What is the meaning of life and can it be discovered even in the face of suffering? Viktor Frankl – a world-renowned psychiatrist, logotherapy creator and concentration camp survivor – tried to answer this question. fewer people, however, know that he besides wrote a philosophical drama in which Kant, Socrates and Spinoza meet on phase to talk about the condition of man in times of border experience. It was this forgotten text that became an inspiration for the exceptional performance "Synchronization of Birkenwald", which was first exhibited in Poland. Dr. Roman Solecki – manager of the Krakow Institute of Logotherapy, logotherapist, psychotherapist of addictions, mediator, supervisor, as well as the creator of the Immanuel Kant character in this extraordinary performance, talks about his uprising, message and strength.
Julia Dudek: Where did the thought for specified a performance come from?
Roman Solecki: The communicative is interesting due to the fact that about 3 years ago, erstwhile Viktor Frankel's grandson was here in Cracow at 1 of the conferences we invited him to, at 1 point, erstwhile we were having coffee together, he asked me: Did you know that my grandpa besides wrote a theatre performance? I was shocked due to the fact that we have Frankl's books translated into Polish. We besides know that there are inactive many books that are not translated. no of the logotherapists and people who someway knew Viktor Frankl's story, however, knew that he besides wrote drama, theatre play. He wrote this play shortly after leaving the concentration camp, with respective due to the fact that he survived a full of four. Drama is highly interesting due to the fact that Frankl places 3 philosophers in it: Kant, Socrates and Spinoza, who talk about the meaning of human life. They decide to go down to the concentration camp to look at how people cope with suffering: with what they cannot change, with conditions that are tragic and borderline to man. They look at what happens in the camp barracks, where there are prisoners who fight, experience different issues, longings, who lose the meaning of life and who no longer want to live. They look at people who long for their household and constantly comment on what is happening in this barracks. It's a very intriguing convention, giving a message. erstwhile I got that script 3 years ago, it was in the drawer. I was happy to get it from Viktor Frank's grandson, but I was wondering what to do with it. I knew we might request it someday. As the anniversary of Viktor Frank's 120th birthday (26 March 2025) approached, I thought it was a good chance to organize something special. At the time, we thought on the board of the foundation, we'd do his art. And so began the adventure.
What does she look like?
The beginnings were hard due to the fact that erstwhile I asked a friend actor from the People's Theatre for an opinion and for her to urge individual to me who might be curious in directing this performance, prof. Agnieszka Mandat, who is simply a theatre-film actress, but besides a director, suggested to me. I sent her the script and erstwhile she read it, she said that it was very difficult, ambitious and that it was impossible to implement it, due to the fact that it was essential to translate doctrine into theatre boards and bring up specified a hard topic, without having the full background. We're a foundation, not a professional theatre that hires actors, has a phase and everything. On the 1 hand, we only wanted to honor this anniversary of Viktor Frank's birthday, but on the other, we went consecutive for a text that is very hard due to the fact that it is simply a accumulation of dense subjects and yet a doctrine that is hard today. After all, present we like shallow, superficial, rapidly given things. We are in the culture of the screen – we like emoticons alternatively than something that invites us to deeper and serious reflections. In 2024 we began working on drama. Originally, it was only expected to be for 1 time, which is that we will do it on March 26, 2025, we will play it once, we will do specified a gift to Viktor Frankl – we will honor his 120th birthday, and that is it. But for a year, quite a few things happened. We have engaged in this work of professional actors from Kraków theatres, statisticians and enthusiasts of logotherapy. Paweł Moszmanski, who is simply a valued theatre composer, wrote music especially for this performance. Julia Partyka from the Slovak Theatre made a set. We besides utilized works by Marian Kołodziej, who was besides a prisoner of Auschwitz from the first transport, number 432. For 50 years after he left the camp he was silent and only erstwhile he had a stroke, he read it as a sign that he had to share this trauma and started drawing. We utilized elements of this work as a phase plan for the performance. And so art arose, Sync at BirkenwaldIt was written by Viktor Frank. For the first time in Poland Frankl's performance is presented. We besides managed to get a licence to issue it. We had a preview show on March 26th this year. On 27 September, the Polish Prime Minister will take place in the Kiev Cinema.
How long are you going to play it?
I think it's a performance that can be played for a fewer years. He's very interested. Now from September to December we will play practically all 2 weeks in different places. Now we're going to play a pre-prime show at the Ludwik Solski Theatre in Tarnów. Then we premiere on 27 September in the Kiev Cinema, and already on 11 October we play at the Groteska Theatre in Krakow. In October we besides have a show in Nowy Sącz, in November we play in Oświęcim and in Jabłonka in Orawa, in January at the National Army Museum in Krakow. Well, we've been planning on doing that since February. tour with this performance, due to the fact that we have already received invitations from Wrocław, Warsaw, Katowice, Gliwice, Poznań and more. These plans are beautiful broad.
How do thinkers face the experiences of concentration camps and these hard issues?
