Gabriela Muskała as Walerka. Photo: Michał Sierszak/ The Stefan Jaracz Theatre
Sisters Monika and Gabriela Muskała - known collectively as Amanita Muskaria - have taken their "Journey to Beunos Aires" monodrama on the road. The performance, directed by Marian Półtoranos, travels to Yerevan for a single show at the ARMMONO festival
The choice of the pseudonym itself (amanita muskaria is latin for the fly agaric mushroom) proved the artists have a rather contradictive sense of humor- their texts are wittily perverse as well. Walerka, the senescent main character, has too many things to tell the world at once. She contemplates a number of confounding issues, in which particular events from the past are interlaced with surprising interludes- like having her wallet stolen, then her glasses and false teeth.
Walerka argues, instructs, persuades. Sometimes she even closes up in indignation. She accuses her daughter, who is a pharmacist, that she spends too much time at the pharmacy instead of with her, whereas she praises her sons because they managed to make a living in Canada. Too bad that someone keeps stealing the letters they've written... Of course they write to her. As often as they can. Such decent boys. Wait, what was my first born's name...
Lead actress Gabriela Muskała explains:
We already had the stories deep within is for years because the prototype for Walerka was our grandmother says the actress. I always look for the truth in the character I play, but I am aware it's not only me, when it comes to creating the role. What matters also is the director's vision, the actors and a good script. This is what I look at when choosing roles.
Walerka character requires true talent to make her uncoordinated utterance so acquiring and real. She is a real lady, nonetheless, however her age submits her to the mercy of her jumbled memory and her inevitable remoteness from the matters of this world, which she deeply loved.
Viewers can't get over the fact that such a young actress of subtle, girlish looks manages to play the role of Walerka, an old women suffering from Alzheimer's disease", wrote Janusz R. Kowalczyk in Rzeczpospolita in his coverage of a festival in Edinburgh in August 2007. The audience consisted of mostly young and middle-aged people, but also a few guests in their seventies. Some of them went backstage to congratulate the actress; once I witnessed a scene like this: "You don't pretend to be an old lady, you play this character as if it actually were you at this certain stage of you life", to which Muskała replied, "'That's the best compliment I could ever get".
The Journey to Buenos Aires. Work in Regress by Amanita Muskaria (Monika Muskała and Gabriela Muskała), directed by Marian Półtoranos; starring Gabriela Muskała. At the Armonno International Festival of Mono Performances: April 8
2011 marks the ninth edition of the festival, which runs between April 3-8, 2011. It is held under the auspices of Armenian National Assembly Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan, with the support of the Armenian Ministry of Culture and the Armenian Union of Cultural Workers. The programme features 17 performances, with actors from Poland, Russia, France, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Egypt, Armenia and more. The festival opened with Germany's Philipp Hochmair performing Verter.
Source: press materials