“New Athens”, the life’s work of Father Benedict Chmielowski, is a pioneering Polish encyclopaedia from the mid 18th century. Soon after his death, it became a laughing stock, considered a curiosity – the product of naivety and pseudo-scientific graphomania.
From the perspective of three centuries, however, “New Athens” may be viewed not only as a historical curiosity or a relic of the nobility’s obscurity, but as a heroic attempt to grasp and understand the world in its inexhaustible diversity – a world in which there was room for half-shadows of ignorance and mystery; where the microcosm and the macrocosm – linked by threads of correspondence – looked into each other. From this perspective, “New Athens” appears as a fascinating – and perhaps forever lost – image of the reality before the great classification and disenchantment brought by the Enlightenment reason.
The performance – based on excerpts from “New Athens”, using choreography and stage movement as a medium as important as words – is an attempt at such a look.
“New Athens” was prepared with the participation of students of the Dance Theatre Department of the State Higher School of Theatre in Bytom within the framework of the project of the ,,Gardzienice” Centre for Theatre Practices : ,,Generator of Hope”, premiered in October 2016 at the 6th International Festival of Wandering Theatres
The performance in the 2016 / 2017 season was presented in Gardzienice within the framework of ,,Gardzienice Theatre Marathons”, and at the State Higher School of Theatre in Kraków within the framework of the Competition for the Staging of Old Works of Polish Literature ,,Classics Alive”
Scenography / Projections: Iwona Bandzarewicz;
Photography: Iwona Bandzarewicz
Adaptation: Kajetan Mojsak, Maciej Gorczyński;
Directing: Maciej Gorczyński
Jacobina Blum
Klaudia Gryboś
Natalia Gryczka
Daniel Leżoń
Aleksandra Nowakowska
Sabina Romańczak
Łukasz Zgórka / Mikołaj Prynkiewicz
An interesting proposal was presented by Maciej Gorczyński, an actor of Gardzienice Theatre and a current student of the State Higher School of Theatre in Krakow. The director experimentally translated fragments of the first Polish encyclopaedia written in the mid 18th century by Father Benedykt Chmielowski. Gorczyński chose only small fragments from the over-thousand-page work and juxtaposed them with the text by the 18th-century English poet William Blake. The starting point of this realisation was the stage presentation of encyclopaedic definitions, however, the artists managed to capture something that cannot be seen when looking through the pages of a book. Gorczyński showed us the world as it was seen not only by Fr Chmielowski, but also by all contemporary and modern Poles. In this way, reflections on duration and transience, on the past and the present, emerged from the comical and naïve, which can be seen at first glance. This could not have been achieved if it had not been for the skilful adaptation of “New Athens”, prepared by Dr Kajetan Mojsak, a graduate of the Academy of Theatre Practices in Gardzienice and a researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, who specialises in the theory of literary grotesque.
Kacper Sulowski “Gazeta Wyborcza Lublin” 04.11.2016.
The performance New Athens, directed by Maciej Gorczyński, was based on the first Polish encyclopedia by Father Benedykt Chmielowski (the adaptation, apart from Gorczyński, is also the responsibility of Kajetan Mojsak). The artists of William Blake were invited to join the company, emphasizing that the matter would be a reflection on the opposition of imagination and science. Chmielowski’s work in the 18th century proves that such a contrast is not obvious. The book, which contains various, more or less unusual information (“about fish, mathematics, god, gods, multitudes, nations, manners, phantoms, remedies against devils, about the bird phoenix, about the animal unicorn, etc.), was created out of the will of a rational synthesis the world. The priest from Firlejów, although – as he wrote about himself – “returns his surname in beer and honey”, he was not a fanatic, madman or prankster. It is therefore impossible to treat this once very popular work among the parochial nobility as a medium for mockery of darkness and superstition. The creators of the performance choose a different path, reaching New Athens as if it were a barrel-imaginarium. Szpunt by dancing (…) put a harmonium in the center and weave a choreographic and song tale about Blake’s heaven and hell. About a Polish priest who turns into a sorcerer. The opposition eludes obvious associations. The evil side is not only the devil, but also Nicolaus Copernicus. Daniel Leżoń, who plays the main role (who also collaborates with the Norwegian theater Stella Polaris), allows you to possess the mask, changing the way you move, the tone of your voice, wandering somewhere to the edge of the world, closed on one side by the audience, and on the other by airy curtains, among which shadows wander. Above this world are rubber planet balls. In one of the scenes, the actors will start a cosmic dance with them, lifting them in their hands on their backs, playing with celestial bodies as if they were human bodies. The effect of these magical struggles plays out in our imaginations. As Chmielowski teaches: “Sorcerers cannot transform a man into real transmutations: for example, into a horse […] only through the delusions of the beholder” – this is also the explanation for a herd of galloping Cossack bachmats, which resembled chairs deceptively. If something is missing in New Athens, it may be Blake’s sensuality, delicately marked and tame with a Sarmatian blink of an eye and a flirty girlish smile. In the debate after the performance, Gorczyński talked about the need for knowledge tailored to human needs. Chmielowski found the theory of Copernicus beyond this measure. Today, despite the fact that we know about heliocentrism, we use the Internet and we look at photos of Pluto, we should not give up the world of magic, devils and specters. We are still tormented by hunger for the sacred, which, like Artaud’s sulfur, would give life a different dimension.
Dominik Gac (Theater 2/2017)
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