This is interesting due to the fact that each has a somewhat different doctrine of life. Each of them is looking for something else. Everyone comes from a somewhat different era. They play the function of specified companions, wise men, you might say, guides who wonder why people, even though they live so long, have not learned anything yet. mostly Socrates acts as a hero who, as it were, invites Kant and Spinoza to cooperate, saying that they gotta come down to earth to show people through art that something can be done about this fragile condition of the human psyche, with a sense of emptiness. They inactive live frequently without deeper reflection and senselessness. They are individual who confronts, helps, points the way, due to the fact that in the show they are from another dimension. They look at what is happening in our planet at a distance, but by doing so they can aid us to realize better what pain, suffering, loss, longing is.
Where did the title of drama, Birkenwald Synchronization come from?
Because Birkenwald is simply a symbol of different concentration camps. This is simply a combination of 2 names Birkenau and Buchenwald. These are 2 camps, so Frank's like a Birkenwald.
And how does Birkenwald synchronisation stand out in so many another plays?
I think it's authentic. The fact that doctrine appears on the phase boards, that it is besides a real story, or art based on facts. On the 1 hand, it moves specified a naturalistic image of the camp, where there are prisoners and where there is simply a capo who abuses them. In fact, we look at what the prisoners of the concentration camp may have experienced. Especially since this year we have the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. And on the another hand, it is ambitious philosophy, or art, that gives hope and confronts the viewer with border situations, or areas in us that we do not always want to watch in theatre or in film. This is simply a play that distinguishes the creator himself – Viktor Frankl, a prominent psychiatrist and neurologist, created only her. It's a spectacle that's self-therapy for him, a evidence in which he places himself, and the prisoners are not random. There's Frankl with his brother, there's his mom, there's his friends, and he's in the camp somewhere. A small bit of his biography just shown on stage. By the way, art that can become prevention. We have specified experience and feedback from people who were at this performance that they were moved to leave and said that this spectacle worked in them for weeks, and allowed them to answer questions that they had been asking themselves in therapy for many years. It is simply a spectacle that, despite the gravity of the subject, gives hope and can become an chance for specified strengthening of the sense of life, or at least showing the way to discover this sense.
You raised the question of how drama affects the recipient. And how does it affect you as players? Do you have any effects on him?
I'm certain your legs hurt. Eight-hour rehearsals, where we, for example, stood in the theatre on stage, for me was a reality I had never known before. In advanced school and college, I had a passion for theater, so I got a small bit active with it, but I've never seriously experienced acting. Now I'm kind of invited to her, so many hours of rehearsals with the director's retail tips, with work on character, gesture, word, theme, intention. Besides, for me, it was specified a journey into myself. In fact, from the inside it is simply a tedious job, but it is simply a occupation that truly gives a completely different knowing of the word and those issues that I mentioned earlier. What I'm going through right now, what I've been through in my life, to make this character authentic, to make her realistic. So each of us put himself in there, and for me as a psychotherapist, too, due to the fact that as a therapist, I work myself, my own personality. The patient is kind of looking at me, so the more I care about myself, the more the patient will be able to take the therapy. Even though I will have large methods and techniques, education, it's always about the relation I'm going to build with a patient. It is the same here that I can be a large actor and know quite a few techniques, have large aparity, but yet it matters what kind of relation I will build with that character I want to play. And it's an amazing adventure for me – to meet and grill Frankl's text for a year. proceeding for the hundredth time any text causes you to start a small bit of this text to live, you start to wonder how this text shows in the body why this character is saying this at this point. We have engaged together in a work that is simply a mission. And each of us has the feeling that he is active in something peculiar and important. We want to put our coffee on the table, but we besides want to stimulate a very deep reflection. I think that each of us, actors, personally, survived due to the fact that it was a tedious occupation that besides had its crises, question marks. I remember in January erstwhile we decided we couldn't do it due to the fact that we didn't know the full text yet. And to play it authentic, you gotta know this line to build it on stage.
And how do you build relationships with your hero?
I play Immanuel Kant, so this is an interesting and hard character. A German metaphysicist, named after the creator of idealism, who admits in the performance that he truly is simply a realist. I just started by reading about Kant and reading Kant. The most celebrated for us is his categorical imperative, in which he says that we should act in specified a way that how we act becomes a universal law. As Kant said, “The sky starves above me, and the moral law in me.” This means that we should live by specified principles as we are convinced that we would like everyone to live by them. While reading Kant, his transcendental criticism, looking at any of his character's history. Then looking for what Kant could do if he went to camp. It's hard to realize Frankel in his experience. Well, let's face it, individual else he invites to see him. In addition, from another era, where there were no camps and there were no known planet War I and II. So this is simply a very interesting procedure and a large challenge. We request to modernize Kant and face him with the reality of planet War II. So I think there's any me in Kanta.
Why is it worth considering the meaning of life and the emotions or feelings you mentioned?
I think it's any kind of foundation of a fulfilled life. Frankl erstwhile said that we cannot strive for happiness due to the fact that it is simply a side effect of meaningful life. If we do not face specified fundamental questions as these philosophers besides ask, questions about purpose, meaning, history, about who I am, what I live for, etc., then we live only on the surface of emotion, fast pace of life, tasks that we undertake all day. Then we begin to experience senselessness, despair, any frustration. We forgot a small bit or possibly we even got frightened by these crucial and fundamental questions. Life seems easier without them. Yet we all pass away, we die, we suffer, and we would all be happy to avoid these experiences. We want to live forever and be happy forever. There are things the modern planet is moving distant from. After which, erstwhile a failure or difficulty arises, it turns out that we cannot handle it.
