The Madman and the Nun

Madman and the Nun, The (Wariat i zakonnica)

    Alternative Title: There Is Nothing Bad Which Could Not Turn into Something Worse

    Author: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz

    Date Written: 1923

    First Performance: 1924, Toruń

    Published: 1925

    First English Translation: 1968

    Genre: Drama in 3 acts; Polish prose

    Setting: Cell in a lunatic asylum, 1920s

    Cast: 6m, 2f

Alexander Walpurg, a handsome but dishevelled 29-year-old poet, is a patient in a lunatic asylum, diagnosed with dementia praecox ‘stemming from a forgotten incident in his past’. Sister Anna, a beautiful 22-year-old nun, is assigned to him to bring this to light. Anna entered a convent after her fiancé shot himself, while Walpurg tormented his lover to death. The two are...

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