Concept: Strzępka & Demirski
Performed by: Agnieszka Kwietniewska, Andrzej Kłak, Paweł Demirski (as Dario Fo)
Music: Jan Suświłło
Cooperation: Iwona Kaszkowiak
Partner: Polski Theatre in Wrocław

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I spoke to Dario Fo on the phone, he’s an Italian comedian

he does stand-up

and plays in which they kick fabricants‘ asses

who won the Nobel Prize

but we don’t like him here

to them, the after-war intelligentsia who have different opinions

I asked what I should write my next play about

and he said

– my dear

47 court cases

how do you like that?

47 libel actions

what do you say to that?

47 cases

and they’ve raped my wife

so to go back to your questions – if I haven‘t answered it yet

why write another play?  You can take one of mine

they’re good

but the crisis isn’t good and the people of Italy don’t go to the theatre

which kicks fabricants

because they can come out to the street and kick them with stones thrown onto police helmets

and they don’t have to pay for that because they’ve already paid by letting others take their bids and bobs

but mister Fo I must write something new I have a mortgage to pay off

maybe you could ask your Nobel Prize winners

if you don’t believe in my idea for 47 libel actions

our Nobel Prize winners have an opinion of you it’s just not a good one

then I asked him if he would come to the premiere

he said gladly he’d never been to Poland before

maybe because your work has had some bad translations over here

do you mean translations of the plays?

yes and as a matter of fact not that many people have seen your performances but you can see mine will you come to a premiere in a small miners’ town? this can be really something!

not too many people

show a play at a stadium one day

not for ninety people of the independent-studio-laboratory theatre people

will you?

that’s about it

I’m sitting here wanting to slander someone

but it’s been done so many times before so how can I make anyone go to court with me

I’m trying so hard

not to mention it at the stadium

we shall see

Monika Strzępka  – director, studied at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Warsaw. She made her debut with Polaroids by Mark Ravenhill on the Polish Stage of the Těšínské Divadlo in Český Těšín (2004). In 2006 she joined with Paweł Demirski to start a theatre partnership. She has directed his plays: Forefathers’ Eve. Exhumation at the Polski Theatre in Wrocław, Long Live the War!!! at the Jerzy Szaniawski Dramatic Theatre in Wałbrzych, Rainbow Stand 2012 at the Polski Theatre in Wrocław, In the Name of Jakub S. at the Gustaw Holoubek Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, among others. Her recent project is Courtney Love at the Polski Theatre in Wrocław. In January 2011 they both received the “Passports Awards“, from the Polish weekly magazine Politika in the theatre category for “developing their project of critical theatre; for having the courage to speak up and say more harsh things than we would like to hear; for vivid theatricality which choses ‘good thinking‘ over ‘good taste‘. In February 2012 they received Wdecha, an award from the cultural magazine of the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, in the category Sensation of the Year – Strzępka and Demirski in Warsaw. Towards the end of 2011 the Notatnik Teatralny theatre magazine published an issue dedicated entirely to the Strzępka-Demirki duo.

Paweł Demirski – playwright and dramatist, studied journalism at the University of Wrocław. From 2003 to 2006 he was the head of the Wybrzeże Theatre in Gdańsk, where in 2004 he started a socio-artistic project called Szybki Teatr Miejski (Quick City Theatre), a series of performances based on archive material, recorded conversations and private journals, which were shown in unconventional places. He has written over a dozen plays: From Poland with Love, Forefathers’ Eve. Exhumation based on Adam Mickiewicz’s epic work, Long Live the War!!!, inspired by Janusz Przymanowski’s novel, Rainbow Stand 2012, In the Name of Jakub S., to name only a few. He protested against dismissing Maciej Nowak from the position of director of the Wybrzeże Theatre by refusing to accept the prize presented to him for Wałęsa on the International Day of Theatre by the Marshal of the Pomorskie Province. In the season 2007/2008 he was a resident playwright at TR Warszawa. In February 2011 Krytyka Polityczna Publishing House released a collection of his plays under the title Parafrazy.

Dario Fo (born 1926) – Italian comedian, playwright, theatre director and composer. In 1997 he won the Nobel Prise in literature. His most recognised performance, shown over 5000 times, is Mistero Buffo, a play based on monologues combining medieval stories with political issues. It was so popular with the audience that some of the shows were organised in sports arenas. Most of his works concerned political and social issues. Fo criticised the Church, especially for banning abortion, but also political murders, the mafia, corruption, and the conflict between the Jews and the Arabs. In his works he often turned to the art of improvisation inspired from the commedia dell’arte. Mistero Buffo was translated into over 30 languages. He openly criticises Silvio Berlusconi, which can be clearly seen in one of his most recent performances called Anomalo Bicefalo. In the play Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin are injured in a bomb explosion, after which during a surgery a part of Putin’s brain is mistakenly put into Berlusconi’s.

http://komuna.warszawa.pl/2013/01/14/monika-strzepka-pawel-demirski-dario-fo-przeslal-instrukcje/