A puppet and actor theatre group, established in 1991 by Piotr Tomaszuk and Tadeusz Słobodzianek with actors who had previously worked at Gdańsk's Miniatura Puppet and Actor Theatre. One of the most interesting theatres formed after 1989, they are based in Supraśl near Białystok. The group has received three Fringe First awards at the theatre festival in Edinburgh.
The theatre took its name from a locality.
"It has at least two meanings, and encompasses many themes...," said Piotr Tomaszuk. "Geographically and historically, it is linked to the locality where the prophet Eliasz Klimowicz decided to build a New Jerusalem in the 1930's. ... The name also has a hidden meaning. 'New Jerusalem' is a spiritual fact. Theatre is also a spiritual fact. And, it is a sacred thing both for those creating it and for those watching it. In this sense the reference to the name Wierszalin is absolutely legitimate." ("Dziennik Bałtycki" 1994, No. 91)
The Wierszalin group takes inspiration from the culture and religion of the Polish-Belarusian borderland. They draw from the coarse aesthetics of folk art. They create productions in which puppet theatre coexists with live acting. Wierszalin's performances feature puppets, figures, and masks. Music and singing is also important. Their characteristic theatrical poetics is the work of Piotr Tomaszuk, stage designer Mikołaj Malesza, and playwright Tadeusz Słobodzianek. Słobodzianek contributed substantially to the group's first successes. He co-wrote the text for TURLAJGROSZEK and wrote the play MERLIN - INNA HISTORIA / MERLIN - ANOTHER STORY. These texts were the basis for productions which brought Wierszalin two consecutive Fringe First awards at the Edinburgh festival, in 1993 and 1994. In 1994, after a conflict with Tomaszuk, Słobodzianek left the group.
TURLAJGROSZEK was the group's first production. The premiere of this work directed by Piotr Tomaszuk took place in 1990 under the auspices of the Miniatura Puppet and Actor Theatre. The next performance was staged at Wierszalin.
"A ballad from the borderland: a morality play based on the fate and stories of 'Orthodox people'; a fairy tale from the Bialystok region: children's theatre for adults, passing very severe judgments on those adults," Teresa Krzemień wrote about this show. "... It is all that, and it is something much bigger though simpler as well, also more modest, than the words which try to describe the phenomenon of this naïve tale." The artists "have won everyone over with the beauty of their performance, its appropriate, extraordinary 'Belarusian' or 'borderland' or 'Orthodox' spirit," Teresa Krzemień continued. "Ascetic means, directly proportionate to the complexes and cautious (seeming) 'worseness' of the characters. Dressed in black country suits, they are clumsy, shy, with bawdy, awkward gestures, only becoming lively and at ease after vodka." (Warszawskie Spotkania Teatralne / Warsaw Theatre Meetings, 1992)
Wierszalin's next production, MERLIN - INNA HISTORIA / MERLIN - ANOTHER STORY directed by Tomaszuk (1993), was inspired by the Arthurian myth and was maintained in a characteristic fairy-tale and morality-play style.
"Whoever has seen 'Turlajgroszek' will readily recognize Tomaszuk's typical handwriting, that special and revealing theatrical instrument which combines the poetics of puppet theatre with live acting," noted Janusz Majcherek. "I think this instrument, 'made up of a dual nature', faithfully matches Tomaszuk's way of thinking, his sense of relativism, ambiguity, ambivalence. The intentional contradiction of form serves to show the contradiction of the world. A multi-faceted theatrical distance allows values and meanings to be turned inside out. The game between the sacred and the profane, triviality and nobility, matter and spirit, places Tomaszuk, I think, in the same theatrical trend as Grotowski and Gardzienice, though it needs emphasizing that Tomaszuk proposes an absolutely sovereign and separate poetics." ("Teatr" 1993, No. 11)
Joanna Kasperek (Viviana) and Aleksander Skowroński (Merlin) created outstanding parts in this production. Live acting became one of the important aspects of Wierszalin's projects. In subsequent shows other means of theatrical expression - puppets, figures - complemented the acting.
In 1994 the group staged Stanisław Wyspiański's KLĄTWA / THE CURSE, the first time they took on a play from the repertoire canon.
"The side lights come on, and in their flashes you see fragmentary, pulsating scenes...," noted Tomasz Kubikowski ("Odra" 1995, No. 2).
This time Wierszalin tried a dynamic, film-type montage. Actors with wooden tragedy masks appeared on stage, and figures of burned children, you could hear the sound of a barrel organ and the singing of country folk. The performance took on the form of a folk rhapsody.
"The performance is heartrending: just like Wierszalin's earlier productions, it develops in a violent, spontaneous wave of intense emotions," noted Tomasz Kubikowski. "... With all this it seems that Tomaszuk's directing method has become established, that the characters are led with a surer hand than was the case before, and that the director's characteristic situational polyphony, in which small actions at the side or back of the stage accompany whatever is going on in its centre, until everything comes together in unison - has already become an obedient, well developed tool." ("Odra" 1995, No. 2)
Two years later the group returned to a theme related to the region they are based in. Wierszalin presented GŁUP / DIMWIT according to a text by Tomaszuk and directed by him. The story was based on real events from the Białystok region. It was set in Zabłudów, a village which became famous in 1965 when the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared there a number of times. The title character committed the same act of self-mutilation as a resident of the Białystok area about whom the press had written a few years before. These themes served to build a performance which developed in a mystical-realistic world.
