InterAlia (Dec 2024)
Kopciuszek i Sarmaci. Kamp w polskim i norweskim dramacie współczesnym
Abstract
The 1964 publication of Susan Sontag’s essay “Notes on ‘Camp’” initiated a discussion of a phenomenon whose functioning in the mass consciousness was inevitably linked to the process of its cultural appropriation, which had been going on for more than half a century. This phenomenon, born in the New York homosexual subculture, was characterized by a rejection of the normative cultural codes that inhibit the development of individual identity. With the publication of “Notes on ‘Camp,’” however, it was reduced to an aesthetic of excess and emptied of ideological content. Sontag’s gesture of appropriation sparked a discussion on the possibility of reclaiming the political and queer nature of camp. The latter understanding of camp is deployed in this article for the purpose of analyzing its manifestations in Polish and Norwegian contemporary drama. As catalysts of social moods, dramatic texts can be an excellent source of knowledge about the relationship between theatrical practice on the one hand and politics, power, or gender on the other. This paper juxtaposes key dramatic texts (including Jolanta Janiczak’s O mężnym Pietrku i sierotce Marysi, Paweł Soszyński’s Teo, Lisa Charlotte Baudouin Lie and Maria Kristina Karasjo’s Sons of Libertys udistanserte Hongi hjerter og hjerner spiddet av enhjørningens anti-transcendentale regnbågs hallojs rosa horfluff med en twist, and Kari Fredrikke Brænne’s Fattigjenta, Bingoprinsen og Det Magiske Pølsevannet) to bring out the similarities and differences between the two countries’ camp dramas set in different social and political contexts. The most significant point of comparison revealed by this analysis is that the dramas address different themes and, as a result, the dramas evoke different connotations in the two countries. Since many Polish dramas showcase events, traditions, and heroes associated with Polish national identity, they still seem deeply involved in contemporary social discourse. By contrast, Norwegian drama seems somewhat less serious; artists often play with the aesthetic possibilities of camp in their texts. This juxtaposition reveals the dramatic potential of contrasting the multifaceted and innovative nature of camp in the Polish and Norwegian theater. Camp plays in these countries are shown to have distinctive connotations and to represent different social conditions.
Keywords
