Natasha Tripney on Polska Arts: A 48-hour Crash Course of Polish Theatre
The innovative digital theatre review Exeunt features a three-page article on the Polska Arts in Edinburgh programme, with Natasha Tripney’s samples of some of the event’s theatre offerings gathered by the journalist in Warsaw earlier this month.
Tripney opens her enthusiastic article with a quote from Adam Mickiewicz Institute’s Joanna Klass, "theatre is the Polish national sport", following which she gives an account of her intense 48-hour visit to Poland. While giving an overview of the projects on the Edinburgh programme, she describes her meetings with Polish artists, revealing her surprise on numerous occasions.
In her account of the Future Tales (Sierakowski) performance from Komuna/Warszawa, Tripney writes:
Leftist talking and thinking is wryly poked at and prodded at throughout the piece. It’s hard to imagine a piece of UK theatre being so specific and personal in its targets. At intervals two musicians, both seated on wheeled platforms, are rolled towards one another and as the music plays the piece immediately takes on a gig-like, punkish atmosphere. As with the venue itself, there’s an intentionally rough aesthetic to the production; punk is the word that recurs repeatedly in the animated, wine-fuelled discussions that follow.
Describing the atelier of artist Robert Kuśmirowski, the critic gives us a glimpse of the objects which will act in the artist’s Scottish installation, Pain Thing:
The air is musty, a dry, yellowing, cellar smell. We are surrounded by an ocean of objects: an ornate wooden 19th century altar piece, its green paint peeling; ragged stacks of wooden pallets; sculptures sheathed in sky-blue plastic; piles of old photography magazines; curlicues of wrought iron; the corpses of several guitars; an axe embedded in a chopping block.
Tripney also speaks to Marcin Brzozowski, the director of the We Are Chechens! performance, who tells her about the need to give a voice to those who remain mute in spite of injustice and suffering, and his hopes connected with employing inexperienced young actors. She gives an account of the works from Wojtek Ziemilski, who brings two installations to the festival - the Small Narration and the its counterbalancing Relatives piece, and also the 24h installation-performance by Wacław Miklaszewski.
For the full article by Natasha Tripney, see: exeuntmagazine.com
Editor: Paulina Schlosser
Source: exeuntmagazine.com
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