7th International Theatre Festival

7th International Theatre Festival
5—13.12.2014
www.divinecomedy.pl
The plays to be shown at this year’s Divine Comedy Festival were announced on October 28th.
Starting now it’s possible to book tickets; the festival runs from December 5th to the 13th. The
event is organized by the Łaźnia Nowa Theatre and the Krakow Festival Office.
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D
IVINE COMEDY is a prestigious theatre festival that pre-
sents Polish theatre and its current trends, both formal
and narrative, to the international Jury, curators and the
press. This year, alongside strong, auteur experiments, we showcase more conventional plays, in order to reflect an on-going debate
about the shape of Polish theatre.
“This year’s program is a signal of compromise between these
two, often contradictory theatre aesthetics. We want to initiate a
special meeting, create a platform for the exchange of ideas and
experiences that could never happen anywhere else. More than a
battlefield, we want to create a space for a theatre alliance, a conscious and respectful confrontation”, states Bartosz Szydłowski,
the main programmer and Artistic Director of the festival, in his
preview.
The most exciting part of the festival is its Main Competition,
INFERNO, which presents thirteen different plays from the last
season. The winners are chosen by the international Jury and the
main prize of 50,000 Polish zlotys, sponsored by the President of
the City of Krakow, Jacek Majchrowski, will go to the theatre that
produced the winning play. Individual awards for the artists are
funded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Małgorzata Omilanowska.
This year’s Competition showcases plays produced by theatres
from Warsaw, Lublin, Wrocław, Legnica, Kielce and Krakow.
“INFERNO is undoubtedly the most important part of the
festival. We want to show the world that a cross-generational dialogue is happening on Polish stages. Theatre is a crucial place for
reflecting social change, but most of all a space of artistic freedom
that provides a platform for new talent to emerge. Our international guests always leave Krakow fascinated and amazed by this
panorama of theatre of risks and freedom, dreams, ambitions and
courage and I hope that this year’s program will once again seduce
both the Jury and our audience” — says Bartosz Szydłowski.
This year, The Competition plays are centered around two seemingly contradictory tendencies. On the one hand we have the
theatre of radical experiment, on the other, well-made narrative
theatre.
As such, the Competition includes Radek Rychcik’s The
Forefather’s Eve, which against theatre traditions is set in
the context of American pop culture and brings new meanings
to the surface, mainly about racial and class inequalities. Another
play made within the trend of radical experimentation is Krzysztof
Garbaczewski’s Kronos, which redefines the fundamental theatre contract. The director struggles here with an anti-theatrical
text, where not a lot happens. The original piece becomes an excuse to reveal the mechanisms of memory production, in both its dimensions — individual and cultural. Jolanta Janiczak and Wiktor
Rubin remain skeptical towards theatre traditions and romantic
visions: their play Towianskiites: Kings of Clouds is
an attempt to de-mystify national images of Polishness that have
been haunting us since the Romantic era. Michał Borczuch’s Paradiso presents a slightly different face of a theatre experiment.
The director creates an intense play that destabilizes the act of
communication and the performativity of language. The play is
made in collaboration with the Farm of Life, the only residential
facility for adults with autism in Poland. Three professional actors
serve as guides through the stage world, accompanied by amateurs with autism. But they aren’t being exposed to the curious
gaze of “normal” people; instead the director works with them as
if they were just regular actors. The structure of Paradiso is based
on repetition, and at times resembles the stream of consciousness
of a Proust novel. Borczuch attempts to re-create the experience
of autism, but his play is more than a mere theatrical simulation.
Another experiment is offered by Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski in their theatrical series The Curse: Episodes from
the Hopeless Times, which is presented during the festival
in its entirety. The artists struggle here with the most effective television medium of the last decade and adapt some of its narrative
and plot tools to the theatre stage. They arrange a threatening and
dangerous situation and make all the politicians die while society
drowns in chaos. The Competition also showcases the latest play
from Krystian Lupa, based on a text by Thomas Bernhard, Woodcutters Holzfällen. With a clear-sighted approach
and a tendency to make accurate cultural diagnoses, Lupa observes a group of people once brought together by ideas, passions
and desires who are now strangers to one another.
Lupa’s play becomes a symbolic bridge between the theatre
of radical experiment and risk and theatre that is deeply rooted
in storytelling and based on psychological believability, using
numerous strategies to engage the audience into the world of
theatre fiction. This group of plays includes Agnieszka Glińska’s
A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians.
