Interview with Krzysztof Warlikowski

Transcription

1 Interview with Krzysztof Warlikowski by Jean-François Perrier / The Avignon Festival Press Kit - What made you decide to present a compilation of texts this year instead of a single and ready dramatic text? Krzysztof Warlikowski: I will soon be able present my work in the new seat of our theatre, which will be created in place of pre-war car garages turned into a multi-functional culture and theatre centre. I was planning to inaugurate the place with this performance, (A)pollonia, even before any construction work began there. The performance is composed of both texts, as well as songs, the kind from a provincial festive party attended by representatives of many generation. The songs are performed by Renate Jett, an Austrian singing actress, who also took part in Cleansed, and is collaborating with us again. I thought I could perhaps address the audience with certain questions questions about issues that once put people under the threat of the Holocaust, questions which are unsettling and which refer to collective memory and the legacy of war. I have decided to make this a journey across the 20 th and 21 st centuries, from the beginning of World War II until present times, guided by the heroes and heroines of Greek tragedies. The journey would begin with questions about the Ghetto and move on to the sacrifice of Iphigenia the first ever case of sacrificing a human being which initiates a whole series of sacrifices among the Atreidae. The play, built around the motif of a voluntary or forced sacrifice, will also speak about our Polish history by means of texts of ancient authors, in particular Euripides, but also through more contemporary texts. The notion of sacrifice is extremely complex a voluntary sacrifice can be made in the name of love, duty, or simply a wish to commit suicide when in a state of unfathomable despair. Iphigenia sacrifices herself for Hellas, like a young Palestinian for his homeland. This move is undoubtedly accompanied by fear of what is on the other side, what is unknown. We have numerous examples of self-sacrifice in this country from the times of World War II, such as that of a priest who gave his life in exchange of the life of a father of twelve. However, we will never be able to learn about the deep reasons for such sacrifices, particularly that in the antique reality gods were just as absent as they are today, despite the fact that they were more often referred to or called upon so as to justify human deeds. They are nothing but alibi, and that is not enough to understand.

2 - Is Apollonia from the title of your play, a Polish woman? K.W.: naming a girl Apolonia in the 19th c. was seen as an act of resistance against the Russian oppressor because of the word Polonia in the name. It has nothing to do with Apollo, its etymological root. For us it is a beautiful Polish woman, one that Hanna Krall wrote about the mother of three, expecting the fourth, with a husband already with the underground guerrilla troops. She had decided to hide and save 25 Jewish children, in other words do something impossible. She was reported and so she fled, tried to hide at her father s. The Nazi regulations stipulated death penalty for the entire family of a person helping Jews, sometimes a whole village could be killed. Apolonia was able to save one Jewish girl. She herself was sentenced but her father refused to take on the blame. And here we again come back to the notion of sacrifice in the family, in the same form as it was developed in the grand Greek tragedy. The saved Jewish girl succeeds in awarding Apolonia the title of Righteous Among Nations, which is presented to one of her sons the one who witnessed his mother s interrogation and his grandfather refusing to sacrifice for her. This beautiful gesture of selfsacrifice is thus in his eyes something ambiguous, as he lost his mother, he was orphaned. He never came to grips with the loss of his mother or her sacrifice, which turned against him. It is this horrifying legacy born by the descendants of heroes or executioners which is the main motif in our work. Apollonia is thus an archetype, she frees herself from this actual Polish woman and her story becomes a universal one. We are not being politically correct as we analyze all aspects of such sacrifice, which generally appears as a heroic act. However, if we touch the wound, or, in other words, if we start dealing with the consequences of the act, we will inevitably destroy the peace of mind of those who have their conscience clear. - You are expanding this field of exploration by including very contemporary texts. K.W.: The Greek tragedy remains the backbone of our work although, indeed, we do introduce contemporary texts as it is possible to draw parallels between contemporary characters and the protagonists from ancient Greece. I am, for example, interested in the character of Elizabeth Costello from J.M. Coetzee s book, who leads us to the eternal question about the impossibility of life without compromises but posed in a reversed order: do we have

3 to kill animals to survive? How do we, as humans, find our place in the world, with or without God, between life and death, which are equally painful - Have you introduced your own texts into the play? K.W.: We improvise in our work with actors which means that we can merge different texts. Hence Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, speaks words from The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. But there just as well may appear texts which I have written or which the actors had improvised. Anything is possible. But the final arrangement of the text takes into consideration all the characters appearing on stage Achilles, Agamemnon, Elizabeth Costello, Apollonia, and many others. We want for our antique characters to take advantage of what we have learned about war and sacrifice in the times between their epoch and the present. We give ourselves absolute freedom in asking the most contemporary questions, but at the same time we know that these are everlasting questions which humanity has always been asking itself. - Does that mean that the characters in the tragedy exist both in the past and the present? K.W.: Yes, but the further we go with the work the more contemporary their language. We are at the same time very close and very remote from these characters and the questions they pose themselves and this is something we need to take into consideration. - Is it really possible to talk about characters in a play in this new production? K.W.: I believe that there is no difference here in terms of the approach to a traditional theatre play. My actors have always tried to get into the character and they will also have to do it in this case. There is no doubt, however, that this will be more risky than at other times, as now they take on a greater responsibility for the construction of the performance. - In this production you go back to authors whose texts you ve used before, as is the case with Hanna Krall and her Dybuk.

