Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Kathleen Cioffi
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Our Auschwitz: Grotowski's Akropolis
- Part II Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Chapter 22 Tadeusz Kantor: A Very Short Introduction
- Chapter 23 Dead Class: The Making of the Legend
- Chapter 24 Dead Class in Poland
- Chapter 25 The Polish History Lesson
- Chapter 26 Dead Class Abroad
- Chapter 27 On Not Knowing Polish, Again
- Chapter 28 The Visual and the Puerile
- Chapter 29 The National and the Transnational
- Chapter 30 Witkiewicz's Tumor
- Chapter 31 An Age of Genius: Bruno Schulz and the Return to Childhood
- Chapter 32 Conversing with Gombrowicz: The Dead, the Funny, the Sacred and the Profane
- Chapter 33 Panirony: “A pain with a smile and a shrug”
- Chapter 34 Raising the Dead
- Chapter 35 Dead Class as Kaddish…
- Chapter 36 Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence
- Chapter 37 The Dead and the Marionettes
- Chapter 38 Men and Objects
- Chapter 39 Dead Class as Forefathers' Eve
- Chapter 40 Dead Class: The Afterlife
- Postscript
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 36 - Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence
from Part II - Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Kathleen Cioffi
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Our Auschwitz: Grotowski's Akropolis
- Part II Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Chapter 22 Tadeusz Kantor: A Very Short Introduction
- Chapter 23 Dead Class: The Making of the Legend
- Chapter 24 Dead Class in Poland
- Chapter 25 The Polish History Lesson
- Chapter 26 Dead Class Abroad
- Chapter 27 On Not Knowing Polish, Again
- Chapter 28 The Visual and the Puerile
- Chapter 29 The National and the Transnational
- Chapter 30 Witkiewicz's Tumor
- Chapter 31 An Age of Genius: Bruno Schulz and the Return to Childhood
- Chapter 32 Conversing with Gombrowicz: The Dead, the Funny, the Sacred and the Profane
- Chapter 33 Panirony: “A pain with a smile and a shrug”
- Chapter 34 Raising the Dead
- Chapter 35 Dead Class as Kaddish…
- Chapter 36 Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence
- Chapter 37 The Dead and the Marionettes
- Chapter 38 Men and Objects
- Chapter 39 Dead Class as Forefathers' Eve
- Chapter 40 Dead Class: The Afterlife
- Postscript
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One of Dead Class's main Jewish influences is Dybbuk or Between Two Worlds, a play by Szymon Ansky about a restless soul unable to find her way to God. Dybbuk was first staged in Moscow by the Jewish Habima Theatre, directed by Evgeny Vakhtangov, in 1922. Vakhtangov and his touring company brought the play to Cracow's Theatre Bagatela in May 1926, and returned for subsequent productions in Cracow in April 1930 and April 1938. It is unclear when Kantor saw the play, but its main theme, of a ghost entering the body of another, affected him greatly, and its influence is clearly visible in Dead Class. The title Dybbuk comes from dibuk meruach raa, which literally translates as “possessed by a bad spirit.” In Jewish folklore, the term dybbuk refers to a dead person's soul. In Jewish mysticism, the soul is always on borrowed time during life; in death, it is returned to its rightful owner, God. Ansky's Dybbuk is a love story with mystical overtones; the father marries off his daughter, Lea, to a man other than her beloved Chanan. Heartbroken, Chanan commits a mortal sin by pronouncing the unpronounceable name of God and dies. Because he has sinned, his soul cannot find peace, and Lea invites it to her wedding. Chanan's soul enters her body, and she breaks off her engagement to the other man. Through Kaballah, the father soon realizes that Chanan is the son of a deceased friend; the father and this friend had agreed that their children would one day marry.
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- The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and KantorHistory and Holocaust in 'Akropolis' and 'Dead Class', pp. 260 - 261Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012