FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A STRENGER
Aneta Kyzioł, POLITYKA
On Saturday (18th November) the prizewinners of the „Polityka" Passports were the talk of the town. "Transfer" directed by Jan Klata and "Two Poor Romanians Speaking Polish" directed by Przemysław Wojcieszek were premiered. The latter is the debut drama of Dorota Masłowska. Both performances hit a chord which perfectly resonates with the current national complexes.
These works became popular long before their premieres. (...)When Masłowska's drama "Two Poor Romanians Speaking Polish" was being read several months before the premiere, the crowd that gathered in TR Warszawa was larger than at any previous performance. It is the first performance in the career of a most interesting writer of the young generation who, emphasizing that she does not like theatre, only wrote the play on the personal request of the boss of TR, Grzegorz Jarzyna. The atmosphere was also warmed up by the gossip suggesting that Masłowska herself and her fiancée, TR actor Eryk Lubos, were the prototypes of the main characters. The drama turned out to be splendid, the theatre star Przemysław Wojcieszek was entrusted with direction and he cast, in the roles of main characters, Lubos and the excellent Roma Gąsiorowska, who has also been called the theatrical alter ego of Masłowska.. This performance had to break the losing streak of the theatre at Marszałkowska.
Since last weekend it has already become obvious that both performances meet high expectations. (...) The Warsaw performance of Wojcieszek and the Wrocław production are linked by the motive of wandering, being on the move and specific disinheritance as well. The characters of Masłowska's play are a couple of twenty-year-olds from Warsaw - a cocksure series actor and a single mother who sometimes forgets to pick her child up from nursery school and makes ends meet by frying chicken in a bar and in the evening having sex with anybody only not to have to listen to her mother's grumbling. Not rooted, alienated, letting their lives slip through their fingers. They met at an event entitled "Filth, Stink and Disorders". They were dressed up as Romanians (she was pregnant, with a big belly and they both decided to set off into Poland to try life in degradation.
They only intended to live this new life for a while but it proved hard to suppress the Romanian they had released in themselves. They and the people they meet on their way don't feel fully worthy and they compensate by humiliating others. They cannot stand the thought that they are living the simplest possible life. Each of them wants to star in his/her own soap opera. Dżina, who introduces herself as a "life artist", lectures the Driver whom she forced to give her a lift with her credo: "because the worst thing , fuck, is that the world wants to change a man into a tosser giving salute in a row, a passerby crossing the street. A passenger on a tram, fuck, waving on a rail with such face, o. With no projections. Without any face. Like you. Sausage-man. I don't want to be like that". Wojcieszek noticed in Masłowska's text a manifesto of the generation born in the 80- ties, alienated, full of an energy with which they don't know what to do. They desire love but they can't give it. Their world falls into pieces. It hasn't managed to start yet and it has already ended. Gradually they start realizing this even though they still keep fighting, out-talking their true thoughts. Masłowska's drama is in fact played within language and Wojcieszek made sure that the stage adaptation didn't drown it out.
Both performances - from Wrocław and Warsaw - are generation manifestos, though each of a different generation. Both hit very touchy points, our complexes and ailing wounds. A Pole seen from the perspective of a Stranger: German or Romanian, that is an unusual sight. It gives inspiration.