Joanna Wichowska: Poisonous Flowers of My Homeland
A review of the Balladyna production by Krzystof Garbaczewski (direction) and Marcin Cecko (script and dramaturgy; the Polish Theatre in Poznań, prem: 25 I 2013). Wichowska sees in Balladyna a masterfully carried out attack on all those norms and definitions stabilizing identity from the top down, such as gender, the body, natural law, family, nationhood, tradition and culture. The author tracks the various motifs and layers contained within the production – from influences drawn from BioArt and biotechnology, through the sending up of the theatrical tradition to the issue of brutal patriotic socialization, which can become a form of drilling. She also writes about the autonomous interventions of other artists, which are woven into the production.
From a Spirit of Positive Self-compromise. Katarzyna Lemańska talks to Justyna Wasilewska
The actress speaks of her work on the title role in Marcin Cecko’s Balladyna, directed by Krzysztof Garbaczewski (the Polish Theatre in Poznań, prem: 25 I 2013). Justyna Wasilewska introduces her character in three configurations: Balladyna/me/actress. This simultaneous action across three registers enables her to break away from the male paradigm and speak in her own language. In her view, the feminist patriotic discourse in the second part of the play not only relates the story of the powerlessness of a woman, but that of the human subject in general.
Granting Scientists a Voice. Karolina Wycisk talks to Marcin Cecko
Dramatist Marcin Cecko speaks about his work on the Poznań premiere of Balladyna (the Polish Theatre in Poznań, prem: 25 I 2013) – in particular, about what prompted him to “rewrite” Juliusz Słowacki’s play, his inspirations while writing the script and the process which led him to change his script and conception for the production. Cecko raises the issues of posthumanism and biopolitics and also attempts to grapple with the Romantic paradigm. Balladyna represents a turning point in Cecko and Krzysztof Garbaczewski’s collaborative activities – up until now, both of them have rarely spoken out about political issues.
Monika Świerkosz: Animal Suffering. A Moral Thriller or a Metaphysical Riddle?
A review of The Valley, a play directed by Agnieszka Olsten (the Contemporary Theatre in Wrocław, prem: 9 III 2013) and based on Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plough over the Bones of the Dead. Świerkosz opines that the play is a not a reconstruction of the appeal contained in Tokarczuk’s “moral thriller” that humans should rethink their relationship with animals, but instead an attempt to implement this appeal using the means at a theatre’s disposal. It worked out this way due to three dogs being invited to appear in the production. However, in Świerkosz’ view, the language in the production comes too close to sounding like a superficial manifesto, thus squandering the opportunity to make the most of the critical potential and tension-filled atmosphere of the novel.
A Revenge Narrative. Tatiana Drzycimska talks to Olga Tokarczuk and Igor Stokfiszewski
A record of the meeting which took place on 10 March 2013 at the Contemporary Theatre in Wrocław the day after Valley, a play directed by Agnieszka Olsten. Olga Tokarczyk talks about the process of writing her novel Drive Your Plough over the Bones of the Dead (which became the basis of the script for Valley), concentrating on the pitfalls lurking in the raising of the issue of the relationship between people and animals. She also comments on her book’s use of crime fiction conventions and its controversial ending. By way of contrast, Igor Stokfiszewski (playwright and co-creator of the script for Valley) talks about the rehearsals for the play, which mainly involved communing and interacting with the dogs invited to take part in the play: Kolo, Santos and Wena. He also explains why he and the director decided to change the final part of their stage adaptation of the book.
Patrycja Cembrzyńska: Animal War
The title of this text should be taken literally. The author describes the story of animals killed during wars (e.g. in bomb attacks or during the liquidation of zoological gardens located in areas affected by military activity), relying on rich academic and literary source materials. In her view: “Those platitudes about heroic sacrifice do in fact keep returning, yet assumptions regarding the role of animals in wars are too rarely challenged and it is rarely asked how the imperative imposed on them to sacrifice themselves for the good of humanity influences the manner in which we define patriotism and describe our place in the world”.
