Webinar
Do the Dead Kill the Living?
Classical Antiquity in Polish Theatre
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Małgorzata Budzowska (University of Lodz)
Reconfigurations on the Tragic in Postdramatic Performance
The lecture examines the formal artistic strategies mobilized on the contemporary theatrical stage to articulate the condition of polycrisis, with particular emphasis on migration, emancipation, and the environmental crisis. This inquiry is grounded in the umbrella concept of the tragic—understood as an ethical, social, and aesthetic category—which serves as a hinge between two complementary lines of reflection.
The first line revisits contemporary notions of the tragic from a socio political perspective (Lehmann, Williams), while the second investigates the postdramatic modes of staging these notions. Within the first line, Felix Guattari’s ecosophical framework—expanded by post postmodern new materialist thought (Barad’s agential realism, Braidotti’s posthuman nomadism)—provides a conceptual matrix for understanding the entanglement of crises. This approach shifts the tragic from a human centered moral paradigm toward a distributed, relational ontology in which subjectivity, environment, and matter co constitute one another.
Against this theoretical background, the lecture discusses two clusters of artistic strategies characteristic of postdramatic theatre (Lehmann), understood as a theatre of intensities, material agencies, and affective assemblages:
• musicality and sonority as material affective forces: Antigone in Molenbeek (dir. Anna Smolar), Mothers. A Song for Wartime (dir. Marta Górnicka), Kassandra – Or Songs of the Cannaries (dir. Marta Górnicka), and Oedipus Rex (dir. Jan Klata), where vocality, rhythm, and sonic textures operate as non representational agents shaping political meaning;
• gender fuck, queer corporeality, and posthuman embodiment: Fucking Trauffaut (dir. Rosa Sarkisian), The Bacchae (dir. Maja Kleczewska), Philoctet Ex Machina (dir. Agata Koszulińska), and Philoctea. The Return (dir. Justyna Wielgus), where bodies function as sites of resistance, becoming, and de essentialization, resonating with Braidotti’s affirmative ethics and Barad’s performativity of matter.
The aim of the presentation is to explore the creative reception of the ancient concept of the tragic as an aesthetic category that historically enabled socially and politically engaged commentary—expressed in antiquity through mythological plots, and today through the extraverbal, material, and affective agencies of postdramatic theatre. In both contexts, the tragic becomes a site where the political is not merely represented but enacted: emerging through plots, characters, and, crucially, through the musical corporeal and material affective fabric of performance.
Duration: 2 hours
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Anna Róża Burzyńska Jagiellonian University & Lars Jan (CalArts, Early Morning Opera)
Wyspiański’s “The Return of Odysseus” in Athens
Lars Jan is a theatre director and interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Next season, he will direct Stanisław Wyspiański’s “The Return of Odysseus” as a Greek-American-Polish co-production. Widely regarded as one of the foundational works of modern Polish drama, “The Return of Odysseus” has played a crucial role in shaping the Polish reception of Classical Antiquity. Serving as dramaturg for the production, Anna Róża Burzyńska joins Lars Jan in a discussion of what they find most compelling about “The Return of Odysseus”, how they approach its dialogue with the classical tradition, and the artistic vision that will shape their forthcoming production.
Duration: 2 hours
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Radek Stępień & Włodzimierz Staniewski
The Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices and Its Relationship with Classical Antiquity
The Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices has earned international recognition as Poland’s leading experimental theatre company dedicated to the exploration and performance of ancient texts. Its innovative approach to ancient Greek tragedy and other works of Classical Antiquity has had a profound impact on both contemporary theatre practice and scholarly research.
In this session, Radek Stępień will be in conversation with Włodzimierz Staniewski, founder and artistic director of Gardzienice, discussing the company’s relationship with Classical Antiquity, its artistic methodology, and the role of ancient texts in shaping its theatrical practice.
Duration: 2 hours
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Rebecca Pierrot & Krzysztof Garbaczewski
The Theatre of Krzysztof Garbaczewski and Classical Antiquity
Krzysztof Garbaczewski is one of the most influential figures in contemporary Polish theatre, widely acclaimed for his stage adaptations of Plato’s Symposium and Republic. He has also reinterpreted the myth of Orpheus in his acclaimed production Nothing. Furthermore, through his research into the possibilities of new technologies in theater, he has opened up a new field of exploration: the virtual Agora. Thanks to VR, it is possible to break dsown a number of barriers (geographical, social, etc.) and offer a space accessible to as many people as possible, allowing artists and audiences to meet in real time, regardless of their geographical location, in order to exchange ideas and create around a shared artistic project. The performance Agora, created in Łódź in 2024 based on Alain Badiou’s, Plato’s Republic, is one such example. Together with dramaturg Rebecca Pierrot, he will discuss the relationship between his artistic practice and Classical Antiquity, reflecting on his sources of inspiration and offering participants insight into his creative process.
Duration: 2 hours
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Aleksandra Bałda (University of Amsterdam) & Barbara Lipiarska (Jagiellonian University)
Workshop: Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Apollonia
Participants will be asked to watch the recorded performance of Apollonia online in advance (available with English subtitles).
During the workshop, Aleksandra Bałda and Barbara Lipiarska will lead a discussion on the ways in which the production may be interpreted by Polish audiences, as well as on the aspects of the performance that participants found most compelling, thought-provoking, or artistically significant.
Performance available at:
https://ninateka.pl/movies,1/apollonia–krzysztof-warlikowski–english-subtitles,3674
Duration: 2 hours