Stanisław Wyspiański – The Wedding (Wesele)
/ for audiences 13+ /
PREMIERE: 19 December 2015
CREATORS:
Directed and stage adapted by: Jakub Roszkowski
Stage Design: Maciej Chojnacki
Music: Michał Siwak
CAST:
- Mirella Rogoza-Biel as MARYNA
- Gabriela Jaskuła as ZOSIA
- Katarzyna Borek as RACHEL
- Wioletta Tomica as BRIDE
- Maria Wąsiel as RADCZYNI
- Ilona Zgiet as HOST’S WIFE
- Piotr Bublewicz as JOURNALIST
- Konrad Biel as HEADMAN
- Bogusław Beniu Byrski as GROOM
- Jacek Dragun as JASIEK
- Michał Zgiet as HOST
- Kacper Kubiec as POET
- Bartosz Siwek as CHOCHOŁ
The wedding described by Stanisław Wyspiański started on 20 November 1900 but it did not finish on the next morning. It did not even finish – as is typical of the countryside – several nights and mornings later. This wedding is still going on in the snatches of conversations and quotations – that you have to wear shoes at the wedding, that the Chinese hold on tight, that there is this Poland somewhere, that some oaf had the golden horn. We do not remember well who got married and what for, what was wrong about the Jews, where is the divide between the city and the countryside, and whose money we eat and drink for. But we eat. And we drink. And we talk. Long and wise. And the more alcohol we drink, the longer and wiser these talks are. About love, politics, social injustice, the need for change … about Poland. And at some point we invite to our wedding party the Chochoł – the other, ridiculed and excluded. And so he comes to this wedding and brings his guests who are unwelcome in this house. Guests who say things we do not want to hear, show pictures we do not want to see, give gifts we do not know what to do with. And we continue to drink, eat, play and dance ... the Chochol’s dance.
The Andersen Theater production blurs the division into actors and audience. Everyone is a guest at the wedding, everyone is haunted first by the Chochol and then by other ghosts. All protagonists of the spectacle carry on their back their own alter egos (man-size dolls resembling crumbling dead bodies) which – clung to the guests' bodies – take control over them, not letting them break free from the overwhelming stagnation.