Turandot, photo by M. Jadczak
Paweł Passini's restless "Turandot" took the stage at Kiev's Molyha Academy. The coproduction of neTTheatre and Grupa Coincidentia was shown as part DimChimer festival
The piece is inspired by Giaccomo Puccini's last and unfinished work, as well as William S. Burrough's "Naked Lunch", referred to by the director as an 'opera for the deaf'. The performance which premiered in 2009 was created in collaboration between the neTTheatre - Teatr w Sieci Powiązań from Lublin and Grupa Coincidentia from Białystok. It won the jury prize at the 16th Staging of Polish Contemporary Plays' competition, and was also invited to take part in the 2011 edition of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Paweł Passini took the well-known story of the Chinese princess Turandot, who killed suitors unable to solve her riddles, and connected it with the composer's biography and his last days. In screams of the tortured, the princess and Puccini alike search for the accord of love. Puccini, hailed in New York the most famous man in the world, the owner of 17 cars and hundreds of millions of dollars is aware that he is dying of larynx cancer. The knowledge of an approaching death brings about ghosts from the past. The artist is haunted by the memory of Doria Manfredi, a maid, who commited suicide following charges of having an affair with the Maestro. Since Manfredi's death, figures of prostitutes, geishas and slaves emerge in Puccini's works. They kill themselves with an unbearably moving song on their lips, in order to save their own honour or that of their lover. This is what happens in Passini's play in which the last aria of the slave Liu is also the last piece ever written by the Maestro. After this aria, he wakes in China where his music is never heard, and sign language is the official way of communicating. The cast is made up of Paweł Chomczyk, Mariusz Laskowski, Dagmara Sowa, Katarzyna Tadeusz and Iga Załęczna, and all deserve mention. Laskowski as Puccini is indeed very special. He is a man on the border of life and death, and is literally an arm's length away.
The piece is not linear in structure, it is more dream-like. The scenes with Puccini's last days of life intertwine with visions from the 'evil empire'. And all this is accompanied by arias sung by the actors, and fragments of the opera played and mixed live by the director himself.
Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska, Dwutygodnik, 19th of October 2009
It is a very strong, restless performance, one that attacks the viewer, stirrs anxiety and moves. In (...) "Turandot" we find a presage foreshadowing the birth of a fresh approach to means of expression presently available to theatre. "Turandot" fascinates with the many layers enveiled in its investigation of genius and evil
Grzegorz Józefczuk, Gazeta Wyborcza, 9th of January, 2010
The production was awarded the Total Theatre Award at The Fringe festival in Edinburgh in late August. See more information and reviews published in the Scottish press about the show's run in the capital: Passini's "Turandot" Sweeps Fringe Total Theatre Award.
"Turandot"
script, direction and music: Paweł Passini;
visualisations: Maria Porzyc;
stage design co-operation: Michalina Kostecka;
sign language consultation: Magdalena Urbańska;
cast: Dagmara Sowa, Katarzyna Tadeusz, Iga Załęczna, Paweł Chomiczyk, Mariusz Laskowski
Performance premiered on the 16th of October, 2009
The performance is presented using the Polish version of the sign language.
neTTheatre
It is the first internet theatre in the world, which presents its performances both in the real and virtual space. The audience is invited to co-create visual and auditory levels of the shows, exploring the interactive side of theatre. neTTheatre should not be understood as some new and fascinating territory of expression, but rather as a way of understanding theatre as a space of real encounter. During this encounter a creative act takes place in an open way, in real time before the viewer's eyes. In order to pursue this goal, the theatre's team develops various techniques of improvising with movement and gesture as well as text. The actors/dancers frequently employ idiolects – languages using nonexistent words and expressions, and the shows are accompanied by improvised electro-acoustic music. neTTheatre also explores the field of an artistic language rooted in contemporary means of communication. Audiences witness a simultaneous multilayered transmission. It is close to our reality, dominated with chaotic information and stimuli. Thus the productions are also an attempt at understanding the condition of man at the beginning of the second millenium, a man consciously and unconsciously entagled in a jungle of signs and messages. For this reason neTTheatre's projects frequently engage new media.
Selected prizes awarded to the neTTheatre:
- prize of the Kaliskie Spotkania Teatralne (Kalisz Theatre Meetings) in Kalisz
- prize of the KONTRAPUNKT Festival in Szczecin
- Grand Prix of Festiwal Prapremier (Pre-premiere Festival) in Bydgoszcz
- special mention of the Ogólnopolski Konkurs na Wystawienie Polskiej Sztuki Współczesnej (National Contest of Staging a Contemporary Polish Plays) in Warsaw,
- prize of the Festiwal Sztuki Reżyserskiej (Festival of the Art of Directing) in Katowice,
- prize of the Festiwal Polskich Sztuk Współczesnych R@Port (Polish Contemporary Plays Festival R@Port) in Gdynia
NeTTheatre is the only Eastern European group to take part in the International Theatre Festival in New Delhi
Date: 5th of September, 2011, 7 pm
Venue: Kyiv-Molyha Academy, Kiev
Organised by: Towarzystwo Edukacji Kulturalnej (Association for Cultural Education), Konfrontacje Teatralne, City of Lublin
Project cofinanced by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland
Source: Adam Mickiewicz Institute