„Odyssey. A Story For Hollywood” at the 27th Festival

On Saturday, 23 October, at the Festival we could see „Odyssey. A Story For Hollywood”, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. The play was presented in Warsaw in Nowy Theatre – it was  another theatrical journey in the last years that has built up our festival community. Thank you for that long night we spent together.   

The script of the play was based on Homer’s “Odyssey”  and “Chasing the King of Hearts” and “A Story for Hollywood” by Hanna Krall.  In this long-awaited spectacle (the first performance was postponed several times because of the pandemic) that premiered in June, Krzysztof Warlikowski, just like in “(A)pollonia”, puts together an antique with the subject of the Holocaust. In the spectacle “the war and the lots of its victims” appear again and again. Warlikowski puts together the story of Homer’s Odysseus and the story of Krall’s hero – Isolda Regensberg, a Jewish woman who spent the whole war besting challenges as hard as any Herculean task to save her husband. He creates a world in which it is victims who have the right to speak, who continually return and do not give any chances of forgetting them, just like a dybbuk that appears in the final scene.         

The spectacle asks questions about how to present something that cannot be presented. How to tell a story about something that cannot be told? How to talk about the Holocaust and how the Shoah should be presented in a piece of art? What form should have the presentation of the Holocaust at the theatre and the cinema in order not to force the spectators to live through catharsis limited to watching a film or a spectacle? Does contemporary culture confine the truth about the Holocaust to superficial and melodramatic scenes in which a Jew is generally presented in a stereotyped form? Do we really care? Is Hollywood able to take up a subject of the Holocaust?  

After the show there was a meeting with its creators run by Jacek Cieślak. Piotr Gruszczyński and the actors told about the work on the spectacle in which (at the beginning) to role of Odysseus was to be played by Zygmunt Malanowicz. Zygmunt Malanowicz died this April (the creators dedicated “Odyssey…” to him). Stanisław Brudny, the friend of Malanowicz, agreed to take his role. During the meeting some other subjects were talked about, among others the topicality of mythological plots present in the spectacle, “Odyssey…” as a parable of escapes and the Odysseus character as a metaphor.    

 

“Odyssey. A Story for Hollywood”
based on Homer’s “Odyssey”  and “Chasing the King of Hearts” and “A Story for Hollywood” by Hanna Krall
Directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski
Stage design  and costumes: Małgorzata Szczęśniak
Script (based on Homer’s “Odyssey”  and “Chasing the King of Hearts” and “A Story for Hollywood” by Hanna Krall:  Krzysztof Warlikowski, Piotr Gruszczyński, co-author Adam Radecki; collaboration: Szczepan Orłowski, Jacek PoniedziałekArtistic collaboration: Claude Bardouil
Dramaturgy: Piotr Gruszczyński, collaboration: Anna Lewandowska
Music: Paweł Mykietyn
Lighting design: Felice Ross
Video and animations: Kamil Polak
Director of photography of the “Interrogation” scene: Paweł Edelman
Make-up and hairdresser: Monika Kaleta
Cast: Tomasz Wygoda, Mariusz Bonaszewski, Stanisław Brudny, Agata Buzek, Magdalena Cielecka, Andrzej Chyra, Ewa Dałkowska, Bartosz Gelner, Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik, Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak, Wojciech Kalarus, Marek Kalita, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Hiroaki Murakami, Maja Ostaszewska, Jaśmina Polak, Piotr Polak, Jacek Poniedziałek
Featuring in video: Maja Komorowska and Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda

Photos: Katarzyna Bąba