Last year I saw Michael Glawogger’s documentary Workingman’s Death and it occurred to me to wonder what was the toughest of all professions. Mining coal? Looking after the terminally ill? Smelting steel? Sitting at a cash register for ten hours without a break? The answer is none of the above. When it comes to being tough you cannot match the life of the Polish intelligentsia. That’s where the real ball-breaking goes down. Take an article in this week’s Polityka — if you can take it, that is, you soft-soaped milk-sop. The article concerns one Izabella Cywińska (“Iron Cywa”), who has just taken over some theatre or other in Warsaw. Of herself she says she always had leadership tendencies. In 1970 she took over a theatre in Kalisz (where?) and sacked the entire crew. Tough but fair, I think you’ll agree: she says she found work for them all elsewhere. One Wiesław Komasa says of her that she likes talented young actors who require a heavy investment but give good returns. Of course if they require too heavy an investment you just fire them and get better ones. The journalist (Aneta Kyzioł) informs us ominously and inevitably that Cywińska is not afraid of “mocne teatralne środki” (powerful theatre means – sorry about the poor translation).

For a time Cywińska was even minister for culture. She caused a furore by saying that theatres under construction (for many years) in Lublin and Kielce should be turned into toilet paper factories. Needless to say, she’d do it all again, only this time “…I’d be harder.” What? Even harder then she already is? By my calculations, that would fall under the category of “well” hard, possibly even “well hard with a sarf London accent.” One of her protégés, Hanna Śleszyńska, supplies the obligatory compliment: “She is demanding but actors treated seriously give their all so as not to let her down.” The only question is who is being complimented? Even when Cywińska is wrong she’s tough: For a time she headed some cultural foundation some of whose funds were dodgily invested, mainly by members of the foundation. As a result she was forced to resign because that’s what being the boss means: taking responsibility for things that aren’t even (directly) your fault. That’s how goddam tough it is in the hot seat.