Undivine: A Reflection. A Conversation with the Creators of The Undivine Comedy. Scraps
Authorized fragments of a discussion with the creators of the canceled performance of Undivine Comedy: Scraps at the Stary Theater, directed by Oliver Frljić. The meeting took place on 15 January 2014 at the Zbigniew Raszewski Theater Institute in Warsaw. The director, actors, and dramaturgs speak of the process of creating the play, revealing details of the staging, the concepts and plans. In the dialogue with the audience they discuss the reasons why the play was canceled by the directors of the Stary Theater and deliberate the aptness of this decision. The participants in the discussion outline the framework of theater institutions' activities and the political and social roles that determine how the national stages function.
Anna Schiller. A Mini Opinion Piece, a Reflection
A critical commentary on the discussion with the creators of the canceled performance of Undivine Comedy: Scraps at the Stary Theater, directed by Oliver Frljić, which took place at the Zbigniew Raszewski Theater Institute in Warsaw. The author composes a list of questions she wanted to ask during the conversation, pointing out many vital issues that were passed over or unspoken by the participants in the discussion.
Agnieszka Jakimiak, Joanna Wichowska. A Sketch of a Play that Never Happened
An attempt to outline the structure of the canceled production of Undivine Comedy: Scraps at the Stary Theater, directed by Oliver Frljić. Agnieszka Jakimiak, and Joanna Wichowska, the dramaturgs of the project, go over the concept of the production that was being used a week before the directors decided to suspend the rehearsals. This sketch they have prepared marks out the basic courses taken over the various stages of working on the play. The record of motifs and sequences which were meant to appear serve not only to document the unexecuted project, but also to preclude mythologization in the theater community and the spread of rumors.
Anna-Maria Karczmarska. A Concept in Stage Design
A description of the design concept for the Kameralna Stage of the Stary Theater in the canceled production of Undivine Comedy: Scraps, directed by Oliver Frljić. The main premise of the project was to allude to Krystyna Zachwatowicz's set design created for Konrad Swinarski's production in 1965, to strike up a dialogue with it. As in the staging of forty-nine years ago, the central point of the action was meant to be the church altar.
Agnieszka Jakimiak. That Strange Institution We Call a Play
An attempt to look at the decision of the Stary Theater's directors to suspend rehearsals for Undivine Comedy: Scraps, directed by Oliver Frljić, from a philosophical perspective. The author reflects upon the institutional nature of the theater, and suggests defining a play as a "microinstitution," whereby the "play" is to be understood not only as the final effect of the work of an ensemble, but of a wider field of tensions, power relationships, principles introduced in the course of the work, and the establishment of relationships and dependencies between the participants in a production. She also covers Frljić's political commitments and the work methods and conventions he uses in his art.
Grzegorz Stępniak. "Twerk, twerk, Miley, only in America": Plays on Race in the American "Colored" Theater
The author opens his text by mentioning the controversy surrounding the lethal shooting of dark-skinned teenager Trayvon Martin in February 2012. The crime of the accused was not considered racially motivated because, although his skin was white, he was of Latino origin. In the following parts of the article he analyzes both media (e.g. Miley Cyrus's performance at the MTV Video Music Awards) and theater phenomena (I‘ma Be Me byWanda Sykes and Lear byYoung Jean Lee), in which the exposure and, sometimes, the reinterpretation of overriding race and gender stereotypes occur.
Natalia Jakubowa. The Gogol Center: Season One
A report on the first season of the Gogol Theater in Moscow after the revolution by the new artistic director, Kirill Semionovitch Serebrennikov. The author focuses on a series of three premieres: Brothers, The Idiots,and Fear. The plays, based on film scripts addressing social themes by Luigi Visconti, Lars von Trier, and Rainer Fassbinder, comment on the social situation in Russia. The author of the article analyzes each of the performances, examining the extent to which the new concept for the Gogol Center might play an important role in shaping the political dimension of Russian dramaturgy.
Zofia Smolarska. The Blind Alley of the Documentary Theater: Situation Rooms as an Organizational Performance
Here the author reveals the behind-the-scenes processes in creating the Situation Rooms project (Ruhrtriennale 2013, Jahrhunderthalle Bochum, premiere: 23.08.2013), in which the audience, moving from room to room, takes the roles of various characters, using iPads. Smolarska compares this project with previous work by Rimini Protokoll, exposing the shortcomings of the play and listing the artists' misled decisions in creating it. She points out significant modifications made to the real spaces during their modeling into Situation Rooms, to maintain the coherence of the artistic vision. As such, she doubts if the term "documentary" is justified with regards to Rimini's latest work.