Michał Zadara: All Those Machines. A Short Text on Noise
Michał Zadara calls for the technology of theatre production to be dragged out of the closet. The director proposes that we resign from today’s illusion entailing “directors persuading the audience that the sufferings of a protagonist are more important than those of the driver who has transported the platform on which the protagonist stands” and concealing the tonal and visual noise that remind us “of the existence of economics, the economy and industry”. Zadara calls for us to make the theatre a tool for the exercising of a critical manner of perception that reveals the relations between what is visible and what we want to see.
Douglas Kahn: Immersed in Noise
Kahn writes about different forms of experiencing sound and the main means of conveying that experience – making noise. The author not only perceives noise in acoustic terms, but also in aesthetic, cultural and social categories, He notes that, in the communication process, noise represents an empirical obstruction of an abstract message. It only becomes a special expressive medium or sound quality when it is treated as a central category, as a conscious artistic or communicative resource. The author also notes that noise is an extremely relative aesthetic category, because it largely depends on the perceptual stance of the recipient. Kahn thus creates a broad contextual overview of diverse philosophical and artistic viewpoints on noise.
Justyna Stasiowska: All is full of love – Noise in Social and Personal Space
The author takes up the subject of noise in a short historical introduction to sound composition and the materiality of instruments, following the example set by Lugio Russolo’s manifesto L’arte dei rumori. She notes that noise is a widely recognized phenomenon, though it has not been fully theoreticized. Stasiowska provides various definitions and examples of how noise acts on the listener and their senses. The author sums up as follows: “So noise exists as a strategy for amplifying undesired elements. Being confronted by a multiplicity of grating sounds forces us to contemplate what are regarded as errors, or fixed perceptual structures”.
Hans-Thies Lehmann: Through a Spectator’s Eyes
Hans-Thies Lehmann’s text comes from a collective edition of Paradoxien des Zuschauens. Die Rolle des Publikums im zeitgenössischen Theater from 2008. The author starts from the basic assumption that actor and spectator are not as they once were. He discusses strategies of action (the actor) and active reception (the spectator) in contemporary theatre. He posits the hypothesis that today it is uncertainty that shapes the way theatre is viewed through the prism of aesthetics. Spectators are unaware of what to focus their attention on or what is of significance, “so the act of observing this or that is the decision of the spectator and evidences his/her freedom of action. A sense of disorientation is created which at the same time creates many opportunities”.
Waldemar Rapior: “I’m a simple person, I like being part of something”
This text was created on the basis of research involving the participation of people who do not have regular contact with cultural institutions, which was carried out thanks to the cooperation of the Malta Foundation and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Those participating in the group interviews took part in discussions on plays watched in Malta. The author starts by describing the nature of the research, in order to respond to the question of who the spectator actually is and to investigate the method by which the spectator is perceived by the following theatre directors: Rabiha Mroué, Stefan Kaegi and Wojtek Ziemilski. By way of summary, he claims that “by adopting such a definition of spectator, we are also accepting a specific definition of human being”.
Karol Wittels: Theatre as a Brand
The author categorizes Warsaw’s theatres on the basis of the role that they fulfil in the city’s cultural development. Wittels often employs research carried out among spectators at the capital’s theatres, in which they were treated as consumers of culture. He analyses strategies that enable the image of a particular institution to be fixed in the minds of consumers as a brand. Wittels thus investigates the phenomenon of theatrical institutions operating at the level of a cultural product.
Iga Gańczarczyk: Dziady. Appropriation
Iga Gańczarczyk describes the Dziady project of Łukasz Surowiec (an artist) and Stanisław Ruksza (a curator), which was realised at the Bunkier Sztuki Gallery in Kraków (6 II – 3 III 2013). The project was divided into two parts. The exhibition part contained documentation of three of the artist’s earlier works: Happy New Year, Black Diamonds and Carts, which takes up the issue of cooperating with the homeless and marginalized. The second part of the exhibition, Waiting Rooms, was a kind of performative space or place open around the clock for anyone, with particular emphasis on “dziady” (granddads), misfits and performers of life. However, due to there being little evidence of artistic and curatorial precision or the kid of forceful institutional constraints which Waiting Rooms was supposed to cut through, the project failed to become anything more than a reserve for the homeless, who were placed in it like objects in an ethnographic village.
