The long-awaited premiere of Kronos was staged at Polski Theatre in Wrocław by Witold Gombrowicz expert Krzysztof Garbaczewski.
It is a difficult text for theatre. We did not rewrite it as dialogue. It contains cracks which we filled up with our own biographies. Gombrowicz raises questions about being honest with oneself. Staging Kronos at the theatre is like posting someone’s profile on Twitter or Facebook. As a result, it raises questions regarding the structure of our biography, about the importance of intimacy and honesty with oneself. – said Garbaczewski.
No director in Poland today feels “Gombrowicz’s matter” like Garbaczewski. His name and the artistic rank of our theatre convinced Rita Gombrowicz to grant us the right to stage the first adaptation of Kronos – revealed Krzysztof Mieszkowski, director of the theatre in Wrocław.
The author of Ferdydurke and Diaries debuts in Kronos as the chronicler of his own daily life. Through his notes he attempts to cease the passage of time. He ritualizes it by enumerating his wages, the people he has met, lovers, books read, and diseases. How to respond to that in theatrical way? With our own Chronos, Kronos, arrested, caught red-handed passing? – wondered the artists.
The performance was also presented during Warsaw Theatre Encounters. Aneta Kyzioł commented in Polityka:
Garbaczewski’s performance is a story about hypocrisy, but also about memory. The main parts of stage design are silver cones – neurons. Memory stimulus is represented by a bunny. When the characters move after him, the group forms a loop and you do not know who is chasing whom. A robot standing on the proscenium mechanically fills up the pages with one of the phrases from David Lynch’s Lost Highway: “I like to remember things in my own way” – it seems quite obvious, but considering the fights over the memory and the past which have taken place for several years in Poland and Polish theatre, probably not for everyone.
The original text of Kronos was projected on a yellow strip as if on news on television, and it scrolls continuously, sentence by sentence. It is an ironic gesture: it is hard to regard the laconic mentions of sexual relations, disease, quarrels as "breaking news". What makes them an event, a subject of essays, what makes them appear in newspapers? The answer is trivial: the name of a great writer. Garbaczewski is not yet content with such a finding. Writing down memories and arranging them according to a particular hierarchy became the main theme of his performance.
Music for the performance was written by Julia Marcell and stage design created by architect Aleksandra Wasilkowska.
Cast: Sylvia Boroń, Agnieszka Kwietniewska, Halina Rasiakówna Ea Skibińska, Janka Woźnicka, Marta Zieba, Adam Cywka, Andrzej Kłak, Cezary Łukaszewicz, Martin Pempuś, Paweł Smagała (uncredited), Adam Szczyszczaj, Wojciech Ziemiański
Source: own materials, promotional materials, Polityka, Gazeta wyborcza, ed AL, transl. GS