A scene from "Volokolamsk Highway", photo: Natalia Kabanow
The "Volokolamsk Highway", a play based on the writings of Heiner Müller and directed by Barbara Wysocka, was presented as part of the Berlin Spielzeit' Europa festival this December
German readers consider Müller to be a classic of post-dramatic theatre and their country's most significant playwright since Bertold Brecht.
Barbara Wysocka, who directed the performance, is a 33 year old graduate of PWST, the state theatre school in Kraków, a graduate of the music conservatory in Freiburg and a laurate of the 2010 prestigious "Passport" award of Polish Polityka magazine. Her "Volokolamsk Highway" premiered on the 30th of September, 2010, and within a month, it was invited to be shown in Berlin. The choice of this city is no accidental one - it is the place where Heiner Müller lived and worked. The piece will enjoy its first international showing in Germany, and it will be staged as part of the Spielzeit Europa festival, alongside performances by such renowned directors as Sasha Waltz, Peter Sellars, and Lemi Ponifasio.
Wysocka thus describes the play:
Each part of the performance tells a different story. The first and second parts of Heiner Müller’s work are based on Alexander Bek’s "Volokolamsk Highway", a novel which describes fighting around Moscow. Müller took up two themes from this novel, made up of only a couple of paragraphs each, and adapted them, concentrating on the inner monologues of the story’s characters, and transforming them into whole scenes. The third part of the play, based on Anna Segher’s "The Duel", takes place after the war, in 1953, and it tells the story of German labourers’ uprisings. The fourth part is inspired by Kafka’s "The Metamorphosis" and the fifth part takes up Heinrich von Kleist’s "The Foundling". The compilation comprises very different texts, yet a recurring theme and their common key is the trace left behind by army tanks, which press on accross Europe from 1941 up until the eighties. What is important, Müller added his own perspective to each to the texts he employed, and I believe he would expect the same of those directing his play.
Müller's commentary on his choice of the "Volokolamsk Highway" title:
It is a concrete place… It used to be a route leading to Moscow, and one of the few roads which didn't get destroyed. Cars were able to go on it… and thus, so were tanks… The Volokolamsk Highway marked a point where the German march onto Moscow came to a halt. And today, it is a metaphor, which adresses Prague just as much as Berlin: There are tanks which go there, and tanks which go back. Some of them, like those in the fifth piece, head all the way up to an ultimate point, beyond which they can no longer go any further.
Reviews of "The Volokolamsk Highway"
In Müller's work, five images of 20th century Germany are sketched out by amateurs, quickly taught proleterians with no ambition or taste. Their lack of heroism, their misery and a mockery of old warriors are striking. In splitting this text out between three actors, who look great in their army suits, Wysocka elevates this mockery and mixes it with bitterness and horror. She plays on the sentiments of a certain longing for the war, a longing for beautiful boys, and then depicts these boys as tormented, burnt-out loosers who dumbly repeat in rhythm "and forget, and forget, and forget"
Joanna Derkaczew, Gazeta Wyborcza
The "Volokolamsk Highway" is swift and gripping (…) Barbara Wysocka has done a huge job in taking this dense, monologue-like text and writing it out onto three actors' roles. From her clear script to an unusual approach to production, this director-actress has proved that her voice has to be taken into account as one the upcoming premiere-league directors of Polish theatre. (…) What's most precious in this staging of the "Highway" is Theatre. No weak points can be spotted, not a second of meaningless action. Everything means something, from a perfectly designed stage (Wysocka), an excellent choice of music (Wysocka), right through to the highly significant visual projections (Lea Mattausch) and lighting (Justyna Łagowska). It all works. And the acting is of the highest class. Adam Cywka, Rafał Kronenberger, Adam Szczyszczaj fly up to levels higher than ever. It is both a miraculous craft and an art.
Grzegorz Chojnowski, Radio Wrocław
"Volokolamsk Highway"
based on the novel by Heiner Müller
directed by Barbara Wysocka
cast:
Adam Cywka
Rafał Kronenberger
Adam Szczyszczaj
Assistant director: Adam Szczyszczaj
Project coordinator: Hanna Frankowska-Jakubiel
stage manager, prompter: Ewa Wilk
set dresser: Jacek Szpinko
light: Dariusz Bartołd, Marek Stupka
visuals: Dariusz Bartołd, Lech Niewiński
sound: Maciej Kabata, Rafał Dudek
recordings: Tomasz Zaborski
duration: 80 min
Special thanks to Jagoda Engelbrecht and Daniel Przastek
The performance premiered on the Scena na Świebodzkim stage on the 30th of September, 2010
licensors: ZAiKS Authors' Association, Warsaw and Panga Pank, Kraków
Organisers
Teatr Polski from Wrocław celebrates the 65th anniversary of its work this year. The institution has staged significant productions of many acclaimed Polish directors, which not only presented the highest level of artistic expression, but also instigated a dialogue with the audience. Among the directors who staged their productions at the Teatr Polski are: Edmund Wierciński, Wilam Horzyca, Jakub Rotbaum, Henryk Tomaszewski, Krystyna Skuszanka, Jerzy Krasowski, Jerzy Grzegorzewski, Jerzy Jarocki, Krystian Lupa and Grzegorz Jarzyna. Teatr Polski runs three different stages: the Jerzy Grzegorzewski stage, oriented towards contemporary adaptations of classic pieces, the Na Świebodzkim stage which showcases experimental theatre, and the Chamber Stage. Teatr Polski is the second largest theatre in Poland.
The Berliner Festspiele festival has been taking place in the German capital for 60 years, presenting musical works, theatre and dance productions, literature, photography and contemporary art from all over the world. It is a universal event, encompassing all genres of art and transgressing their boundaries while creating a forum for critical reflexion.
The contemporary architecture of Berliner Festspiele Haus makes a perfect setting for the presentation of innovative pieces. The "Volokolamsk Highway" was performed at the Side Stage Berliner Festspiele Haus, which was built thanks to Erwin Piscator in 1963 as the Theater der Freien Volksbühne. One of Fritz Bornemann's best architectural designs, the building has been hosting Berliner Festspiele since 2001. The building is located in a garden and opens up onto the city with a huge glass facade, and its interior embodies the ideals of democratic and modernist post-war architecture.
The "Volokolamsk Highway" was presented in Berlin as part of the Spielzeit' Europa series, a section of the Berliner Festispiele festival. The Spielzeit series take place between October and January, presenting the works of such theatre and dance practicioner as Heiner Goebbels, Dimiter Gotscheff, Alvis Hermanis, Robert Lepage, Christoph Marthaler, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
Date: 11th-12th of December, 2011
Venue: Side Stage Berliner Festspiele Haus, Berlin
Organised by: Teatr Polski from Wrocław, Berliner Festspiele
Project cofinanced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
Source: Adam Mickiewicz Institute