„Iphigenia in T…” – Gardzienice Theatre 

“Iphigenia in T…” based on Euripides’ “Iphigenia in Tauris”, dir. Włodzimierz Staniewski. A timely performance with references to Crimea, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, war and the misery

October 16th (Thursday), 7 PM / Carmina Stage in the Large Outbuilding

The cult of Iphigenia among the Taurians—a Crimean people as well known in antiquity as their relatives, the Scythians, or “our” Sarmatians—arose out of catastrophe. Iphigenia, the charismatic young girl, miraculously saved in Aulis from the knife of her own father, the child-killer (amid a howling black-hundred mob thirsting for innocent blood), lost to her own people—reappears among strangers.

In Crimea, at the very edge of what was then called the “civilized world,” she is said to have fallen from the sky among the Taurians. Horrific. Or perhaps, as in so many similar topoi, she wandered long before arriving? A refugee who found shelter in a distant land?

Iphigenia is deified during her lifetime by Thoas, the leader of the Taurians, and through his will—by the people. Thoas also gives her the keys to power—an extraordinary act of generosity: the anointing of a Stranger, the elevation of the Stranger above one’s own. Thoas appoints Iphigenia as priestess of the Black Madonna of Tauris, Artemis. Her image, impressed in a statue, had also once fallen from the sky. A black meteor, similar to the one worshipped in the marvellous temple in Ephesus, and since time immemorial in the temple of Athena, Guardian of the City, on the Acropolis.

An eidolon, an icon, venerated by the Taurians as their Holy of Holies, adorned for centuries with votive gold, silver, ivory, and ebony, dressed in diamond, perhaps even amber garments. It must have been an object of desire for pirates and plunderers of every sort—like those two: Orestes and Pylades.

Plundering sanctuaries was “cool” in both ancient and more recent times—one need only recall two Polish knights of the Działosza and Szreniawa coats of arms who in 1430 “stripped the Black Madonna of her gold and jewels” (Długosz). Savages? Infidels? No! Native nobility. Ruffians inspired by ancient models of pseudo-heroism.

Orestes and Pylades distract us with exclamations about Apollo’s manipulations (Euripides holds Apollo in poor esteem), but they plot like professional cutthroats with Alcibiadean manners.

Iphigenia betrays all the good of the new life she was given, turning against her benefactors. She conspires and betrays noble Thoas. Swayed by two dandies, she directs a shameful spectacle of stealing the Holy of Holies from the Taurians and fleeing in disgrace. Her laments on kinship ties and a lost homeland (which had treated her like a sacrificial animal) sound like the soothing of a guilty conscience, an attempt to justify an ignoble act of betrayal.

Włodzimierz Staniewski

Direction: Włodzimierz Staniewski – based on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris, translated by Jerzy Łanowski
Assistant Director: Joanna Holcgreber
Set Design: W.S.
Music: A collection of works and their musical dramaturgy by W.S. 

Folk songs from many countries, as well  as canons brought by W.S. from the Bukkokuji monastery, are used in the performance.

Costumes: Monika Onoszko, following the indications of W.S., with reminiscences of the hippie era
Bones and human skins crafted by: Ewa Woźniak
Lighting: Paweł Kieszko, Michał Dzirba
Multimedia: Jakub Gołoś
Sound: Wojciech Tryksza
Musicians: Dymitr Harelau, Małgorzata Bardak

Current cast: Mariusz Gołaj, Joanna Holcgreber, Marcin Mrowca, Anna Dąbrowska, Paweł Kieszko, Anna Maria Słowikowska, Maria Matosek, Anna Bielecka, Agnieszka Guz, Paulina Borowa-Misiarz, as well as James Jack Bentham, Elliot Windsor

Original cast: Mariusz Gołaj, Joanna Holcgreber, Marcin Mrowca, Dorota Kołodziej, Agnieszka Mendel, Anna Dąbrowska, Martin Quintela, Ivor Houlker, Esztella Levko, Artem Manuilov

We are reviving the performance because it is astonishingly relevant. With references to Crimea, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, war, and the degradation of our human fate.

fot. Marcin Butryn