Power Play

• “Power Play” is an experiment that is successful in every respect. […] Samara Hersch’s production, created through collectively developed improvisations by the actors, takes on a variety of forms, revealing the shifting boundaries between the roles of children and adults. It does so with penetrating sensitivity, imagination and humour, without moralising or unnecessary pretension. It devotes most of its attention to the question of power, whose excess can go to one’s head regardless of age. This power is passed from hand to hand, juxtaposed with responsibility, freedom and openness to dialogue. […] The actors’ onstage coexistence with the young performers creates an undefined kind of intimate relationship, while at the same time allowing the original perspectives and truths of representatives of different generations to be heard. By involving teenagers in the creation of its theatrical reality, TR Warszawa continues along its inclusive path, and all I can do is applaud such theatrical experiments.

Marek Zajdler, “Nasz Teatr”

• A highly subversive and courageous production about power, subordination, representation, and giving people a voice. It is based on an unprecedented pact of mutual trust, required by the extraordinary, improvisation-based collaboration between the professional cast and the children performing in the show. Both sides handle this unusual situation brilliantly and together create something genuinely new. The courage of the production also takes another form: up to a certain point, the performance has a very distinctive form, which it then unequivocally rejects and moves in a completely different direction, strongly surprising the audience.

Przemek Gulda, “Guldapoleca”

• Power Play is the best production involving children and aimed at a teenage audience that I have seen so far. It offers an escape from the deadly seriousness too often found in productions for young audiences, opting instead for entirely different staging strategies. It pays tribute to the untamed imagination of children and places play at the centre. It attempts to capture many themes at once and, paradoxically, this is its greatest strength. At the same time, it is a fantasy about handing power over to children and reversing the roles between them and adults, but also about treating one another as autonomous subjects and about setting boundaries.

Magdalena Ożarowska, Teatr Pismo

• Productions such as Power Play are not often seen in Polish theatres. They require a focus on the process itself and the involvement of additional people whose role is to oversee and support it. They also open up new perspectives on classic works of children’s literature, prompting us to reconsider their canonical status, or at least to shift the emphasis in the way we read them. […] It is no longer possible to think of childhood as a happy realm isolated from the world of problems and violence. Childhood is entangled in digital capitalism, social hierarchies and mechanisms of power. In this context, it is particularly moving to see theatre give children the space to make decisions independently, manage resources, and act either according to a plan or without one.

Zuzanna Berendt, “teatralny.pl”

• This is probably one of the few performances in which children appear on stage and come out of it with dignity and without embarrassment. With their naturalness and pure joy, they fill the stage and create a fantastic synergy with the professional actors, resulting in a truly delightful group of children: the grown-up ones and the real ones, who are simply having a good time.

  “Power Play,” directed by Samara Hersch and produced by TR Warszawa, stirred in me an unmistakable sense of emotion and a pang of nostalgia – not only because it is a performance for children (or perhaps young people –no offence), but because it treats its audience seriously and with respect, without trying to simplify anything or explain everything away. […] Thanks to this perspective, TR Warszawa’s production is addressed not only to children, as a story about handing them the reins and showing that play is – and should be – something that happens on their terms, and that there is no need to rush into adulthood, but also to old fogeys like me. It can be a cold shower, opening one’s eyes to a loss caused solely by my own foolish inattention. A truly beautiful and moving project – greetings from my pillow fort, my dears.

  Kamil Pycia, “teatralna kicia”