Beata Guczalska: Betrayed?
Beata Guczalska comments on a book published by Krytyka Polityczna and the Theater Institute in Warsaw: Piknik Golgota Polska. Sztuka – religia – demokracja (Golgotha Picnic Poland: Art – Religion – Democracy, eds. Agata Adamiecka-Sitek, Iwona Kurz, Warsaw 2015). The author recalls the events that led to the cancellation of the play Golgotha Picnic byRodrigo García at the Malta Festival in 2014, under pressure from the protests of right-wing communities. She describes the documentary part of the book and juxtaposes it with the present political situation in Poland and abroad. She also presents the sides of the conflict, indicating the impossibility of an understanding being reached. The events surrounding Golgotha Picnic are placed in the context of the dynamics and course of political and cultural changes before and after 1989. In conclusion, the author notes that the new government's policies aiming to ideologize culture and art will perhaps demand the same sort of solidarity of the arts communities that was seen in the 1980s.
Monika Kwaśniewska. “Indecent” Performances, a Community of “Shamelessness”
Writing on the program for “The Decency Clause” presented during the Theater Confrontations in Lublin (9-18.10.2015), Kwaśniewska analyzes the plays Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! byPenny Arcade, Clit Notes by Holly Hughes, RUFF by Peggy Shaw, and What Tammy Needs To Know About Getting Old And Having Sex by Lois Weaver. With reference to the title of the retrospective, she covers the political (censorship) and economic (financing methods) situation of the queer scene in New York. She also indicates the attributes that join these plays: “each dealt with what it meant to be queer on a personal and a political level. They were all based on the powerful presence of the artists, combined with a very consciously constructed identity – and not just on stage. They also shared a direct message, one that had a powerful impact on their relationship with the audience.”
Monika Świerkosz. No Borders in Theater
Monika Świerkosz outlines the fields of the complicated relationships between art and politics to provide a context for her report on the POP-UP project (17.10-15.11.2015, Krakow), meant to break down the formulae of repertory theaters. She devotes a great deal of space to Undivine: A Confession by Oliver Frljić, which ties in to a play canceled by Jan Klata at the Stary Theater, The Undivine Comedy: Scraps. The author also reviews the remaining plays: Romville by Justyna Pobiedzińska and Elżbieta Depta, Swarka byKatarzyna Szyngiera and Mirosław Wlekły, SPI>RA>LS by Krystian Lupa, Iga Gańczarczyk, and Piotr Skiba, The Time Machine by Aśka Grochulska and Lucy Sosnowska, and Stay, Stay byMichał Borczuch. Świerkosz admires the idea of the project, entering a space different from one familiar to audiences of institutional theaters.
Paweł Schreiber. A Hole in the Head
Paweł Schreiber provides a report on the 9th Festival of New Dramaturgies in Bydgoszcz (2-10.10.2015). The author calls attention to the English-language name of the festival, which, to his mind, does a fine job in encapsulating the change in the structure of the events, and emphasizes the shift in focus to the presentation of new dramaturgy. Schreiber lists the plays and shows their diversity of themes and forms. He does note, however, that they are joined by their political concerns. He has a close look at the plays: Aleksandra Zec by Oliver Frljić, War I Did Not Survive by Agnieszka Jakimiak, directed by Weronika Szczawińska, Sounds Like War and Black Bismarck byandcompany&Co, and Oh My Sweet Land by Amir Nizar Zuabi. He considered Rabih Mroué's Riding the Clouds to be the finest performance.
Weronika Szczawińska. Apocalypsis Sine Figuris
Weronika Szczawińska calls attention to the growing interest in collective memory in the Polish theater of the 1990s. In her analysis of the memory metamorphoses in the theater, she usesJay Winter's notion ofa “memory boom.” At the beginning the article addresses the crisis of the discourse on memory and the collective, and the revision of the concept of communality following the political transformations of 1989. Drawing reference to texts by Beata Guczalska, Jacek Sieradzki, and Grzegorz Niziołek, Szczawińska presents a multifaceted picture of how themes of history and memory have appeared on the Polish scene from the 1990s to the early 2000s. In sum, she forwards the thesis that the memory turn in Polish theater serves a therapeutic function, helping to salvage a modern collective identity after the transformation with fragments of a previously repressed history.
