ABSTRACT
Judith Malina, co-founder of the Living Theater, used to say that the success of a revolution depends on the stupidity of the police. In the case of Polish independent experimental theatre companies, one might say that their artistic success during the communist era was partly due, in a rather perverse way, to the very existence of censorship in Poland. Although it would be problematic to accord a positive value in general to censorship and the suppression of freedom of speech, it is arguable that in the Polish case state control of publications and performances led theatre companies to develop a unique language of artistic expression. This language combined the spoken word with physical actions that suggested meanings totally different from what the words themselves denoted. This chapter shows how theatre companies in communist Poland (1945-89) were prompted to introduce innovative symbolic modes of expression as part of a strategy of referring to the Polish ‘here and now’ by metaphorical means. The development of Polish independent companies (and also some state-administered theatres) in this period provides a very good example of constraints on the freedom of expression stimulating creativity.
