From Love of Work to the Cult of Maria Janion
A conversation about the premieres of the 2026/27 season with the TR Warszawa programming team: Anka Herbut, Paweł Kulka, and Justyna Lipko-Konieczna.
The last season at TR Warszawa was held under the slogan “out loud” („na głos”). What slogan will accompany the upcoming season?
ANKA HERBUT: The slogan for the 2026/27 season is “Streams of Love” („Strumienie miłości”). It refers to John Cassavetes’ film of the same title. Its protagonist, Sarah, played by Gena Rowlands, says the words: “Love is a stream. It never stops.” She says this in a state of being overloaded with love that she can neither stop nor extinguish. This image can be read as a flow of different intensities and relations that do not fit into any closed, stable model. However, the film raises questions not only about what happens when we have too much love, but also what happens when we lack it or when we are afraid to receive it. The creators of the premieres we will see in the upcoming season search for answers to similar questions and look at various models, various “streams” of love, their dynamics, and intensity—romantic love, parental love, love for authority, love of work, love resembling platonic love but actually escaping definition.
JUSTYNA LIPKO-KONIECZNA: It is worth adding that each of our performances in the coming season also operates on the tension between reality and fiction, based on facts or events we consider to be facts. These are invitations to meet the experiences of other people, which are in some way based on what is real, what is lived.
The first premiere of the season will be the 10th TR Warszawa Debut: “A Very Long and Slow Disaster of Tram No. 26″ („Bardzo długa i powolna katastrofa Tramwaju numer 26”). We already saw a work-in-progress showing of this performance in June.
PAWEŁ KULKA: Julia Nowak’s debut, rehearsals for which began last season, will have its premiere on September 11. Looking at this performance in the context of the season’s slogan, it tells the story of a love of work that can turn out to be self-destructive and toxic. As the title of Sarah Jaffe’s book says: “Your work will not love you back.” The performance, with a text written by the director herself, is a polyphonic story about work in an era of non-stop productivity. It has humor, ironic lightness, and existential weight. Added to this are great roles by Iza Dudziak, Michał Jan Meller, Ola Popławska, Mirek Zbrojewicz, and Filip Zaręba.
JUSTYNA LIPKO-KONIECZNA: We are also opening the 2026/27 season with the book “TR Debut” („Debiut TR”) (premiere on September 13), which is a kind of summary of the project. In it, we give voice to all ten people who have debuted at TR Warszawa so far. This publication is addressed both to those still studying directing and acting, and to the young generation of theatre makers who already have some experience and, through their practices, want to change the theatre environment and make it more stable and safer.
“Love Me Tender” (November 20, 2026) – directed by Wojtek Rodak – directly refers to love, as the title itself suggests. What aspects of love does it examine?
ANKA HERBUT: “Love Me Tender” is a stage adaptation of the novel by French writer Constance Debré, which is part of the author’s autofictional trilogy. The book touches upon questions of love that is not so much romantic, but love after the dismantling of the romantic myth, and parental love. The book is currently being translated into Polish by the Ha!Art publishing house. The protagonist – a lawyer from a well-off family in the French upper class – discovers her queer identity and enters into lesbian relationships with successive partners. As a result of divorce proceedings, her husband restricts her contact with her child. On one side of the scale is standing by her choices and rediscovered identity; on the other is the highest price she has to pay for being true to herself: the loss of contact with her child. The author asks herself: can you be a mother without a child? Can love be free from the violence of possessing another person? Can affection for a child have its limit, or is it a stream that never ends?
In the upcoming season, we will see another novel adaptation – “Penance” („Skrucha”) by Eliza Clark, directed by Gosia Wdowik (premiere on February 19, 2027). It is a book that operates within the true crime format; the author used materials describing real crimes when writing it.
JUSTYNA LIPKO-KONIECZNA: That’s right, but Clark approaches this format critically, and we are very curious how this will be realized on the level of theatrical form.
PAWEŁ KULKA: The book tells the story of the tragic finale of teenage peer violence that occurred on the day of the Brexit referendum in 2016. However, information about it did not break through to the press because the whole of Great Britain was focused on something else. Years later, the events are reconstructed by an investigative journalist who, returning to this case, tries to restore the brilliance of his career. So we are in two time periods – then and now. The people who were teenagers back then are now adults. We listen to the accounts of the adult perpetrators, their parents, and the victim’s family, whom we reach along with the journalist.
JUSTYNA LIPKO-KONIECZNA: Returning to the season’s slogan – this play examines what happens when, in different social groups and for various reasons, a deficit of love (including parental love) appears. How and to what extent can we capture these processes that affect young people who are unprepared for a certain caliber of life experiences? Clark doesn’t actually define victims and perpetrators in a simple, stereotypical way. It is a multidimensional novel that allows for a broader look at various mechanisms associated with a deficit of attentiveness, care, and love, but also the time needed to build relationships, which ultimately leads to tragedy.
Who will make their debut on the stage of TR Warszawa in the 2026/27 season?
