March, march Gombrow... ski

"The terror of the whole neighborhood, which had been so settled and well-off, was a brute, a scamp, and a brigand known as the Hooligan." This is how the Rat begins, one of Witold Gombrowicz's earlier and undoubtedly most interesting stories, on the text of which the latest BTL spectacle, March, Gombrow's march was based ... ski. However, anyone who thought that the performance itself begins in a similar way would be wrong. The Austrian director, Christoph Bochdansky, interpreted "our" Gombrowicz in his own unique way. By adding his own, original set design, he created an extraordinary, intriguing and worth recommending both to Gombrowicz's admirers and those from young viewers who have not met him yet.

Christoph Bochdansky (director): What does an Austrian do when he comes to Poland and stages a short story by Witold Gombrowicz? He's having a great time. It can combine the great theatrical talent of Polish actors with the mysterious and absurd story of a great Polish author. With a playful wink of an eye, an art in art has developed that tells the story of a terrible, but liked by people, Huligan, who ends up in prison and loses his vitality and strength through a rat. I found a lot of humor here and used every opportunity to convey to you as much as possible, Dear Audience. Thank you very much and have fun.

Experiments with a rat. And Gombrowicz

Can you imagine "the swaying fluidity of a robber's disposition"? Rather hard. But not after visiting the puppeteers. This team, without set design, is able to play not only flowiness - but also a rotten manor or devouring hearts. By the way, still losing nothing of Gombrowicz. The latest performance at the Białystok Puppet Theater is an unbelievable hybrid: art in art, a comic translation of contemporary original texts and those from Gombrowicz's short story "The Rat".

So we have a short story by Gombrowicz - "Szczur" - written with a mocking note proper to the author, mocking everything that is puffed up, exalted, puffed up in Polishness. The protagonist of "Rat": a robber Huligan, an individual - let's quote Gombrowicz - showing "a specific massiveness and breadth of nature - the vastness of the soul - a cradling liquidity of disposition. (...) broad nature, not recognizing narrow recesses and fond of drinking (...)" . Another protagonist of "Rat" is judge Skorabkowski, frustrated by the excessive flow of the area. In the end, she decides to "narrow" Huligan's breadth of thought, catches him and decides to change his nature.

So much for Gombrowicz.

But next to Gombrowicz, something else is happening on the stage - which the text from 60 years ago brings up to date and complements it. It is a story about how a certain 21st-century theater crew from "Rat" tries to compose, turns his nose at the same time, how he sometimes feels and how sometimes he does not feel like it, how the director rebels, and in a moment becomes humble. And how, by the way, the production that is being edited reveals the relations between the actors. And it is this self-referentiality that is most interesting in the performance "March, March Gomb ... rowski" - showing the theatrical lining, the balance of forces, all these bonds, the undercurrent stage life, animosities between actors, emotions that buzz and emerge in the most unexpected moments ... The performance lives its own life - it is like a labyrinth, has its side threads, digressions, departs from the main axis (which is, after all, the story of Huligan), and bursts to the sides. And all this because of the actors who escape the director - the Narrator (Wiesław Czołpiński) out of control, improvise to the full, get carried away by inspiration ... And it is no longer known where the text of the play ends and where the present begins.

This is the quality and beauty of this play that is funny and served to the audience with lightness and finesse. What improvisations and hilarious scenes there are, what figures fill the stage! Robber Huligan is a sloppy individual in tracksuits (great Ryszard Doliński). Judge Skorabkowski (the excellent Zbigniew Litwińczuk) is his opposite - an envy in a bathrobe with a sly face. The rest of the actors are not left behind either - whether it's the aspiring Maryśka, whom Huligan has a crush on (Izabela Maria Wilczewska), or Ksawery, the judge's servant (Artur Dwulit), or a mysterious woman, a former theater star, who keeps to the side, no intending to fraternize with the commoners (Sylwia Janowicz -Dobrowolska). The whole company serves up a wide arsenal of expressions and gestures - as for the text from Gombrowicz, mocking Polish mugs, expressions, boozing - it befits. Gombrowicz mocks all these pompous Polish words, Polish poses, fears, obsessions, exaltation, our bloated Polishness, our martyred mouths that we stick to each other. And as usual, it turns out to be universal - we are still the same, we adopt poses, albeit in a modern entourage. The 21st-century hooligan has blockers' clothes, Maryśka is a panna in leggings, who cannot be crammed into the role of Mrs. Huligan and the cook, because - as she says - tipsy will break her ... take pills. Let us also add that in the finale there will be one more character who, a bit like "Teddy" Bareja, may personify Polish ailments in his own way. But that's a surprise.

It is only surprising that the show was directed by Christoph Bochdansky, an excellent Austrian puppeteer (he also created the puppets for the show). He claims that he has only been reading Gombrowicz for two years, and "he has no idea about Poland, or about Polish features". Meanwhile, he created a performance - albeit from the perspective of a foreigner - intelligently picking up Polish nuances, playfully winking at the viewer, and maintaining an absurd atmosphere.

In order to sense all these nuances, so that the performance does not get stuck in an unintentional artificiality - you need good assistants (Paweł Chomczyk, Laura Słabińska), goodwill with the team, and a good translator. Moreover, even before the premiere, Bochdansky emphasized their role and told Gazeta: "I wanted to create a system in which the actors themselves could express their attitude to the Polish mentality. Without their cooperation, the performance would not be what it is. What the viewers will see on stage. it is the result of my ideas and digressions, as well as the whole team ".

If scenes such as: fancifully seating a prisoner in Turkish, discussions on the type of gag, or developing a method of sitting on a lame stool were created as a result of brainstorming - then I will ask for more of these joint experiments.

Monika Żmijewska, "Gazeta Wyborcza", 5 May 2010