„The Pyramid of Animals” at the 32nd Festival!
„The Pyramid of Animals”, directed by Michał Borczuch and and our visit in Cracow to see the spectacle produced by The Helena Modrzejewska National Stary (Old) Theatre ended the competition part of the 32nd Festival of Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant. Congratulations to the director for The Stanisław Wyspiański Theatre Award which he received just after the festival performance. Thank you for spending the whole Saturday with us reflecting on the broadly defined freedom in art.
It was an important night and an unusual final of this year’s edition of International Festival of Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant, which was accompanied by the main theme suggested by Ewa Pilawska, artistic director of the festival: „Freedom in Theratre?” „The Pyramid of Animals” seeks answers to this question on many levels.
Are creators allowed to do absolutely anything? Should art be free from any limitations? Should the category of ‘responsibility’ be part of the discourse on art? What do we think today about the creators of the Polish critical art movement of the 1990s? Looking at it from the perspective of 2026, are they boundary-pushing and taboo-breaking visionaries? Is shocking the audience a tool or an end in itself? Could a modern version of famous Grzegorz Kowalski’s „Smithy” appear in 2026? Was it closely related to the Polish economic transition of the 1990s?
What kind of public response did Katarzyna Kozyra, Zbigniew Libera, Jacek Markiewicz, Paweł Althamer, Artur Żmijewski, Katarzyna Górna and Joanna Rajkowska provoke? How did critics and other visual artists react to their works? What do their radical gestures mean to us today, and what would Polish contemporary art be like without their works?
These are among the questions raised by „The Pyramid of Animals”, leaving us without clear-cut answers. As Michał Borczuch and the creators noted during the post-spectacle discussion, their goal was not to create a documentary or a lecture on critical art, which is why the artists’ works do not appear in the performance and are not interpreted. Borczuch was interested in opening an interpretation, as he said – according to Didi-Hubarman’s method [Georges Didi-Huberman (b. 1953) – a French philosopher and art historian – trans. note]. The creators also talked about the process of building characters that were not meant to be reproductions of the originals. The issue of „The Pyramid of Animals” references to Krystian Lupa’s Factory 2” was also raised (Lupa’s spectacle had premiered on Chamber Stage of Stary Theatre and some actors who had played in it performed also in „The Pyramide of Animals”) – both Lupa’s and Borczuch’s spectacles explore the condition and freedom of the artist.
Thank you for the meeting, thank you for the whole 32nd Festival
- The 32nd International Festival of Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant is held under honorary patronage of Ms Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, Marshal of the Senate of the Republic of Poland, and Ms Hanna Zdanowska, Mayor of the City of Łódź.
- The 32nd eddition of the Festival is co-financed by the City of Łódź and the Minister of Culture And National Heritage (programme „Theatre 2026”).
- EXPO-Łódź is the strategic partner of the 32nd Festival.
The Helena Modrzejewska National Stary (Old) Theatre in Cracow
„The Pyramid of Animals”
Directed by Michał Borczuch
Text, dramaturgy: Mateusz Górniak
Stage design and costumes: Dorota Nawrot
Music: Bartosz Dziadosz
Light directing, video: Robert Mleczko
Choreography: Paweł Sakowicz
Camera operator: Jakub Katarzyński
Cast: Iwona Budner, Urszula Kiebzak, Aleksandra Nowosadko, Małgorzata Zawadzka, Michał Badeński, Bogdan Brzyski, Roman Gancarczyk, Mikołaj Kubacki, Kamil Pudlik, Krzysztof Zawadzki
