Mateusz Nowak’s monodrama ”From the Front and From the Back” (”Od przodu i od tyłu”) was awarded at numerous one-actor theatre festivals in Poland in the last theatrical season. The award-winning monodrama was produced under a scholarship from the Mayor of Lublin City.
The mondrama won the following awards:
Best Performance Award from the 12th National Contemporary Monodrama Festival in Warsaw
Bogusław Kierec Award and the Award from the Wrocław Society of Friends of Theatre from the 48th International One Actor Theatre Festival in Wrocław
Audience Choice Award from the 29th One Actor Theatre Festival in Toruń
Grand Prix award from the 7th Monodrama Festival "42-200 Monodram" in Częstochowa
Grand Prix award from the 3rd National One Actor Theatre Festival 3 SOLO in Olsztyn
Gazeta Wyborcza Readers Choice Award STRZAŁY 2014 for Best Cultural Event
Best Acting Award from the 42nd Theatre Festival in Tychy
Grand Prix award from the 11th Small Theatre Forms Festival in Lublin
”From the Back and From the Front”
inspired by: Karol Zbyszewski’s ”Niemcewicz od przodu i tyłu”
directed by: Stanisław Miedziewski
written by: Stanisław Miedziewski and Mateusz Nowak
performed by: Mateusz Nowak
costumes: Magdalena Franczak
running time: 60 min
The monodrama is set in the 18th century Poland, on the eve of its decline. The novel, which was supposed to be Karol Zbyszewski’s doctoral dissertation, ridicules politicians from the opposing parties, the clergy and the army, not sparing the king or the leading character – the author of “Powrót posła,” either. It sneers at drunkenness, laziness, recklessness, a penchant for empty clichés and gestures, sanctimoniousness, political litigiousness and other vices, thus blaming, in a way, the whole society for the partitions. The stage adaptation of Zbyszewski’s novel by Stanisław Miedziewski and Mateusz takes advantage of the image of a macabre world of jesters bossed around by the king…
