Krzysztof Warlikowski’s latest production comes to the Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy Festival on the wake of its successes at the festivals in Avignon, Barcelona, and Athens. In Warsaw, securing tickets for Elizabeth Costello verges on the impossible, and the ensemble is about to embark on the next leg of their international tour, and more and more prestigious festivals express interest in the play. Most importantly, however, the play is swathed in the fame of the most important theatre piece in the recent years, and quite likely also the most personal work of the eminent director. Five actresses (Maja Komorowska, Maja Ostaszewska, Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak, Ewa Dałkowska, and Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik) and Andrzej Chyra play the titular Elizabeth Costello, a regular figure in J.M. Coetzee’s works, an alter ego of the South African novelist. Since (A)Polonia, that is the first production produced under the banner of the Nowy Theatre (with no permanent venue at the time), Costello has also been a protagonist of Krzysztof Warlikowski’s theatre. Turning up on the second plane, e.g. in the poignant monologues about the extermination of animals, which the dramatist compared to a new Holocaust.
Now, however, the playwright devotes a whole play to her. Using means known from his previous works, yet heaping no semantic barriers before the audience, he speaks of the subjects crucial for the contemporary: fear of the old age, defence of animals and the excluded, and the crisis of morality. This monumental production moves from a sombre tone to downright comedic sequences. And this may be the first time when, thanks to Ewa Dałkowska, who portrays the ironically smiling face of the old age, Warlikowski’s theatre presents almost genre-like scenes. The whole is crowned with a magnificent conversation of Maja Komorowska with Jacek Poniedziałek about the apocalypse of the helpless chicken. Wide-open eyes of this great actress, seldom seen on stage, radiate horror at a world that permits killing. This may be Warlikowski’s most significant message turning his play into a mesmerising imitation of life, and therefore not short of lighter tones.
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Photos by Magda Hueckel
