Hymn to Love

Photo: Jiri Sediak

= The 25 performers on the cast of Hymn to Love, produced by The Chorus of Women Foundation (Warsaw) and Polaski Theatre (Poznan) give us 50 minutes of extraordinary ensemble work in Hymn to Love. It’s the final play of a trilogy inspired by Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children. This is strong political theatre, clear and convincing, never heavy-handed. 

The show is written and directed by Marta Gornicka. She uses techniques from various sources - Judith Malina; Jerzy Grotowski; Bertolt Brecht - and binds them together with an inspired concept: the script presents nationalism from the point of view of the nationalists. The irony of the concept gives the production a valuable theatrical dimension; it involves us, the audience, in processing the message. Just so, the singing (which is excellent) and the chanting give the play distance. The cast also whisper, yell or bark as the occasion demands.

On a bare stage of handsome Pilsen’s New Theater, with its wooden plank floor and stoney back wall, the company present the fascism growing in Western culture. The cast is made up largely of woman and includes a disabled woman and a young boy. They often move as one, as when they’re marching, or they move individually as multiple manifestations of the same presence, with mechanical martial arts moves (the choreography is by Anna Godowska). Ms. Gornicka and her cast are articulate and commanding. “We are ordinary people,” they tell us - indeed, they look like us - and their anger grows as they congregate into an angry mob, radiating malice. It’s chilling to hear them whisper “The community is always innocent.” “Truth does not exist,” they proclaim, and the thought is as evident the USA as in Poland.

Ms. Gornicka stands in the audience directing the performers, making a statement about their relationship with us. The music sometimes echoes traditional and communist songs and, as I understand it, distorts them.

Largely, Hymn to Love’s statement is important and timely. But Ms. Gornicka seems to indict Christianity itself: we hear “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.” The piece ends with familiar liturgical music, maybe The Mass in C Minor (I’m not sure). What on earth does this mean?

review
Steve Capra
September 2019
_________________________________________________________________________________

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sternenhoch

Image
Photo: Jiri Sediak =  Sternenhoch , from the National Theatre Prague Opera, is based on Ladislav Klíma’s expressionist novel, The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch , written in Czech and published in 1928. This opera suggests the first expressionist plays - specifically Kokoshka’s Murderer, The Hope of Women . However, Kokoshka’s mythical male murders the woman he’s found; Klíma’s eponymous hero is a sort of anti-hero, a victim, looking foolish with a thin necktie and derby, and his female is a demon (even the witch Prince Sternenhoch goes to for protection betrays him). Each work is misogynistic in its own way. The cast is flawless. When Sergej Kostov, in the central role, sings without vibrato, his voice has an eerie, haunting tone, less alive than undead. Vanda Sipova is equally mesmerizing as Helga, the wife from hell with an unearthly voice, mesmerizing us from the first line, “Your dead wife thanks for all our moments together.” When Prince Sternenhoch first sees her h...
Read more

Interview with Jan Burian, General Director of The Divadlo Festival

Steve Capra's Interview with Jan Burian,  General Director,  Divadlo Theater Festival =  Pilsen, Czech Republic =  September 14, 2019 =  SC: As I understand it, you have 50 productions. How many submissions did you have? How many producers wanted their shows to be in the festival? =  JB: I will explain the system. We work, of course, all year, but our permanent employees are only two. One is the producer of the shows and one is the General Director handling all other things. But we have something that we call the Artistic Board or Dramaturgy Board. It’s made up of five people. But of course we have a lot of collaborators in foreign countries, mostly in the Middle Europe but of also in Germany, Russia and so on. We cover Central Europe, visiting festivals, crucial new productions. The principle is that each production must be seen by a minimum of two people. Of course, it’s impossible to see everything, say, in Poland - it’s quite a big country...
Read more

The Divaldo International Theatre Festival: Reviews by Steve Capra

Image
Above: The Grand Theatre, Pilsen = Congratulations to The Divaldo International Theatre Festival for the 2019 Festival! The annual festival takes place over ten days in September in the gorgeous city of Pilsen, Czech Republic. This year’s edition - it was the 27th - presented 50 productions from central and eastern Europe, in 35 venues (the venues I saw were quite handsome indeed). I was happy to have the opportunity to talk with the Festival’s General Director, Jan Burian. He explained that select productions are invited to participate in The Divadlo Festival; they don’t submit themselves. The Festival’s Artistic Board visits “crucial” European productions and festivals as scouts. At least two members of The Artistic Board must see each invited production, and they must agree. The priority is on innovative work. Pilsen was chosen as the host city because of its convenient location, because it is not Prague, and because it was freed by the US army during the war, not ...
Read more