In our performance two worlds mingle. What is real is not always awake, and a dream does not always mean something unreal. The story of the journey of disabled man and his sister to Brussels to hire a sexual assistant is mixed with the story of lovers from a Midsummer Night’s Dream. My idea was to inscribe a realistic place (the disabled man’s room) into a surreal landscape. In our version of the staging, the Athens forest is a burned-out, desolate wilderness, a space of control and restraining orders of morality. Society controls and determines what is aesthetic and what is flawed, two stories meet dangerously close in this theme. The space of freedom appears to be the hidden world: symbolized by tangled roots. The root system is an alternative facing hierarchical and patriarchal control. In the root rhizomes, no element is first or central, each can be the beginning of the system and each is an equally important component of the whole. My intention was to juxtapose these two orders: the exposed world on top: cold and burnt out, and the world underneath: rich, full of forms shapes and darkness but offering a chance to regain freedom and sensuality. Puks are the guides in this world, in our performance played by actors with mental disabilities.
Midsummer Night’s Dream
Actors:
Roman Słonina
Barbara Lewandowska
Ewa Sobiech
Helena Urbańska
Iwona Kowalska
Joanna Matuszak
Magdalena Myszkiewicz
Paweł Adamski
Marian Dworakowski
Paweł Niczewski
Wojciech Sandach
Amelia Blus
Jolanta Niemira
Justyna Utracka
Bogusław Krasnodębski
Grażyna Madej
Wiesław Orłowski
Konrad Pawicki
Theatre company: Modern Theatre in Szczecin
Month & year of production: February 2023
Set designer: Agata Skwarczyńska
Costume designer : Agata Skwarczyńska, Anna Rogóż
Light designer: Agata Skwarczyńska, Monika Stolarska
Other Designers:
Director – Jakub Skrzywanek, Justyna Sobczyk
Choreography– Agnieszka Kryst
Video – Piotr Nykowski
Music – Jacaszek
Set designer’s Assistant: Anna Rogóż
Stage manager: Jolanta Szadkowska
Photo: Piotr Nykowski
