Imagine

„Imagine” is an artistic journey to the world of counterculture, times of cultural and identification revolution of the turn of the 60-ties and the 70-ties. Krystian Lupa, starting with the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine”, asks the question on utopia’s liveliness in the modern world, especially the idea of New Age, the world without wars, countries, possessions and hatred. The title of the spectacle corresponds to the previous Lupa’s play, legendary “Factory 2” (produced by the National Stary Theatre in Cracow) which was based on life and output of Andy Warhol.

Krystian Lupa asks about utopia’s place in the world where spirituality has been either commercialized or politicized and human values, human rights, equality and individual freedom have been depreciated. The director returns to a psychological and spiritual phenomenon of New Age and to traces from “Imagine” by John Lennon, who – as a “new Christ” – suggested to imagine the world without wars, countries, hatred and possessions but without religion, too. Do these visions sound naïve nowadays? Is the belief in an infinite human evolution and metaphysics only a day-dream or an immemorial need of mankind? Why this pacifistic idea failed so quickly in the 70-ties? Are the chances for spiritual change greater during a crisis?

“There is a funeral banquet going on, or maybe it is a meeting of old friends-dreamers that reminds that banquet? One of us prepared a PERORMANCE on this occasion – LET US SAY EVERYTHING WE COULD HAVE DONE AND WE DID NOT DO…

Who are those people who may not have even met – or maybe they were friends due to their mutual dreams?  Andy Warhol, Thomas Bernhard, Caspar Hauser, Carl Gustav Jung, Sylvia Plath, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Ferguson – media and new man vision creators… It is only a handful of coincidental names that initiate the search for mental and literary matter concerning this subject… 

This is not going to be about a dream or dreamers. Neither it is going to be about John Lennon nor The Beatles though the banquet may have something to do with his death → the gunshot in the Dakota building close to Central Park and the Strawberry Fields’ symbolism… 

Can we answer the question why this belief in the society’s change died? Is it possible to generate the second wave → a religious change of mankind without believing in an individual immortality?” 

(fragments of Krystian Lupa’s diaries)

The spectacle is produced within the international „Prospero. Extended Theatre” project thanks to the European Union’s „Creative Europe” assistance.