Jakub Papuczys: The Spectator’s Evil Eye
Agnieszka Jakimiak’s Provincial Artists, directed by Weronika Szczawińska (Powszechny Theatre in Łódź, prem: 8 III 2013), as the author of this review claims, alludes quite freely to Agnieszka Holland’s film. The production concerns itself with theatre, but does not deal with it within the framework of a wider socio-political story with a plot. It could be likened instead to loose musical variations. The form of this production forces a modicum of creative labour on the spectators, who are meant to expand on the production according to their independent inclinations, as well as highlighting that the spectator issue is extremely important in theatre and should be the point of departure for any postulates, discussion or discourse.
Un-favourable Images. A discussion between Anna Cygankiewicz, Małgorzata Dziewulska, Piotr Gruszczyński, Dawid Mlekicki, Dorota Sajewska and Joanna Tokarska-Bakir
Małgorzata Dziewulska presents the recording of a seminar which took place as part of the “The Prophesying and Promotion” series she ran at the Theatre Institute in Warsaw. The theme of the seminar was the consequences of applying diverse forms of media mediation during the (A)pollonia production (the Nowy Theatre in Warsaw, prem: 16 V 2009). The main focus of the discussion was how Krzyszrof Warlikowski’s application of the multimedia show convention influenced this production’s reception. The presented materials raise such issues as the influence of theatrical procedures of this kind on the disruption of theatrical communication, traditionally understood, and go on to propose that new methods of communication between the stage and house be developed.
Most importantly, I can’t break free from being a spectator…. Jadwiga Majewska talks to Joanna Leśnierowska
The discussion relates to Joanna Leśnierowska’s entire professional oeuvre: as a choreographer, playwright and critic/curator. A myriad of artistic and professional perspectives and experiences have enabled Leśnierowska to propose her own vision of contemporary dance at the Old Brewery New Dance in Poznań. The curator sums up eight years of working at the Brewery, at which she has not only provided patronage for individual undertakings, but also for the comprehensive design of the space.
Agata Adamiecka-Sitek, Leszek Kolankiewicz: Correspondence
This correspondence between Agata Adamiecka-Sitek and Leszek Kolankiewicz presents an exchange of views regarding Agata Adamiecka-Sitek’s article Grotowski, Women and Homosexuals. On the margins of “Human Tragedy”, which was published in the 112th edition of Didaskalia. The letters were not written with potential publication in mind, yet contain a number of substantive comments based on a rich bibliography (footnotes have been added at the editor’s request), not only on Jerzy Grotowski’s Apocalypsis cum Figuris and the recording of this production, but also on research methodologies applicable to the history of theatre.
Joanna Walaszek: Marthaler’s Theatre in Janáček’s Opera
A review of Leoš Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair, directed by Christoph Marthaler (Polish premiere: the Grand Theatre – National Opera, 17 II 2013). In the reviewer’s opinion, the director plays a daring and wicked game with operatic convention and the expectations of the opera audience. For in this production, the unique style of Marthaler’s theatre is extremely evident, featuring, as it does, the reappearance of his favourite motifs and modes of action. Marthaler also adds a metaphysical comedy dimension to The Makropoulos Affair, combining the myth of eternal youth with enslavement, mechanical repetition, inertia, exhaustion, boredom, emptiness and, above all, the suspension of time and loss of self-esteem.
Katarzyna Osińska: “Marriage” Reprised
Gogol’s Marriage (the Studio Theatre in Warsaw, prem: 4 II 2013) was directed by Ivan Vyrypaev under the influence of inspirations from the theatre of Yevgeny Vakhtangov. In the author’s view, both directors are searching for ways of “crossing the boundary between the actor-as-a-character and actor-as-human-being” as well as exploring the relations between the actor and spectator, understood in a similarly dualistic manner. Gogol’s language is therefore at the service of Vyrypaev’s attempts to both investigate the reception of this writer’s work and to return to early theatrical conventions (regarded as obsolete) and initiate a dialogue between artists and spectators through experiencing the past.
