Creators: CHOREA Theatre
Direction, script, music: Paweł Passini
Light: Tomasz Krukowski
Cast: Tomasz Rodowicz, Iga Załęczna, Katarzyna Tadeusz, Zenon Pies
Premiere: 30.01.2007, AOIA, Lodz
Tadeusz Kantor created a rich universe of texts where, around each of his productions, starting with the script, to the score, to the reflection provoked by subsequent shows, fascinating worlds are built as a means of illustrating the topic or the performance’s ‘first cause’. These texts emanate unique awareness of one’s place in life, in Poland, in the world and on the artistic path. From this universe I choose the phenomenon of the ‘zone of death’ and its unexpected neighbour – childhood. I understand the latter not only as time in historical terms, as an element of the past, but also as human condition – a positive and naive attitude towards life, communing with the real and the unreal alike, free and unrestricted creation, incidents of creations getting out of control, passing and unbridled emotions. I position the performance’s childhood sphere in the world of short stories by Bruno Schulz, which turns it into a longed-for Arcadia, a golden age Kantor continually refers to. The main part featuring Tomasz Rodowicz is a crucial element of the performance. He is an actor with thirty years of experience, a close friend of Jerzy Grotowski, co-originator of the ‘Gardzienice’ theatre group, a relative of famous Anoda – an Armia Krajowa (Home Army) soldier who fought in the Warsaw Uprising and was held prisoner by the secret communist police. The fact is significant because in the scenario the war, remembering the war and remaining silent about it, functions as a landmark that marks the end of innocence and of the golden childhood age, setting an unusually high threshold for the memory to cross.
Paweł Passini
