Leon Schiller


Leon Schiller or Leon Schiller de Schildenfeld was a Polish theatre and film director, as well as critic and theatre theoretician. He also wrote theatre and radio screenplays and composed music. He was born in Kraków [Austrian Partition|under the Austrian rule] during the foreign Partitions of Poland, to a family of Jewish and Austrian origin that had been ennobled by Empress Maria Theresa.
Schiller became famous for his 1934 staging of Adam Mickiewicz's Dziady at Warsaw's Teatr Polski. This was also presented in Lwów, Wilno as well as in Sofia in Bulgaria.

Career

Schiller graduated from Kraków's Jagiellonian University in philosophy and Polish literature. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He debuted as a singer in Kraków's Zielony Balonik cabaret and as theater director in Warsaw's Polish Theatre. He served as artistic director of the Ateneum Theatre, raising its reputation as one of the leading voices for Poland's new intelligentsia in the interwar period. Schiller collaborated with the following Warsaw theatres:
  • Teatr Wielki
  • Teatr Rozmaitości
  • Teatr Mały
  • Teatr Polski
  • Teatr Reduta
  • Teatr Ateneum.
He also collaborated with theaters in Łódź and Lwów. From 1930 to 1932, he was artistic and drama director of Warsaw's Wielki, Rozmaitości, and Mały Theaters. In Lwów he developed his own concept of "monumental theatre," pertaining to the production of great Romantic works: Kordian, Dziady and Sen Srebrny Salomei. Schiller's connection with Lwów lasted sporadically until 1939.
His directorial work included 29 dramas and some dozen vaudeville and operetta productions. In 1933 he headed the directorial department at the National Theater Arts Institute.
On 29 June 1908 Schiller initiated a correspondence with the English actor, theater director, scenic designer, and theoretician of drama, Edward Gordon Craig. Together with his letter Schiller sent Craig, in Florence, his essay, "Dwa teatry", translated into English by Madeline Meager. Craig responded immediately, accepting the essay for his international theater magazine, The Mask. This was the beginning of a productive collaboration between the two prominent theater directors, who introduced each other's theoretical writings to foreign readers.
File:Pomnik Leona Schillera w Warszawie 2019.jpg|thumb|upright|Bust of Leon Schiller near Warsaw's ''Teatr Polski''

World War II

During World War II, as part of German repressive measures after the Volksdeutsch German-collaborator actor Igo Sym had been shot dead by the Polish underground, Schiller was imprisoned at the Pawiak prison and at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In May 1941 he was ransomed by his sister, Anna Jackowska, with 12,000 złotys that she received for her jewelry.
After the war, in 1946–49, Schiller was president of the National [Film School in Łódź|National Drama School in Łódź]. In 1952 he founded the publication, Pamiętnik Teatralny.
He died in 1954, aged 66, in Warsaw.

Works

Essays:
  • Teatr Ogromny, 1961
  • U progu nowego teatru, 1978
Performance scripts:
  • Pastorałka, 1931
  • Kram z piosenkami, 1977
"Monumental" productions:
Zeittheater - productions on current social issues:
  • Opera za trzy grosze, 1929
  • Krzyczcie Chiny, 1938
  • Kapitan z Koepenick, 1932
Musicals:
  • Dawne Czasy w Piosence, Poezji i Zwyczajach, 1924
  • Bandurka, 1925
  • Kulig, 1929