Modestly - Shakespeare is not enough. After the 17th Shakespeare Festival
Katarzyna Wysocka, Piotr Wyszomirski
Translated by Sonja Block
The financial problems that were faced this year also by the most important theatrical festival in northern Poland, made it a success that the Festival was not suspended for a year, what was a real threat at some point. Despite more modest finances (the budget was over 800 thousand zlotys) and the necessity to change the programme (among others, the planned spectacles from China, Lithuania and Holland were missing) the yearly holiday took place for the 17th time, or for the 20th time if one counts the earlier Gdańsk Shakespeare Days. The festival presented artistic diversity in the main competition and in the ShakespeareOFF edition, along with the diversified activities of the Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre and Theatrum Gedanense Foundation. We could enjoy full spectacles, open-airs, monodramas, concerts, performances and films. There were also: an audio play event, play-reading and a festive event for the chosen. Professional, off and off-off theatres presented their work, there was even one social theatre engaged. As every year, Sheakespeare visited the whole Tricity as well as Pruszcz Gdański, Wejherowo, Tczew and Hel within the framework of a permanent “Regionalia” programme. The Festival was accompanied by a happening setting done by volunteers who took over Tricity. Like every year, young and talented students from “teatralias” published “The Shakespeare Magazine”. The broad and truly valuable educational programme of the Foundation this year included i.a. Summer Shakespeare Academy and accompaning projects: Cultural Sheakesplorations and Contro-versions. This year’s final touch, for the lack of a foreign hit, was a conference “Languages of power/Languages of art”, the international meeting of theatre experts, artists and specialists from different fields. The audience on the full spectacles was more than numerous, the tickets for Klata, Duda-Gracz or Pieśń Kozła were the most wanted merchandises within miles of the Festival.
The Festival took only 6 days this time and unlike the preceeding editions it did not present unforgettable events, there were no outstanding creations, but it was still one of the most important cultural events in our region.
Polish Shakespeare
Four full spectacles, one concert and one performance out of ten presentations in the main competition - this was the especially numerous output of the Polish theatre this year, which - a little bit out of necessity - overshadowed foreign productions. In connection to the conference we have seen as much as three spectacles with Titus Andronicus (in interpretation of Shakespeare, Heiner Mueller, and directors and playwrights of all the three productions).
Certainly, the best “Titus” and the best spectacle of the whole competition was . Tarantino’s esthetics, controlled mess, overdrawns and frequent kitsch usage (like Fancy) could lead to a total chaos, but Klata emerges a winner from this concoction and additionally creates a separate value. It is partly due to preservation of Shakespeare’s spirit - the core of the story and its tragedy is salvaged. (...) Klata presented a total theatre, the theatre that is communicating and attacking with every element of its poliphonic entirety. The hot, rock-and-roll theatre which presents his individuality, like a hero from “Wild at Heart”, wearing snake-leather jacket. (find more in our review)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-n-f14trdQ
“Titus Andronicus” from Wrocław and Dresden directed by Jan Klata Jeżeli masz problem z "odpaleniem" filmu, kliknij tutaj.
“Anatomy of Titus Fall of Rome” directed by Wojtek Klemm from National Old Theatre in Cracow is an uniconoclastic protest against political powers which when confronted with gothic, local character lose their force and leave the civilsation in ruins. In “Anatomy...” the director searches for a particular power of the motives that lead to the disaster. He hints that the process and the phenomenon of domination concerns every tribe, the civilised one and the one that is considered wild. The appearances of competence dressed in cardboard walls of the stage design underline the temporariness and fragility of the hegemony. The common bath which could start the end of another war is not cleansing, it does not build a community, even though for a moment it appears that the actors wearing white bathrobes become peacemakers for a common cause. None of the characters was given specific characteristics that would allow categorizing their actions as good or evil. (find more in our review)
The weakest spectacle of the whole Festival, mainly because of its text, was the performance by Juliusz Osterwa Theatre in Lublin, the third Titus entitled “At the end of the chain”. Who needs Shakespeare nowadays and why? Maybe just to organize next editions of festivals or maybe to print him on fancy bags (like we print Mao or Guevara), or maybe to unceremoniously disregard him in spectacles that create an outlet for author’s projections which may gain some dimension only seen from the original’s perspective. (find more in our review)
The opinions about the final concert by Song of the Goat Theatre - “Songs of Lear” - were divided. The truth cannot be replaced by aesthetics in theatre, distinctness is not a form but an internal feeling which ought not to be stylized. The charisma cannot be achived by the shape of the form, the force from within creates the shape. I missed this force in the performance from Wrocław. Overrating the creativity of the theatre by George Bral comes from expecting a mistical collective experience which happens less and less frequently in culture (for example an eccentric case of Marina Abramović, sitting on a chair in MoMA in NY for several hours a day, six days a week for couple of months and evoking feelings comparable to an absolute enlightenment). I have respect for Song of Goat Theatre for its search, but its pompous conviction of a noble message is irritating. (find more in our review)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVowK2rcpq0
„SONGS OF LEAR" BY SONG OF THE GOAT THEATRE Jeżeli masz problem z "odpaleniem" filmu, kliknij tutaj.
