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director: René Pollesch
set design and lighting: Chasper Bertschinger
costume designer: Svenja Gassen

cast: Jan Dravnel, Roma Gąsiorowska / Piotr Głowacki, Aleksandra Konieczna, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Rafał Maćkowiak, Tomasz Tyndyk

Jackson Pollock in Warsaw? No, it is just a title of a new „Polish” performance by René Pollesch, who probably points out the similarity of his own creation method and the action painting technique of an American abstactionniste, which broadly speaking means exploring the limits of intentional creation.

René Pollesch, one of the leaders of European postmodern theatrical avant-garde, directs for the second time in TR Warszawa. The director comments on his new project: „Today, creative people watch performances as viewers. It was the other way round before. Those who were creative were on stage, while the others admired their elitist work. The fact that creativity, artistic impulse, entrepreneurship are expected by the society and the creative human being became almost an icon of capitalist spirit is probably owned, among others, to theatrical artists. And even though flexibility, mobility, creativity and responsibility do not have such a well established position on the market of ethical values as greed, hate, jealousy, revenge, love, death, guilty or fate, it is to the creativity, and it is time to say it aloud, that the future belongs.
So, when greed is the subject of a play, the spectators may follow the plot about the greed and draw conclusions from it. But it is important to add that most of them do not feel the need to become greedy. At the same time, all of them have to meet only one condition – they need to be creative.”

René Pollesch’s performances really impress with the amount of plots, problems discussed or references. The essence of his work is the confrontation on all possible fields and, in this sense, his theatre is revolutionary. Pollesch draws inspiration equally from pop culture and high art. His texts are composed of quotations from social theories, economic analyses, criticism of capitalism, theory of gender, theory of communication, autobiographical notes, street plays and popular films. Sometimes, he is even called a „thief of the language”, but it does not mean that he steals others’ thoughts or theories. He rather recycles, redefines, creates a conflict or, which is the most frequent case, deconstructs. In the plays of the most popular German deconstructor of the reality of global capitalism, the trivial constantly meets the sophisticated, mediocrity faces professionalism, pop culture clashes with elitarian intellectualism, globalisation deals with local narration. All the confrontations expose capitalistic system’s mechanisms, which deprive individuals of their will – tempt them and cause subsequent desires. At the same time, thanks to those manipulations, Pollesch presents the reality in a way it is perceived in the real life: simultaneously, non-linearly, unhierarchically, from many perspectives at once and involving different senses. The Pollesch „method”, which raises i.a. from performative actions of theatrical avant-garde of the 20th century, has another distinctive function – unpredictability, improvisation, openness to unplanned situations. Pollesch’s texts are at his actors’ free disposal. He treats his texts as a working tool which helps to establish connections with individual biographies and needs in order to create some energy needed to go on stage. In his work on the performance, the notions of the finished product, fidelity to the original, fear of interrupting the continuity of the plot do not exist, because they are not included in the play. Everything, including not only the final shape and sense of each scene but also dialogs or action are created in artistic cooperation with the actors and change until the very last moments before the premiere. Without any doubt, when it comes to creativity René Pollesch can name himself an expert.