Jacek Wachowski. Post-technological Experiments, or: On the Doppler Effect
Jacek Wachowski investigates transformations in human perception whose beginning he traces back to Doppler's discovery of ways of perceiving light waves. The Austrian scholar's observation irreversibly negated the relationships that had theretofore reigned between the sensorium and the cogito, which had been the axis of the narrative of human nature. In Wachowski's opinion, this should be understood in terms of the emergence of post-humanism. In exploring the experiment of the sensory loop of feedback (which is able to send perceptual data between a subject and the objects surrounding him/her in an interactive manner) he recalls numerous experiments made by artists and engineers. Wachowski believes that, as a material for making art, technology became a way of performing reality, creating new representations, and a method for interacting with them in numerous ways.
Marcin Bogucki. A Robot in a Factory of Feelings
Marcin Bogucki reviews a performance My Square Lady: Von Menchen und Maschinen a British/Herman co-production by Gob Squad and Komische Oper in Berlin (premiere: 21.06.2015). The play uses a site-specific strategy to tackle the issue of relationships between people and robots, with a special focus on the emotional relationship of the artists to the machines they have created. An interesting thread of the play, and one emphasized by Bogucki, is the issue of robots' cognitive processes in the context of work on artificial intelligence. The author notes that Gob Squad have managed to weave a “fantasia on the subject of robots, which were meant to be a remedy for all of humanity's ills, and on opera as a conservative institution that tells us how to feel and how to control our emotions.”
Aleksandra Spilkowska. What Is under the Harlequin Coat?
In this analysis of the Harlequin Coat project of 2008 by ORLAN, an artist working in bio art, Aleksanda Spilkowska attempts to recapitulate her activities to date, and to situate her in the sphere of post-humanist art. The artist treats her body as a “modifiedready-made-object,” stressing the fluidity of identity. In Harlequin Coat, ORLAN investigates the potential for modifying DNA and cell structure through manipulating human and animal fabrics. Spilkowska states that the artist casts doubt upon all anthropocentrism and problematizes the “fetishization of DNA” that results from separating the human identity from the material of his/her body.
Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska. Immortality – A New Cultural Performance?
The 21st century is constructing a new narrative about immortality. It is a market product wielded by such major concerns as Microsoft, Google, and Apple, and its “creators” are scientists and engineers from the world's largest science and technology units. It is also a performative practice, distinct from faith and religion, transformed and transferred into the spheres of pop culture. The gradual leveling of real and virtual reality paves the way for experimentation in which biological death might soon mean little more than a “status update.” The author surveys the phenomenon of immortality, analyzing the catalogue of the 2014 start-up called Eterni.me.
Małgorzata Sugiera. Not Man-Sized
Małgorzata Sugiera analyzes two dramas by Bertolt Brecht – The Flight across the Ocean and Life of Galileo. The author alludes to Bruno Latour's thoughts on perspective in Galileo's drawings in order to focus attention on how the senses are foregrounded in Brecht's cognitive process. In the above-mentioned works Sugiera notes the problematized issue of the gaze, which, to her mind, should not work as it does in a drama with a traditional structure, where the viewer is left with the principle of “non-seeing.” The author points out the chaotic and mechanical experience of the worlds Brecht designs, juxtaposing them with Johannes Kepler's fragmentary perception of reality.
Lukas Mairhofer. “Gamblers Like Us”: On the Figure of the Gambler in Caucasian Chalk Circle
Lukas Mairhofer analyzes Bertolt Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle. The author draws from the laws of physics and from Brecht's biography, problematizing the figure of the gambler in his work. He recalls the figure of the Brechtian protagonist, who – being contingent on the principles of social behavior – is hard to second guess. Reading Jan Knopf, Mairhofer also points out the disorientation of the audience in Caucasian Chalk Circle, in which it is hard to define the object of the game. Mairhofer outlines the origins of the characters in turn: Grusha, according to the author, takes the role of the gambler, the passive victim of existing circumstances, while Azdak is the judge, whose person exhibits an indescribable network of social influences.