Aleksandra Kamińska: Gulliver in the Library of Dystopia
Mateusz Pakuła’s play My Anxiety is Armed, directed by Julia Mark (the Stefan Żeromski Theatre in Kielce, prem: 12 I 2013) is inspired by Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels. The Land of the Lilliputians is transferred into space, but the protagonists (there are as many as four Gullivers), rather than roaming alien planets, are traversing a dystopian space, unravelling a pessimistic vision of the future before the eyes of the spectators. Played out amid a grotesque fantastical stage set, the play is steeped in intertextual references – the reviewer therefore likens the weapon referred to in the play’s title to a “series of quotations”.
Piotr Dobrowolski: Cropping Identity
Dobrowolski notes that a key adaptation device used by Paweł Wodziński, director of Gombrowicz’s The Wedding, at the Polski Theatre in Bydgoszcz (prem: 17 XI 2012), was equipping Henryk with a camera and making him a documentarian. The entire dramatic projection of Henryk’s state of mind is in fact presented in media frames extended between the initial switching on of the camera and the final switching off of the TV set standing on the stage. The second important procedure that Wodziński employs is the casting of amateurs in all the supporting roles. In this play, the stage, as an ideal representation of the whole world, is a place in which illusion is created, and any naturalness is the outcome of long and demanding exercises.
Joanna Tomaszewska: The Truth Lurks in the Details
A review of two plays based on Svietlana Alexievich’s book Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster: Czernobyl. Last minute, directed by Agnieszka Korytkowska-Mazur (the Dramatyczny Theatre in Białystok, prem: 2 III 2013) and Chernobyl Prayer, directed by Joanna Szczepkowska (the Studio Theatre in Warsaw, prem: 8 III 2013). The author notes that at the heart of both plays lies the conviction that the most vital motif in Alexevich’s reportage “arises from the reciprocal relationship between stage and audience”. Nevertheless, in Tomaszewska’s view, only the creators of the Warsaw play successfully became “advocates for the forgotten, marginalized victims”. The audience at the Czernobyl. Last minute production easily maintained a safe distance from the onstage events, because, in the final reckoning, these events were of no concern to them.
Mateusz Chaberski: Melancholy in Times of Crisis
Chaberski, in his review of Calligula, directed by Anna Augustynowicz (the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Łódź, prem: 8 XII 2012), stresses that the director, after a careful reading of Albert Camus’ play, created a production rooted in melancholy, understood as a merciless and brutal exposure of the sense of emptiness taking the place of traditional values. The melancholic Calligula strives to eliminate the artificial divisions society has created, merely to improve his own sense of well-being. Yet the production, rather than tilting toward the excessive universalisation of human experience, instead employs subtle means to relate Calligula to today’s crisis-bound reality: the portrayal of a ruler’s cruelty becomes a metaphor for the economic meltdown.
Katarzyna Lemańska: Litany of Fashion
The Mythologies production (the Polski Theatre in Wrocław, prem: 9 II 2013) created by Paweł Światek (direction) and Tomasz Jękot (script) combines a verbose academic lecture with theatricalised fashion shows. The text is inspired by Roland Barthes’ Mythologies and is based on a loose juxtaposition of two themes: John Paul II’s funeral and modelling, treated as examples of modern myths. The author expresses reservations not only toward the text, but to the play’s rhythm. Contrary to what was promised beforehand, Mythologies fails to provoke any change in the definition of mythology proposed by Barthes, for “the only thing that the artists managed to highlight (especially at the end) was the fact that in a post-ethical society, similar themes are of no concern to anybody any more”.
Marta Bryś: Oddities
A text on two premieres at the Dramatyczny Theatre in Wałbrzych, realised as part of the !zapooomnij? season: Piotr Głowacki’s Good News (prem: 1 III 2013) and Ewelina Marciniak’s Heroes (prem: 8 III 2013). Bryś describes both plays, arguing that Good News, whichengages with biblical motifs, was “despite its sometimes surprising form, a vague performance”, while Heroes’ employment of stereotypical male and female characters was “surely an unintended yet at times extreme parody of feminist discourses”.
