Directed by Paweł Miśkiewicz, Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, March 2002.
Paweł Miśkiewicz, actor and student of renowned Polish stage director Krystian Lupa, once again tackles this early play by Anton Chekhov in an effort to use this classical text to tell the story of contemporary desires, the search for love, and one's own identity. The director has transferred the action of the play to a resort where the characters await their convalescence, but one that will be a spiritual rather than physical transformation.
When asked by a journalist from Gazeta Wyborcza to define the contemporary Platonov, the director responds, 'one of them is sitting opposite you. Platonov is an average, contemporary member of the intelligentsia who, despite the misery of the life he leads, attempts each day to somehow justify his existence, silencing regrets that derive from various defeats and moments of negligence in life in order to sleep soundly. Both Andrzej Chyra, our theatrical Platonov, and I are 37 years old. We are at an age when, once could say, we are experiencing our first closures. We are too old to keep thinking that everything still lays ahead. The time has come for a kind of accounting, an inventory of profits and losses. Do the things that currently constitute the cores of our lives reflect our youthful ambitions?'
The production features Maja Ostaszewska, Danuta Stenka, Andrzej Chyra and Marek Walczewski among other performers.
- Anton Chekhov, PLATONOV, translated by Adam Tarn, directed by Paweł Miśkiewicz, music by Lech Jankowski, scenery designed by Barbara Hanicka. Premiere: March 24, 2002 at the Dramatic Theatre (Teatr Dramatyczny) in Warsaw.