„How I Didn’t Kill My Father And How Much I Regret It” at the 30th Festival

Another presentation of the 30th edition of International Festival of Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant took part on Monday, 18 March, 2024, when we had an opportunity to see „How I Didn’t Kill My Father And How Much I Regret It” – a spectacle by Mateusz Pakuła. Thank you for last night’s important meeting. The standing ovation was long and it had an unusual load of intentness.   

„How I Didn’t Kill…” is a moving spectacle about the dying process of a close person – a diary of a father who suffered from pancreatic cancer. A personal story of a playwright and a director who through theatre expresses his rage that it is not possibile to shorten a dying man’s suffering. This is an accusation of the state, the Church, the law and the national health care system. An expression of powerlessness and helplessness in the situation in which we can do nothing to diminish the suffering of our loved person who is dying an agonizing death – because of external imperatives, bans and rules imposed on us.              

The spectacle is also a story about experiences of people close to the dying father, husband, son. Do we have the right to weakness? Do we  have the right to be angry? Do we have the right to admit – faced with the unimaginable agony of dying – that we get tired? Can expressing it out loud and being listened to help us?         

After the spectacle Jacek Wakar and Jacek Cieślak talked with its creators. They pointed out that the spectacle shows Polish reality in order to open a public discussion on the right to euthanasia in the situation of a immense suffering. Why do others decide about our right to shorten the agony of dying? The actors emphasized that the spectacle should be seen by all physicians (mainly the young ones) because they decide whether a patient would be treated with empathy or complete indifference. Mateusz Pakuła added that each spectacle was a form of autotheraphy, a work over the process of the father’s death for him and for his brother, who is the co-author and performer of the stage music.

 

„How I Didn’t Kill My Father And How Much I Regret It”
Co-production of Łaźnia Nowa Theatre in Cracow and The Stefan Żeromski Theatre in Kielce
Adapted and directed by Mateusz Pakuła
Stage design and costumes: Justyna Elminowska
Music: Zuzanna Skolias-Pakuła, Antonis Skolias, Marcin Pakuła
Vocals: Zuzanna Skolias-Pakuła
Lights director: Paulina Góral
Assistant to the lights director: Maciej Kaszyński
Video: Olga Balowska
Stage manager: Katarzyna Białooka
Cast: Andrzej Plata, Jan Jurkowski, Wojciech Niemczyk, Szymon Mysłakowski, Marcin Pakuła

 

Photos Maciej Zakrzewski