Glińska follows the text closely and explores not only its comical
and tragic dimensions, but also its intelligently conveyed critique
of the capitalist system. A coherent story and classically constructed psychology of the characters are the main assets of Małgorzata
Bogajewska’s Dad. The performance, based on Artur Pałyga’s
play, presents an original take on a subject that still seems to be
a kind of cultural taboo in Poland, namely fatherhood. Grzegorz
Jarzyna deals in with aging and the passing of time in his play The
Second Woman, based on John Cassavetes’s Opening
Night. The director skillfully uses the meta-theatrical potential
of the script and boldly fights the cultural stereotypes that make
us all run blindly after youth. Presenting the fear of exclusion resulting from aging, Jarzyna examines the kind of gender-specific
ramifications that, despite apparent social and cultural progress
and women’s emancipation, are still alive. Paweł Passini’s The
Hideout/Kryjówka also confronts the themes of memory,
the passing of time and forgiveness. The director tells a story based
on recollections by his aunt, Apolonia Starzec, and touches upon
the trauma of Holocaust. Walking the thin line between realism
and surrealism, Katarzyna Dworak and Paweł Wolak’s Droga
śliska od traw… focuses on the nature of evil. This dark and
emotionally dense play is at times cut through with coarse humor.
Black humor, balanced with a dramatic ending, defines the
structure of Yakish and Poupche, directed by Piotr Szczerski. Szczerski doesn’t limit his piece to exploiting the comedy
embedded in the structure of the text by the Israeli playwright, but
makes a sudden left turn and confronts the fictional lives of his
characters with the hyper-real trauma of the Holocaust.
The Competition selection closes with three plays that mash
together the conventions of dramatic, musical and form theatre.
Cezary Tomaszewski’s Sacred Karaoke could turn out to be
a real dark horse. In a play made in collaboration with Capella
Cracoviensis, the director asks questions about the meaning and
limits of originality, one of our modern cultural obsessions. The
structure of the piece is defined by a popular form of karaoke.
Tomaszewski gives a voice to a variety of freaks and losers, here
represented by members of a choir who have been dreaming their
whole lives about singing a solo part.
In The Chorus of Orphans, created at the KTO Theatre, Jerzy Zoń uses yet another strategy. This wordless, hypnotic
play originates from different cultural influences, inspired by such
varied material as the Book of Exodus, traditional Bolivian song
and the Third Symphony by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki.
The selection of Competition plays concludes with Metamorphoses, directed by Małgorzata Zwolińska and Adolf
Weltschek. The play references the best traditions in art, theatre
and dance. The fusion of a variety of expressive tools — costumes,
set design, multimedia projections, dance, music and lights —
creates an original stage world that leaves plenty of interpretative
freedom for the audience. The performance is full of cultural associations and certain elements of the narrative refer to the myth
of Orpheus and Eurydice. The play is partly inspired by the Polish
theatre of form and the works of artists such as Tadeusz Kantor,
Józef Szajna and Leszek Mądzik.
This year’s line-up introduces a brand new section titled
WHEN THEY COME BURN THE HOME DOWN, THE ONE THAT
YOU LIVE IN, part of a festival cycle called PURGATORIO. A frag-
ment of Władysław Broniewki’s poem, which today comes across
almost like a platitude or an empty cliché, is an open invitation to
reflect on contemporary threats and social fears. But more than
external threats, we want to draw attention to our private phobias
and obsessions. Maybe an external danger is just a projection of a
fear that’s deeply rooted within us? This cycle presents three premiers co-produced by the Divine Comedy Festival: Rats, directed by Maja Kleczewska (Zygmunt Hübner Powszechny Theatre,
Divine Comedy Festival), Balladin, directed by Radek Rychcik (Wanda Siemaszkowa Theatre, Divine Comedy Festival) and
Request Concert, directed by Yana Ross, starring Danuta
Stenka (Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, TR Warsaw, Divine Comedy Festival) as well as a Bagatela Theatre premiere: Mephisto, directed
by Michał Kotański
PURGATORIO presents five plays that attempt to build a dialogue with the audience using a variety of approaches: Hard
Gat, Dead World, directed by Eva Rysova, produced by the
Stefan Żeromski Theatre in Kielce; You’ve Clearly Never
Been a 13-year-old Girl, dir. By Iga Gańczarczyk (Łaźnia
Nowa Theatre); Człapówki-Zakopane, dir. by Andrzej
Dziuk, produced by the Stanisław I. Witkiewcz Theatre in Zakopane, and the directorial debut by Jacek Poniedziałek — The
Glass Menagerie, produced by the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole. The Festival also offers numerous accompanying
events: meetings with the artists, discussion panels and the cycle
DANTESQUE SCENES IN THE KITCHEN — a unique opportunity to talk to distinguished Polish theatre artists while cooking
and preparing meals.
Like last year, the PARADISO section of the festival is a platform reserved for young talents. This part of the festival showcases
three plays produced at the Ludwik Solski State Drama School in
Krakow: The Blacks, directed by Paweł Świątek, The Blue
Room, directed by Agnieszka Glińska and Graduates of
the Universe, directed by Ewa Kaim.
