Photo by Marek Dusza
Set in Papua New Guinea and Australia, protagonist Karmazyniello battles with his family, attempting to find out the truth about his heritage
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz's play first emerged in 1921, seven years after his expedition through exotic lands with anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski. Michał Borczuch directs.
You cannot dissect the charm of the tropics and boil them down to something familiar, writes Witkacy in Farewell to Autumn, it's like a block of solid rock, it defies any sort of analysis. Such is the mysterious power of these lands, whoever beholds them once even if they detest them becomes a slave to its visions for the rest of their lives.
The playwright's flight from European civilization in 1914, as well as from himself after the suicide of his fiancé Jadwiga Janczewska, did not bring him immediate relief, but became the inspiration behind many of his works. For Michał Borczuch, the director responsible for TR Warsaw's "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" which premiered earlier this year, the exoticism in Witkacy's dramatic works is "a pretext to examine family ties and relations".
The characters of 'Metaphysics' take a trip in a hot climate, which forces them to verify their desires and needs, says Borczuch. In this mild environment, they succumb to exaggeration and over-exposure. It's a type of laboratory where we can observe all the changes taking place in the Karmazyniella family, just as if looking under a microscope.
The main themes revolve around the frightfulness of life, the monstrosity of death and the circumstances in which both take place, adds Łukasz Wojtysko, a TR Warsaw playwright. You can't vanquish beasts and monsters from the human world. Every attempt to expel them ends in failure. They simply return with inhuman strength.
- Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz's The Metaphysics of The Double-Headed Calf" / "Metafizyka dwugłowego cielęcia; dir: Michał Borczuch; scenography: Anna Maria Karczmarska; music: Daniel Pigoński; lighting director: Jacqueline Sobiszewski; starring: Magdalena Kuta, Maria Maj, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Janusz Chabior, Jan Dravnel, Lech Łotocki, Rafał Maćkowiak, Sebastian Pawlak, Tomasz Tyndyk; premiere: September 17, 2010.
TR Warszawa
ul. Marszałkowska 8, 00-590 Warszawa
General and Artistic Director: Grzegorz Jarzyna
Assistant Director: Tomasz Janowski
tel. (+48 22) 480 80 09, 480 80 11, 480 80 08 (tickets)
tel./fax (+48 22) 480 80 02
www.trwarszawa.pl
Source: press release,
www.trwarszawa.pl