Anna R. Burzyńska: Laughing Out Loud
The author reviews a trilogy of Molière plays staged at Berlin’s Volksbühne, comprising: The Imaginary Invalid, directed by Martin Wuttke (prem: I VI 2012), The Miser, directed by Frank Castorf (prem: 14 VI 2012) and Don Juan, directed and scripted by René Pollesch (prem: 15 IX 2012). Castorf and the directors associated with his approach to theatre investigate the space of freedom stretched between “what we desire or appear to be (to ourselves and others) on a symbolic and conceptual level and what we actually are”. This is the space within which disappointment and embarrassment are born. These three adaptations are also united by the cast (the creator of all three main roles is Martin Wuttke), as well as “the three most fundamental themes: death, money and love”.
Friederike Felbeck: Music in the Head: He Who Has No Money
A review of Barbara Wysocka’s production of Woyzeck/Wozzeck (the Munich Kammerspiele, prem: 30 IX 2012). The author argues that the director has assembled onstage two perfectly matching components: George Büchner’s play and Alban Berg’s musical setting. In Wysocka’s production, Büchner’s pompous statements sound convincing, contemporary and moving because, according to the reviewer, the characters emerge through sentences and individual words that form a mere surface level under which a genuine abyss lurks. By employing such resources, Wysocka shows a convincing contemporary story of a poor man excluded from society, who is at the mercy of the voices in his head.
Grzegorz Stępniak: Obscenities and Indecency on the Offensive?
The artists from NEA 4, who became known in the nineties for their refusal to compromise, raised issues, over the course of four performances given at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in California (27-28 IX 2012), relating to identity, censoring and aggression as well as the brutal sanctioning of cultural and social norms. Stępniak, on investigating the performers’ strategies, notes that these days the most dominant features in the group’s projects are snippets from popular culture devoid of the political potential that characterised the art of the “NEA Four” a decade ago.
Florian Malzacher: People Watchers
Florian Malzacher discusses the oeuvre of Dutch director Lotte van den Berg, daughter of famous theatre director and performer, Jozef van den Berg, who abruptly broke off his artistic activities, abandoned his family and decided to become a God-seeking hermit. It is this that Winterverblijf, the play created by this artist’s daughter, tells the story of. In her other productions, the director questions whether theatre is able to speak of reality and spiritual quests, or whether it will always be viewed as something false and ringed with artificiality.
Tomasz Kowalski: Shakespeare, a Man of His Day
The curators of the Shakespeare: Staging the World exhibition (at the British Museum in London, 19 VII – 25 XI 2012), Jonathan Bate and Dora Thornton, made the exposition’s leitmotif “Soul of the Age”, drawing attention to the contextual realities of Shakespeare’s epoch, which became part of his plays. The exhibition was divided into several sections: London during the writer’s day, the reign of Elizabeth I and the Tudors, Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies and individual plays. Designing the exposition in this manner enabled it to achieve the aim set by its organisers: “to inform the wider public about important historical, moral and social phenomena, previously familiar almost exclusively to specialists, which William Shakespeare’s oeuvre mirrored and from which it grew.
Marta Seredyńska: The Art of Dialogue
A review of two dance theatre reviews: the International Dance Theatres Festival in Lublin (6-11 XI 2012) and Polish Dance Platform in Poznań (6-9 XII 2012). Although the Lublin festival was concentrated around the legendary figure of choreographer Merce Cunningham, the programme also contained several Polish shows. By contrast, Polish Dance Platform, which only presented homegrown productions and also featured a conference and organised meetings, resembled an international fair during which Polish dance became an export commodity.