Rafał Kołsut. The Fun Is in You
In reviewing the latest Situation Rooms project by Rimini Protokoll (Ruhrtriennale 2013, Jahrhunderthalle Bochum, premiere: 23.08.2013), the author gives a detailed description of the viewer's route through the Situation Rooms of the title. At the same time, he stresses the paradoxical elimination of interaction between viewers through the "participation" mode the artists have created. Kołsut speaks of the similarity of the project to the mechanisms used in RPG games and LARP sessions. He calls attention to the function of the cameras and tablets as carriers of the participant's new identity.
Małgorzata Sugiera. Archive and Repertoire: At the Source of a Drama Authority
A commentary on a review by Roman Pawłowski on the 100% Kraków performance by Rimini Protokoll serves Małgorzata Sugiera as a point of departure for considering how the profile of the contemporary theater has transformed. An expression of this reconceptualization has been a change of approach to the archive/repertoire dichotomy, whose history the author presents through the development of Polish theater and drama following 1765. Surveying the genre classifications of the texts for the theater of the (post-)Stanislavski epoch from the new perspectives she proposes, Sugiera perceives a (partly institutional) dependency to which the drama authority currently succumbs.
Ulf Otto. Hermès, or: How European Theater Has Gone to the Dogs: On D’après nature by Philippe Quesne/Vivarium Studio, and on the Theatrical Potential of Animals
Analyzing a performance of D’après nature, the author delves into the role of Hermès, the dog appearing on stage, and the use of natural creatures in theater as such. Otto claims that the animal should be seen not only as the main protagonist, but also as the most important member of the acting ensemble, because its presence frees European theater from its pretensions of being a spectacle and a performance. The stage becomes strictly a place for looking, where nothing forces the audience to interpret or experience; the viewer has to divide his attention between both the actors and the animals and plants as well, because everything has identical weight in the structure of the performance.
Joanna Tomaszewska. A Horse at the Zingaro Theater – An Actor and a Character
The author describes the role of the horse in contemporary sport and entertainment, outlining the dissonance between the natural movements of the animals and their images in the culture. Instead of oppressive exercises to achieve an imaginary ideal, at Zingaro Theater they adapt the training and the form of the performance to the particular horse. Bartabas, the creator of Zingaro, tries to draw the personality from the horse, to give it space for individual expression. Tomaszewska describes the training techniques and some typical acts involving the horses, as well as the relations between humans and animals in the arena.
Why Should I Need an Elephant. Dorota Semenowicz in conversation with Romeo Castellucci
A transcript of a conversation between Dorota Semenowicz and Italian director Romeo Castellucci in which the main topic is the presence of animals on stage. Their talk concerns the specifics of working with animals, their ontological status, and the roles they can play in the theater. The precise focus of the interview with Castellucci allows us to see his vision of theater in terms of representation and fiction.
Monika Żółkoś. The Theater of Animal Death
The author describes spectacles involving animals, in which the act of human domination is perceived as imposing a structure upon the elemental and chaotic power of nature. The article is an attempt to analyze the historical "animal spectacle," from the days of staged hunts in Ancient Rome to the present-day corrida. The issue of putting animals to death is addressed, as is binding and devouring animals. Żółkoś also provides examples of their creative imagining and reinterpretation in various fields of art.
Thomas Irmer. Machinery and Illness
A review of the play The Yellow Wallpaper, directed by Katie Mitchell (Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, premiere: 14.02.2013). The author sketches the socio-historical background behind Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story (set in the "golden" American middle class during the Industrial Revolution), in which Mitchell helps us see contemporary Berlin. Thomas Irmer makes an in-depth analysis of the technical and dramaturgical strategies by which the British director reaches the crux of the plays she stages, often based on non-theatrical materials.
Friederike Felbeck. Elementary Particles
An essay by Friederike Felbeck inquiring into the creative method of two leading directors of the Schauspiel Theater in Koln. The author analyzes how two plays that premiered in October 2012 look at the classics: Gerhart Hauptmann's Rats directed by Karin Henkel, and Friederika Mayröcker's Journey through the Night adapted by Katie Mitchell. Felbeck chiefly calls attention to the two artists' skill at illustration and their theatrical imaginations, allowing them to boldly interpret the realistic material of Hauptmann's drama and Mayröcker's poetic short story.
