Fot. Łukasz Giza
The Golden Records
Director:
Mateusz Pakuła
Text author:
Mateusz Pakuła
Duration:
90 minutes

Just forget How I Didn't Kill My Father and how much I Regret it, with which Mateusz Pakuła moved the audience of the Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy to tears and won last year’s festival. The Kraków festival opened doors to the world for How I Didn’t Kill.., a production that domestically has become the most lavishly awarded performance of recent seasons. Mateusz Pakuła nonetheless refuses to dine out on his success, a reason why he did not write a sequel to the previous play and also why Złote płytyThe Golden Records are light years away from How I Didn’t…

It is 1976, NASA offers a unique commission to the famous cosmologist and promoter of the universe Carl Sagan. With his hand-picked team, he is expected to select the material for the Golden Records that the Voyager interstellar probes will take into Space. They will be like a letter in a bottle to representatives of alien civilisations, sentient creatures from other planets, at the same time providing a calling card of the Earth and its humanity. Members of the special team can draw from humankind’s achievements in art, music and science, and refer to the most significant historical events. What is it that we should be proud of most? The answer to the question proves harder than it initially seemed. The more so, as a strange bald man named Dick Black is sitting in the corner, voraciously consuming Happy Meals and constantly receiving calls from “powers that be”. NASA issues directives: no nudity, no violence, no wars. Even musical choices spark unexpected controversies...

The Golden Records is half-comedy and half-musical with hits from the Carl Sagan (and later) era. We hear music of Nazareth, Led Zeppelin, Louis Armstrong, Kate Bush, and others. Witty and nostalgic, this theatre leaves a bitter aftertaste. Because, really, is there anything we can be proud of?

There is certainly Emose Uhunmwangho’s sheer force of personality, her voice, and, which she demonstrates for the first time, her knack for comedy. She is the undisputed queen of this production.

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Photos by Łukasz Giza

Section Biała strzałka w prawo
Inferno
Mateusz Pakuła
script and direction
Antonis Skolias i Zuzanna Skolias-Pakuła
music and arrangements
Antonis Skolias
music direction, record production
Zuzanna Skolias-Pakuła
vocal direction
Justyna Elminowska
scenography and costumes
Mikołaj Karczewski
choreography
Paulina Góral
lighting direction
Olga Balowska
video projections
Rafał Derkacz
assistant director
Magdalena Śniadecka, Karina Reske-Chojnacka
vocal preparation
Jakub Woynarowski
poster design
Rafał Szumny (keyboard), Jacek Długosz (gitary), Szymon Frankowski (gitara basowa), Antonis Skolias (perkusja, wokale), Zuzanna Skolias-Pakuła (wokale)
the music recordings featured
Cast:
Rafał Derkacz
Carl
Katarzyna Pietruska
Linda
Helena Sujecka
Ann
Albert Pyśk
Tim
Emose Uhunmwangho
Frank
Michał Zborowski
Dick