Distinguishing Features is an intense, hallucinatory story about the journey of teen Alisha who, after using the “sickiest legal high on the market”, finds herself on the life and death threshold. Or, as other character puts it, it is a story called “Alisha in Nightmareland”. The structure of the text is based on the smooth transitions from the hospital’s reality to psychedelic world created in the girl’s mind. Within the former, we can find such deformed characters as: the Mad Hatter, the Clown, King Ashthur, the Princess and the Ashtray, Goaty – all of them act as guides, prosecutors, mirrors, or demons. Those grotesque figures from known fables are the materializations of her fears: of being judged, of unfulfillment, of loneliness, of lacking the parental love, or of your own mediocrity. But they also serve as various faces of addiction. 

In the meantime, the doctor tries to save her life in the “real” world, not knowing what substances are circulating in her systems. All while her mother desperately prays for a miracle. The motif of “warmth” becomes a metaphor for the substances that are meant to fill the existential void – the one that both Alisha as well as the Princess and the Ashtray have in them, the one that exposes a chain of unnamed, unfulfilled needs and unconscious traumas. 

The climax is when Alisha decides to enter “her own blood” where she can understand what is the cause of her destruction and so she can, finally, tell the doctors the name of the drug she had used so they can save her life. The drama combines grotesque, interactive elements, dream poetry, and the rhythm of narcotic trip with the realistic experience of crisis creating empathetic, anti-moralizing story of vulnerability and the need of being seen.

Fadey is a first grader. He’s shy and has a stutter. He’d love to be a part of a group but the other kids in his class won’t accept him. It’s hard to tell why since they all have a struggle of their own: Charm can’t focus, Timmy D is frightful, and Little Miss Perfect has to always be the best in everything. It all changes once a new student – Candy, joins their class. The girl is blunt to a fault, can’t get any joke and has a short fuse. Now everybody turns on her instead of Fadey so he should be happy... but somehow he’s not.

Maria Wojtyszko’s Bad Girl is a warm, comedic story for young viewers that poses uneasy questions for us, adults. How do we treat people that are outside of the social norms? Are anger and aggression our new taboos? What exactly are we trying to protect our kids from? And how far are we willing to go to grant them safety?

1981. Janek is a caretaker in the Women’s Clothing Factory in Chorzęciny. This witty Casanova is a piece of a two-faced bastard. Thanks to his charisma and determination he’s able to wrap around his finger two women with strikingly different worldviews: Anna, a tailor and a member of the local division of “Solidarity”, and Wanda, a major in Security Service and a devoted communist. Janek cleverly hides the existence of “the other one” from his lovers – he has a thought-out strategy. He can change the interior of his cubbyhole in a wink of an eye: he flips the portrait of John Paul II the other way around so it reveals the image of Lenin, he changes the tune from Kaczmarski to soviet songs, in one moment he pours cold vodka to then toast with wine in the next one. The protagonist knows that playing a double game is very beneficial: Wanda, a member of the SB, turns out to be a real domina in a bedroom with a suitcase filled with sex-gadgets imported from West Berlin, and with the kind-hearted Ania he finds bliss and serenity that “could only be broken by the martial law” –Janek says it as a joke that turns into horrid reality after the speech given by the boss of State Defence Committee. The action gathers momentum; Anna leaves her lover with a black suitcase full of “Solidarity’s” money that the Secret Service is after. And which is eventually swapped with the one containing all of Wanda’s sex-gadgets after she makes Janek’s cubbyhole into her operational base with the help of dim-witted officer of the militia. But Janek can count on the divine help in his childhood friend, priest Wiesiek. In order to confine the truth of his polyamorous nature, the hero reaches the heights of the art of manipulation: he pretends to be the leader of the local “Solidarity”, he creates a funeral in Radom of his non-existing sister who was a nurse, a hooker, and a drug addict at the same time. Anna gets hidden in the closet while Wanda is handcuffed to the pipe in the bathroom wearing only her undergarments. Even his cassock wearing friend can’t be spared when he has to declare that his soul is as red as the flag of USSR. Wiesiek and Janek miracously avoid getting arrested and the “Solidarity’s” money finally find refuge in the Bishop’s theological seminary...

The author is a real virtuoso when it comes to the convention of farce, he winks at Cooney, and we can find quotes from The Sting in one of the props. The effect is a hilarious comedic farce cast in our absurd sauce.

