Waiting for the Barbarians

The play Waiting for the Barbarians, inspired by the novel by J.M. Coetzee, is not a story about barbarians. It is a story about a society that needs barbarians to be able to define itself, justify its own fear and legalize violence.

The greatest threat to the Empire is not the external enemy, but the mechanism that creates it through the language, propaganda, procedures and daily decisions of people who do not see themselves as perpetrators, but without them the evil done to those rejected by the “system” could not happen.

This is the story of how ordinary people — not monsters or tyrants from history books — step by step cross the boundaries of humanity in the name of “order,” “national security,” and their own comfort.

The line is not between “us” and “them.” It runs through each of us. And it is in this place — the most uncomfortable — that the story begins,” the creators of the show emphasize.

There are never winners. They're just losers. But some losses are better than others.

— a fragment of the script of the performance.

Fig. Karolina Jozwiak