Kraków, 28 October 2014
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his quote — taken from Broniewski’s
poem, that in the face of the September
1939 invasion was a call to fight — is a
kind of slogan that has been haunting
me unconsciously all year long as I observed various growing waves of radicalism. Protests, exclusions, divisions and hysterical defense of one’s
own business, chaotic emotions and manifestations of hatred dominated the public debate and
found their way into theatre life. Let’s look for the
reasons for this predicament. Is it a growing fear
of the unknown and an uncertainty about the future? Maybe it’s defining the enemy and creating
ready-made solutions to create a better world that
gets us upset so quickly? And what if the external
danger is nothing but fiction — someone cynically pulling the strings of fratricidal infighting?
Maybe it’s the virus of frustration and a lack of
faith in our strength that make us take out our
anger on the imaginary arsonist? We are going to
try to recognize the map of our Polish struggles,
in the belief that to some extent it applies not
only to Poles.
Except for the four pre-premiere shows that
open up the spiritual dimension of the topic,
we will initiate a wide and international discussion on the situation and place of theatre. I think
that as a result of panic around the worsening financial system, we got trapped into a debate on
Polish theatre. We pull out arguments that hit
below the waist, emotional ones or ones that are
too smart, trying to humiliate or mock “the opponent”. Furious attacks on experimental or socially-engaged
theatre on the one hand — and
scornful smiles at naïve stories
on the other — discredit us just
as political parties have become
discredited. A couple of years ago
I would have said that these quarrels about the theatre are merely
proof of how hot the topic has become. Now I
think it’s plain shortsightedness and naiveté.
Excluding others always means weakening the
whole sector. A month before the 250th anniversary of public theatre in Poland we have to stay
vigilant, so that the anniversary doesn’t become
an excuse for becoming pompous. Through this
year’s festival program, I would like to remind everyone of the need for balance and solidarity in
the theatre world.
The image and perception of Polish theatre
have been dominated in recent years by bold experimentation, political thought and emotional
confrontation with theatre traditions. We showed
the world that cross-generational dialogue is alive
on Polish stages, that theatre is an important
place to reflect the social climate, but above all
it’s a place of artistic freedom and a platform for
developing new talent. Our guests always leave
the city amazed at the full picture of a theatre of
risks and freedom, untamed dreams, courage and
ambition. The ongoing discussion on the state of
Polish theatre tends to grow more and more emotional. Nothing can be said for certain. Dialogue
with the theatre of transgression will be taken up
by a trend which had rarely been represented at
our festival. It would be clumsy to call it “theatre
for the masses”; I would rather refer to it as theatre in alliance with the audience, determined by
the faith that theatre is an asylum for those who
speak a common language and an expression of
nostalgia for the intellectual ethos. More than a
battlefield, we want to create a
platform for a theatre alliance,
a conscious and respectful confrontation. I leave to the audience the pleasure of categorizing
individual plays according to the
aforementioned trends. Maybe
it will turn out that the dividing
lines in Polish theatre lie somewhere completely different.
Bartosz
Szydłowski
_______
Artistic Director
of Divine Comedy Festival
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Teatr KTO
TR Warsaw
St. I. Witkiewicz Studio Theatre
New Theatre in Poznań
Chorus of Orphans
THe Second Woman
T h e F o r e fat h e r s ’ E v e
dir. Jerzy Zoń
dir. Grzegorz Jarzyna
Directed by Jerzy Zoń, this “theatrical seance with orchestra, solo soprano and actors”, to quote the production’s byline, is a unique artistic event for a couple of
reasons. First, it’s a hypnotic performance with no text,
although it’s based on Guy Croussy’s novel Bluebottles.
Secondly, it’s inspired by such varied material as the
Book of Exodus, traditional Bolivian song and the Third
Symphony by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. Croussy’s book
tells the story of orphans living in post-war France,
and the running time of the play is defined by the time
needed to play the composer’s piece. The audience sits
on opposite sides of a square-shaped construction and
observes the everyday activities of the titular orphans,
who are supervised by two strict guardians. The developing narrative, governed by the dramaturgical structure
of the aforementioned musical composition, dramatizes the mechanisms of social behavior within a closed
group, and shows how the adult world exerts control
over “enslaved” children.
After directing performances based on Nosferatu and
T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T., Grzegorz Jarzyna again reaches for a
film script and finds the inspiration to carry out a broad critique of the modern world. This time his show is
based on the 1977 movie Opening Night by John Cassavetes, the American cult director often referred to as
“the father of independent cinema”. In addition to Cassavetes himself, the film stars his wife, Gena Rowlands,
who plays a middle-aged actress, Myrtle Gordon (in Jarzyna’s piece the part is played by Danuta Stenka), who
cannot come to terms with the passing of time. All the
more so considering that she is supposed to star in a
Broadway show titled The Second Woman, as a character who goes through menopause and feels like it seals
her personal failure, making her surrender to aging. The
audience watches the slow and painful process of breaking free from life and her theatrical role, which is necessary for Myrtle’s self understanding and acceptance.
