The season of first presentations. What will happen in Powszechny Theatre in Łódź in 2024/2025 season?

• In this coming  2024/2025 season Powszechny Theatre in Łódź will premiere two Polish plays that last season were awarded in our „Comedywriting” competition. There will be staging of „Green Glade” („Zielona polana”) by Paweł Mossakowski (directed by Paweł Szkotak) and staging of „VHS” by Marcin Bałczewski (directed by Sławomir Narloch).

• - I have been trying to build a clear artistic logo of Powszechny Theatre as Polish Comedy Centre, a comedy laboratory seeking for a place of comedy in the theatre. This has been a challenge that requires sensitiveness and time. I am happy that on our stages we will „try” two plays awarded in „Comedywriting” competition – Ewa Pilawska, director of Powszechny Theatre and originator of the competition, says. – I am happy that we will take the artistic risk here in Łódź; that we create Polish Comedy Centre in the very heart of Poland; that on the theatrical map of Poland Powszechny Theatre in Łódź has been well known and recognisable thanks to International Festival of Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant as well as to our clear artistic comedy logo and our search within this often underestimated genre – she adds.

•  For the coming season Ewa Pilawska also planned first Polish presentation of   „You Shouldn’t Have Said So!” („Fallait pas le dire”) – a French play by Salomé Lelouch; another presentation for our young viewers in the „Child In a Situation” project as well as new presentations in the „Reading theatre for the blind and partially sighted persons” project.

•  Juliusz Machulski, an outstanding theatre creator who has been connected with Polish Comedy Centre since its very beginning, has been writing his new play specially for Powszechny Theatre.             

„VHS” – dreams of a better future with gas station (CPN), a Polonez car and Rambo in the background

In November „VHS” by Marcin Bałczewski will premiere on our Small Stage. The play will be directed by Sławomir Narloch. It was awarded in the seventh edition of „Comedywriting” – the all-Poland competition for writing a modern Polish comedy, organized by Powszechny Theatre in Łódź. The competition was settled last season. Sebastian Jasnoch will play the lead role.

It is a story of a man whose trials and tribulations were entangled with social, structural and economic changes that took place in Poland in the 80-ties and the 90-ties of the last century. He decides to take the bit in his hands and comes up with the idea of his own private business. Fo this he intends to use a video recorder that was stolen from the transport of articles sent to the West as well as pirated VHS cassettes…

 - I am interested in literature „close to the man” – plays which try to present every day life of ordinary people. „VHS” is a moving story about a man who believes his time has just come. And VHS cassettes are to become his way to happiness, wealth and freedom… He travels all over the country and organizes shows of foreign films in depots and village community centers. And then he makes a great man – Sławomir Narloch says.  

For villagers, amateur film shows are a Western wind, an ersatz for luxury like a first sip of Coke. For the protagonist – an „American Dream” in its Polish version. – Though from our perspective the 90-ties are a distant, mythical time where the world opened up and everything seemed possible, I still have an irresistible impression that the drive for success, for making a great man, has been telling our everyday life on and on and on. We have been living in the reprise of the 90-ties. In Powszechny Theatre we are producing a comedy which will take us into the world of deserted gas stations, the Rambo-style movies and a Polonez car with a Christmas tree air refreshener. You feel the smell, don’t you? – the director says.               

 „Green Glade” – a development criminal comedy

This coming season Powszechny Theatre will produce another play awarded in „Comedywrting” competition. It will be the winner of the seventh edition of the competition – „Green Glade” by Paweł Mossakowski, directed by Paweł Szkotak. The comedy brilliantly describes the so-called modern elite. Heniek is a successful developer. It is an open secret that his success is not caused by his building skills and a nose for business but by the fact that he will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Corruption, lies, bullying – these are some of his methods. A relentless businessman is even ready to sell his own family in order to have another investment developed.            

- „Green Glade” by Paweł Mossakowski is – according to the subhead given by the author – a criminal comedy, a genre which sporadically appears on Polish stages. My attention was drawn by fast-flowing dialogues, a plot with many twists, interesting psychological portraits of the characters and intelligent sense of humour. The protagonists form a typical Polish family: husband moneymaker, wife with her conservative views and their obedient daughter. Then an unanounced visit of a nephew turns their apparently well-organized world upside down and family secrets come out… - director Paweł Szkotak says.              

