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In Young Stalin, Słobodzianek invites the audience on a journey through pivotal events in the life of the future dictator, recreating in a distorting mirror the decadent yet politically charged atmosphere of 1907. It is by no means a biographical piece or a psychological study, but rather a kind of ritual. In a grotesque rhythm, the play disenchants the figure of the tyrant, inflated by history, scholarly studies, accounts and fantasies.
In Genius, the ailing Stanisławski seeks an audience with Stalin with the hope of saving the repressed Meyerhold. Employing subterfuge and flattery, Stanisławski convinces the dictator into making a deal: in exchange for teaching Stalin how to better play the role of a ruler, the latter will grant his three wishes. And so, the famous method of physical action is used in a completely non-artistic context. After all, in the words of its creator, “Ruling over a state can be an art. Also one of acting...”.
The play, written in the form of a mystery play, presents the story of a group of peasants who, influenced by Ilya's biblical prophecy about the approaching end of the world, decide to 'help' God in his work of salvation (and save themselves in the process) by performing a second crucifixion. So they set out, assigning amongst themselves the characters they will play: Pontius Pilate, Judas, and so on. Naturally, they decide to cast the supposed prophet Ilya himself in the role of Christ.
In this daring in form drama, Słobodzianek rewrites the myths of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the quest for the Holy Grail. Through this reinterpretation, he reflects on the nature of evil, the relationship between religion and state, and the failures of utopian political projects.
On the Argentinian prairie, Lord Jesus travels atop a donkey, accompanied by Saint Peter struggling to match their pace on foot. Along the way, “the mount” loses a horseshoe, so the travelers seek the assistance of an old blacksmith named Misery, accompanied by his dog Poverty. However, the duo has no money to pay for the blacksmith’s service, so Jesus offers to grant his three wishes. Against Peter's advice ("Ask for Heaven, blacksmith!"), Misery uses them to obtain magical power over three objects: a saddle, a snuffbox, and a nearby tree.
In Burning bush, Konrad (Swinarski) and Kazimierz (Dejmek) visit Jerzy (Grotowski) in his Wrocław apartment. Jerzy, after four years of exile (following the events of March 1968) to foreign stages, is offered the position of theatre director at the Polish Theater in Wroclaw by the authorities. The artists, liberal with cognac, proceed to plan the form and repertoire of the new national stage.
The art of intonation presents two trips to Moscow of Jerzy Grotowski: the first during his student years in 1956 and the second as a globally acclaimed director in 1976. Under the moniker “Apprentice”, Grotowski engages in two conversations with the “Master”, a figure unmistakably resembling Yuri Zawadski – a Russian actor and director whom the Polish creator regarded as one of his masters.
In his most well-known*, Nike Literary Award-winning and most frequently staged play, Słobodzianek explores Polish-Jewish relations. Our Class, however, doesn't so much attempt to join the dispute among historians, politicians and publicists about Polish antisemitism and the Jedwabne pogrom. Instead, he addresses what these discussions usually have no room for: the individuals affected by, as Leonard Neuger described it, “the curse of fate.”
Aleksandra Dańczyszyn's play is a poetic record of the subsequent days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It begins with a quote from Stanisław Barańczak's poem “Nigdy naprawdę” (Never Really), which raises the question of the moral right to write about experiences to which the poet has no access due to the fact that they never experienced them themselves. Dańczyszyn's "Inhuman tragedy" serves as a response to the question posed by the poet. The author is convinced that writers have a moral obligation to talk about the suffering they witness.
Women often (and men less often) desire to be reduced to just a body. A body – a piece of flesh – a commodity. To willingly surrender, to be discarded, to be a victim of rape and mutilation. At times, this is socially conditioned masochism, the desire to heighten sexual sensations or, as in Leśmian's short poem, an unconscious consequence of a virgin tempting fate. In Burning My Mouth there is a woman consumed with grief for her deceased lover, who was her entire world.
