Republic (Der Staat)
Co-production of The Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Cracow and Nationaltheater Mannheim
Author: Plato
Adaptation, direction, music arrangement: Jan Klata
Adaptation, dramaturgy, translation, teaching of Ancient Greek: Olga Śmiechowicz
Stage design, costumes, light: Mirek Kaczmarek
Stage movement: Maciej Prusak
Video: Natan Berkowicz
Ancient Greek language consultations: Danai Chondrokouki
Cast: Dominika Bednarczyk, Karolina Kazoń, Mateusz Bieryt, Wojciech Dolatowski, Marcin Kalisz, Marcin Sianko, Feliks Szajnert, Jacek Strama, Linda Pöppel
„Republic” is one of the most important philosophical and political works in history. Plato included in it, in the form of a dialogue, a synthesis of views about a society functioning in an ideal way. The essential category of the work (apart from many ethical, epistemological and ontological problems) is the problem of justice in the context of functioning of the state. Plato considers problems of order, ideal structure, analyzes 4 system forms – timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyrany, and analyzes advantages and disadvantages of each of them. What does the text written in the 4th century B.C. can tell us today? Why did Jan Klata reach for it?
„This is not going to be a boring philosophical treatise. This is going to be an uncompromising discussion on most important matters” – in this way the creators invite the viewers to see the spectacle. „We will discuss justice. What is justice nowadays? Is it one and constant or does it contain a space for interpretation and manipulation? For forceful appropriation and trampling? Who has the right to decide what is justified and what is not? Is such justice really necesasary for us nowadays?”, ask the creators.
„We will discuss the understanding, finding ourselves in a world where it is not the truth that is important but its intepretations. Anyway, what is the real truth and what do we take, or want to take, as the truth? Our truth. Where is the real world and what is blurred, reinterpreted and distorted in the translation?” – these are some of the problems raised by the spectacle.
„We are in ancient Greece; it is a cradle of theatre, something we have been trying to continue, of course it is also the beginning of the human thought on something which is abstract, unobvious but as a matter of fact the most important”, Jan Klata said. The director emphasized that „in the spectacle there is not even one word that was not written by Plato”.
The spectacle is performed in Ancient Greek with simultaneous translation into Polish using headphones.
Tickets
Regular: 180 zloties, reduced: 130 zloties
Duration
1 hour 40 minutes (without intermission)
When we play
