Written by Stanisław Krzesicki especially for the theatre in Lublin, the play was first staged at Jezuicka in 1853. Waldemar Sulisz wrote:
It was an excellent idea to stage a 19th-century play at the Old Theatre, and to use 19th-century Polish to do so. Luck favoured the production team, who located the manuscript of Stanisław Krzesiński’s text at the Princes Czartoryski Library in Kraków. The aim of the project was to reconstruct the 19th-century stage production, with an emphasis on its thespianism, stage motion, lighting, and set design; along with the presentation of moving images, the use of trapdoors, acoustic and visual effects, and metamorphoses engineered with clever contraptions. This machinery was what attracted audiences and filled the pockets of the venue owner.
Krzesiński’s play was tracked down and adapted for the modern audience by Lublin theatrologists Jarosław Cymerman and Grzegorz Kondrasiuk. It was directed by Joanna Lewicka and produced for the Old Theatre by the Teatrikon Foundation.
