Last week I talked about Tort Marcello with Małgorzata Litwinowicz-Droździel in the most welcoming space of Czytelnia Elektra. It was a truly memorable evening for me as I could finally celebrate in my beloved city with family, friends, colleagues and other members of the audience the material, tangible effect of many years of research about nineteenth-century theatre fans. Małgorzata who is the deputy director of my Institute and a top expert on nineteenth-century Polish culture led our – not-scripted! – conversation in such a way that I felt both appreciated, inspired and provoked to discussion. Not to mention there were also some challenging questions from the audience! Just to give you a taste of the topics we touched upon:
- what are the most stunning differences between our code of behaviour in the theatre and the nineteenth-century practices?
- did nineteenth-century theatre fans resemble contemporary sports fans? can we compare a nineteenth-century playhouse to a sports stadium?
- why there are no sources left by nineteenth-century Polish fans?
- how did theatre landscape look like in nineteenth-century Warsaw?
- did fan practices stimulate women’s emancipation?
- why everybody was in love with Helena Modrzejewska?
- and… what was the original recipe for Tort Marcello?
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