Jarzyna clashes fiction with reality while a multilayered
narration reveals successive levels of confabulation and
delusion. The director skillfully uses the meta-theatrical potential of the script and harshly fights the cultural
stereotypes that make us all run blindly after youth.
A Couple of Poor,
Polish-Speaking
Romanians
INFERNO
dir. Agnieszka Glińska
In this version of the play by Dorota Masłowska, undoubtedly the most popular modern Polish writer, director Agnieszka Glińska presents the ironic, comical
story of two characters living on the margins of society. Parcha and Gina — an actor who stars in a horrible
soap opera and a single mother who has to make ends
meet living off minimal alimony, come up with a great
idea while under the influence of drugs at a party. They
decide to pretend they’re a couple of Romanian immigrants and to play poor. They get caught up in the game
and set off on a wild journey through the Polish provinces, running into people deeply disappointed with their
own lives. Gradually, funny situations and seemingly
hilarious jokes reveal their dark side and lost hopes
and dreams become an acute source of pain that slowly
overtakes the characters and the audience. Masłowska
and Glińska play with cultural stereotypes about Polishness and otherness and ruthlessly expose the paradoxes
inherent in everyday existence, as their characters deal
with unsteady jobs, try to survive on minimum wage,
and wait for a miracle that never seems to happen.
dir. Radek Rychcik
Radek Rychcik adapts Adam Mickiewicz’s canonical
play, offering up an ironic, rebellious version — its
well-known romantic motifs putting on a new, disturbing face. The director positions the action of the play
in the context of American pop culture. The set design
by Anna Maria Kaczmarska, which resembles a gym in
a midwestern high school, is filled with characters typical of the America of our imagination: a cheerleader,
tattooed basketball players and even Marilyn Monroe.
The performance does not limit its scope to innocent
games and loose associations with American movies
(including Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining), but tells a
story of class and racial inequalities. Rychcik examines
a variety of racial stereotypes, building to a climax in
which the ghost of Mister is confronted by oppressed
African Americans desperately fighting for a voice. The
world of the play is characterized by a constant struggle
between the privileged oppressors and those who due
to their skin color are forever supposed to play the role
of the weak and suffering.
INFERNO
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Łaźnia Nowa Theatre in Kraków,
IMKA Theatre w Warsaw
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The Curse: Episodes
from Hopeless Times
dir. Monika Strzępka
The play by Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski is an
original, political theatre series in three episodes. The
artists use the conventions of political fiction and horror movies to highlight the paradoxes of contemporary
Poland and to deconstruct the strict cultural norms and
behavior patterns that rule society. In the first episode,
titled Don’t Mess with Jesus, all the parliament members
are killed under mysterious circumstances at a crucial
moment in Polish history, and Jesus Christ comes back
to earth to establish new order in a country immersed in chaos. In the second one — The Religion Lesson
— the characters desperately try to go back to the old
order, while millions of Europeans convert to Catholicism, to the delight of the Vatican. As secularism falls
into oblivion suddenly the Devil appears. In the third
and final installment, titled A Coven of the Good House,
we watch a mysterious meeting in which the fate of the
world will be decided.
INFERNO
Polish Theatre in Wrocław
netTheatre
Łaźnia Nowa Theatre in Kraków
KRONOS
THE HIDEOUT/
KRYJÓWKA
PA R A D I S O
dir. Paweł Passini
Michał Borczuch’s play tells a story inspired by the final
part of Dante’s Divine Comedy — Paradise. The performance is a collaboration between Łaźnia Nowa Theatre
and the Farm of Life, the only residential facility for
adults with autism in Poland. Three professional actors
serve as guides through the stage world, accompanied
by amateurs with autism. But they aren’t being exposed
to the curious gaze of “normal” people; instead the director works with them as if they were just regular actors. The material space of Paradiso is expressed in Dorota Nawrot’s set design, which presents the interior of
a hotel in ruins. But the symbolic and ideological space
centers around attempts to explore and understand
non-normative logic — the domain of autism — which
Borczuch juxtaposes with theatrical variations on themes taken from Dante’s canonical piece.
dir. Krzysztof Garbaczewski
After directing plays based on Ivona, Princess of Burgundia and Possessed, Krzysztof Garbaczewski takes on
a book by Witold Gombrowicz that was published only
recently, many years after the author’s death, and announced as “the biggest literary sensation of 2013”. In
reality Kronos turned out to be loose scribbling from
journals — reflections on the dullness of the everyday,
full of repetitions, enumerations and mundane observations. Here the director adapts an anti-theatrical text
that is devoid of typical plot action. The book becomes
an excuse to reveal and analyze mechanisms that produce memory in both of its dimensions: individual and
cultural. Words from Gombrowicz’s novel are projected
onto a screen, in the style of “breaking news”, in an ironic way — all the more so when compared with readers’
expectations, which the book has no chance of living
up to. The Polish Theatre actors read, speak, and create their own intimate diaries on stage, and share dirty
stories from their lives: seemingly irrelevant reflections
and boring confessions that are inevitably doomed to
oblivion.
