The Polish Diaspora

Last year I saw Tadeusz Kantor’s famous production of the Dead Class in New York at La Mama. It had originated in Cracow, then toured all over the world. I would like to share with you the reflections of an emigre about this production. Kantor’s imagination resurrected two different and forgotten “classes.” In the first sat students about to matriculate from the Galician gymnasium of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on the eve of the First World War. Mannequins representing these boys and girls were seated behind desks. A moment later the same desks were occupied by the returning dead. They were the other “class” in the production—the trampled “ethos” of that corner of the world where...