Katarzyna Waligóra. Storing Memory
Katarzyna Waligóra focuses on theater props that hold the memory of a performance. The author describes the process of storing objects and their circulation between plays at the Stary Theater in Krakow. She points out the dual way in which things are apprehended in the theater. This includes the disposal of material – the destruction of costumes and set designs after a performance is closed, or the creation of props that are not ultimately used. She also notes, however, that props acknowledged as valuable are kept in theater storerooms for many years, to be reused. In the production of Wiktor Rubin and Jolanta Janiczak's The Tovianists, Kings of the Clouds, for example,Waligóra considers the theatrical aspect of recycling, the intertextual dimension of set design, the object as a way of storing memory.
Katarzyna Niedurny. Theater Photography – A Journey among Archives
Katarzyna Niedurny describes the archives collecting theater photographs which she encountered which researching (A)pollonia, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. The author outlines the mechanism by which the various institutions operate, and the collections they hold that are linked to the play. She guides the reader through the archives of private artists, the theater archive, and the archive of the Theater Institute. The text also describes the author's archive. Niedurny also points out how the archive conditions are changing through digitization, and the issues involved with the status of the photographs gathered there.
Dorota Jarząbek-Wasyl. Reading out Loud: The Table-read in 19th-century Theater
Dorota Jarząbek-Wasyl investigates 19th-century table-reads. The author notes that the phenomena she covers have left no clear traces in the history of the theater, and adopted a different form in every center. She notes that the nature of the table-read depended on the specifics of the work being prepared for stage. The author quotes recollections of actors and authors present at such rehearsals, sketching the social aspect of the phenomenon, and then juxtaposing it with the 19th-century custom of collective reading, a form of popular society entertainment, but also a chance to come in contact with the spoken word. Citing examples of situations when playwrights vied for the opportunity to have their dramas read out loud, she proves that such readings were thought to highlight the virtues of the text. The author devotes the last part of the article to reports of reading rehearsals and analytic rehearsals.
Agata Łuksza. You Scream! We Scream!
Agata Łuksza reviews the play You Scream, China! Directed by Paweł Łysak (premiere: 6.11.2015, Powszechny Theater in Warsaw), first outlining the program of Powszechny Theater, whose slogan is “the theater that likes to meddle.” She notes that Sergei Tretyakov fits the bill perfectly. While agreeing with the artists' premises, Łuksza writes a critical analysis of the performance. In broaching the subject of colonialism, she states, Łysak presents racial stereotypes in an “extreme, even cartoonish way.” Thus, instead of exploding them from within, he unintentionally ends up reinforcing them.
Paweł Schreiber. Air It out, Sweep It, Scrub It
Paweł Schreiber reviews An Enemy of the People, directed by Jan Klata (Stary Theater in Krakow, premiere: 3.10.2015). The author also sketches out the historical context in which Henrik Ibsen's drama was written, citing a fragment of a 19th-century handbook on cleanliness, and contrasting it with the set design for the Krakow play. Schreiber particularly calls attention to Juliusz Chrząstowski's acting. He lauds the performance for depicting emotions that reflect the present state of Polish democracy.
Katarzyna Lemańska. A Woman, No Touching Please, She Can Crumble
Katarzyna Lemańska reviews Countess Batory directed by Wiktor Rubin, based on a text by Jolanta Janiczak (Stefan Żeromski Theater in Kielce, premiere 18.09.2015). Lemańska takes a critical approach to the fragmentary narrative of the performance. In her view, this only hampers the reception and understanding of the play. She does, however, appreciate the physical commitment of the actors and the text by Jolanta Janiczak, which breaks down dramatic structures and rings true.
