In translating Mrozek’s plays, especially The Police (1958), theoretical and aspirational concerns collide. Mrozek was insistent upon the primacy of the pure textuality of the play, yet his plays’ reception and significance depended upon a political context decidedly different from the contemporary American one. The case of The Police, Mrozek’s first play, represents a striking example of the probative value of translation in laying bare the extratextual and contextual factors that silently enable a seemingly pure textuality. This investigation is an outgrowth of a collaboration with Chicago’s Chopin Theatre, which aspires to sway college theater departments to use Mrozek’s shorts as part of their curriculum of exercises and eventually, part of their repertoires.

Joanna Trzeciak Huss is associate professor in modern and classical language studies at Kent State University. Her research areas include Nabokov as a self-translating author, the relationship between Polish poetry and philosophy, and Polish theatre. Her translations of Polish and Russian literature have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, Harpers, The Atlantic, Paris Review, Field, Czas Kultury, Zvezda, Boston Review, nonsite, and New Ohio Review, among others. Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska (W.W. Norton, 2001), was awarded the Heldt Translation Prize. Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Róz?ewicz (W.W. Norton, 2011) was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize, and received the Found in Translation Award and the AATSEEL Award for Best Scholarly Translation. She has been the recipient of IREX, NEH, and Fulbright fellowships.