek, Piotr Skrzynecki, and Janina Garycka talked about. Still, the day offered former Cellar buddies ample opportunities for recollections. The cabaret curated a one-off evocative event, hosted - as was his wont - by Piotr Skrzynecki. Krystyna Zachwatowicz sang one of her signature songs Taka głupia to ja już nie jestem, (I am no longer that stupid), while an in-house fortune-teller cast Mrożek a horoscope.

The jubilee was intended as a festival. As such, it received wide assistance. Izabella Cywińska, known until then primarily as theatre and film director, acted in her capacity as the newly appointed Minister of Arts and Culture (1989–1991) and extended institutional support, including major financial backing. The Stary Theatre in Kraków (since 2001 known as The Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre) became the principal organiser of the event. As ideas mushroomed, more institutions joined the ranks, such as Jagiellonian University, National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, and the Cellar Under the Rams. And for two consecutive weeks (15–29 June 1990) Kraków went full Mrożek. There was an international theatre festival with several dozen companies in attendance, an academic conference entitled “Mrożek and Mrożek”, featuring researchers from Poland, Europe, and America, screenings of TV adaptations of plays by Mrożek, exhibitions, stagings, and performances, including by (rather surprised) Mrożek himself and his doppelganger. A gigantic, seventeen-metre-long tie emblazoned with “Mrożek Festival” was hung to the Town Hall Tower and the city was brimming with both curious residents and guests from abroad. Specially designed signposts, placards, and banners guided arrivants right from the main train station to festival venues. Kraków was flooded with occasional publications. Given the number of events, it almost defies belief that the birthday celebrant was able to rise up to all the challenges. Apart from the scholarly sessions, exhibitions, and stage productions, he - accompanied by wife Susana Osorio-Mrożek - received a parade of 101 dachshunds (not Dalmatians, mind you) in the Old Town’s Main Market Square and was saddled, cosplaying as Zorro - a famed masked vigilante, on a wooden horse drawn along the square. He also re-visited his home village of Borzęcin, where the atmosphere emulated that of his own absurd short stories, topped with local school children chanting rhymed slogans intended to mock-praise him. In the end, the lines were inadvertently jumbled together and mixed into an even more hilarious hodgepodge.

Mrożek’s eventful birthday did not end at dusk. The night of 29 June 1990 marked the apogee of the jubilee extravaganza. Piotr Skrzynecki, who also celebrated his name day then, decided to merge both festivities. Given that the origins of the Cellar are indebted to the spirit of French existentialism and that Mrożek resided in France for over two decades, it seemed organic for Kraków to be converted into Paris, if for one celebratory night only. Most probably the idea of the Grand Parisian Night, which attracted a 6000-strong public of revellers - participants and spectators, came into being while Skrzynecki was sitting in the Vis-à-vis Cafe, located in the Old Town’s Main Market Square in Kraków. To his mind, the noticeably grimy streets of Kraków were to be spirited away, turning into charming Parisian alleyways and cul-de-sacs. His Cellar associates were less enthusiastic, unable to wrap their heads around the idea. But this is exactly what happened. After all, the driving force behind the Cellar Under the Rams was Piotr Skrzynecki’s founding principle of make-believe creativity: to infuse the glum reality of the Polish People’s Republic, which was characterised by shortages and prohibitions, with magic and to make the world a happy place.

"I detest clichés and boredom. Rehashing the same event. That’s why we celebrated my name day among the stalls in Kraków’s Kleparski Square, on a boat on the Vistula River, on Piłsudski’s Mound, where we were driven in horse-drawn carts, in Botanical Gardens to the accompaniment of a Romani orchestra (I took a temporary leave of absence from hospital back them), under Dębnicki Bridge and in the Pieskowa Skała castle [a Renaissance fortified structure located north of Kraków]. Our “Parisian Night in Floriańska Street” was the most spectacular of all, but the jubilee in the Main Railway Station in Kraków also worked just fine [...] Now, I would like for the “Grand Cellar Ball” to hit the road and travel across Poland, to organise several parties at once, all under the slogan of “Have Fun with the Cellar” - in Kraków, Warszawa, Grudziądz, Poznań, everywhere… to enable people to enjoy themselves and dance to live orchestral music played in squares, in meadows, on bridges, on roadsides… Only in poetry and only if adorned in flowers does the world we live in become different - prettier, wiser, better."

Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, Piotr, Kraków 1998