Erwin Axer

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Erwin Axer in 2001

Erwin Axer (born January 1, 1917 in Vienna ; † August 5, 2012 in Warsaw ) was a Polish theater director , columnist and memoir writer . For many years he was director of the Contemporary Theater ( Teatr Współczesny ) in Warsaw. His son is the classical philologist Jerzy Axer .

Life

Born in Vienna in 1917, his first language was German. In 1920 his parents left Vienna and went to Lviv , where he spent his childhood and youth. After graduating from high school in 1935, he studied directing under Leon Schiller at the State Theater Institute (PIST) in Warsaw and first assisted in a theater performance in 1936. In 1937 he made his debut as a director with the one-act play Moon of the Caribbees by Eugene O'Neill . In 1939 he received his director's diploma. At the beginning of the Second World War he was back in Lviv and worked at the theater there. In August 1944 he took part in the Warsaw Uprising as a photo reporter and was then taken prisoner of war by Germany, as a result of which he was deported to Germany ( Stalag XI A in Altengrabow ).

After the war he started working on the Chamber Theater in Łódź . In 1947 he took on a teaching position at the State University of Theater in Łódź and from 1949 in Warsaw . The theater ensemble moved with him to Warsaw in 1949, where he took over the management of the contemporary theater in 1954 . He remained the director of this theater until 1980. 1950 began his collaboration with the magazine Teatr (theater), for which he wrote a permanent feature section under the title Listy ze sceny (letters from the stage) until 1970 . Between 1954 and 1958 he was also the artistic director of the Polish National Theater in Warsaw. From 1962 he traveled abroad to stage productions on European stages. His German-language productions were regularly invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen . His work at the Burgtheater in his native Vienna and at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus became particularly famous.

In addition to his work as a professor of directing at the Warsaw Theater Academy, he wrote numerous theater-theoretical essays and later also prose. In 2000 and 2001 he was a member of the jury for the Nike Literature Prize .

He was one of the outstanding personalities of the Polish theater. During his long artistic directorship at Teatr Wspólczesny, he staged Polish premieres by authors such as Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht as well as by American authors. Directors such as Konrad Swinarski made their debut here , and authors such as Sławomir Mrożek presented their first plays here. He was also the first to bring Mrożek's plays to the German-speaking stage.

Erwin Axer on his directorial work: "I stage for my pleasure because directing is an occupation and not a job or a profession."

Important productions

Publications

  • Listy ze sceny , Volume 1, 1955; Volume 2, 1957
  • Sprawy teatralne , 1966
  • Ćwiczenia pamięci , 1984, 1991, 1998, 2003
  • Kłopoty młodości, kłopoty starości , 2006
  • Z pamięci , 2006

Awards

Web links

Commons : Erwin Axer  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Axer, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish theater director
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 5th August 2012
Place of death Warsaw