Criminals, Artists, and Madmen

Abstract Given the general instability of societal norms in Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz's dramatic output, the concept of crime may seem inadequate for capturing the excessive violence underwriting these works. However, the obsessiveness with which the playwright invokes the theme of criminality warrants a closer look at the “vocational” criminals that populate his plays. This essay examines these ambiguous figures, focusing on Witkiewicz's Szalona lokomotywa The crazy locomotive, 1923, 1962, where “crime for crime's sake” receives the most extensive treatment. My study unfolds in three stages. First, I trace the criminal motif in the broader context of violence that characterizes Witkacy's dramas, highlighting crime's transgressive potential but also its association with existential defeat. Second, I examine the “committed” criminal as he emerges in later plays, suggesting that existing scholarly typologies have largely overlooked this figure's ambivalent complexity, especially when it comes to its role in the author's catastrophic historiosophy. To illustrate my point, the final section of the article demonstrates how the criminal plot of The Crazy Locomotive subverts and revises the basic tenets of Witkacy's familiar outlook on modernity.