Znaki. Dramaty

This is a collection of works by one of the most interesting playwrights in Poland. Some of them have been realised on stage, television and radio, while others are appearing for the first time. Moral themes abound, and each work is an example of aesthetic experimentation.

The reader will find here the famous General, which is both caricature and political allegory, historical document and psychological analysis of a dictator’s personality. Signs has a political theme as well, being a cameral narrative of the “soft totalitarianism” of contemporary democracies, as well as a reflection on the theme of artistic freedom and responsibility. The drama Hermaszewski interweaves recollections of the Wołyń Massacre with the communist reality of the former Polish People’s Republic and a portrait of the first Polish astronaut. The play The Colonel’s Return has a similar structure, in which the characters represent different social groups and their approaches to myth, idea and life-practice. The author’s philosophical ambitions are most clearly on display in The Plain, a symbolic work, in which we come across three anonymous men in a desert. One might say that Blind, Dumb and Gimpy symbolise Man in three people. Likewise, we find philosophical themes in Birthday, which seems a contemporary version of Różewicz’s Card Catalogue. However, in Jakubowski’s world, allegory never departs from the psychological credibility of the average contemporary person. Two excellent works stand out in this collection, as they constitute love stories. The Banal Tale is the record of the thoughts and emotions experienced during a slow marital breakdown, divided into parts. On the other hand, My Romy speaks of the loneliness and suffering of contemporary man caused by his uncertainty of his own identity.

The characters created by Jakubowski are always conscious people, responsible and decisive, ready to take difficult problems in hand. This is a rare trait to be found in contemporary literature; it is a rare phenomenon in contemporary theatre, and a rare vision of man these days.