Paweł Passini’s play is based on a personal family story
that his aunt, Apolonia Starzec, once told him. When
she was a little girl, she was saved from the Jewish ghetto by a famous pre-war actress, Irena Solska. The author of the script, Patrycja Dołowy, uses a variety of
theatrical conventions to present the well-known story
of the Holocaust from a slightly different, at times painfully private, perspective. The play has a three-pronged
structure: documentary elements and the recollections
of the director’s aunt are juxtaposed with fictionalized
scenes. The narrative is harnessed to visual materials
relating to the war and to the stories told in course of
the play as well as a musical score that powerfully engages the audience’s emotions. Evolving subplots do not
attempt to create a tidy and coherent narration; Passini
raises a number of questions about Solska’s motives and
also reflects on the contemporary repercussions of war
traumas.
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dir. Michał Borczuch
INFERNO
Groteska Theatre
Bagatela Theatre in Kraków
The National Old Theatre in Kraków
Polish Theatre in Wrocław
PRZEMIANY
DA D
dir. Adolf Weltschek, Malgorzata Zwolińska
dir. Małgorzata Bogajewska
To w i a n s k i i t e s :
Kings of Clouds
Woodcutters
H o l z fä l l e n
The play created by Adolf Weltschek and Małogrzata
Zwolińska refers to the best traditions within art, theatre and dance forms. The performance is completely
wordless and is comprised of seventeen stage situations
that present a variety of images and their possible meanings. It’s a story of people who tirelessly look for harmony and happiness, against all odds. Simple gestures
and actions, everyday rituals and the passing of time
define the narrative as well as the structure of the stage world, while the plot is based on archetypes of Woman and Man. The artists choose to re-imagine gender
stereotypes that could have easily been reduced to the
ethos of Man as conqueror and Woman as protector of
family and home. To maximize the expressive and artistic possibilities, the creators of the show collaborated
with distinguished British choreographer Caroline Finn
and nine talented Polish dancers.
Małgorzata Bogajewska directs the Artur Pałyga play,
which presents an original take on a subject that still
seems to be a kind of cultural taboo in Poland, namely
fatherhood. The playwright asks questions about moral
and social determinants of what it means to be a father,
at the same time telling a touching coming-of-age story.
Focusing on a relationship between a father and a son,
Bogajewska and Pałyga reflect on whether it’s possible
to be a good dad if you never had a good example to
look up to. The action of the piece takes place in communist Poland where nobody really discussed proper
models of bringing up children; many people who grew
up in those times still complain about having terrible
relationships with their fathers. The director attempts
to deal with demons from the past, which cast a shadow over the lives of many Polish families and continue
to cause unresolved conflicts, mutual resentment and
unresolved trauma.
dir. Wiktor Rubin
dir. Krystian Lupa
The action of Jolanta Janiczak and Wiktor Rubin’s play
takes place on July 30th, 1841 at Adam Mickiewicz’s Parisian house, at the precise moment when Andrzej Towiański appears at his door. The legendary guru of the
Circle of God’s Cause — whose members, in addition
to the national bard, included many influential emigrants — is shown here as both a great manipulator and
a fascinating character full of empathy and compassion.
Other historical figures that turn up onstage, key people in the hectic era of the Great Emigration, include
Seweryn Goszczyński, Celina Mickiewiczowa and Karolina Towiańska. Janiczak and Rubin don’t try to uncover the real hidden story of what happened in Paris
at that time; instead they focus on demystifying the dull
and unappealing notions of Polishness that have been
haunting the minds and souls of the Poles since the Romantic era. By offering the audience an explosive clash
of serious, liberating slogans, mystical prophecies and
fragments of Mickiewicz and Towiański’s writings and
confronting them with modern pop culture, the artists
reflect on the ways these specific people might function
in the current social and political climate.
One of the most eagerly awaited premiers of this season: an adaptation of a text by the enfant terrible of
Austrian literature, Thomas Bernhard, directed by the
distinguished artist Krystian Lupa. The show tells a story of an “artistic dinner party” thrown by a group of former friends that suddenly turns into a wake for one
of the members of their art collective. Instead of
typical warm reminiscences about their late friend,
the characters verbalize their mutual resentments and
share their fears and obsessions as old regrets resurface. Once revolutionary and uncompromising artists,
they are now comfortably employed by state institutions. They don’t seem to be morally corrupted; they
just conform too easily to rigid social structures and
conventions. With a clear-sighted approach and a
tendency to make accurate cultural diagnoses, Lupa
observes a group of people once brought together
by ideas, passions and desires who are now strangers
to one another..
