There have been Persona. Marilyn and Persona. Simone’s Body: Krystian Lupa’s legendary productions from the Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw from many years ago. Now enter Ciało Bożeny / Bożena’s Body by Jędrzej Piaskowski and Hubert Sulima. The new production by the duo who once captivated the Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy Festival (during its pandemic edition) with a stage adaptation of Eliza Orzeszkowa’s monumental novel On the Niemen, provides a looking glass for Sosnowiec, the Zagłębie Theatre, Polish politics, and the mechanisms governing Polish theatre – especially those rooted in violence and dependency – to reflect in.
The Zagłębia Theatre in Sosnowiec is visited by Director of national and worldwide acclaim. He is there to stage a production of Persona. Bożena’s Body with a famous actress taking on the role of the theatre’s cleaning lady. Piaskowski and Sulima aim their looking glass at the world of the theatre being the space we are all meant to reflect in and test whether we are ready for what the creative team call “radical forgiveness”. This immediately raises questions about the realms where forgiveness is possible and where it is not. Is not Sosnowiec itself not such a realm? A city just five miles away from metropolitan Katowice, known chiefly from countless memes and scandalous press reports: be it blood-curdling infanticides or orgies in church parsonages and the pathology in the Diocese of Sosnowiec.
The play also examines the people of the Zagłębie Theatre, as it simultaneously discusses creation of art on the periphery and the mechanisms of exclusion. It also challenges the long-established hierarchy within the little Polish world of art, and takes an ironic glance at Polish politics. The scene with Donald Tusk singing the Pope’s favourite song to the dying Jarosław Kaczyński became quite hyped after the premiere. On top of that comes the dazzling role of Mirosława Żak, once one of the key actress in the Wałbrzych productions of the Strzępka–Demirski duo. In Persona. Bożena’s Body, Żak exceeds expectations, being humorous, lyrical, and fierce. Nearly all at once.
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Photos by Jeremi Astaszow