Dan Rebellato. Katie Mitchell. Learning from Europe
Dan Rebellato's essay on Katie Mitchell' creative method makes for an insightful analysis of inspirations and artistic development of the British director. Apart from a detailed description of the phases of various plays, he considers what makes her theatrical strategy exceptional; owing to the dominant role of the director as an absolute artist, she has met with resistance from the critics in the UK. Her consistent evasion of stage conventions, skillful combination of theater and politics, and the influence of Northeastern European theater could, according to the author, be an inspiring contribution to British theater culture.
An actor in Jerzy Grzegorzewski's Theater. Joanna Walaszek in Conversation with Jerzy Radziwiłowicz
A transcript of a meeting with Jerzy Radziwiłowicz held on 12 June 2013 in Krakow after a screening of Jerzy Grzegorzewski's The Sea and the Looking Glass. The main axis of the conversation is reflections on the role of Caliban, played in this production by Radziwiłowicz. The actor speaks of his experiences during his many years' collaboration with Grzegorzewski, during which time he learned the director's strategies for adapting a text, shaping the space of the stage, and working with actors.
Marta Michalak. Grzegorzewski: Narratives
A review of the first of three volumes anticipated by the Theater Institute of a publication titled Variations: Scripts, 1978-1991 by Jerzy Grzegorzewski (Warsaw 2013). The author provides a detailed analysis of the structure of the book, divided into five parts, each devoted to a different play. Michalak focuses a great deal of attention on the full-page photographs, introducing a different sort of narrative, and also on the editorial decisions of Ewa Bułhak and Mateusz Żurawski, who precisely reconstructed the scripts and set the text in a form as close as possible to the stage versions.
Tadeusz Kornaś. The Sands of the The Temple
Tadeusz Kornaś begins his review of the play Armine, Sister by ZAR Theater, directed by Jarosław Fret (Studio na Grobli, Jerzy Grotowski Institute, premiere: 28.11.2013), by recalling the violent history of Christian Armenia, in which the Church became a symbol of cultural and religious independence, and a reservoir of identity. As such, the author praises the choice of placing the performance in a space imitating a temple interior. In the following sections the reviewer makes a detailed analysis of the reimagined set design, comparing its disintegration to the fate of the Armenian nation. Kornaś also stresses the power of the music (including Armenian liturgical music, and Kurdish and Iranian music) in constructing a narrative and the poetic atmosphere in the play.
Calling: Tadeusz Kornaś in Conversation with Jarosław Fret
The main topic of the conversation is the work on the Armine, Sister production created by ZAR Theater (Studio na Grobli, Jerzy Grotowski Institute, premiere: 28.11.2013) and Jarosław Fret's journey to Armenia, which was a major source of inspiration for the performance. The director speaks of his search through musical material, of a breakthrough that came with bringing a choir on stage, and of creating the dramaturgy of the performance with liturgical music. The references to other plays - Acropolis by the Theater Laboratory and Wielopole, Wielopole by Tadeusz Kantor – are also noted as significant in the approach to theater and theatrical form.
Jerzy Jarzębski. A Canceled Play
A critical review of the play Chronos, directed by Krzysztof Garbaczewski (Polski Theater in Wrocław, premiere: 15.12.2013). Jerzy Jarzębski is disappointed to find that the performance has little in common with Witold Gombrowicz's text, or even with the author himself. The critic indicates places where Garbaczewski has misinterpreted the meaning and subject of the book. He believes that the play aims to "push aside Gombrowicz's text" in favor of the (allegedly) shocking, intimate confessions of the actors. Jarzębski believes that, instead of adapting Chronos for the stage, a space has been created for discussing a model for a new theater – one that is less than alluring, in that it imposes roles upon its potential debaters.
Klaudia Laś. The Revolution Devours Its Own Children
A review of the new premiere by the Strzępka and Demirski duo (Rozrywki Theater in Chorzów, premiere: 17.12.2013). The musical play Take It and Eat It is a statement on the weight loss and healthy diet mania sweeping the consumer society. The author wonders to what extent the latest projects by Strzępka and Demirski reamin true to what viewers were accustomed to in their early work, i.e. a critical and uncompromising take on reality.