ANKA HERBUT: This year’s debutant is Weronika Zajkowska, who is preparing a performance entitled “Anna: I Will Not Die of Love” („Anna: Nie umrę z miłości”), the premiere of which will take place on April 16, 2027. As the director notes in her description, it will be a story about a protagonist we know and about a fate we have heard of somewhere. She has a home, a husband, children, and is a pillar of the family. At the same time, she writes passionate letters to her “dearest beloved” in her diary, from which one can read a secret hidden between the lines. It is difficult to say whether this is a platonic feeling or perhaps a kind of love that has not yet been defined. We do not know whether this love is fulfilled or unfulfilled, because we cannot determine what it was calculated for. One thing is certain – it is a love that everyone is afraid of. Anna was in a way used when she was needed and abandoned when she was no longer useful. But unlike her namesake from Tolstoy’s pages, she will not throw herself under a train; she will not allow her power of self-determination to be taken away. What is more, she will ensure that she is not erased from the pages of history.
JUSTYNA LIPKO-KONIECZNA: The starting point for the script is Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”. Together with the creators, we will look at what the formula of melodrama is and the romantic love written into it—although, as Anka said, in the case of Anna, the play’s protagonist, it is a love that is difficult to frame.
The season will close with “The Order of Maria” („Zakon Marii”) (premiere on June 18, 2027) directed by Cezary Tomaszewski – we have already met Anna, so who is the mysterious Maria?
PAWEŁ KULKA: This is the final premiere of the season, and since the script has not been written yet, we know the least about it. The protagonist of the play is Maria Janion and the circle focused around her – followers of the cult of the author of “Romantic Fever” („Gorączka romantyczna”). The theme will also be the cult with which Maria surrounds the “galley slaves of sensitivity” („galernicy wrażliwości”), ghosts, ghouls, phantasms, an entire imaginary world from different eras and genres, not only from the field of high literature but also from pop culture. So it will be dense and absolutely not serious. Maria Janion will be played by Maria Maj, an actress around whose talent and charisma a separate “order” has already gathered.
What additional events, apart from the premieres, will we see in the upcoming season, and who will be their curator?
ANKA HERBUT: Mateusz Szymanówka, dance curator at Sophiensæle in Berlin and artistic director of the Tanztage Berlin festival, will be responsible for the curatorial track in the upcoming season. The guiding slogan of this track is “How to Tune the Body” (“Jak dostroić ciało”). We will see two showings of Ewa Dziarnowska’s performance “This resting, patience” (October 6 and 7, 2026), which has already met with a very enthusiastic reception at the Santarcangelo Festival in Italy, at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, and during this year’s Malta Festival in Poznań. It is a three-hour choreographic experience that opens us to physicality, the desire for closeness, and drawing pleasure from being, which does not serve to produce anything or achieve any goal. Within this track, we will also see the performance “Batty Bwoy” by Harald Beharie, a Norwegian-Jamaican dancer and choreographer whose work has not been presented in Poland before. His solo is a performance of reclaiming one’s own body and desire, and a story about how that which has been branded as “foreign” and “monstrous” can become a source of strength and pleasure (March 17, 2027).
JUSTYNA LIPKO-KONIECZNA: In the 2026/2027 season, we are also continuing our activities within the “TISZ TR 2024-2026” project. Together with the Stanisław Noakowski Technical School of Architecture and Construction in Warsaw, we are approaching the finale of our creative work. On October 3, the premiere of a performance featuring youth entitled “Drift” („Dryf”), directed by Katarzyna Minkowska, will take place on the TR Warszawa stage. This is another participatory performance implemented as part of the program, which will be integrated into our repertory activities. The performance is based on meetings, conversations, and workshops conducted as part of the design process, the starting point of which is reflections on the future and building a new world based on hope.
PAWEŁ KULKA: I, on the other hand, would like to add that in the upcoming season we are continuing our cooperation with Patryk Różycki, who will be the author of the paintings that form the basis for our posters and drawings for the monthly repertories.
Last season at TR Warszawa, we watched “The Pelicot Case” (“Proces Pelicot”) directed by Milo Rau and “Power Play” by Australian director Samara Hersch. Are similar collaborations with foreign creators planned for the upcoming season?
PAWEŁ KULKA: We are starting work with Romanian film director Radu Jude, director of, among others, the film “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” („Nie spodziewajcie się zbyt wiele po końcu świata”), who will work with the TR Warszawa acting company for three weeks this summer, creating film material that will be the starting point for further work in subsequent seasons.
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PREMIERES SCHEDULE:
A VERY LONG AND SLOW DISASTER OF TRAM NO. 26 (BARDZO DŁUGA I POWOLNA KATASTROFA TRAMWAJU NR 26)
Julia Nowak / Karolina Szczypek
remiere: September 11, 2026
DRIFT (DRYF)
Katarzyna Minkowska / youth from the Stanisław Noakowski Technical School of Architecture and Construction in Warsaw premiere: October 3, 2026
LOVE ME TENDER
Constance Debré / Wojtek Rodak / Iga Gańczarczyk
premiere: November 20, 2026
PENANCE (SKRUCHA)
Eliza Clark / Gosia Wdowik / Robert Bolesto
premiere: February 19, 2027
ANNA: I WILL NOT DIE OF LOVE (ANNA: NIE UMRĘ Z MIŁOŚCI)
Weronika Zajkowska / Paweł Słomiński
premiere: April 16, 2027
THE ORDER OF MARIA (ZAKON MARII)
Cezary Tomaszewski / Anka Herbut
premiere: June 18, 2027
CURATORIAL PROGRAM BY MATEUSZ SZYMANÓWKA: HOW TO TUNE THE BODY (JAK DOSTROIĆ CIAŁO)
THIS RESTING, PATIENCE
choreography: Ewa Dziarnowska
October 6, 7, 2026
BATTY BWOY
choreography: Harald Beharie
March 17, 2027