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INFERNO
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INFERNO
Helena Modjeska
Theatre in Legnica
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The Slippery
Grass Road
dir. Paweł Wolak, Katarzyna Dworak
Another play produced at the Helena Modjeska Theatre
in Legnica by an actor/author duo — Paweł Wolak and
Katarzyna Dworak. Just like in the previous two performances, the action here takes place in the Polish countryside and the creators closely observe not only social
relationships, but also their fast-changing dynamics, in
the realm of a small-town. Just before Christmas, a man
appears in the closed subculture of the village. His name
is Bogdan and he just got out of prison after serving
time for harassing his family. Another villager, Jasiek,
takes pity on the tormented wife and wants to protect
the community; he offers Bogdan a place to stay in
order to keep an eye on him. Meanwhile the dark secrets and long-buried feelings of the various characters
begin to surface, and they will have to be dealt with in
the course of this mysterious backwoods tale.
INFERNO
Capella Cracoviensis
Stefan Żeromski Theatre in Kielce
S ac r e d K a r ao k e .
Mozart Requiem
YA k i s h & P o u p c h e
dir. Cezary Tomaszewski
Piotr Szczerski’s play is based on a piece by Hanoch Levin that tells a story of “the ugliest couple on earth”, its
titular characters. Yakish and Poupche, partially thanks
to accidental match-making, decide to get together.
After all, they both long for intimacy and someone they
can share life’s ups and downs with. But when the time
comes to consummate their marriage, Yakish can’t live
up to it, due to the exceptional ugliness of his new wife.
Poupche on the other hand, longs for the day when she
will finally become a mother and get someone to love
her unconditionally, despite her looks. In the course of
story, the audience sees the couple’s first, incompetent
attempts to get past their repulsion with each other’s
bodies. But Szczerski doesn’t limit his piece to exploiting the comedy embedded in the structure of the text
by the Israeli playwright, but makes a sudden left turn
and confronts the fictional lives of his characters with
the hyper-real trauma of the Holocaust.
In a play made in collaboration with Capella Cracoviensis, Cezary Tomaszewski asks questions about the
meaning and limits of originality, one of our modern
cultural obsessions. The structure of the piece, which
starts with a terrorist attack and a symbolic funeral of
the artists involved with it (the audience is informed
about these incidents by a fictionalized Kinga Rusin,
in the constant company of TV cameras), is defined by
a popular form of karaoke. Commonly associated with
lowly bar culture, here it becomes a crucial component
of the stage world, one that gives everyone a chance and
doesn’t exclude due to the lack of talent. Tomaszewski
gives a voice to a variety of freaks and losers, here represented by members of a choir who have been dreaming
their whole lives about singing a solo part. Hit singles
by Kate Bush, Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston spin
out of the singers’ control and start revealing the dark
side of not only show business but also the common listeners who see their lives reflected in the songs, all the
while dreaming of splendor and fame.
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dir. Piotr Szczerski
INFERNO
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Wanda Siemaszkowa Theatre in Rzeszów,
Divine Comedy Festival
Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, TR Warsaw,
Divine Comedy Festival
B A L L A DY N A
Request Concert
dir. Radek Rychcik
dir. Yana Ross
In his take on a classical text by Juliusz Słowacki, Radek
Rychcik puts an emphasis on the ideological, cultural
and social meaning of its key motif — a sister killing a
sister. The director sees a harbinger of women’s emancipation in the titular protagonist and symbolically reads
her name as a manifestation of broad cultural changes.
The narrative gets shifted to the time of the World War
I, not without a good cause as this was a tipping point in
terms of establishing male and female subjectivity. Over
the course of years of fighting on the front lines, where
tanks and poison gas were used for the first time, millions of men were killed leaving their wives and kids to
face reality on their own. This historical context allows
not only to extract a feminist content from the original
text, but also to show an ongoing internal war, in which
a sister kills a sister, a daughter drives away a mother
and a wife murders a husband. As such, Balladyna as
directed by Rychcik becomes a battle over territory and
voice for those who for centuries have been oppressed
and silenced by fathers, brothers and partners who at
every step enforced the brutal norms of a patriarchal
world.
Yana Ross and Aśka Gorchulska’s play is based on a text
by a German playwright, Franz Xavier Kroetz. Unlike
classically constructed dramas, this play is comprised
only of side text that serves as a score and a commentary on the stage action. The protagonist here is a 40-year-old woman, a clerk, who also works as a stenographer.
