Kraków's Teatr Nowy is where Radosław Rychcik first chose to present his take on one of the earliest dramas of Bertold Brecht, In the Jungle (1922). Set in 1912 Chicago, the story tells the fight between wealthy man from China Schlink against poor librarian Garga. The director has broken up and reassembled Brecht's text into a dialogue for four voices, building the action around the concept of American wrestling. This brutal fight between two couples of actors introduces a new form of theatre as well. Justyna Nowicka wrote in the Kraków monthly (January 2009):
This is one of those performances which one initially rejects, but that one eventually can't get out of one's mind. The action is set in Chicago, the main characters are tradesmen, prostitutes and proletarians, while the subject treats of the fight for survival in a big metropolis in which the only rule is the jungle law: a Brechtian classic, actually. However, I recommend getting familiar with the original text before seeing the play, as it is difficult to follow the threads in Rychcik's staging adaptation. The director translated the play into a language of peculiar, acrobatic gymnastics. It is the language of gesture and performance in which the actors don't care about cause to consequence "limitations" of the text, building powerful and unforgettable, but sometimes irritating images onstage.
The show eventually gained critical acclaim and was the sensation of the first edition of the Boska Komedia festival in Krakow. Versus was presented off-competition, but the organisers set up an additional representation of the premiere for the jury. The play caught the attention of the artistic director of the Under the Radar Festival in New York and invited the show to participate in the event in January 2010. Justyna Nowicka continues:
Rychcik ignores the whole socio-economical context of art.The themes penned in the drama wander around the stage, abandoned, sometimes hampering the action. The thread of the duel between tradesman Schlink and librarian Garga has been reduced to a brutal and unexplainable trial of forces, which is fuelled by women, although even that idea is not certain. Distilled from its context, the conflict emerges in the form of an acrobatic and muscular choreography, which invades the stage with negative emotions, violence and simultaneous fascination, a strong will to fight. This play reminds somehow of puppet theatre, as mantra-gestures, spell-gestures, effective-gestures build a haunting spectacle. One has the feeling that the figures on stage got trapped in the web of a puppeteer, a cruel demiurge who spreads anxiety and fear, making accusations. A vision that is hard to get over.
The representations of the Teatr Nowy troupe in Rome will be preceded by an exclusive performance of Koniec półświni / The end of the half-pig and accompanied by a series of lectures by Tomasz Kireńczuk . The event is the result of the collaboration between Teatr Nowy and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as the La Sapienza University in Rome.
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Versus. W gęstwinie miast / Versus: Inside the Urban thicket based on Bertolt Brecht's In the Jungle; director: Radosław Rychcik; choreography: Dominika Knapik; cast: Anna Gorajska, Natalia Kalita, Tomasz Nosinski, Tomasz Schuchardt; premiere: December 7, 2008; representation at Casa delle Culture di Roma / House of Culture in Rome: December 15, 2010.
Sources: press release, www.casadelleculture.net and www.teatrnowy.com.pl