Doświadczenie Innego w dramatach Bernarda-Marie Koltesa

Abstract

The article analyses the writings by Koltès, an important playwright on the French scene of the 1980s. The main issue focuses on the unique fusion of personal existential experience (numerous travels to African countries, North and South America, illness, childhood experiences, exceptional sensitivity) with his artistic work, as well as the problem of the other human, one’s perception of the Other, quest for him/her, desire, fear of the Other, and inability to communicate with the Other. Encounter with the Other is concomitant with experiencing solitude, desire, love, but also aggression and destruction. Germane to the way of expressing them is space and time. The space, especially the one which is physically experienced by the author himself, and which served him as his prime source of inspiration, plays an important role in rendering the Other. At the same time the Other is identified with the fascinating black man (Alboury from the play entitled Black Battles with Dogs/ Combat de nègre et des chiens, Abad from Quay West/ Quai ouest). Another time he bears resemblance to the fierce Other, who arouses fear, and makes others run away from him (Dealer from In the Solitude of Cotton Fields/ Dans la solitude des champs de coton). And yet another time the Other is like a merely discernible silhouette fading somewhere over the corner of an abandoned street; this is the person we want and need; however, much unreal as this person is, we are doubtful of who the one in question really is. This might be a forlorn part of ourselves (The Night Just Before the Forests/ La nuit juste avant les forêts). Different interpretations of the Other allow for J. Lacan’s theory, since there are many points of intersection which bring it close to what emerges in dramas by Kotlès.