Plays
Weronika’s Lips
Artur Pałyga
A monoplay in the form of prayers. Zofia Kossak, a Polish writer active with the political right-wing before the Second World War, and after the war awarded for aiding Jews, talks to God in a few moments of her life. In her humble, ardent but also neurotic and desperate monologues, she tries to deal with contradictions: between her declared anti-Semitism and compassion for the suffering of Jews, between patriotism and a sense of rejection by her own country, and finally between deep faith and dissent from the world's evil. The play reflects the complexity of the figure whom the national Catholics, far too quickly, adopted as their patron.
Somnambulism
Antoni Winch
Costumes, set design and dialogues like in Chekhov or Ibsen, but it turns out to be a pornographic filmset. The ambitious director who sees that the porn convention is already worn out and wants to bring more psychology and emotions into his production. The same longing for ordinary human feelings can be seen in the actors and the lonely fan, who is looking for love, though he can express it only through sex. When the values fall, the Somnambulists’ sect offers a remedy. It is hard however to find oneself in a dream. Tragicomic and pessimistic in the diagnosis, the play refers to Hanoch Levin’s dramas and Michel Houellebecq’s prose.
Antigone – Lonely Planet
Lena Kitsopoulou
The author here rewrites the myth of Antigone, having four skiers limited by the convention of a television studio deal with it. From a series of grotesque and surreal dialogues there emerges the image of contemporary Greece and today's problems of the individual in the daily world-view choices. In the text we find distant relatives of Sophocles’s figures, this time extremely mundane, often in a burlesque outfit, very distant from the pathos of antiquity.
The Things You Take with You
Andreas Flourakis
The play came into being in 2016 to respond to the growing number of refugees arriving to the shores of Greece. Us and Them, the characters of the drama, located in a "transient place", let out more and more sentences, smoothly passing from one association to the next. The most resonant voices are the ones that would most willingly send the refugees back to their war-torn homelands. Them, the refugees, in turn, enumerate what they have got in their suitcases, what objects they have managed to save, which constitutes their entire heritage. They talk about the most important books, family souvenirs and keys to the houses that no longer exist.
Essays, Studies
Admiration and anxiety
Jerzy Sosnowski
As a writer, but also as a human being, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka was a product of the culture of the noble manor, identifying Polishness with Roman Catholicism, enchanted in history as it is depicted by Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novels. The values that this circle held were determined by clear concepts of patriotism, from which faithfulness to tradition resulted, and the concept of faith, defining good and evil, and finally by the notion of honour. Like every axiological system, it also had its "blind spots", places of gaps unnoticed at first, which could be clearly seen from a distance, from the perspective of another system.
Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and mechanisms of Polish self-image
Tomasz Żukowski
Firstly, it is worth taking a look at the way of talking about Kossak-Szczucka as an emblematic case of the Righteous-anti-Semite, secondly, at her statements, including the famous Protest of 1942 against the background of Polish ethos and related practices. Those concerning Jews and those that create Polish self-image.
Leonia Jabłonkówna. Painful spot
Stanisław Godlewski
Leonia Jabłonkówna avoids memories related to the experience of anti-Semitism or does not tackle the subject at all, although she describes in detail various war situations - from the apartments in which she was staying, to accidents, escapes, assistance to the insurgents. In her directorial work, she returns to the theme of war and occupation several times, mainly in in Wrocław performances: Two Theaters by Szaniawski, Shots on Długa Street by Świrszczyńska and Jakub Zawieyski's Salvation. Especially important is the last performance, because it deals with "salvation", "forgiveness" and the experience of suffering.
The Godfellas
Karolina Maciejaszek
The recipe for artistic controversy in Poland is simple - it is enough to violate the taboo, which is the functioning of the Catholic Church in Poland. No other topic, no moral or erotic transgression in art gives a guarantee of provoking a scandal. From the moment of announcing that an artist intends to touch upon the topic, a kind of social spectacle begins. Often it becomes more important than the work itself. We have seen this recently twice: in the case of the play The Curse by Olivier Frljic staged at the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, and the premiere of the film Clergy directed by Wojciech Smarzowski.
Contemporary dramaturgies with classical tradition. On Yannis Mavritsakis and Lena Kitsopoulou
Irini M. Mundraki
The Greek crisis was the subject of many plays at the time, written by the authors of various generations. At the same time, very classical playwriting schools, as well as more experimental attempts came to the fore. Associated with the National Theatre in Athens and the animator of the internet platform www.greek-theatre.gr, Irini M. Mundraki, focuses her attention on two contemporary Greek playwrights whose most important subject is considerations about contemporary society. She writes about Yannis Mavritsakis (born in 1964) and Lena Kitsopoulou (born in 1971). Their dramaturgy has little in common –Mavritsakis is sometimes reflective, uses an elaborated form, often very lyrical. Kitsopoulu, in turn, excels at seemingly inconsistent plots and shocking her audience with controversial subject matter. Both, however, refer to the tradition of Greek theatre, seeing in it the common denominator of understanding with the public.
After the war. Szaflarska and Śląska
Ewa Hevelke
If the images of Aleksandra Śląska and Danuta Szaflarska consisted of a summa of experiences, aspirations and plans for the future, their roles reflected the hidden sins of the past, pushed deep into the social subconscious, and at the same time the hope of overcoming this heritage once and for all and reaching for a completely new experience and tasks. Thus, Śląska was the personification of the ongoing, laborious and painful self-denial of society. Szaflarska – a project of a quick jump into reality.
Polish theatre is discovering sign language
Ewelina Godlewska-Byliniak
The artists, on their own and every now and again, discover sign language, and by the way the subject of deafness, as part of their theatrical quests (Wojtek Ziemilski, Adam Ziajski, Wojciech Zrałek-Kossakowski) or those at the meeting point of performance and visual arts (Bogna Burska). It is worth taking a look at this discovery and the conditions that enable it to function as a discovery.
Something beautiful
An interview with Agnieszka Misiewicz, stage manager at the Polish Theatre in Poznań and sign language interpreter, about sign languages, culture of the Deaf and theatre.
Columns
Marek Beylin, Tadeusz Nyczek, Piotr Morawski, Tadeusz Bradecki
Varia
Contexts: Olga Byrska on sexual violence on the margin of Vanessa Place’s You Had To Be There. Rape Jokes (powerHouse Books, New York 2018). Notes on plays: Alexis Michalik Intra muros; Natalia Worożbyt Plokhije dorogi; Katarzyna Dworak, Paweł Wolak Balkon Ordona. Playbill