Henryk who is good at manipulating local politicians and journalists is certain that everything is under his control but it appears that he has already lost sight of important things and does not realize what is really going on at his home. „Green Glade” on the one hand is a diagnosis of intellectual status of people considering themselves a social elite and on the other hand a story/a warning about family. Is it worth to be honest and faithful to your views nowadays?       

Should everything be said out loud? First Polish presentation of „You Shouldn’t Have Said So!” by Salomé Lelouch

In the coming 2024/2025 season Powszechny Theatre in Łódź will show first Polish presentation of „You Shouldn’t Have Said So!” („Fallait pas le dire”)– a French play by Salomé Lelouch. She is an actress, director and playwright, daughter of famous screenwriter and director Claude Lelouch – one of the most important creators in the history of French cinema and winner of many important awards, to mention Palme d’Or in Cannes, Golden Globe and Oscar (for „A Man And a Woman” – „Un homme et une femme”).  In her play „You Shouldn’t Have Said So!” Salomé Lelouch examines modern relations and convetions. The question „Should everything be said out loud?” is the leitmotiv of the play which seeks an answer to it.  

- It is a attempt to look at how honesty and freedom function in modern partnerships. Do schematic conventions we give involuntarily in to, not distroy everything what is most important in human relations – closeness, tenderness, attention? And while we flee into a prosaic sphere of life is it possible that we – subconsciously – flee from responsibility for another person? To what extent are we ready to accept a partner without imposing on him/her our own idea what he/she should do, what is appropriate, what is important? Being in constant movement which is the result of technological revolution that goes on and on we create new forms of communication but they are not the panacea for the feeling of being more and more lonely. Salomé Lelouch touches the problem in an excellent way by creating apparently usual stories in which the protagonists try to find themselves and in which new social phenomena become a pretext to have a close look at present reality – director Jakub Przebindowski says.          

The play of Lolouch seeks the answer to the question how to build a mature relation between two people which allows them to keep their own individuality and separate points of view – both for everyday trivial things as well as for fundamental problems.

Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant for the 31st time, presentations in the „Reading theatre for the blind and partially sighted persons” project and in the „Child In a Situation” project 

In 2024/2025 Powszechny Theatre in Łódź will present new plays in the „Reading theatre for the blind and partially sighted persons”project – this year the project will be financially supported by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage within the programme „Access to Culture” („Kultura dostępna”). All presentations in the project have been directed by Ewa Pilawska on a voluntary basis – the director received many distinctions for this project (last year Ewa Pilawska was awarded for taking the first place in the 2023 edition of Community Idol competition and Powszechny Theatre also took the first place as „the institution open for the blind” – the distinctions were given by the community of the blind and partially sighted persons. „Boeing, Boeing” by Marc Camoletti will be one of the presentations. The French playwright can build up a comedy plot with an unusual precision and intuition. His „Boeing, Boeing” was put in the Guinness World Records as the French play which had been staged most often in the world.       

In 2025 there will the 31st edition of International Festival of Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant. As usual, detailed programme of the event will be published after the artistic director Ewa Pilawska has completed it. By the end of the season we will present another play in the „Child In a Situation” project.   

Modernisation of Powszechny Theatre in Łódź

- I believe that the second half of 2024 will open a new chapter in the history of Powszechny Theatre in Łódź. The chapter will be written due to a modernisation of the building and our Big Stage in the „European Centre of Comedy And Theatrical Education” project. The new space will give us more air, new energy and it will help us spread the wings. This is going to be the most strategic and most important investment of the theatre since it was built in 1945. According to the project on the turn of 2024 and 2025 the tender procedure will select the contractor of the project – Ewa Pilawska says.  

The „European Centre of Comedy And Theatrical Education” project will be financed by the City of Łódź and by European Union. It is going to be our priority for a couple of theatrical seasons to come. The investment must be carried out without an injury to the theatre and its people and this is going to be the biggest challenge. It is possible under the condition that during the investment Powszechny Theatre will operate in one or more places of replacement – a substitute space which will help us maintain our artistic continuity, the continuity of substantive projects and staging performances and being in touch with our audience. I do believe that with the help of the City of Łódź it will be possible for the theatre and its people to make it through the modernisation unscathed – Ewa Pilawska, director of Powszechny Theatre in Łódź, adds.