In the place of the well-known invocation – the shout out “To the good lads from Lithuania!” In the place of thirteen-syllable lines – delivery through a concert-musical. And in the place of the manor house and Zosia’s garden – the set of a graffiti-strewn wall and a dented metal dustbin. Of all the texts you might imagine turned into rap, you probably least expected Mickiewicz’s famous epic Pan Tadeusz. Kamil Białaszek – theatre director a.k.a. the rapper Koza – has staged in Poznań a premiere that sparked excitement even before opening night, and not only among those who guard the Polish literary canon against experiment. The New Pan Tadeusz, this time going rap, explores the parallels between the nobility looking up and back to the bygone Sarmatian ideals and modern suburban hooligans, between Mickiewicz’s provincial Lithuania and the post-communist concrete jungles that have recently turned into breeding grounds for various forms of nationalism.

The creative team describe their work as “an act of vandalism on the national epic” – a way of testing what energies pulse today through social groups dismissively labelled as “pathological”. Their aim is not to provoke controversy, but to paint such a portrait of contemporary Poles that would reflect both the way how they cultivate their heritage – including its shameful, violent, xenophobic strains – and the contemporary state of their soul. Białaszek’s production is an explosive cocktail of aesthetics, words, and sound (music by Mateusz Augustyn and the Poznań-based Natura 2000 collective) – an experience that will appeal to more than the aficionados of new ideas for adapting classic texts.

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A concert–musical performance, mostly standing room. Contains low-frequency sound and high-frequency flashing lights. Explicit language is used – recommended for audiences aged 16 and above.

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Photo by Michał Mitoraj