Teatr Biuro podrozy (Poland)
| Director | Pavel Shkotak (poland) |
The performance Carmen Funebre of the Polish Biuro Podrozy Theatre is a modern mystery play, common prayer for victims of wars – bygone as well as present-day ones.
Pavel Shkotak’s theatre was one of the first to go to the street. It took place in 1992. The idea of its name is derived from the novel by Milan Kundera “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”. This novel is about a journey from the Eastern Europe to the Western Europe. At that time there was equal to the journey from destitution to the Paradise. The name of the theatre – Biuro Podrozy – comes from this sort of Travelling.
In his performances Pavel Shkotak has revived traditions of medieval street theatre employing such genres as mystery and morality play.
The performance Jordano, directed especially for the theatre Malta festival in Posnan, was the first major success of the Company. It was based on the story of the court proceedings against Jordano Bruno. It was the first mystery created by the Company. Cruelty of Inquisition tangibly impersonated in the performance was in contrast with representation of allegorical characters. It was also in Jordano that the theatre first involved the audience into the action transforming them into witnesses and judges at the trial against Bruno. The audience was divided into adherents and opponents of the heretic under the trial.
The next reverberating performance of the Company - «Carmen Funebre» or «Mournful Song» (1993) is about the tragedy of the war-struck society. The events of cMI war in the former Yugoslavia had much impact on the play. Pavel Shkotak managed to show the essence of war - destruction of personality by the war machine. The performance is full of expression: scenes of violence, of outrage on the humans, cremation of attires, desecration of a cemetery. This is the performance not only about the war in Yugoslavia but also about the World War II, the civil war in Ireland, the airs in Chechnya, Georgia and Armenia, about war as a condition of the world.
Does the performance impress? If I were told that a grim stilted cropper with ten- foot hayfork or the sound of the bell, accompanying burning of the scenery, can produce more impression than many hours of news about footsteps of the century, I would never believe. But so it is!
Andrian Terpin. Independents
Visual images are changing with dizzying speed of a movie, scenery on the background of the night, set in a park or in a square, reminds of a movie set.
The fire in the finale stands for elimination and catharsis. There is something religious and excruciating when the Slavonians create their precise and striking images.
The fire in the finale stands for elimination and catharsis. There is something religious and excruciating when the Slavonians create their precise and striking images.
Juan Carlos Mojano. El Espectador