Jarosław Jakubowski’s The Funeral is a grotesque, mysterious, and irrational play. It follows the story of a person called Him, a middle-aged man, a husband of 10 years, a father who in a Kafkaesque style is baffled by the absurdity of the events around him. The play does not show the actual ceremony as it starts a few days prior. The plot of The Funeral is divided into two sets. In the living set, so “here and now”, and in the memories of the main character who comments on the actions that take place beyond this world and set in motion further scenarios. It starts with a scene where the main character meets Maria, his wife, and their first date, to later jump into the “here and now” where the once loving woman is organising her husband’s funeral. It’s thanks to her that Him meets and bids farewell to other characters. That brings him closer to his own funeral as well as explains what he did (not do) wrong. 

The visits paid by the Maestro, the tailor, and the carpenter, who arrange the suit and the coffin for Him, bring forth the realisation how much he neglected his wonderful wife. Mother and Father give their son mourning shoes, they lecture him with prayer, and note that he never met their expectations, he achieved nothing, and he wasted his years being a drunk. The meeting with Drunkard, a local tramp, a former classmate, who dealt with his wife’s death, helps Him get familiar with death but it also reveals the truth about his mischievous youth. The talk with Son is meant to explain to him the following events and to be a tearful goodbye, but it just ends with him distancing from his father. And finally, the confrontation with the Man, Maria’s lover, that emphasises Maria’s misery and ignites in Him the will to fight for the woman and gives Him hope that this tragic destiny can be defied.

And so, in the play’s finale, the couple relives their past romantic moments, like swimming naked in the lake, but to no avail as the die is cast. The feeling has faded. Everything is set and the funeral must be performed. The play ends with a memory from the place beyond about a menu of the last morning and Him’s declaration that he’s finally ready. 

The Funeral is a perfect proposition for theatres that search for great and uneasy drama in Beckett-like style. For directors who are interested in the metaphysical tragedy of the human fate. And for actors who seek real, layered characters.

A group of individuals addicted to the Internet – Nikola and her lover Bruno, a couple Melania and Konstanty, a senior citizen Magda and a nerd Izydor – is taken to a secluded villa in the middle of a wood for an off-online rehab organised by the mysterious organisation called INFERNET. The driver Mikołaj takes off and leaves them stranded with no connection with the world. He ensures them that their coach will appear soon but just has to deal with something first. However, the coach does not show up and the group becomes more and more frustrated. To add to that, Konstanty finds his wife dead – seemingly died from suicide after drinking poison. When the group finds Izydor dead as well, it becomes clear that they deal with murder. But is the killer one of them or a stranger that snuck into the villa? They decide to search the building. Bruno and Nikola head upstairs. After a while, a scream can be heard coming form that room – Bruno is dead. The girl strongly denies having anything to do with his death. The tension rises as the 3 characters left alive – Nikola, Magda, and Konstanty – become increasingly more paranoid and start to be suspicious of one another. Suddenly, an investigator Maks visits the villa. As it turns out, the police was aware of the questionable affairs connected with the villa that had happened before. During Maks’ investigation, Konstanty dies and the truth finally comes to light – all of the deceased have drunk the, probably poisoned, water. But who poisoned it and why? Maks goes to the first floor to secure the evidence but he falls while descending the stairs. Now the only ones left are Nikola and Magda and it’s up to them to finish the investigation. 

Anna Burzyńska’s Infernet offers sudden plot twists as well as engaging mysteries to solve. It’s filled with thrill and horror but written in light, slangish language that is not devoid of comedic elements. The play tackles subjects such as Internet addiction and cyber-crime.

She and He – bound by love so overwhelming that they slowly lose the boundaries between their selves. They look through one another creating their intimate hymn. But with the passing months, scorching June turning into melancholic August, their love slowly transforms. The passion fades but does love vanish alongside it? Maybe the titular “awakening” is the realisation that in order to find oneself anew one must draw some boundaries? Or maybe one must realise that sometimes two people can be joined by a feeling so powerful that it inevitably leads to destruction?

Poetic theatrical miniature of Paulina Eryka Masa is a tender portrayal of the “impossible love”, the confrontation with the painful feeling of loss. 

Warsaw, 1930s. A married couple, a rabbi’s son and a daughter of a Jewish merchant, eat their Sabbath dinner, as they do every week. However, this time not only does Beniamin get home late from work and he refuses to eat his chicken soup – even though he should be hungry – but to add to that, Lea finds a lipstick smudge on his collar. The kids are sent outside and the couple decides to come clean and begins their marital discussion. Beniamin has, as it turns out, not one but two affairs: besides Goldbergowa, who fed him with soup, he also visits the communist Dora, who has a daughter with a very meaningful name – Aurora. But Lea gives as good as she gets: she admits that she’s seeing both the Poet (whom we can recognise as Jan Lechoń) and the Uhlan with a moustache. 

