Directed by Jerzy Stuhr, Stary Theatre in Kraków, June 2001.
Jerzy Stuhr's idea of staging WIELEBNI / THE REVERENDS caused a great excitement in the media. The text written in 1999 tells the story of two Protestant reverends of both sexes - Reverend Bloom and Reverend Burton, who accidentally arrive to a small village of American province, to take over the pastoral office. Neither Bloom nor Burton felt vocation to become preachers, the priesthood resulted from the submission to the ambitious family (Burton), or from an escape from the stigma of his origin (Bloom). Sławomir Mrożek's drama could be wrongly interpreted as a satire on clergy.
If (...) the director reads deeper into, for example, 'The Reverends', he will discover a lurid analysis of contemporary spirituality, under the playful dialogues concerning metaphysics and the equality of rights for women, wrote Roman Pawłowski in Gazeta Wyborcza.
The Reverends (...) refer to the reality of the last decade of the 20th century, but they don't do it directly. One can find here echoes of famous discussions concerning the reforms in the Church, among others the priesthood of women, there is also question of sects and the political correctness, therefore two motives, which are dominating the contemporary journalism. Mrożek's newest texts may be read as an attempt to create a portrait of the last decade, a portrait full of irony and humour, but bitter in its meaning.
This is Jerzy Stuhr's second attempt to this drama by Sławomir Mrożek, he already directed it's international premiere in Teatro Duse in Genoa (February 28, 2001). Everybody expected a scandal, but in the Italian staging Stuhr was successful in revealing the universal dimension of Mrożek's text. Jacek Moskwa wrote about this staging in Rzeczpospolita:
The Reverends are not a satire on a Church, but a pungent portrait of the American (or generally Western) society, the miniature of which is the council of the parish facing the choice between the candidates for the office: a man and a woman.
The attempt to present The Reverends as a mockery of the modern culture, in the Polish context instead of the foreign one, the balance between the critical and the grotesque accents, is a particular challenge to Stuhr as a director.
We are living amid all of the ideologies, from the hippie one, the flower power to the Satanism. But I would not like to create an impression that this is a heavy play. This is a comedy, everything is light, and it ends in the style of the Marx brothers", said Jerzy Stuhr about his show.
Sławomir Mrożek, WIELEBNI / THE REVERENDS, directed by Jerzy Stuhr, scenery designed by Andrzej Witkowski. Premiere: June 23, 2002 at the Stary Theatre in Krakow.