"Tomaszuk's play and production can be treated as a morality play, written in blank verse, linguistically stylised but not devoid of a naturalistic brutality. Tomaszuk presents the tragedy of a weak, over-sensitive individual whose naivety is exploited by others for their own aims," wrote Wojciech Majcherek. "But the drastic nature of 'Dimwit' lies in something else. Tomaszuk boldly puts forward the problem of religion (regardless of denomination) which not only brings comfort to people, but can also beguile or even harm them." ("Teatr" 1996, No. 6)
GŁUP / DIMWIT was staged among wooden, simple sets, to the accompaniment of music arranged by Jacek Ostaszewski.
KLĄTWA / THE CURSE was the first premiere Wierszalin produced at its renovated theatre in Supraśl. Before that, the group often performed at different venues. They also appeared outside Poland, taking part in festivals in Europe, the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. Performances presented abroad included DYBUK / THE DYBBUK based on Ansky, and MEDYK / THE PHYSICIAN, a performance whose poetics invoked the group's early projects. MEDYK / THE PHYSICIAN brought Wierszalin their third Fringe First award in Edinburgh. In 1994 the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented the group with a diploma of appreciation for their great contribution to promoting Polish culture around the world.
1997 saw the production of PRAWIEK I INNE CZASY / THE PRE-HISTORIC AGE AND OTHER TIMES based on the novel by Olga Tokarczuk, directed by Sebastian Majewski, with stage design by Dorota Kołodyńska.
"The magic of words is replaced with symbolic gestures which often give a new, quite surprising effect, one that you miss when reading the text," Aleksandra Rembowska wrote about this project ("Teatr" 1997, No. 11).
One characteristic element of this production were images of the characters which the actors held in their hands. This created an equivalent of Tokarczuk's complex prose. The actors played their characters at the same time preserving a distance from them. They were storytellers.
"The picture convention also allows a higher order of reality to be visibly arranged. In the middle of the stage, where the platform is with the multi-purpose box/coffin ..., the characters twice bring in a Mediaeval-type altar comprising a wooden altarpiece and sides with depictions of holy archangels. One time, the image of Our Lady Jeszkotlowska appears on it, and in the final scene, like a book, a view onto the Pre-historic Age opens up, surrounded by four archangels that guard it." (Aleksandra Rembowska, "Teatr" 1997, No. 11)
In 1998 the International Theatre Institute granted Wierszalin its Critics' Award in appreciation for the values they contributed to world theatre.
A year later Adam Wnuczko, who played the title role in GŁUP / DIMWIT, presented the monodrama MAREK, MAREK based on an excerpt from Olga Tokarczuk's book DOM DZIENNY, DOM NOCNY / HOUSE OF DAY, HOUSE OF NIGHT, directed by Tomaszuk and staged under the aegis of Wierszalin. Another project inspired by prose from the same volume was produced in 2000 - OFIARA WILGEFORTIS / WILGEFORTIS' SACRIFICE. This was a story whose roots went back to a Mediaeval apocryphal work about a virgin who became the patron of failed marriages and women suffering due to men's desire. Wilgefortis pledged purity to Christ. Forced to marry, she successfully prayed for her appearance to change. She grew a beard. She died a martyr's death, stabbed and crucified.
"This is one of Wierszalin's most radical artistic proposals. It leaves the audience with the impression of having taken part in a spectacular mystery play...," wrote Janusz R. Kowalczyk ("Rzeczpospolita" 21 April 2000).
The performance, like a Mediaeval play, was overseen by the Magister Ludens (Wojciech Kalarus). The actors navigated huge wooden figures on wheels.
"Both the large marionettes and their animators fulfil the same role of theatrical doubles of characters from the saint's life," wrote Mateusz Kanabrodzki. "The marionettes' steersmen make use of acting techniques, while the marionettes are no less autonomous than their human doubles. 'Wilgefortis' sacrifice' develops parallel on two planes - the actors' and the puppets' plane." ("Dialog" 2001, No. 1)
The performance, directed by Tomaszuk and designed in the convention of theatre within theatre, touched on issues of theology, invoked Christian iconography, and explored issues related to people's sexual identity. The project was part of Poland's cultural proposal at EXPO 2000 - the group presented WILGEFORTIS' SACRIFICE in Hanover in September 2000.
Problems, including financial trouble, led Wierszalin to suspend their activity in recent years. In 2001 Tomaszuk became the artistic manager of the Banialuka Theatre in Bielsko-Biała. After a few seasons of stagnation, in 2004 the group made a comeback with a new premiere - ŚWIĘTY EDYP / SAINT OEDIPUS based on a text by Tomaszuk and directed by him. It was preceded by a radio show of the same title which Tomaszuk produced for Radio Białystok in 2003. The group's latest project contains references to the collection "Gesta Romanorum" ("Deeds of the Romans") and two novels by Thomas Mann - THE HOLY SINNER and DOCTOR FAUSTUS.
Michał Bujanowicz
May 2004
Teatr Wierszalin
ul. Kościelna 4
16-030 Supraśl
Phone/Fax: (+48 85) 710 88 45
WWW: www.wierszalin.pl