She lives in a shared apartment with modern middle
class décor. Surrounded by colorful advertisements and
packages, overly-organized and pedantic, she cannot
overcome her loneliness. The society that she lives in
also doesn’t help, condemning her to exclusion and isolation. Kroetz creates a world where the individual feels
very much alone, lost in the manic tempo of the big-city. The playwright closely observes the behavior patters
and morality of the bourgeoisie, as it faces cultural and
social transformations that force it to re-establish its
identity. The lead (and only) role in Yana Ross’ piece is
played by Danuta Stenka
PURGATORIO
WHEN THEY COME TO BURN YOUR HOME DOWN
Bagatela Theatre
Zygmunt Hübner Powszechny Theatre
in Warsaw, Divine Comedy Festival
M E P H I S TO
R AT S
dir. Michał Kotański
Michał Kotański’s play is based on an adaptation of the
well-known Klaus Mann novel of the same title, published for the first time in 1936 and popularized by an
Oscar-winning movie by István Szabó. The writer, who
was born into a prominent artistic family, comments
here on the reality of his time, telling the story of an
artist who lives in Nazi Germany and gets caught up in
political and systemic intrigue. The performance centers on the life of a provincial actor, Hendrik Höfgen,
who becomes more and more dependent on the oppressive apparatus of power. Kotański, partially inspired by the strategy used in Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, contrasts the frivolous form of Weimer Republic cabaret with
a horrifying tale about how fascist ideology strengthens
its position within German society. Breaking cultural
taboos and having careless fun in a cloud of sequins is
juxtaposed with impending world catastrophe, adding
to the play’s subversive power.
dir. Maja Kleczewska
Maja Kleczewska shifts the action of a classical drama
by Gerhart Hauptmann to modern-day Warsaw. It’s the
second Polish stage production of this text, after its pre-premiere in 1911. The director, together with her dramaturg, Łukasz Chotkowski, stages another scenario in
the circles of middle-class elites who claim the right to
reproach and discipline other members of society. Like
in the original play, “the weak” who are left on the margins of society are allowed to speak out here, in the hope
that it’s still possible to start a social and cultural rebellion of sorts. But the world presented onstage is not
easily divided into good guys and bad guys; instead it
presents the characters trapped in complicated professional relationships and driven by their own ambitions
and desires. Rats not only reveals the processes that help
discipline the citizenry, but also takes a closer look at
how hate speech inserts itself and, as a result, becomes
incorporated into everyday language. The creators of
the show deconstruct superficial desires and privileged
lifestyles; an extra layer of meaning is added by purposely casting actors who are household names in Poland,
having appeared in a variety of popular TV shows.
WHEN THEY COME TO BURN YOUR HOME DOWN
PURGATORIO
15
16
St. I. Witkiewicz Theatre in Zakopane
Łaźnia Nowa Theatre in Krakow
Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole
Stefan Żeromski Theatre in Kielce
C Z Ł A P Ó W K I­— Z A K O PA N E
A p pa r e n t ly M i s t e r ,
Yo u ’ v e N e v e r B e e n a
13-year-old girl
T h e G l a s s M e n ag e r i e
H A R D G AT ,
DEAD WORLD
dir. Andrzej Dziuk
Andrzej Dziuk’s play, produced at the St. I. Witkiewicz
Theatre in Zakopane, is based on Andrzej Strug’s novel
titled The Big Day. The witty and ironic performance
references the style of pre-war cabaret; the stage presentation is accompanied by live music. The lyrical tone
of the piece is enhanced by Jan Brzechwa and Marian
Hemar’s poems. As the action progresses, it turns out
that pre-war Zakopane is only a kind of historical camouflage and allusion used by Dziuk to diagnose modern-day national fears, vices and illnesses. Backstage
power struggles, multiple affairs, gossip, corruption,
complexes towards the West and, last but not least,
Człapówki (meaning Krupówki Street, of course) filled
with tourists — it’s all pointedly current and serves as
raw material to create funny scenes and sketches that
bring the audience to tears of laughter.
PURGATORIO
dir. Iga Gańczarczyk
Iga Ganczarczyk’s play, produced by the Łaźnia Nowa
Theatre, looks outside the conventions and parameters of dramatic theatre, offering a socio-artistic project instead. The performance stars a dozen or so girls
of different ages who are all amateurs. They have been
given a chance to tell a unique story about themselves
— what irritates them, what frustrates them and what
makes them happy. The piece, loosely inspired by Virginia Woolf ’s writings, becomes a celebration of the female perspective, but unlike classic feminist narratives
it places girlhood and what characterizes it right at
the center. Using different forms of non-theatrical
provenance such as fragments of diaries and scrapbooks, the dramaturgy of secrets and the processes around
revealing them, witticisms and schoolyard confessions, Gańczarczyk not only gives a voice to a group of
girls, but creates a platform for their joyful improvisations and artistic play as well as for venting about things
that hurt them in relationships — with their peers, with
adults and amongst themselves.
dir. Jacek Poniedziałek
An actor Jacek Poniedziałek, commonly associated with
Krzysztof Warlikowski’s theatre, has translated a cycle
of plays by Tennessee Williams, one of the most iconic
American playwrights, and directed one of them at the
Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole. In his version, The
Glass Menagerie is not only about the Great Depression
or the realities of 1944 when the text was written; it becomes a commentary on modern times. According to
Poniedziałek, our times are defined more by internal
conflicts than armed ones — toxic family relationships
and private entanglements. The director focuses on the
relationship between a mother and son, and the central character of the piece ends up being Tom, who feels
like he’s suffocating living in a small apartment with his
mother and sister. Overwhelmed by the prospect of having to take care of an aging parent, and expecting more
from life than just a dull, grey existence, the instinct to
rebel grows inside of him and he plots a way to leave his
domestic hell behind.
