Sławomir Mrożek meeting with readers in the bookstore Czuły Barbarzyńca, in Warsaw April 4, 2006, photo by Włodzimierz Wasyluk
The director of Straying, Cosmos and Love on the Crimea, Jerzy Jarocki has now opted to stage Tango, one of Sławomir Mrożek's earlier works. Notably once compared to Stanisław Wyspiański's Wedding Party. A drama whose success has since circulated the whole world.
It forms a parable about Arthur, a defiant young idealist, played by Marcin Hycnar, as well as his tamer and successor, the apparently harmless but otherwise boorish, played by Grzegorz Małecki. The play incorporates various harsh warnings. Into the trap of these two protagonists also fall the remaining characters of the tragic-farce of the perpectual "un-adult" adults: Stomil (Jan Frycz), Eleonora (Grażyna Szapołowska), Eugenia (Ewa Wiśniewska) and Eugeniusz (Jan Englert).
Arthur's anguish is also the anguish that today's youth suffers from in entering life and trying to wage its sense, says Jarocki. Artur is Hamlet a rebours. He talks about his double-meaning situation as a young person and as a man. You could say that he undertakes a feminist point of view: he gauges that men built the world according to their needs, which is a shame for children, artists and women. (The Electorates Choice Gazette nr 253, 27.10.2009)
Sławomir Mrożek's Tango; direction: Jerzy Jarocki, set design: Jerzy Juk Kowarski, choreography: Leszek Bzdyl, music: Stanisław Radwan. Starring: Kamilla Baar, Grażyna Szapołowska, Ewa Wiśniewska, Jan Frycz, Marcin Hycnar, Jan Englert, Grzegorz Małecki. Premiere: October 29, 2009.
Source: www.narodowy.pl