język polskijęzyk angielski

Kingdom

Genre
Drama
The place of action
landfill site - “the kingdom”
Female cast
Male cast
Original language of the play
Details
Existential tragicomedy
Original title
Królestwo

Among the garbage heaps, a wretched man, the Lone Man, walks. His everyday life is filled with reciting newspaper headlines found in the dump and collecting junk. Suddenly, there appears the Lone Woman, who - initially unsuccessfully - tries to pull him out of isolation. Soon, the first barrier is broken - the Lone Man offers his companion fruit and vegetables (like Beckett's Vladimir towards Estragon), although the residual interactions are far from real communication.

Jakubowski openly plays with Beckett's work, especially with Waiting for Godot and Happy Days. But Jakubowski's dump is not only a representation of a destroyed culture, language, and recycling of used up ideas. The image of the dump serves him primarily to emphasize the individual perspective of the protagonist; objects help to build a memory palace. The Lone Man remembers his grandmother through the prism of the things he uses. Phrases taken from old songs also appear as artifacts of bygone times. The author gradually reveals to the reader the details of a private drama. The Lone Man avoids contact with others, is distrustful (he cites the story of Magellan who was killed by the natives of the discovered archipelago), but this does not discourage the Lone Woman, who initiates a game of "kingdom", assuming the roles of monarchs and peasants, which reveals the close nature of the relations that once united the characters.  In the meantime, we recognize the behaviour of two ex-lovers, each wounded.

The man orders his companion to confess her betrayal. The woman tells a laconic story, trying to trivialize the affair. The man derives a perverse, masochistic pleasure from hearing about someone else's erotic life, like the protagonists of some of Bergman's films or von Trier's Breaking the Waves. Perhaps subconsciously, the protagonist of this play tries to discredit his partner, gain control over her, force her to confess her guilt. Or maybe he just wants to understand...?

The man wants to resurrect his old life, but the woman cools his enthusiasm: "You must know that nothing will be as it was before. This is the first law of the "kingdom". The woman becomes more and more confident in taking control of her companion. She changes the narrative; she starts tormenting him with colourful stories about her side-piece. Finally, she gives him hope to rebuild the kingdom and promises a crown. But it is the coronation of a donkey; in the morning the Lone Man notices the absence of his beloved - only "a pound of rags" left. Jakubowski's drama is not only a skilful juggling of literary conventions. It is also a psychological game, a power play in which the characters use various tricks - manipulation, building trust, playing on emotions. But the author also touches upon other topics - a nihilistic lack of faith in a person's moral condition, awareness of one's own mortality, looking at the "other side of an illusion", where under a healthy, resilient body there is the "kingdom of a worm". The inhabitant of the "kingdom" is a man exposed to constant mockery, trying to regain dignity and respect in the eyes of another, which still ends with his humiliation. This multi-level piece is an intriguing challenge for potential directors and a pair of actors who can find their own interpretations in it. Finally, the staging of the play creates many opportunities for stage designers - mirages of an idyllic countryside are drifting over the apocalyptic dump...