photo: Marek Dusza
Mikołaj Grabowski has undertaken the task of staging a selection of works from a broad collection by Witold Gombrowicz. The author's ingenious but also controversial journal serves as a dialogue between traditional Polish culture as it ridicules national failings and derides the unreformed behaviour of his fellow countrymen
Witold Gombrowicz's works are informed by irony and mockery, as well as an attempt at understanding. Mikołaj Grabowski explains:
Poles suffer from Polishness. We always conform to the falsified, mythical portrait of the traditional Pole. I think that going back to godly rhetoric causes people to close up and paralyses modern thinking. Because even sensible Christians can become helpless. It's caused us to lose our sense of humour. Especially in Warsaw- where it's hard to distance yourself from the 'pilgrimages,' that take place on every street corner. We need to remember our condition under communism- we used laughter to shatter the system. And we were able to do this thanks to Gombrowicz, Witkacy, Mrożek, Różewicz. A sense of humour is what allowed us to live. Gombrowicz says: I treat life, Poland, and my presence in the world seriously, but at the same time I have a certain distance to all of this, which keeps me from mental pathology."
Grabowski's theatrical Journals are the essence of many years of the author's thinking, aimed at creating a production that is full of humour, as well as cynicism. Sweet, but also bitter.
As Tomasz Karolak says:
I always liked the absurd approaches he uses in his works with regard to all things Polish. It's odd how Poles don't acknowledge and jest along with this - they don't like to analyse their own imperfections and they're scared to tell the truth. We prefer to "cloak ourselves in Sienkiewicz", as Gombrowicz puts it, not even with Mickiewicz - who's already too difficult - no one feels able to read "Pan Tadeusz" on his own. And Sienkiewicz turns Kmicic into a superman-type figure, which is exactly what we all aspire to."
Piotr Adamczyk claims that we are all looking for the answer to the question posed by Gombrowicz:
"He posed questions about people's attitude towards the theatre, towards animals, he undertook ethic/ moral themes, which don't necessarily interest the average person. We want to go towards a break with a history which has overwhelmed us, to remember the kind of freedom to which we should aspire to once again become citizens of the world."
- Witold Gombrowicz's Journals; adapted and directed by Mikołaj Grabowski; music: Olga Mysłowska; starring: Iwona Bielska, Magdalena Cielecka, Piotr Adamczyk, Tomasz Karolak, Andrzej Konopka, Jan Peszek, premieres: December 21, 2010. Repeat performances: December 22, 2010, January 13-14 & 29-31, 2011.
Teatr IMKA in Warsaw
ul. Marii Konopnickiej 6, 00-491 Warsaw
Artistic director: Tomasz Karolak
Managing director: Maria Wilska
tel. sekretariat: (+48 22) 339 05 21; tel. kasa: (+48 22) 339 05 20
www.teatr-imka.pl
Source: press release, www.teatr-imka.pl