41st Cracow Theatrical Reminiscences

Friday, October 7, 2016 - Wednesday, October 12, 2016

  • Friday, October 7, 2016 - Wednesday, October 12, 2016
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Land of Happiness

Autumn is here – so what? Chin up! The 41st Cracow Theatrical Reminiscences (7-12 October) takes us on a magical journey to the Land of Happiness. Cracovian audiences will see over a hundred artists from Poland, Germany and Israel.

The leading motif of this year’s festival is Jewish culture and traditions, with works by Hanoch Levin as the opening point. “Levin started his theatrical journey working with a student underground, which means his works are perfect for the Cracow Theatrical Reminiscences, still mainly focused on fringe, non-institutional art beyond the usual commercial circuits,” say festival directors Ana Nowicka and Monika Kufel. The leading theme will be “Land of Happiness”, dreamed of by all protagonists of Levin’s dramas.

Audiences will see five Polish spectacles written on the basis of Levin’s writings. They include Cracovian productions: the witty, bold Queen of a Bathtub by the Barakah Theatre, and Bagatela Theatre’s Flame of Desire – a black comedy about the trials and tribulations of Yakish and Poupche. Łaźnia Nowa Theatre presents Ikhsh Fisher by the IMKA Theatre in Warsaw. The stage of the PWST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków hosts the Adam Mickiewicz Theatre from Częstochowa with The Rubber Merchants, while the Tu i Teraz Theatre brings a noir interpretation of Ya’akobi and Leidental to the Małopolska Garden of Arts. There will also be a screening of the legendary performance Krum directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Poland’s theatres love Levin’s protagonists – always unlucky, solitary and general failures who nevertheless keep searching for happiness – as shown by the poster exhibition The Land of Happiness: Levin’s Ambience.

But before we learn more about the world of Hanoch Levin, the 41st Cracow Theatrical Reminiscences opens with the intriguing and intoxicating Der Bau. The ballet performance by the Berlin choreographer Isabelle Schad, inspired by the unfinished novel by Franz Kafka, is an attempt to find oneself in a maze of one’s own carnality and free oneself from it.

The international artists also include the experimental collective Puppet Cinema from Tel Aviv. Their multimedia puppet show Salt of the Earth, based on Amos Kenan’s novel The Road to Ein Harod, reveals the brutality of war in a miniature city where tiny plastic tanks roll along paper streets in a Middle Eastern landscape made of salt. Another Israeli artist – Ariel Doron – presents Plastic Heroes, a show made from children’s toys presenting wartime reality in a surprising, amusing yet terrifying way.

This year’s festival hosts no less than three premieres. The Barakah Theatre presents the seventh instalment of the musical cabaret Nights of Vanilla Mice under the mysterious title Joystick of Doom!, providing a dazzling commentary on the world around us. Maciej Górczyński stages Levin’s final drama Requiem, while 4th-year students from the PWST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków present Calderón’s The Princess Turned Upside Down. Kraków also hosts the spectacle Make Yourself by the Komuna//Warszawa theatre for the first time; the theatre is the most important independent stage in Warsaw.

And of course there will be lectures and concerts. The cut-up technique, popularised by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin as a form of processing reality, is introduced by Justyna Stasiowska. We will also hear the Klezmer Orchestra of the Sejny Theatre – a 19-piece ensemble combining klezmer and Balkan music with jazz improvisations. The stage also welcomes the Shofar trio of Mikołaj Trzaska, Raphael Rogiński and Macio Moretti, searching for a common denominator in traditional Hasidic music and contemporary jazz. The High Synagogue hosts the Magda Brudzińska Trio performing Polish, Czech, Jewish, Ukrainian, Lemko and Roma music. The festival culminates with the performance by the ensemble Klezmafour.

(Justyna Skalska, "Karnet" magazine)

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