XVI MFG Ameryka - Teatr Polski im. H. Konieczki, Bydgoszcz

In his pen and ink drawing América Invertida (1943), the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García presents South America upside down – not the way we’re used to in Polish schools. This liberating, decolonising look, which involves unlearning the obvious, undermining the sacrosanct, discovering the hidden violence and oppression informing our culture and socio-economic system, inspires America. Witoldo Gombrowicz – an Argentinian writer and Nobel prize winner who escapes everything Polish and takes us on a tour of his beloved South America and into his new, unknown play – is the pivotal figure in this story. Freed from the burden of his country and language, he spins a yarn of ‘a new America, about us all’. He expresses the dream of a new cartography, of decolonised thinking, of the need to come up with new protagonists, worthy of ‘the brave new world’. Columbus, Maradona, Isaura, and Amazonia all appear in Gombrowicz’s narrative, each at loggerheads with their own tale and, above all else, with the history of colonisation and other forms of oppression, standing up for revolutionary and progressive values. In their stories, South America is not so much an exotic refuge and the final port of call as the space to embody utopias and everyday revolutions that happen faster and more violently there than in Poland. Poland and Latin America mirror each other. To change, perhaps, Poland needs to be loved, transferred, confronted with the Other?

America observes America, Witold Gombrowicz, and ourselves, here and now. This theatre interferes a lot and bursts thought stereotypes while preserving an ironic distance towards itself. It brings Damian Kwiatkowski’s brilliant role and proves Julia Holewińska is not only an excellent playwright but a bona fide, full-fledged director. Most importantly, the Bydgoszcz Polish Theatre’s performance isn’t pretentious. That’s what I like the most about it.