Piotr Olkusz. A Topography of Recollections
Piotr Olkusz reviews a play by Karolina Maciejaszek, The Cry of the City (Pinokio Theater in Łódź, premiere: 2.10.2015). He analyzes the play by placing it within the mandate of the Pinokio Theater under Konrad Dworakowski. The artists make an attempt to use theater to reach people who are seldom (or never) in the audience. Olkusz mentions previous projects: We Enter the Gates and This Is the City Speaking. He characterizes the work of Pinokio Theater as sensitive to certain Łódź districts, the Jewish past of the city, and the local inhabitants' reception. He describes how The Cry of the City shows the history of Łódź from the perspective of private stories.
Zuzanna Berendt. The Salon of the Rejected
Zuzanna Berendt writes of the Aristocrats project by Łukasz Chotkowski, Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński, and Stefan Węgłowski (Komuna// Warszawa,premiere: 7,8.11.2015). The author provides outlines of the protagonists of the diptych, Krzysztof Niemczyk and Małga Kubiak, pondering the consequences of the presentation of such colorful and diverse figures within a single series. She analyzes the evening devoted to Niemczyk, focusing on the re-performances of the artist's projects in a gallery setting, and the construction of a narrative about him by the creators of the project. She sees Małga Kubiak's performance combined with a screening of her films and a drag queen performance as a multi-level statement on physicality, a theme which is ever-present in the artist's work.
Maria Bałus. A Minority in the Majority or a Majority in a Minority?
Maria Bałus reviews the play Jewish Actors, directed by Anna Smolar (Żydowski Theater in Warsaw, premiere: 29.05.2015) and presented during the 2nd New Theater Festival in Rzeszów (23-30.10.2015). The author calls attention to the acting space, the allusions to Jewish culture woven into the performance, and the artists' active questioning of the place of the Żydowski [Jewish] theater on Poland's theater map. Bałus also writes of the minority issues addressed in the play in relation to the wider collective, cultural identity, and the associated stereotypical ways of thinking.
Beata Kustra. Grażyna Joins the Game
A review of Radosław Rychcik's Grażyny (Ludwik Solski Theater in Tarnów, premiere: 23.05.2015) presented during the 2nd New Theater Festival in Rzeszów (23-30.10.2015). Beata Kustra interprets the performance mainly through the lens of Maria Janion's book Women and the Spirit of Otherness, quoted at the beginning of the performance. The author attempts to show that Rychcik adopts Janion's perspective, showing Grażyna to be a woman who adopted the male social role and who can become a heroine only posthumously – when her heroic deed becomes a myth. Kustra points out many motifs and devices used by the director and comes to the conclusion that some served only to make the performance more attractive.
Aleksandra Haduła. A Limping Finissage
Aleksandra Haduła reviews Western (premiere: 4.09.2015), closing the Śląski Theater in Katowice's Holy Silesia / Damned Silesia series. The author outlines the theme of Artur Pałyga's staging, the story of 19th-century emigrants from Silesia who arrive in the United States. She focuses on describing the hybrid identity of the protagonists, their entanglement in the past. She has a critical take at the cabaret and metatheatrical conventions used in the play and the lack of original response to questions of Silesian identity.
Tomasz Fryzeł. The Missing Word
Writing about Schönberg's opera Moses und Aron, staged by Romeo Castellucci (Opéra National de Paris, Opéra Bastille, premiere: 20.10.2015), Tomasz Fryzeł focuses on the fundamental issue of the relationship between the idea, the mystic revelation, and religion, ideology, and politics. The author calls attention to the modernity of the staging. The performance is shown in the building of Paris's Opèra Bastille, situated in the vicinity of the January and November terrorist attacks, and it raises the issue of religious fanaticism, as well as being a voice in the discussion of refugees from the states of Northern Africa. The author also recalls Castellucci's controversies: a bull enclosed in a plexiglass cage appears on stage, provoking criticism.
