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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.
For years, a young architect, Michał, has been trying to curry favour with his right-wing boss by pretending to be someone he's not. He deceives him by ostentatiously showing his faith, political views, and the fact that he has a fiancée - when in fact he is gay. His elaborate scheming is driven by the ultimate goal of succeeding his boss or, in other words, having the company passed onto him from his childless superior.
The play is created in a postmodernistic, “barbarian” aesthetic, referencing the controversial tendency of contemporary theater (postdrama). Artists of postdrama, a notion long established in the West and pioneered by figures such as Heiner Müller, Werner Schwab, Elfriede Jelinek, are referred to as “murderers of sanctity” or simply “barbarians”. It is a theater of risk, a game with the audience and oneself.
