Stanislawa Przybyszewska(1901-1934) Affectionately earning the nickname "My Polish Soulmate", Stanislawa was a Polish playwright who devoted her very short and morbid life to the literary evocation of the Terror. Unfortunately, she was not famous until after her untimely death and the two surviving plays of her revolutionary trilogy, The Danton Case and Thermidor, have not yet reached a widespread audience. (They have, however, been outstanding successes in Slavic theater and become part of the standard Polish theatrical repertoire) It is one of my many all-ready discovered missions in life to at least in part remedy this horrible situation and give dear Stanislawa some of the notoriety her work so richly deserves.
The following information is gathered from David Gerould's introduction to The Danton Case and Thermidor Northwestern University Press 1989, Pam Gem's play The Snow Palace and A Life of Solitude: A Biographical Study with Selected Letters by Jadwiga Kosicka and David Gerould Quartet Books Ltd. 1986.
Stanislawa was born Stanislawa Pajak in 1901, the illegitimate daughter of impressionist painter Aniela Pajak and Polish modernist playwright Stanislaw Przybysweski , known for his place in the fin de siecle culture of 1890s Vienna. Raised by her mother, Stanislawa moved frequently around Western Europe where she became fluent in many languages--including French, German, and English. A precocious child, she showed early aptitude in every subject ranging from art to mathematics to writing. In 1912, her mother died and she lived with her aunt until 1919 when she finally met her famous father. Attracted by his panache and reputed genius, Stanislawa developed a hero worship for him that bordered on infatuation. Her fathe introduced her to morphine as a way to stimulate creativity. Stanislawa would die a morphine addict. Simultanouesly, Stanislawa was studying philosophy at the Poznan University and working as a postal clerk until a mental breakdown and a sudden revulsion with her father forced her to leave for Krakow . There she worked as a salesgirl in a Communist bookstore. Stanislawa was to have communist sympathies throughout her life, though she disdained ordinary humanity far too much to become officially affiliated with that party. In 1921, she married artist Jan Panienski, a man she was intellectually attracted to, and until his death from a morphine overdose in 1926, they lived peacefully together tutoring at teaching at the Polish High School. It was around this time that Stanislawa began her obsession with French Revolution. She was obsessed with Buchner's Danton's Death, though she disliked the Dantonist view of its author. Stanislawa herself was heavily influenced by the Robespierrist, communist school of Albert Mathiez. After her husband's death, and a year of experimenting with being a professional painter, she decided that literature was her true calling and fanatically devoted the rest of her life to proving that she could beat her father in his own field. Letting go of her only means of income, tutoring, she spent her days single-mindedly writing plays about the French Revolution. By 1928 she was living in a seven and a half by fifteen foot garret in Danzig, a garret without proper plumbing or heating. There, living with the spirits of the dead revolutionaries, she felt more at home than in the real world of the 20th century. She rejected all proposals by relatives and acquaintances to relieve her of her situation, saying "I don't want to get by the way other people do" and fearing they would have her put in a mental institution. In 1935, starving, freezing and addicted to morphine, she died at the age of 34. Three people attended her funeral. She left a trilogy of plays that would wait over a quarter of a century before they gained recognition.
93, (1928) the shortest, and most obscure of the trilogy, was not of the caliber of the other three and was, according to David Gerould, "has as its heroine a neurotic young woman dreaming of greatness who, on the day of Marat's funeral, almost succeeds in bringing her father to the guillotine." Although the main character, I don't know, just may somehow coincidentally remind you of the author, the characters are fictional
The Danton Case is the best-known of the trilogy, and was the last one written (1929) It is very long....about five and a half hours in performance. It is about the tragic conflict between Danton---a corrupt and elitist hedonist and Stanislawa's beloved Robespierre--a brilliant and quasi-divine entity. It is has been called a level-handed account but since it starts off with Danton receiving money from the English and elaborating on his dictatorial plans, I don't really think so. It's a gripping depiction of the how "the Revolution, like Saturn, will devour its children." Perhaps the most poignant scene takes place between Saint-Just and Robespierre at the end as the prophet of the Republic of Virtue comes to realize that killing Danton--who was poisoning his dream---dooms both himself and his utopian cause. Wajda's Danton is based on this play, although he kind of cuts out a few scenes---like every single one that is sympathetic to Robespierre.
Thermidor (first version---1925) is my personal favorite. It remains unfinished and the action takes place within an hour late on the night of 7 Thermidor. The first scene, where Billaud, Collot, Vilate, Carnot, Barere and Fouche are discussing Robespierre and the Republic is riveting for its depiction of Paris, dead and and exhausted in the moldering dream of the Republic, while the Committee remains morbidly overheated with activity. The second act, where Saint-Just, newly returned from the armies and estranged from his spiritual master Robespierre, and Robespierre, deteriorating physically but with psychic gifts, discuss how the Revolution will be crushed by the coming of conqueror-tyrants, corruption and capital is equally amazing. It may not be historically accurate, but wouldn't it be fun if it were!
