After the success of the performance Persona. Marilyn in China in 2014, Tianjin Grand Theatre invited Krystian Lupa for the second time. This time, the outstanding Polish director brought to Beijing and Tianjin his latest, award-winning and critically acclaimed masterpiece Woodcutters based on the novel by Austrian author Thomas Bernhardt. The two masters invite the audience to dinner, during which they mercilessly dissect artists and their careers.
Bernhard criticizes the situation in which the radical attitude and struggle towards a different world order that characterizes young artists vanishes with time. The artists begin to cooperate with the cynical and ignorant authorities and make compromises in order to pursue their career paths. This is a play about the problems of the cultural workers and the mechanisms that rule the art world. – Krystian Lupa said just before the Polish premiere of the play.
The play was presented in China four times. Two performances were held on 2nd and 3rd May 2015 at the Tianjin Grand Theatre as a part of the Cao Yu Festival, and another two on 6th and 7th May 2015 at the Century Theatre in Beijing during the 6th Lin Zhaohua Theatre Art Festival. Just like Krystian Lupa's Persona. Marilyn in 2014, this time the performance was also a huge success. The Polish culture season, as part of which the performance was presented, was the largest project carried out so far by Culture.pl in China. The series of events taking place from February to November included exhibitions, concerts, theater performances and film screenings in the most prestigious venues in Beijing, Wuhan, Tianjin and Shanghai. The project was designed to give the audience a whole new perspective on what Polish culture is about.