Paweł Schreiber. Nothing to Worry About
A review of The Wedding directed by Marcin Liber (Polski Theater in Bydgoszcz, premiere: 30.12.2013). The author takes a critical view of how Stanisław Wyspiański's drama modernized, combining up-to-date and traditional readings. Schreiber notes the subversion in the presentation of the characters, as well as many interesting stage effects. He regards many solutions as rather ham-fisted, however, and superficial. Despite the solid acting of the Bydgoszcz ensemble, the skillful construction of a gloomy atmosphere, and the exposing of current national problems, the reviewer believes that the play does not work as a "contemporary and personal vision" of The Wedding.
Rafał Kołsut. Fear and Loathing in the Tropics
A very critical appraisal of Paweł Świątek's Tristes Tropiques, based on the drama by Mateusz Pakuła (Łaźnia Nowa Theater, premiere: 8.12.2013). Kołsut notes the feeble and inconsistent message, as well as the set design, which aims only to be flashy. The mess of pop-culture references and allusions gives the performance no new qualities, and Pakuła's use of stylized language only brings to mind the recent production of The Queen's Peacock, based on Dorota Masłowska's novel. The author also criticizes the one-dimensional acting, which merely focuses on emphasizing the humorous aspects of the script.
Katarzyna Lemańska. The Devaluation of Values
A review of two plays by Ewelina Marciniak (director) and Michał Buszewicz (text), which are linked by the theme of the collapse of (primarily) family and moral values. Mission(Stefan Żeromski Theater in Kielce, premiere: 12.10.2013) presents the story of Włodek, an ex-soldier, who boards himself up in a mountain hut to flee from his relatives' expectations – thus condemning himself to a life of uncertainty, but one that is safer than spending time with the family. Lemańska sees The Miser (Polski Theater in Bydgoszcz, premiere: 28.11.2013) as an interesting approach. Moliere's intelligently rewritten play becomes an "unsettling morality tale" of contemporary people who are emotionally impaired and afflicted by the capitalist desire to possess.
Justyna Stasiowska. Inventing a Catastrophe
A review of a play by Iga Gańczarczyk, titled Catastronauts (Nowy Theater in Warsaw, premiere: 08.11.2013), which uses an almost documentary form to recount the journey of the astronauts who died in the Challenger shuttle disaster. The story line uses a science-fiction convention, the soundtrack involves modern non-contact instruments, while the theory behind the play was, according to the creators, to make a vision of a catastrophe, in which chance and experimentation clash with order and structure. Stasiowska notes, however, that the various parts of the play and the modern music theory generate no new quality content.
Karolina Leszczyńska. Relentless Anti-fun
A review of the play A Couple of Poor Polish-speaking Romanians directed by Agnieszka Glińska (Studio Theater in Warsaw, premiere: 16.09.2013). Leszczyńska sees the director as indicating the mechanisms of exclusion problematized by Dorota Masłowska, but putting more emphasis on the characters. Only the author's policeman sub-plot serves to hold the play together. The ironic/mock-literary images on stage are expressed uniformly and unambiguously, and saturated with pop culture, while the finale is stripped of any dream-like atmosphere. Leszczyńska remarks that Glińska's production confirms and reinforces the established ways of adapting Masłowska's work, walking the well-beaten path.
Kamila Paprocka. Genesis of Intoxication
A review of the play Samuel Zborowski, directed by Szymon Kaczmarek (Nowy Theater in Łódź, premiere: 05.10.2013). Paprocka tracks the changes that the artists made to the text-based drama to cull its visual potential. The removal of some of Słowacki's vital plots and characters (e.g. Christ) does, to the author's mind, make the meaning of some scenes significantly more superficial, focusing the interpretation on the tension between the citizen striving for freedom in a world "shorn of the Absolute" and the legal state.
Joanna Tomaszewska. This Tornado Won't Carry You Away
A review of the play 10 Political Songs directed by Michał Zadara (Centrala and the Museum of Contemporary Art, premiere: 28.11.2013). The script for this play was based on real statements by immigrants working in Warsaw Kebab stands. Although the (impressive) quartet of actors manage to incarnate their roles, Tomaszewska remarks that the theatrical potential has not been used to the full; on the contrary – the stage medium seems to be an obstacle for Zadara. The author also indicates the feebleness of the text, in which there is a failed attempt to contrast the melodeclamation of the songs about the gray realities of the immigrants with fragments of the Polish Constitution.