Nicola Savarese: The Myth of the Orient (Part II)
Savarese depicts the appearance and atmosphere of the International Exhibition in Paris in 1900, with particular emphasis on the appearances of Japanese actress Sada Yacco. The author analyses the reception of Yacco’s appearances, both in the West and Japan, as well as including in his discussion the wider context of relations between Japan and the West at the beginning of the 20th century. Savarese shows that the act of mutual recognition usually consolidates an earlier superficial image of the Other, yet also leads to this image being deeply distorted. This is precisely why mirages and errors of judgement arise in a diverse audience. However, in the researcher’s view, it was from the juxtaposition of similar ambiguities that the “Sada Yacco phenomenon” was born.
Izabela Kowalczyk: In a Trap of Contemplations over Identity
A review of Małgorzata Sugiera and Mateusz Borowski’s book In a Trap of Contradictions. Ideologies of Identity (Trio Publishing House, Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, Warsaw 2012), which analyses cultural transformations in the issue of identity. Kowalczyk claims that the authors actually sometimes fall into the trap they are describing, i.e. that of the “anthropological machine” manufacturing humanity. The reviewer also thinks that the book is driven by the unspoken conviction that the higher arts maintain their moral status, something which is conspicuously absent in the texts of pop culture, and, due to this the authors fail to notice the subversive potential of the latter.
Roma Sendyka: Saboteurs – An Unmasking of the Anthropological Machine
The author throws some light on the subject matter of Mateusz Borowski and Małgorzata Sugiera’s book – In a Trap of Contradictions. Ideologies of Identity (Trio Publishing House, Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, Warsaw 2012). She therefore notes that the authors analyse variations of the “anthropological machine”, i.e. the system of social relations “generating what is human using the human/animal and what-is-human/what-is-not-human oppositions”. Sendyka attempts to reconstruct the concept of identity, which remains undefined by the authors. At the same time, she claims that Borowski and Sugiera are unable to avoid the trap of binary oppositions; but she wavers over whether this strategy is unintentional, or also purposeful – evidence of the author’s pessimism and consciousness.
Agnieszka Marszałek: “to describe the theatrical Kraków of the grand interwar period”
A review of Diana Poskuta-Włodek’s book A History of Theatre in Kraków,1918-1939. The Professional Drama Theatres – the next part of the “History of Theatre in Kraków” series (Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2012). Marszałek notes that Poskuta-Włodek describes the functioning of the theatres of this period in a manner that highlights the dependence of art-related facts on the political, social and financial contexts within which they were appearing. So the book begins with a profile of the organisation of theatrical institutions, which the author of the review describes as leaving an “almost tangible whiff of sensation”. The portraits of theatre actors are very complex and include profiles of their earlier work, their personality traits and their predilections. Another of the book’s advantages is its casual, witty and colourful style.
Joanna Targoń: “Four housecats, the stove fifth and the theatre sixth”
A review of Impressions and Memoirs of a Young Theatregoer (Kraków 2012) – the notes of Elżbieta Kietlińska, published by the Jagiellonian Library and Academic Bookshop. By referring to the introduction written by Jan Michalik (who also prepared the manuscripts for this edition), Targoń helps readers to gain a fuller appreciation of the biography of an author who lived in Kraków around the turn of the 20th century (the notes begin in 1894 and finish in 1919; they are complemented by a commentary completed in the 1940s). This book, as Targoń notes, can be read in several ways: as source material for the history of theatre, “as a depiction of the tastes and needs of an ordinary Cracovian spectator” combining love for the theatre with soberness of judgement or “as a depiction of the day to day concerns of a Cracovian theatregoer”.
Olga Katafiasz: “If Shakespeare was Shakeshafte”...
A book review of Shakespeare. The Lancastrian Theory – Speculations and Facts, edited by Tomasz Kowalski and Krzysztof Kozłowski (PWN Academic Publishers, Warsaw 2012). Conceived as an academic textbook, this publication takes up the issue of Shakespeare’s religious identity, opening up an area for debate both about his biography and his works. This also explains why the anthology, which contains translations of texts previously unknown in Poland, has been divided into two parts. The reading process is greatly aided by the editors’ interventions: both Krzysztof Kozłowski’s introductory text and the detailed readers’ notes. |