Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 7 PM, the Small Stage of Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic will host a guest performance “Witkacy 1939—on the disappearance of metaphysical feelings” written and directed by Andrzej Pawłowski, starring Michał Brejtenwald, with set design by Zbigniew Roman. Witkacy took his own life upon hearing about the Soviet army invading the territory of Poland. His choice was an effect of his experiences and his attitude towards growing totalitarianism, which he called “the disappearance of metaphysical feelings in today’s society.” He was deeply afraid of it and showed it in his theatrical and literary works.
On the 80th anniversary of the death of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz—a painter, an illustrator, a photographer, a writer, a playwright, an art critic, a philosopher—we would like to recall the artist’s prophetic, apocalyptic visions, that can be found surprisingly live today. The performance speaks about the reality basing on the fragments of Witkacy’s philosophical and literary writings and is inspired by his graphic art.
The author of the performance is Andrzej Pawłowski, a director, the president and artistic director of the DRAMA Association, the professor of the Directing Department of the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw for 29 years. He has directed circa 50 theatrical performances, amongst them, in Teatr Ateneum in Warsaw, Gombrowicz’s “Pornografia,” “Cosmos,” “Trans-Atlantyk,” “The Marriage,” and “Possessed”, as well as Genet’s “The Balcony,” Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” Barker’s “Scenes from an Execution” and many others in Warsaw, Cracow, Łódź, Wroclaw, Olsztyn, Opole, many productions for the Theatre Television, e.g., Lowry’s “Under the Volcano” and Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” and many productions abroad. He’s a member of the Artistic Boards of the Polish Theatrical Artists’ Association (ZASP) and the president of its Directors’ Section, a coworker of the Ministry of Culture from 2002 to 2005 in the project “The Year of Gombrowicz 2004,” a creator of competitions and festivals dedicated to new modern dramaturgy, as well as many others events, performances, lectures. The DRAMA Association has produced around 16 bigger and medium-sized artistic projects, recently in 2018 in a co-operation with ZASP they organised the festivities for the 100th anniversary of ZASP and 85th anniversary of the directing in Poland (a conference, a concert, a performance, film projections). From 1999 to 2003 he was the general and artistic director of Teatr Studyjny in Łódź.
FREE ENTRANCE! NUMBER OF SEATS LIMITED, ENTRANCE TICKETS AVAILABLE IN THE OPERA’S BOX OFFICE FROM OCTOBER 25 AT 9 AM.
Project carried out in co-operation with the DRAMA Association and financed by the National Centre For Culture
