“This is what Bad Education would look like had Almodóvar made it in Olsztyn”, the actors say in the prologue, as though anticipating the audience’s expectations. In their latest production, Jędrzej Piaskowski and Hubert Sulima – one of the most distinctive creative duos in Polish theatre – have decided to “take on the Church.” They focused on the suffering of those whom the institution condemns to life on the margins: the children and partners of priests, and the victims of negligence and cover-ups of crime and abuse. Doing that, the duo employ the poetics of reconstruction, evoking real investigative reports and scandals involving members of the clergy. Among them are the notorious orgy case in Dąbrowa Górnicza, the inheritance trial involving celebrity detective Krzysztof Rutkowski, and the story of Cardinal Dziwisz’s Wawel apartments.

The creative team make no attempt to disguise their references to real people, events, and locations. Boldly playing with the language of comedy and grotesque, they lead the audience to laughter that repeatedly dies in their throats, as the extent of the victims’ suffering, and of the perpetrators’ hypocrisy and ruthlessness, becomes painfully clear. Doing this, the ensemble of the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn demonstrate their full artistic prowess, both collectively and individually. The entire plot unfolds within Anna Maria Karczmarska’s conceptual set design – a blend of geometric abstraction and the visual style of true-crime documentaries. The production will appeal to anyone who has followed the duo’s work in past Boska Komedia / Divine Comedies – sharp, ironic, yet entertaining. Bad Education reveals how the language the theatre uses to speak about the Church is evolving, opening space for new, previously unheard voices.

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Recommended for adult audiences.

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Photo by Karolina Jóźwiak