Some Polish cities lead a double life. One life, visible and audible to all residents and visitors alike, seems to be happening right here and right now. The other, once loud and distinctive, led by people and places that left only traces behind, is running its subcutaneous course – one that is barely noticeable at present. Van Der and Marco Polo, architect and globetrotter known from Fiascos in the History of the City (Klęski w dziejach miasta) – an earlier creative partnership of Agnieszka Jakimiak and Weronika Szczawińska, reach K., a city typified by absence and an uncanny sense of lack. They arrive in K. as a result of a mysterious job that they take up not as wanderers but as private investigators. They are unaware of the identity of their employer and they do not fully comprehend the aim of their mission. They are following the disturbing urban soundscape.

K., Or a Recollection from the City is a narrative about the phantom life of a community. A story about oblivion and evoking memories. A story about the confusion of tenses. An emotional investigation conducted in a visible city haunted by its invisible past. Merging the theatric with an audio installation and with elements of a live radio play, the performance confronts us with the phantom character of the reality we inhabit. It poses questions about the city whose every third resident has disappeared without a trace – the city whose eight-hundred-year-old shape has been irrevocably and forever destroyed.

What delights theatre audiences is both the subtle narrative construction and the very absorbing intellectual concept employed to create an imaginary world governed by a set of unique rules, which simultaneously remains firmly linked to the reality, constituting in fact its reflection. Szczawińska knows what she wants to show on stage and carries out her idea with considerable consequence. The director creates a brilliant theatre show about what is absent from K., and about the experience of the absence. Absence is irreplaceable, after all.

Katarzyna Niedurny, e-teatr.pl

K., Or a Recollection from the City is a performance and an intellectual journey in one – a brilliantly and coherently constructed play to be decoded and relished.

Joanna Ostrowska, teatralny.pl

DIRECTED BY
Weronika Szczawińska

TEXT AND DRAMATURGY
Agnieszka Jakimiak

COSTUMES AND SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT
Dagny Szwed

COMPOSITIONS AND VOCAL COACHING
Krzysztof Kaliski

SOUND INSTALLATIONS
Maciej Szymborski

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Mateusz Atman

PHOTOGRAPHY
Bartek Warzecha

STAGE MANAGER
Nikola Brojerska

CAST
Natasza Aleksandrowitch, Agnieszka Dzięcielska, Ewa Kibler, Dawid Lipiński, Wojciech Masacz, Marcin Trzęsowski, Maja Wachowska (guest performance)

PREMIERE
June 2016