But on the another hand, what if life doesn't truly make sense? announcement that erstwhile we look for him, it happens that a man starts doing it by force and seeks justification that he is alive. What if we just live like another animals and all that? Doesn't that work the other way erstwhile we're looking?
That's right, Viktor Frankl comes here with a hint, due to the fact that he clearly said that meaning isn't something we're expected to be looking for by force. We're not expected to make it or invent it. It's not something we've discovered in our lives erstwhile and for all. I'm not expected to feel the force to find that meaning of life, due to the fact that if I don't find it, it means my life is gonna suck. Frankl says that meaning comes as a consequence when, for example, I carry out values that are crucial to me in life. due to the fact that values are sensory. And it may be that someone, for example, wants to be happy at all costs, but there is no reason to be happy. For example, he does not realize the value of friendship, specified as development, faith, love, family, etc. He avoids these things, constantly engages in, for example, work, tasks, does not care about himself, about relationships, does not care about relationships with others, pursues something that he thinks will bring him happiness. In fact, he ignores what is the foundation for him, that is, crucial values. And then it turns out she's surviving in specified frustration. Then they come to my office and say, "I have everything, but I don't make sense." And all of a sudden, erstwhile we start working with values, it turns out that I have everything, but no of the values that are most crucial to me in life get what I need. But it can be the same with values that I might lose contact, for example, with the value that is, I don't know, freedom, friendship, dignity. And that can consequence in that sense of emptiness. So sense isn't something I'm forced to look for in everything. due to the fact that Frankl will say we're uncovering a point. It is under all circumstances, even the most inhuman ones. It is worth trying to find these small meanings in everyday situations that happen to us. Even Frankl will say that life itself is the answer to the question of the meaning of life. I can't be sad present and say, "Damn, another day I haven't figured out the meaning of my life." And on the another hand, I missed so much sense present that I could fill and realize. I don't know: passing an hr to individual who asked me at the bus stop, but I didn't want to talk due to the fact that I had headphones on my ears, and I didn't hear at all whether I was answering a text or I didn't get a call from an old friend, and he thought I didn't want to talk or I didn't have time. These are the situations that invitation us all day to fill any small sense. We have the freedom not to get involved, but then we hazard staying with that feeling at the end of the day.
What about the activities of the Logotherapy Institute?
I never expected that the Krakow Institute of Logotherapy, which is simply a foundation aimed primarily at helping people discover the meaning of life and helping people in existential crises, training psychotherapists, creating support groups, would become a theatre producer. This is, you might say, any of our work. We have become a bit of a theatre, and this is another product or mission that we engage in, and we besides have the thought that it will not be just a performance that we will be playing in, but we want to and we are already beginning to carry out performances after the premiere, after which we can meet the creators. We want young people, advanced school students, to be people who may be looking for meaning. We see large possible in the anticipation of creating an chance to talk to the creators, to ask questions and to take a joint reflection on what has just happened here. So we want this show to besides service as specified a work material later, just as part of a class, a school, various support groups, to become a small bit of a therapeutic text.
How can doctrine and art give strength to overcome obstacles?
This is besides an interesting theme, due to the fact that erstwhile Fyodor Dostoevsky said that only beauty will save the world. And this is something that for these times has most likely 1 of the strongest forces of influence – art. due to the fact that in modern times, where many things are relative, where everyone creates their own truth, where we feel alone, where everyone is created in social media, where we have lots of possibilities, we do not know what to choose. Today, art has a universal language of communication – in the theatre room, people can sit next to each other, who do not agree with each another all day, and here they sit next to each another and this experience unites them. 1 can say that this message they receive in the theatre is universal, due to the fact that it contains universal truths. Good, truth, beauty, freedom, search for meaning. Everyone meets it alone, but in the community. So the other of what we have on the screens – that's where we all meet, but everyone is alone. In his area or on his phone, even though there are a million people or billions. And here's the other experience. We are together and we have a feeling that we are together as a community, but everyone is personally experiencing and we do not know what is happening in the individual next to us, who abruptly cries, for example, or gets emotional, what she is experiencing, what she is seeing now. And I think it's beautiful, and by that it can be said that the theatre present has a very strong bearing power and we can do large work to aid people. If it's ambitious, actual and hopeful. And I think that “Synchronization in Birkenwald” is just specified a drama, and I think it is something for that time.
The communicative of Viktor Frankel's drama restored to viewers present shows that art can be more than an aesthetic experience. It may be a question of meaning or even a hopeful experience. "Birkenwald synchronisation" is not only a theatre, but besides an invitation to individual reflection and encounter what is deepest in man.
__
Roman Solecki – manager of the Krakow Institute of Logotherapy, academic teacher, educator, mediator, psychotherapist of addictions, logotherapist, and supervision.
