Marszałkowska 8
  • New

Orpheus

reż. Anna Smolar

Show as part of the STREFY KONTAKTU Drama Festival in Wrocław

surtitles in english

Bilety w kasie

You say I should make space for the future But I do not want any future without her

  • Director
    Anna Smolar
  • Premiere
    30 November 2024
  • duration
    approximately 2 hours
  • Place
    Marszałkowska 8
  • Tickets
    Normal ticket: 120 PLN
    Concessionary ticket: 90 PLN
    Group ticket for groups of 6 or more people: 100 PLN
    Group ticket for groups of 10 or more people: 90 PLN

Obsada

About the performance

Eurydice dies under tragic circumstances. Orpheus is left on his own. What next?

We take different paths through mourning. One leads, first, through savannas, then, over mountainous landscapes and seas. Another starts at the Polar Circle, and then moves across several time and climate zones. There are people who begin wearing black. There some who don’t cry, though they feel they should.

Mourning in the modern world has been removed from the public sphere. The rituals which in archaic communities were to connect the individual with the collective, interrupted life with life that goes on, have died out or have been weakened. A culture of forgetting, which treats mourning as an anomaly or an obstacle on the road to happiness and success does not teach us about loss, making it impossible to respond in a mature way to traumatic collective experience, such as pandemics, natural disasters, or armed conflicts.

In Orpheus, we invoke an ancient myth to examine ways of experiencing loss or new rituals and their potential to bring people out of loneliness. Mourning interests us in both an intimate and political dimension: by undermining the omnipresent imperative of constant productivity, it has, after all, an anti-systemic capacity, whereas talking about mourning offers a chance to strengthen social ties and experience pain in solidarity.

As he turns back leaving Hades, Orpheus loses Eurydice forever. The gesture, interpreted usually as a moment of weakness, becomes a recurring refrain around which the theatrical reality of Orpheus and the mourning Orpheuses is built.

 
 

 

 

Creators

directed by: Anna Smolar

script and dramaturgy: Anna Smolar, Tomasz Śpiewak

monologues and dialogues: Jacek Beler, Jan Dravnel, Mateusz Górski, Natalia Kalita, Anna Smolar, Tomasz Śpiewak, Justyna Wasilewska, Julia Wyszyńska

set and costume design: Anna Met

puppet scenes choreography: Natalia Sakowicz

music: Enchanted Hunters (Magdalena Gajdzica, Małgorzata Penkalla)

lighting design: Rafał Paradowski

puppet maker: Olga Ryl-Krystianowska

assistant directors: Katarzyna Gawryś, Tymoteusz Sarosiek, Wojciech Sobolewski

stage manager: Monika Tuniewicz

production manager: Magda Igielska

technical director: Michał Golasa

deputy technical director: Andrii Pogorielov

sound engineers: Piotr Domiński, Andrii Pogorielov, Jakub Sapka, Jerzy Szelewicz

lighting technicians: Daniel Sanjuan Ciepielewski, Jędrzej Jęcikowski, Konrad Kajak, Kacper Stykowski

makeup artists: Milena Jura, Dominika Zatońska

dressers: Elżbieta Kołtonowicz, Teresa Rutkowska

stage crew leader: Łukasz Winkowski

prop masters: Mariusz Basiak, Marcin Puanecki, Tomasz Trojanowski

stagehands: Mariusz Basiak, Paweł Iwaniuk, Marcin Puanecki, Tomasz Trojanowski, Łukasz Winkowski

set construction specialist / locksmith: Tomasz Ciężarek

carpenter: Tadeusz Tomaszewski

The creative process of the performance was supported by workshops led by Anja Franczak from the Good Death Institute.

The costume element „Cerberus’ Sweater” was designed and created by Ludmiła Bubanova.

We would like to thank the UNIVERSITAS Society of Authors and Publishers of Scientific Works for granting a complimentary license for the Polish translation of the excerpt from the book The Triumph of Death: An Anthropology of Mourning by Alfonso M. di Nola.

TR on Tour

39th Contemporary Art Days in Białystok, Białystok, Poland – May 20, 2025

58th KONTRAPUNKT International Theatre Festival, Szczecin, Poland – April 19, 2025 – Anna Garlicka Award for Best Directing for Anna Smolar

Partners

Financially supported by funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Promotion Fund for Culture – a national special-purpose fund.


The performance is cofinanced from the funds received from the City of Warsaw.   

Przewijanie do góry