17
dir. Eva Rysová
Hard gat, dead world is a performance-manifesto and a
performance-apery. At the first plan a special concept
of literary, called by the author „bad writing” appears.
What is „bad writing”? It is a literary equivalent of a
phenomenon called „bad painting” in the fine arts. But
not completely. „Bad writing” is conscious and practiced with great glee creation of good art from bad literature. It is creation of bad literature for the sake of art.
It is deliberate creation of bad literature and changing it
in art. It is not just about imitating of colloquial spoken
language, street language, eavesdropping of stupidities
transforming, impersonation and exaggerating them. It
is about admiration of writers’ infirmity and incompetence. The greater incompetence, the better performance. Hard gat, dead world is also a concert. The concert
and a stand-up. The stand-up and a bizarre meeting
with authors. It is also a contemporary story about Job.
About God, Satan and a man.
PURGATORIO
J U
R Y
BIA JUNQUEIRA
(BR)
M E I Y I N WA N G
(USA)
INTERNATIONAL JURY OF
7th DIVINE COMEDY FESTIVAL’S
POLISH CONTEST
P E T E R C R AW L E Y
(IR)
18
Crawley has a degree in Theatre Studies and English Literature from Trinity College in Dublin. He is the chief
theatre critic with The Irish Times, for which he also
writes Stage Struck, a column on theatre. He is news
editor of Irish Theatre Magazine and has taught Contemporary Irish Theatre at Trinity College in Dublin.
He is a co-editor of the book on contemporary international performance, titled No More Drama.
JUDIT CSÁKI
(HUN)
Theatre critic, journalis, lecturer. in 2002 she got her
PHD in aesthetics at Eötvös Loránd University. Founder, editor-in-chief and theatre critic of Revizor critical
website (covering: theatre, film, literature, art, music).
Cultural editor and theatre critic at Népszabadság, the
largest Hungarian daily paper. Lecturer at University of
Film and Theatre, Budapest.
the Co-Director of the Under the Radar Festival and the
Director of the Devised Theater Initiative at The Public
Theater in New York City. She was the lead curator of
ArtsEmerson’s TNT Festival 2013 (Boston), and was
an associate producer of Radar L.A. 2011 (Los Angeles). She was a recipient of TCG’s Young Leader of Color award and also the 2014 recipient of the Josephine
Abady Award from the League of Professional Theatre
Women. Born and raised in Singapore, Meiyin served
as resident playwright and director with Singapore Repertory Theatre before moving to New York. She holds
an M.F.A in Directing from Columbia University.
Bia Junqueira is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, art
director. Her path and interest for the intersection, association of languages and for providing the Brazilian
audience with new references placed her as one of the
founders of the group that has developed, realized, directed and curated the riocenacontemporanea - International Festival of Arts of Rio de Janeiro and now the
TEMPO_FESTIVAL das Artes. She is in jury board of
Shell Prize, the most important and renowned theater
award in Brazil. She participated in the Fórum Cultural
Mundial, as the co-author of the book Rio 40 Graus. She
runs and manages the courses connected to art direction in the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
19
NORMAN ARMOUR
(CA)
DEEPAN SIVARAMAN
Curator, director, actor and interdisciplinary artist. He
has collaborated on over 120 works for the stage and
other media. He co-founded Rumble Productions, an
interdisciplinary theatre company 1990. More recently
he co-founded the PuSh International Performing Arts
Festival and is currently its artistic & executive director.
Norman is the recipient of numerous awards, including
Simon Fraser University’s Distinguished Alumni and
the City of Vancouver’s Civic Merit and Mayor’s Arts
Awards. In the spring of 2014 he directed the premiere
of opera Pauline, a new opera on the life and work of
Canadian Metis poet Pauline Johnson.
(IND)
STEFANIE CARP
(DE)
Carp is a German dramaturg and festival director. She
has worked at theatres in Basel, Hamburg, Dusseldorf
and Berlin-based Volksbühne. Carp collaborated with
such distinguished theatre artists as: Christopher Marthaler, Frank Castorf and Luc Bondy. She has also taught at Hamburg University and in the Institute of Literature in Leipzig. In the years 2008-2013 she had been
creating an author’s program at the prestigious Wiener
Festwochen.
Deepan Sivaraman is an award winning Indian theatre director and scenographer based in Delhi. He
graduated from Central Saint Martin’s College of art
and Design London with a specialization in scenography. He taught scenography at University of the Arts
London for five years and presently is an associate professor at School of Culture and Creative Expressions
at Ambedkar University Delhi. He served as the
Artistic Director of the International Theatre Festival
of Kerala (ITFOK) 2014 edition. He is the curator for
the first international live art festival of India which will
be held in Delhi in 2015 October.
Jacek Majchrowski The Mayor of City of Krakow invites you to
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