4 K.W.: I go back to authors I know well, be it contemporary or classical. The idea for this performance was born when I first entered these garages, which survived the war and which will be the new seat for myself and my company. I felt a need to create a play which should have been made after World War II but never was, because our history was the way it was; Of course I would like to propose a kind of a personal and collective inspection of the scene of crime, hence the use of all this text material which accumulated over the years. - How long have you worked on the production? K.W.: We began a year ago, and have gone through different stages. I first wrote something like a script as a basis for improvisation. We then went to Greece for two weeks, to talk about all that we had done thus far. These discussions led us to other options on which we worked for another two months, adding new texts, and finally arriving at an initial main set of texts which I collected at the beginning. We gave ourselves the liberty to merge the literary texts and other written documents with stories from our own experience. Such liberty was intended to give the viewers an equal freedom in interpreting our proposals. - You introduce the texts on stage to ask the Polish society questions which are not asked out loud. It seems that in the case of (A)pollonia you take an ever greater risk, as you do not try to hide behind an author but propose you own compilation of texts. K.W.: I directed Angels in America in reaction to the growing homophobia in Poland, or not only in Poland. Similar was the case with Krum, a performance in which I wanted to touch on the difficult Polish -Jewish relations which again is not only a Polish problem. In any case, I borrowed words from playwrights to speak. Indeed, this new project is to me a source of anxiety as I feel responsible for the discourse which will follow. On the other hand, I feel we have arrived at a moment when we can address the audience directly, not trying to hide behind any screen. We have already collected so much experience dealing with Shakespeare, Hanoch Levin, Sarah Kane and so many others I have always had this great urge to blow up all which is called theatre tradition, as I am not interested in it - in contrast to life which I find fascinating. I have the fortune of living two lives: one in the communist times, the other in times of democracy. This experience, common to many Poles, is extremely important to me. Of course we should use personal experience to touch issues which are universal.

5 - Do you work differently with actors in this project than you did in other ones? K.W.: Yes. This time the work is more institutive, less rationally conceptualized. It is easier to let the viewer hear and feel what is hidden in between the lines constructed by the writer than to create this type of a montage a truly delicate matter. One needs to dig out more nuances so as to introduce the subject and imagine its scope, talk more with actors so that they can find their own way across the final version of the text set I made, through the music which will accompany them, and through the video projections used to also show the actors in close ups. Very few of those who participate in rehearsals have a holistic vision of the performance, hence actors have to be directed with more care. It is easier to seek sense in a scene which is a part of a play with a ready construction than to work on fragments of a whole which does not exist as a whole yet. I have to put the actors in a state of dreaming, open up their imagination, lead them to the point of destination which I have determined, and, from time to time, shake up their ego for the benefit of the entire production. - Is it true that this year you will for the first time perform on the courtyard of Palais des Papes in Avignon? K.W. : When Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller offered this location I immediately thought of it and about a vision of rebuilding new theatres in new places, just as I am planning to do in the post-industrial site in Warsaw. I think that it is such efforts that have helped reinstate the ties between theatre and community, the theatre going back to the community. Hence it is my great honour to join this tradition and show (A)pollonia, which is the beginning of a new adventure for me and those who have been working with me all those years. I think that this is a really good place for a debate with the community, hence an ideal place for the type of work we have decided on. The fact that we are playing there has enriched our thinking, although the actors, my artistic associates and technicians are somewhat fearful of the enormity of that place. Ever since Krystian Lupa, the preferred productions are those for relatively small audiences. However, I personally feel that we should turn to bigger audiences. In the new hall, in the former garages, I wish to have an auditorium for 400 seats. When we play in Poland in the relatively small halls, tickets sell immediately and we have to send people back home. - How do you imagine this new place of your activities in Warsaw?

6 K.W.: we want it to be open, we want a big garden, many halls, spaces it will be a huge cultural centre focusing on theatre but capable of containing other artistic forms which are related to theatrical practice these days. I hope this becomes a forum of a sort, where people come to see an exhibition or a play and just meet. We have no such places in Warsaw as yet. I also hope to be able to receive there my colleagues, directors, such as Rodrigo García, Alvis Hermanis, or Wajdi Mouawad. I wish to give an impulse to the creation of such a place, but I would not really want to be its manager as I am first and foremost a theatre director. I see this as a great privilege that as a Pole I can today direct this new undertaking.