Dorota Krzywicka-Kaindel. The Wake
A review of the play Cutting Timber,directed by Krystian Lupa (Schauspielhaus Graz, premiere: 10.01.2014). The author describes the genesis of Thomas Bernhard's novel, which is the record of the author's (and narrator's) observations during an "artistic supper" on the day of the funeral of a mutual friend, Joanna, and notes the similarity to The Wedding by Stanisław Wyspiański - which is also visible in Lupa's production. The main topic of the staging, artistic (co)existence, also gives Cutting Timber something in common with Lupa's recent plays – particularly Factory 2. Krzywicka-Kaindel believes the success of the play is owing to both the masterful direction and the skill of the actor ensemble.
Marcin Bogucki. The Legacy of Bluebeard
A review of the Iolanta / Bluebeard's Castle diptych (Wielki Theater – National Opera in Warsaw, premiere: 13.12.2013), directed by Mariusz Treliński. Based on a contrast between the optimism of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and the gloom of Béla Bartók's fairy tale, the artists have arranged these two one-acts, bring a noir cinema aesthetic to the opera space. Bogucki remarks that a lack of critical verfiication of the numerous plots and interpretive tropes used by the director blurs the meaning of the play somewhat. According to the reviewer, Boris Kudlička's set design is the strongest aspect of the performance.
Dorota Krzywicka-Kaindel. Cleansing
A review of Richard Strauss's Woman without a Shadow, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski (Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, premiere: 21.11.2013). The author reads the staging of the folk-tale-based opera through Jungian psychoanalysis. Opening the collective (sub)conscious, in her opinion, is mainly affected by the transformation of the set design and the relations between characters. Krzywicka-Kaindel notes the diversity of media used (film and animation), as well as the suggestive sound of the singers and the orchestra.
Tadeusz Kornaś. Minor Theatrical Reforms
A review of Małgorzaty Leyko's book Theater in the Land of Utopia (słowo/obraz terytoria, Gdańsk 2012). The publication is complemented by an overview of the transformations in theater at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, choosing the Great Theatrical Reform as a backdrop, and focusing on peripheral Utopian/artistic work. The author has combined a description of such places as Monte Verità, Mathildenhöhe, Hellerau, Goetheanum, and Bauhaus with an in-depth analysis of the times, weaving a fascinating tale of "small reforms in theater and spirituality" in the German-language countries, which he sees as an important element in the great transformations.
Kazimierz Bardzik. Disorientation
The reviewer of the book After Twilight: Essays on Contemporary Opera byTomasz Biernacki and Monika Pasiecznik (Krytyka Polityczna Publishers, Warsaw 2013) remarks on the unique position this book holds in Poland, its transparency of style, and the competence of the authors. Unfortunately, the undeniable academic value of the publication is accompanied by excessive critical generalizations of phenomena not altogether suited to the character of the compositions under analysis, resulting, in Bardzik's view, from the book's insistent conformity to the publisher's profile. The author takes issue with over a dozen turns of phrase used in the book, calling attention to the poverty of the terminology, which is the publication's most serious drawback.
Tadeusz Nyczek. Mrożek's Building-blocks
Tadeusz Nyczek reviews a biography of Sławomir Mrożek written by Małgorzata I. Niemczyńska: Mrożek: A Neurotic's Striptease (Agora SA, Warsaw 2013), classifying it as a building-block biography, i.e. built of separate small narratives, each concerning a particular subject. A Neurotic's Striptease is in fact a multi-layered tale of a "great contemporary," which, the reviewer says, is only an attempt at writing a complete biography. While appreciating the thorough descriptions of Mrożek's childhood, youth, and his complicated relationships with women, Nyczek regrets that only Mrożek's most important and well-known works are covered.
Ewa Partyga. Dramaturgy Regained
An enthusiastic review of Just aFragment: TheDramaturgy of Mieczysław Piotrowski by Joanna Jopek (Księgarnia Akademicka, Krakow 2012), a book devoted almost entirely to the unknown dramas written by Piotrowski at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. Jopek suggests interpreting the texts in terms of aesthetic subjectivity, in the form of "staging grief and circling the void with significance.” Partyga praises the insight and precision with which Jopek selects her theoretical approaches, and with which she reads the critical work on Piotrowski to date (mainly written by Andrzej Falkiewicz). |