The opinions were divided also on the subject of the Golden Yorick winner, ”. A performance directed by Agata Duda-Gracz and inspired by William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida” from Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Cracow, but it was certainly one of the two most interesting spectacles, along with Klata’s “Titus”, of the entire Festival:
The first impression is stunning. It is empowered by the way of reaching the theatre square - through the narrow passages. The feeling after reaching the destination is comparable to touching the waterdrops in di Trevi fountain found after a long walk through the maze of narrow streets at noon in the middle of the summer; or to a fresh pomegranate juice dropping from the corners of your mouth. It may be compared to anything that is both sensual and unusual. The proud heroes from enemy’s camps, the trance music, the colors and the movement catch your eye - everything is inviting you to take part in an unusual journey which has little to do with... Shakespeare. Instead we meet the frantic imagination of famous painter’s daughter, a plastic theatre in which words don’t play an important part. Shakespeare’s avid followers may reject this spectacle, despite its extraordinary aesthetic concept, referring to the best times of Polish plastic theatre (especially Szajna). The conservative viewers of the acting style also will be mostly unsatisfied - there are no creations, maybe besides the part played by Elżbieta Karkoszka, whose Priam is a woeful pieta who was taken off of a gothic cathedral’s fronton a few dozen years too late. (find more in our review)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cqRzb65fC1E
Everybody dies, my Sweet Porcelan – a Tale of the Trojan War Jeżeli masz problem z "odpaleniem" filmu, kliknij tutaj.
The congress of Ophelia’s was an interesting idea in which 9 actresses from different epochs and places took part. In this event participated i.a.: Elżbieta Karkoszka from National Stary Theatre in Cracow, Katarzyna Łubieńska from Wybrzeże Theatre, Bożena Stryjkówna - unforgettable Lamia Reno from “Seksmisja” or the amazing Karolina Porcari from Radosław Rychcik’s spectacle. An additional attraction was placing “Ophelias. Iconography of Madness” on Shakespearian Theatre construction site. Unfortunately, the announcement and the idea was the last of it, because the spectacle was uncommunicative and imperceptible, the bad exposition prevented a good reception. It is a shame.
Shakespeare is not enough.
According to Łukasz Drewniak, the new selectioner and the member of a jury of two, along with professor Jerzy Limon, who decide on the prizes for the best stagings of Shakespeare, Shakespeare is doing well on Polish stage.
It is hard to argue with that opinion without a full vision, but the spectacles seen so far lead to one sure conclusion: the Shakespeare’s texts are not doing well. The plots are usually preserved, but Shakespeare’s text is an obstacle for Polish directors and playwrights, so they either give it up entirely or they use Mueller’s rewriting, or they use fragments and fill in with their own words - they do everything they can to escape from Shakespeare. They cover the words up with stage design, music, picture, they create a new message and give rise to a hybrid, a shakespearish product; and here the question about the formula of the competition and the criteria becomes decisive, and the criteria should be clearly established, because the usual “As You Like It” is not enough.
Foreign spectacles
For financial reasons the small foreign representation did not bring us the impressions expected yearly. The fact that after 140 minutes of sitting, Bea von Malchus still gets a standing ovation for his monodrama, is heartwarming and striking. Obviously, the expression of the German director is powerfull compared to Marina Abramovic in the famous The Artist is Present performance in MoMA, but it is still a proposal that is too monotonous and not too ingenious, even though the artist did recreate Lear’s story and made frequent digressions (the addressees of the digressions are i.a. the Shakespeare Festival and mentioned by name, Jerzy Limon). The presence of Dalibor Martinis’s performance in the context of the conference was entirely justified, him being another performer from the countries of former Yougoslavia (Abramovic is Serbian, the author of “Simultaneous Speach” is Croatian). The monodramas were complemented by Romanian “Rereading Shakespeare” directed and performed by Emil Boroghina.
The only full spectacle from abroad was Georgian “As You Like It” which was a success on Globe to Globe theatrical festival in London for which it was created, and it was received well by the official premiere audience in Gdańsk. Probably it was the perfect opening of the event which after the premiere-VIP part will pass on to its artistic substance. The second day of the Festival ends the idyll and the Evil enters the stage, grabbing us by the throat and not letting go until the end of the Festival.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABIu883NfoE
William Shakespeare "AS YOU LIKE IT" Director Levan Tsuladze Jeżeli masz problem z "odpaleniem" filmu, kliknij tutaj.
The Conference
The integral part of this year’s Festival was a four-day conference featuring theatrical specialists, artists and other experts, shortly called “the conference of the intellectuals”. The word “intellectual” has many meanings nowadays and we may follow Judt’s words that “the task of an intellectual is to expose lies and the unclear, sometimes dirty, basis of the events. An intellectual should be an exposer, the kind of clown and not a preacher of truths”. It is clear to everyone that there are no intellectuals in this sense of the word nowadays, because the courage had lost long time ago to autism and cowardice, but undoubtedly the intellectual level during the meeting was upstanding, which one will be able to confirm after reading the collection of essays by the participants of the conference that is to be published. The essays are to be created on the basis of the meetings by the river Motława. The starting point for the participants gathered in Ratusz Staromiejski (eng. Old Town Hall) were the two stagings of “Titus Andronicus”: Silvu Purcarete from 1992 available to watch on video (unfortunately, the director did not come to Gdańsk) and “Titus Andronicus” directed by Jan Klata, performed live on the Main Stage of Wybrzeże Theatre.
Details remembered
The first scene with its dinner and power of Wolfgang Michael from Klata’s “Titus”, the plastic concept of “Porcelan”, the songs by Chórraa from “Lady Macbeth’s Fragrant Facets”, the musical motive from the Georgian “As You Like It” (it got stuck in my head and stayed there for couple of days like some nightmare), Magdalena Boć taking in the acting of her Mistress from Cracow, Piotr Chys staying two hours below the ceiling in “Porcelan”, Klemma and Duda-Gracz’s flippers (is there a new scuba-diving club in the trendsetting Cracow?), happenings by the volunteers, “cultural competences”, and the “intellectuals” wearing glasses.
The 17th Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival,1-6 August 2013
