„I Wanted To Be” ended the 27th Festival

On Thursday, 28 October 2021, we presented the final show of this year’s Festival – “I Wanted To Be” directed by Michał Siegoczyński and produced by Powszechny Theatre in Łódź. Thank you for being with us, both on Thursday as well as throughout the whole Festival – the spectacles, meetings, discussions and exhibitions. This year the main theme of the Festival suggested by its artistic director Ewa Pilawska was “Artist In A Crisis”. This has been a very intensive time. Let us have a short break to catch a breath and in March we invite you to the next edition of the Festival.

“I Wanted To Be” is not the artist’s biography. It is a spectacle inspired Krzysztof Krawczyk and it shows a subjective look of the director at the singer’s phenomenon – both as an artist and as a man. Ewa Pilawska was persuaded to produce the spectacle by Michał Siegoczyński and Mariusz Ostrowski who were working on some other project in Powszechny Theatre. – “Why I wanted to stage a play about Krzysztof Krawczyk? In a sense it is a rhetorical question. Krzysztof Krawczyk is a very colourful person, everybody immediately recognizes his music, despite age and generation. I grew up together with this music but it is not important because I think you do not have to collect Krawczyk’s records in order to know his music very well – Michał Siegoczyński said before the first show. – “ I Wanted To Be” is a history of ups and downs, of testing different genres, in a way it is also my own variation on Polish music in general. And there is another plane of the spectacle – emotional and spiritual life, everything that happened beyond the stage. And from the stylistic point of view – a collision, a collage of different aesthetics – a musical, comedy, pop-culture quotes and biographical motives – Siegoczyński added.

After the spectacle Dariusz Pawłowski talked with its creators. Though it was very late Thursday night, the audience did not fail – it was probably the biggest audience of this year Festival’s meetings. The actors told about the process of preparing the spectacle and about specificity of working with Michał Siegoczyński who wrote the play and directed it. They noticed the first rehearsals had taken place last December – a few months before Krzysztof Krawczyk’s death. And it gave a brand new context to the production. The discussion also referred to the singer’s phenomenon and the challenge of impersonating characters whose “originals” sat in the audience. The spectacle creators told about original language and form of the play and noticed the fact that 9 actors played several characters.

Just around midnight we had to stop the meeting though it could have lasted longer. Thank you for your presence!             

 

Powszechny Theatre in Łódź
“I Wanted To Be”
By Michał Siegoczyński
Script and direction: Michał Siegoczyński
Stage design and costumes: Katarzyna Sankowska
Stage designer’s assistant: Anna Drobczyk
Music: Piotr Mania
Choreography: Alisa Makarenko
Multimedia presentation: Natalia Mentkowska
Cameras: Ewa Borowska/Paula Wilczyńska
Guitar recordings: Przemysław Hanaj
Dramaturgy consultant: Patryk Warchoł
Vocal training: Izabela Puk
Cast: Mariusz Ostrowski, Karolina Kleniewska, Diana Krupa, Karolina Łukaszewicz, Paulina Nadel, Ewa Sonnenburg, Filip Jacak, Jakub Kotyński, Artur Majewski

Photos: Maciej Zakrzewski