The bickering, the banter, and the excuses are interrupted with a half-serious dispute between fatalism – so the belief in fate – represented by Beniamin (who uses it as an excuse for all his wrongdoings) and voluntarism – a belief in free will – which is favoured by the unfulfilled artistic soul of Lea. In the first part of Słobodzianek’s play, that can be described as “well-made” romantic comedy, the conflict between fate and free will can seem as nothing more than a clever way to incite already witty dialogues. Similarly, in the memories of the characters’ youth: Beniamin’s fatalism is just another way to impress beautiful Lea. And that is how the first version, from 2019, of the text ends. However, after being inspired by Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story, Slobodzianek has written the continuation of the story that drastically changed the character of the drama. 

The play takes place in 1938 when the fear of war was fully justified. A few days after the argument, the Uhlan rushes into the couple’s house and proposes fleeting to Rome. Not long after, Dora stops by in hope that Lea will take care of Aurora when she goes to Moscow to help free her friend. The Poet just pops in to say goodbye – he’s escaping to Paris. Then Słobodzianek takes his viewers to 1945 Warsaw, razed to the ground. Lea and Beniamin’s house miraculously withstood the bombings but the titular Fatalist is the lone survivor of his family. 

And so the innocent and humorous quarrel between fate and free will becomes bitter and haunting in the face of war and the Destruction. But Słobodzianek doesn’t try to settle this dispute. On the one hand, the author asks how fate can be paired with such horrid events. On the other, The Fatalist seems to point out that the fight between free will and history can only be won by the latter. Despite this, in the final scene, Beniamin decides to put down the revolver that he pointed at his head. And so the last word belongs not to the philosophy but to life which, in the end, does not allow to be fitted into one mould. 

The play takes us to the 1962 Opole, specifically to Teatr Laboratorium (the Lab Theatre). The characters are based on the legends of Polish theatre: the Director, the Scribe, the Set Designer, and the actors and actresses. The team finds themselves in an artistic and existential clinch. The actors are tired with the side hustling, the poverty, the housing crisis, and the uncertainty of the future. Meanwhile the Director is trying to come up with an idea that would conquer Paris and then the world. The breakthrough happens when they decide to perform Wyspiański’s Acropolis but in a radical reinterpretation: the story wouldn’t be set in Wawel but rather in a “camp” that is the sum of the events of Auschwitz and the totalitarian regime. 

The drama follows the process of making this legendary play – from the back-breaking physical exercises (“the mask made of the facial muscles”), through ideological disputes, to the final scene of entering the box-crematorium. The background is made of the gray reality of living during the Polish People’s Republic: the censorship, the academies in honour of the October Revolution, and the personal problems.

Słobodzianek manages to demythologise the legend behind Teatr Laboratorium creating a piece that – as the title suggests – is simultaneously mocking and being apologetic. 

The author strips the Director of his “holy guru” title. The Director in Our Acropolis is a visionary as well as a ruthless manipulator and an egocentric. He treats the actors as instruments feeding on their traumas, insecurities, and weaknesses just so he can make them reach their personal heights. The great art is crated not through inspiration but thanks to the fumes of alcohol, the stench of sweat and accompanied by the tunes of “Tango Milonga” played on beat-up violin. 

The parts that made the metaphysically shocking elements of the historical play are seen here “from the backstage” as an assembly of attraction, fight for survival, and a cynic play with the regime. The drama is filled with bitter irony about the Polish reality in the 1960s. Słobodzianek points out how the great theatrical avant-garde sprung from the crude socialism and the post-war trauma. 

The lexical layer of the play is based on intentional, harsh dissonance. Słobodzianek mixes together three distinct worlds. First being the Young Poland, solemn, and rhythmic Wyspiański’s verse full of biblical and antique references. Next is a hermetic, intellectual, particular theatrical newspeak full of slogans about a “total act” or “transgression”. The third element is the brutal “language of the backstage” – private conversations of the actors, filled with colloquialisms and the crude reality of Poland at the time. This linguistic melting pot, completed by the French of the assistant – Eugeniusz, creates an effect of grotesque and highlights the divide between sublime idea of high art and the prosaic, material reality of its makers. 

Our Acropolis is a tribute given not only to Grotowski but rather his theatre and his actors – a “cannon fodder” of the theatrical revolution. Słobodzianek shows that the masterpiece that became a staple in our history of theatre textbooks was made out of the “mud” of human imperfection, fear, poverty, and desperation.