Anna Seniuk proves that large acting does not request setography, music or peculiar effects. Just a voice, a look, pause. And a communicative told in a way that's not easy. This theatrical experience, which does not end with applause – it returns, forces you to think, to ask yourself uncomfortable questions.
For a long time I wondered which performance should open my fresh column series in "Liberté!" in which I want to compose about theatre with my eyes – not as a specialist, critic or professional reviewer, but as a faithful viewer. For years the theatre has been a place for me to relax and experience intensely – a minute erstwhile 1 can break distant from everyday life, but besides look at it from a different perspective. erstwhile I leave the room, I frequently stay with questions that ripen in me. I thought it was worth sharing – not to give grades or compose notes, but to invitation you to a conversation. due to the fact that theatre – if it is real – does not end on stage. He lives in us long after the lights go out.
Which show deserves to start with? The choice was for a show that left me a permanent trail...
“The Life of Mrs Pomsel” directed by Grzegorz Małecki is simply a peculiar spectacle. The Monodram becomes a space of full focus, silence and reflection. And all thanks to the amazing Annie Seniuk, who in the function of the title Mrs Pomsel – secretary Joseph Goebbels – gives a show of acting discipline, humility and strength. This is not a function in which you can hide behind an awesome set plan or catchy directorial tricks. All work rests on the actor – and that is the work of her greatness.
For almost 2 hours we look at the sitting almost inactive Anna Seniuk... without phase flair, without theatrical tricks. And yet, possibly that's why we're not bored for a moment. On the contrary, we are hypnotized. Senius says... and the planet is quiet. Her voice is erstwhile calm, erstwhile cool, sometimes soft, and sometimes even cut. The pauses say as much as the words. all conviction sounds like the echo of that era, and at the same time touches us today.
The words that fall are strong, poignant, sometimes cruelly banal in their pronunciation, yet painful. due to the fact that it is hard to believe that Mrs Pomsel “did not know anything.” It is hard to realize how it was possible to work in the center of Nazi propaganda for years and to stay “innocent” – as she speaks of herself. And yet art does not justice directly. We don't get an answer, there's no moralist tone. Instead, we are forced to face questions: where is the limit of responsibility? Are silence and passivity as dangerous as active participation in evil?
How easy it is to blame the “times”, “system”, “overlords”. How comfortable to live in a self-deception. This sounds acquainted besides present – in a planet where we equally frequently hear later translations: “It is not me”, “I have been misunderstood”, “someone has drawn my words out of context.” Isn't the same mechanical avoidance of work repeated, but in another decorations?
It is simply a very sad communicative – not only about history, but besides about human nature. Indifference that can kill as effectively as violence. The silence that co-creates evil. Mrs Pomsel's communicative is not only a German past – it is besides a universal lesson about the fact that evil feeds on passiveness, that it happens next to us erstwhile we look away. Are we more alert today? Can we respond erstwhile injustice happens around us?
Anna Seniuk proves that large acting does not request setography, music or peculiar effects. Just a voice, a look, pause. And a communicative told in a way that's not easy. This theatrical experience, which does not end with applause – it returns, forces you to think, to ask yourself uncomfortable questions.
If you have the chance, go to the Polonia Theatre. It's 1 of those experiences that stays long. We managed to take a image with Ms Anna and talk for a while – highly good and modest. The same on and off the phase – real.
Finally, I would like to ask the question – both to myself and to you, to the Readers: does specified a cycle of columns about theatre make sense? Is it worth writing about phase experiences, sharing emotions that are born in the silence of the audience? Or should the theater, like a good show, live only in the memory of those who experienced it?
***
Performance: The Life of Mrs Pomsel, Polonia Theatre, Warsaw
Directed by Grzegorz Małecki
Translation: Margaret of Wrzesińska
Scenery and costumes: Dorota Kolodynska
Light and projections: Prot Jarnuszkiewicz and Grzegorz Małecki
Animations: Julia Mirny
Assistant phase designer and costumer: Gretel
Light production: Waldemar Zatorski
Sound production: Michał Suwiński
Executive producer: Magdalena Kłosińska, Assistant Executive Producer: Rozalia Saramonowicz
Inspired: Magdalena Kłosińska
Cast:
Anna Seniuk, in the materials of the film
