“The Life of Mrs Pomsel” has already appeared in Sławnik Teatralny – a performance that left a mark on me for a long time. Now it's time for a second gathering with the Polonia Theatre. This time, I will share the impressions of the performance “Department Records” directed by Magda Umer, with the extraordinary and poignant function of Krystyna Janda. It was another time, erstwhile I left the theater, I couldn't get back to my everyday life.
Monodrames have always fascinated me. This is simply a peculiar form – the highest effort at acting, in which for over an hr the scene belongs to 1 person. 100 minutes, 1 body, 1 voice (although supported by the music band), and the emotions and tensions were more than in many multi-faceted performances. Sophia Janda has shown her full possible here. She did not play – she became a average of memory, a witness and a translator of emotions, which, despite the passing of years, inactive decision with the same force.
The “records from exile” is not only a theatre, nevertheless – it is simply a evidence based on the memories of Sabina Baral, a 20-year-old immigrant of Marc ’68, the communicative turns into a communicative of a full generation pushed out of their own country. Baral was not straight present on phase – she hid herself in words, images, in silence, which would enter the communicative all moment. It is simply a theatre of memory, not a theatre of motion – and it was this invisible presence that worked most, causing me a painful question: How was it possible?
The show introduced the viewer into the atmosphere of that time besides through documents: passages of chronicles, recordings, quotes from organization appearances. This all worked out in Marc ’68’s poignant portrait, which was not just a date in the textbook, but a surviving wound in memory. I came out of the area with a feeling of weight – and a question that is hard to get free of: How can a man be able to take distant a house, a sense of belonging, a right to be at his home?
The simplicity of this show hit me the most. Without extended set design, without fireworks – only actress, text and music. And yet (or possibly that's why) emotions had the strength of an avalanche. The theatre has shown its essence here: word and memory can be stronger than the most awesome staging.
Long after the show, I thought about how crucial it is to remind people of history. due to the fact that “The records from exile” were not just a reconstruction of Marc ’68 – they were a warning. They showed how thin the line between everyday life and exclusion, between a unchangeable life and a sense of alienity in their own country is. And that all generation must do this lesson again.
The “records of exile” struck with simplicity and the power of emotion. It's a performance that didn't empathize in form, yet stayed in his heart for a long time. He reminded that there were stories that could not be closed in the archives – they had to be told again, for subsequent generations.
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"Exile records", Polonia Theatre
Directed by Magda Umer
Adaptation: Magda Umer and Krystyna Janda
Development and direction of music: Janusz Bogacki
Sound production: Michael Cacko
Projections: Radosław Grabski
Executive maker and assistant director: Ewa Ratkowska
Inspired: Ewa Ratkowska
Cast:
Krystyna Janda and Janusz Bogacki with a music band composed of: Tomasz Bogacki (guitar), Mateusz Dobosz/Paweł Pańta (kontrabas), [Bogdan Kulik]/Patryk Dobosz (drums), Marek Zebura (violence)