Marcin Bogucki. An Anthropological Excursion
A review of Halka directed by Paweł Passini (Stanisław Moniuszko Wielki Theater in Poznań, premiere: 26.06.2015). He mentions that the artists were inspired by Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo; they allude to the international aspirations of Moniuszko's work, and the problematic label of a “national treasure.” Bogucki recalls a documentary film on the staging of Halka in a Haitian village, calling attention to its anthropological origins. This Poznań production also notes the motif of the female victim being sacrificed for the good of the community and the male/female conflict in general. Bogucki takes a critical approach to these strategies, seeing them as too leveling and superficial. He suggests the director has not carefully considered the historicity of the issues and too easily forgoes the class conflict in favor of the sexual aspect.
Kazimierz Bardzik. You Have to Fall to Fly, or: Playing for Time
Kazimierz Bardzik analyzes the opera The Magic Mountain based on Thomas Mann's novel and directed by Andrzej Chyra (Malta Festival in Poznań, premiere: 26.06.2015). He points out the mechanistic quality of Paweł Mykietyn's music, examining its precise form for symbols of limited time and destiny. The author also notes that the musical layer makes reference to various styles: from Renaissance madrigal polyphony and belcanto arias to swing, rock, and pop. Bardzik enthuses about the wide field of set design interpretation by Mirosław Bałka, making his debut in this capacity, and also the singers, who perform difficult vocal parts. He problematizes the issue of the libretto text itself, which, despite its layering of philosophical themes, allows the performers to seem natural.
Karolina Wycisk. Becoming a Machine?
Reviewing Iza Szostak's Digger Ballet (Center for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor, premiere: 8.11.2015), Karolina Wycisk evokes the ideas of Oskar Schlemmer, patron of the Choreographic Machine project (within which the premiere was held) and describes how his views on dance and the actor's body in dance were translated into the concept and choreography of the ballet written for two digging machines. Wycisk describes how the dancers operating the machines used the space of the factory hall that served as a venue, and stresses their virtuosity in operating the diggers.
Teresa Fazan. Human Animals That Dance
Teresa Fazan divides her text on the 14th International Body/Mind Festival in Warsaw (26.09 – 1.10.2015) into three parts. The first, titled Body Politics, covers the plays SexyMF and Tonight, Lights Out, which are linked by their strategy of aiming to tear down the existing actor/viewer relationship. In Part Two, Unbearable Present Bodies, the author reviews Tordre byRachid Ouramdane, Collective Jumps byIsabelle Schad, and Digger Ballet by Iza Szostak and Anka Herbut. Fazan opines that all these plays have content that is seemingly not present within them. The final part, What You Don't See,is devoted to a canceled play,This Is a Musical byKarol Tymiński, and the controversies it sparked.
Stanisław Godlewski. Animal, Animalistic, Zoo
Stanisław Godlewski reviews the Frog's-Eye View interdisciplinary program, carried out in spring and fall of 2015 at the Castle Culture Center in Poznań. The author covers three performances: Iza Szostak's Feed Him, Angela Schubot and Jered Gradinger's What They Are Instead of?, and Antonia Baehr's Abecedarium Bestiarium. The key to Godlewski's text is the show of various human/animal relationship strategies. The author suggests that through choreographic dramaturgy, the artists have shown the meaning of the words “animal” and “animalistic” using characteristic forms of movement, thus avoiding the trap of anthropomorphization and animalization.
Anna R. Burzyńska. “I Probably Miscalculated My Own Madness”
The author states that this year's Sirenos Festival in Vilnius (24.09-4.10.2015) was among the most remarkably successful, despite the extremely pessimistic tone of most of the plays, which were more or less direct responses to the present political situation in Europe. Burzyńska analyzes what she saw as the festival's three best stagings: Heroes' Squaredirected by Krystian Lupa, Boris Godunov directed by Eimuntas Nekrošius, and Cleansed directed by Oskaras Koršunovas, which joined the motifs of madness and dabbling with evil.
