Pilarski, Przemysław

A strange, oneiric story about returning to your home town. A wandering musician, quite alike Bob Dylan, appears after many years in his own home, but there are already strangers living there and nobody explains anything to him. The story is based on the fate of the survivors of the Holocaust in Radom, persecuted after the war by Poles who occupied their homes. Understatements and symbols create an atmosphere of mystery like in the series Twin Peaks [...] The atmosphere is defused by a perverse, anarchistic ending. The memory of the past casts a shadow over the lives of the drama's characters. With Bobby's appearance, the trauma of roundups, escapes, denunciations and transportations to gas chambers returns. The tragic experiences of war and being witnesses of extermination make the characters feel compelled to repeat and process history over and over again.

- monthly magazine „Dialog” nr 4/2018 and Gdynia Drama Award website

Come back is a picture of Polish-Jewish relations reduced to a poetic micro-scale, where the Jew returns to his own home, although there is no home waiting for him - but you can find much more in Pilarski's drama. For example, a play on the ideals of Poland and its most sophisticated ideas, revealed in the issues of the Forest Elders, who serve as a vulgarised antique choir here. One can see a small stabilisation, like the one proposed by Różewicz half a century later, but flavoured with spice known from today's news and newspapers. It is not without reason that Esterka, and above all Gombrowicz, appears among the characters. Although this is just a coincidence of names, it is well known who Gombrowicz was for Radom, so it's clear he must appear in a play set in this town. In Pilarski's case, however, it is not only a spectacular dramatic trick, but also a clue given to interpreters. The oneiric layer of the play brings to mind not only Lynch's Twin Peaks, but also The Wedding, where everything we see takes place in Henryk's persistent nightmare.

− from Jacek Wakar’s preface to the anthology Poland is a myth. New dramas.

Pilarski's text is a linguistic drama, using tricks known from New Wave poetry, such as juggling word clichés, phraseologisms, worn out proverbs, quotations that merge to form a jarring neighborhood ("In March, like in a pot, and in Poland, like whoever wants to", "The most important is invisible to the eyes. What the eyes can't see, that heart doesn't regret"). And the exposing discourse of the ABC-book (repeated like a mantra "butter is not cheap"). Mother, Daughter, Son, Forest Elders, Esterka and Gombrowicz are not "real" characters, but bits and pieces, linguistics mannerisms. This way of writing has been associated with Masłowska's "Między nami dobrze jest" ("It's good between us"), but while the author of "Paw królowej" ("The Queen's Peacock") describes "Polishness" with some strange, sadomasochistic fondness, in Pilarski's case there is no buffo, there's only terror.

− Izabella Adamczewska, Gazeta Wyborcza-Łódź online

• The play was published in the anthology Poland is a myth. New dramas. ( Polska jest mitem. Nowe dramaty), ADiT, April 2019.

Twenty-five years of beautiful freedom! Lofty slogans about democracy, capitalism and... poverty? The sudden end of the world, unpaid bills and other plagues are just an excuse for God to hide from the world. Somewhere along the way all dreams are exhausted, and the reality is so painful that it can only be turned into a reality show. "My wife Bożena is hiding in the closet from poverty", in such way the neoghbour begins his story. He has not seen his beloved for more than 25 years. It would seem to be a story about the costs of transformation. But in a moment it comes to light that the protagonists - yeah, not only them, but also the audience! - are dependent on the whims of the TV show's host. Not only that, but also the Jews, who used to hide in the same tenement house, appear out of the blue. And although they have been gone for a long time, they still scare some people.

Reality show(s) is a tragicomedy about fear. The one developed by trial and error. And the inherited, transgenerational. For some, it may be a play about struggling with the present, for others - with the past; there will be those who notice the tragic love story . And the Germans? And the Jews? And the body? And death? Suffering? God? Balcerowicz? The point of departure is cutting yourself off, isolating yourself, shutting yourself out. It is waging war against life and a war to survive at the same time.

Here is the Hero, a young man who seeks good advice on how to live to find happiness. He searches in contemporary guidebooks, in old books, but finally finds real help on the Internet, on webcams. At first, he treats her as an ordinary object to satisfy his sexual fantasies, but it soon turns out that they are both scarred by life.

"Some have had a disorder from childhood. I guess I've had one from my father," says the Hero at some point. Both he and she are lost and don't quite know what to expect from each other. He, locked in a prison of entanglement and trauma, is afraid to leave his comfort zone and work through childhood events related to his toxic father. She - at times seems to be his projection, the question arises whether she is not one of his selves. The unhappy childhood is just another gadget in his collection of peculiarities. The question, repeated like a mantra, "Will you play with me?" leads them through various games, but it is not sure if any of these games offer a way to a happy ending.

• The text won first prize in the First Polish National Drama Competition for Contemporary Chamber Art Słowo/Aktor/Spotkanie 2016.