The Narodowy Theatre in Warsaw will soon premiere another new production. Director Agnieszka Glińska is working on a staging of Andrzej Saramonowicz's 2 MAJA / THE 2ND OF MAY - a biting satire of recent Polish history. The production will premiere on February 28th.
Glińska has once again taken on a contemporary text, specifically a work by screenwriter Andrzej Saramonowicz, whose dramatic debut, titled TESTOSTERON / TESTOSTERONE, proved highly successful when staged by the independent theatre group Teatr Montownia. Saramonowicz was commissioned to write THE 2ND OF MAY by the Narodowy Theatre's director, Jan Englert. The second day of May lies precisely between the Communist celebration of labor on May 1st and a holiday that commemorates the Polish parliament's ratification in the 18th century of the Constitution of the 3rd of May. The play's action is confined to these three sequential days in May. The play focuses on the inhabitants of a certain house, which is afflicted by a catastrophe. Saramonowicz based the play on a never-produced screenplay titled POLSKA, 2 MAJA / POLAND, MAY 2ND.
"In the first version of the screenplay, I wanted to show what had happened in Poland after 1989," says Saramonowicz. "Today, the house that is falling apart is a metaphor for the 3rd Republic of Poland [i.e. post-1989 Poland]. The question remains the same: what will arise on these ruins" (quoted in: "Pokolenie porno i inne niesmaczne utwory teatralne" / "The Porn Generation and Other Tasteless Theatre Works," selected and edited by Roman Pawłowski, Kraków 2003).
This production of 2 MAJA / MAY 2ND will feature: Teresa Budzisz-Krzyżanowska, Ewa Konstancja Bułhak-Rewak, Monika Dryl, Dorota Landowska, Anna Seniuk, Danuta Stenka, Krzysztof Kolberger, Grzegorz Małecki, Igor Przegrodzki, Krzysztof Stelmaszyk, Henryk Talar, Robert Więckiewicz i Artur Żmijewski.
Andrzej Saramonowicz's 2 MAJA / THE 2ND OF MAY, directed by Agnieszka Glińska, production designed by Agnieszka Zawadowska, costumes: Magdalena Maciejewska. Premiered at the Narodowy Theatre in Warsaw on February 28th, 2004.