Published in mid-2011, the bilingual (Polish-English) album coincides with Teatr Biuro Podróży's tour of Europe and Asia as one of the flagship projects of the cultural programme of the Polish EU Presidency. Taking its cue from the portentous science fiction fantasies of one of Poland's most creative minds, Stanisław Lem, TBP has brought "Planet Lem" to audiences in Spain, France, London, Brussels, Moscow, Kiev and Japan. The performance is a thrilling ride through time and space, which foretells a dismal future of lazy and obese humans under the control of intelligent robots. With awesome video, sound and light effects, incredibly life-like costumes and a universal message that encourages societies to have a say in the future of their world, the show is both striking visually and inspiring in its ideology.
Edited by theatre scholar Katarzyna Jesień, the hefty hardcover album follows the theatre through its life-long repertoire with commentaries and interviews by Jesień herself and critics Piotr Gruszczyński, Łukasz Drewniak and Dasha Krijanskaia. Roman Pawłowski provides the introduction, beginning with TBP's 1995 performance of "Carmen Funebre" at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the cascades of critical praise that ensued, along with the Fringe First and Critics Award. This was the start of hundreds of performances across the world. Led by Paweł Szkotak, the troupe presents a very distinct character of subject and performance within the scope of the international theatre world. Pawłowski describes the social and political circumstances within which TBP came into being and how the Iron Curtain and its aftermath impacted the point-of-view of artists and actors.
The fall of communism took with it the whole lexicon of allusion and veiled messages that had dominated the public and artistic sphere for so long. Few theatres managed to adapt to a world where the borders on speech and behaviour had suddenly opened up - fortunately, Szkotak was determined to bring his theatre to the people. TBP took to the streets, but rather than putting on trite, slapstick performances that may have been more characteristic of street theatre - the troupe took up productions that were based on difficult, complex subject matter. From the religious persecution of "Giordano" of the 16th century to Bosnia's modern-day atrocities in "Carmen Funebre", each performance drew upon stories of domination, conflict, persecution, injustice, sacrifice and endurance in a way that sent a timely message about the current state of world affairs. No matter where they were in the world, audiences in each country were touched by the painful truths of these stories. The particular form that Szkotak had shaped came to be known as 'mystery theatre', in which the avant garde practices of Grotowski and Kantor were combined with spectacular, visually striking performances that referenced historical or sacral themes and carried a bold moral message.
The album presents a dozen of Teatr Biuro Podróży's most important productions, with descriptions and commentary, illustrated with full-page photographs drawn from TBP's archives. The first thing one notices about the photographs is that they are mostly out of focus - but perhaps this is testimony to the highly energised action on stage - no actor can sit still at any moment and so "Carmen Funebre" truly becomes a bloody blur of fire and movement.
Between 1999 and 2000 TBP began experimenting with futuristic and space-age themes in "Moonsailors" and "Millennium Mysteries for Modern Times". Cosmonauts teetering on stilts or interplanetary royalty astride strange beasts, the actors began creating spooky dystopian visions of the world of the future - and beyond. Yet the symbolism continued to reference age-old themes of sacrifice and redemption, persecution and innocence, life and death. Even Shakespeare's Macbeth is loaded with the burden of our century's atrocities. The incredible spectacle of TBP's intricate and dramatic staging provides an alluring framework for an often uncomfortable, unwelcome message. Jesień describes the ashen-faced reactions of audiences to some particularly gruesome scenes.
The final chapter of the book describes TBP's journey into the world of dystopia and shapeless Mucilids as "Planet Lem" took shape. Szkotak proves how apt Lem's ideas are even decades into the future, injecting them with contemporary references to labour, music and recreational drugs which make an intolerable reality pleasant under the illusory guise of hallucinogens. Just like Ijon Tychy, audiences of the present can take a trip into Lem's pessimistic - yet utterly probable - vision of the future in which human beings prefer the illusion of happiness over the brave effort it takes to create a world of true happiness. When the need for freedom is gone, so is the capacity to create a world of good.
Jesień writes:
There is a reason why Szkotak so promptly introduces signs that are already iconic in mass culture: computer games, robots, the clone army from Star Wars... He obviously wants to set a specific system of associations in motion inside us: after all, mass culture is a product for the "mass society" that is slowly starting to dominate in Western civilization. For general convenience and an easy life, the mass person gives up having higher values, being rooted in tradition, building deep interpersonal relations, and their own individuality. The mass person stops being a builder, a creator, becoming a cog in the giant production machine, passively consuming standardized content - both physical and cultural, being susceptible to manipulation by propaganda and advertising. Where will this lead us? We are about the find out. We are in the future after all, and the future - according to one street billboard (an instrument of mass communication) - is "the present, only a little later".
The book also pays tribute to Andrzej Rzepecki, who died in a car accident as the group was traveling to Edinburgh in 1994 - one year before their great success at the festival. The 1995 performance of "Carmen Funebre" was dedicated to his memory. There is also a series of interviews with Paweł Szkotak and other members of Teatr Biuro Podróży, with stories of their experiences travelling the world, performing in the pouring rain or in a prison, and their motivations in creating a veritable monster of theatre for the global stage.
On the 18th of October, Warsaw's EMPIK flagship (ul. Marszałkowska 116/122) is hosting a presentation of the album.
Teatr Biuro Podróży
249 pages
Edited by: Katarzyma Jesień
Publisher: Instytut Adama Mickiewicza 2011
ISBN/ISSN: 978-83-60263-62-0
The book is available for purchase at www.prospero.e-teatr.pl
Review by Agnieszka Le Nart, October 2011
Read more on TBP's production of "Planet Lem"