The Slaughterhouse

Performance based on the radio drama by Sławomir Mrożek asks a universal and current today question: What does it mean to experience the conflict between culture and nature?

“The Slaughterhouse” touches the matters of decisive importance for an artist, it means the place of art in the contemporary world. The fight goes already for a sense of art in general. Immersed in the realities of consumption society, we ask basic questions: what influence for life may art have? What does it have to oppose to brutality, crime, violence which spread so commonly? How pathetic are the trials of art to keep up the cruelty of life? It touches the phenomenon of degradation of culture which enforces together with the development of civilization.

The main character is a violinist, the man who cannot mature completely to liberate himself from his possessive mother’s dictatorship, to be an independent (from who? from what?), full, total artist. All the time he is standing between the primary emotions and those coming from the experiencing of art. This is another realization of the creator of Zakopane Theatre – Andrzej Dziuk who, by realizing the work of an outstanding Polish classic of literature – returns to the subject of the artist facing contemporary vision of the world – full of false, hypocrisy and suffering.

Performance for the spectators over 16 years of age!

ANDRZEJ ST. DZIUK

Andrzej St. Dziuk is a graduate of Polish studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice, with a year of study at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Academy of Catholic Theology in Warsaw. In 1980, he began studies at the Department of Drama Directing at the Ludwik Solski State Higher School of Theater in Krakow, which he finished with honors in 1984. At the beginning of his directing career, he collaborated with the Stary Theater in Krakow, where he completed his directing diploma.

The director and director in one person is the creator of most of the performances, transferring literary works (not necessarily dramas) to the stage, making big changes in them – he is the author of the texts of his performances and adaptations. They are often compilations of several songs. He is also the author of the artistic vision – the creator of the scenography and costumes for his stagings – apart from the projects to which he invited outstanding Polish artists. The inspiration for his work are Witkacy’s dramas, but also classical and contemporary works, he has also directed outdoor performances and performances using non-standard places for theatrical needs. He has won many awards during his career, among others the Award of the Association of Polish Stage Artists.

As the founder and director of the Witkacy Theater in Zakopane, for over 20 years he has been consistently creating indifferent performances, affecting today’s people, although refraining from too literally understood actualization. Performances that are meant to be an attempt to establish a conversation with the audience. Witkacy’s Theater wants to bear witness to the truth of its time, it wants to be a place of deeper reflection on the maddened world that is rushing towards destruction.

WITKACY THEATRE, ZAKOPANE

Witkacy Theatre started to exist on 24th February 1985, taking its name after Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. It was established by the students and graduates of Acting and Drama Directing departments in State Drama School in Cracow. They were connected together by the striving for artistic independence, willingness of common searching for the idea and the ways of creation. The choice of Patron was not accidental – the man connected with Zakopane, understanding the theatre as a special kind of art. It was Witkacy’s theory of Pure Form, although understood in non-stereotypical way, which had great influence on realised performances and on the atmosphere of the theatre.

In our opinion superior value of the performances is possibility of metaphysical experience, feeling of “strangeness of existence” throughout the theatre. The most important thing for us is meeting and starting a dialogue with another human – throughout performances, exhibitions, concerts and other artistic events. Performances – often composed of non-drama texts – tell about universal, significant things: human towards God, towards another human, towards the values, in front of important choices. Witkacy Theatre wants to give a testimony to the truth of its time, wishes to be artistic, metaphysical and close to every man.

We travel a lot because we do not avoid presentation of our works outside our seat – we participated in prestigious festivals and theatre reviews which brought us numerous awards and distinctions.

CAST:

Dorota Ficoń, Agnieszka Michalik, Kamil Joński, Piotr Łakomik, Krzysztof Najbor, Krzysztof Wnuk

Stage designing: Rafał Zawistowski

Stage designer’s Assistant: Jolanta Solska

Director’s Assistant: Agnieszka Michalik

Production Manager: Arkadiusz Kudła

Music Consultation: Maja Waloszczyk-Ziach, Cezary Wagner

Photo documentation: Iwona Toporowska Photoghraphy

Text adaptation, music adaptation and direction: Andrzej St. Dziuk

Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes – without interval / 16+
language: PL
surtitles: HU, RO, EN

Premiere: 14th December 2019.