Anna Bajek. Empty Presence
Anna Bajek describes the Orpheus: An Exercise in Dying installation directed by Susanne Kennedy and prepared for this year's edition of Ruhrtriennale (14.08-26.09.2015). The author reports on the event in detail, calling attention to the unusual positioning of the viewers, who, despite their strong interaction with the performers, have no real impact on the course of events. Bajek appreciates the artists' inventiveness in their approach to the mythological subject, and analyzes the diverse staging tactics, marking their manipulative aspect. She also mentions the context of the Buddhist philosophy of “rebirth” as an element of Eurydice's transitory state of existence, oscillating between life and death.
Thomas Irmer. Gretchen Cleans the Emergency Ward
A review of Faust 1 directed by Linus Tunström (Staatsschauspiel in Dresden, premiere: 29.11.2014) Irmer begins with the statement that every staging of this drama by Goethe in Germany is put in the context of previous productions, which are important from the point of view of German theater history. In this production the setting is a hospital. The author points out the unusual splitting of the Faust and Mephistopheles roles between many actors and the interesting course of the Gretchen plot. The concept is not, however, capable of supporting all the details of the plays, he believes. Irmer does acknowledge the play to be an important example of the collapse of pathos in the German theater.
Olga Katafiasz. Bodies and Pictures
Olga Katafiasz reports on the plays performed during the 8th International Dialog Theater Festival in Wrocław (17-24.10.2015). She devotes the text to two productions by Ivo van Hove based on Ingmar Bergman scripts: Cries and Whispers and After the Rehearsal/Persona.In juxtaposing the staging solutions and the issues in the performances withBergman's works, she turns her eye to the difference in media: film and theater. She sums up her investigations as follows: “In Cries and Whispers van Hove reevaluates the vision of the Swedish director so profoundly that we have before us a performance, we forget about the film. In Persona he appears to follow Bergman with such fidelity that he fails to find his own subject to free the viewer from the trap of comparison.”
Zbigniew Taranienko. The Gardzienice Festival of Wandering Theaters
Zbigniew Taranienko reports on the 5th Gardzienice Festival of Wandering Theaters (Gardzienice European Centre for Theatre Practices, 15-18.10.2015). The author lists three groups of plays: the graduation projects of the Theatre Practices Academy, Polish plays mainly created by Academy graduates, and four foreign performances (one Ukrainian and three Iranian). Taranienko describes each of the festival productions in formal terms (they include dance theater, monodramas, musicals) and observes how they rework the Gardzienice legacy or use it as the basis for work of new quality. Summing up, the author indicates a few clear tendencies that joined the festival plays.
Joanna Braun. Past the Horizon!
Joanna Braun begins her description of the 10th International “A Puppet Is a Person Too” Festival (Warsaw 12-20.10.2015) by quoting a statement by festival director Marek Chodaczyński: because of the diversity of the plays presented, this year there was be no Grand Prix awarded. In describing the festival the author follows this verdict. She outlines the performances awarded in the Puppet Expression category, including: Count to One by Zahra Sabri, Gobo, A Digital Dictionary by Maksim Isayev and Pavel Semchenko, The Cinnamon Shops by Robert Drobniuch (awarded for set design), The Love of P and the Desire of B by Monika Kováčova, and the Audience-Award winners, Silver Hooves by Svetlana Doroshko and Saint Alexy's Puppet – winner of the “Marvelous Moment” Award and the Honorary Diploma of the Polish POLUNIMA Puppeteers' Center. In conclusion, she states: “The standard of the festival can be measured by the attendance and the temperature of the spontaneous disputes which, it turned out, were matched by the jurors' disputes.”
Piotr Dobrowolski. The Chaos of Improvisation // The Theater of Inconsistency
Piotr Dobrowolski's article covers a book published in 2015 by the Malta Foundation and Ha!Art Corporation: Like Nothing Ever Happened: Forced Entertainment Theater. The author begins by covering the work of groups who experimented to go beyond the well-worn paths. Then Dobrowolski describes the composition of the volume, composed of a foreword and essays by Tim Etchells, two interviews with the artist, photographs from the play, two theoretical articles by Hans-Thies Lehmann, a selection of placards from the Vacuum Days series, and representative texts from the performances. Summing up, he does claim, however, that this valuable book has appeared in Poland somewhat too late. |