We, the children of the Zoo

Christiane F. was 12 years old when she first started smoking hashish. Then it went downhill — LSD, thefts, heroin and the ZOO station, where everything had a beginning and an end. Thus, at the age of 13, Christiane became a drug addict. What was the world that a lonely teenager wanted so badly to belong to? Did her ideas about adult life come true? And more importantly, did she find what she was looking for?

The play “We, the children of the ZOO station” is a story not only about addiction and its effects, but above all about how thin the line between fun and tragedy is. Art exposes human helplessness in the face of a system for which the individual is irrelevant.
The play was based on a report by Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck of the same name. The journalists of the German “Stern”, in a series of interviews conducted in the mid-1970s, revealed a shocking picture of Berlin's youth who, in the 1960s and 1970s, in the vicinity of the Berlin ZOO railway station, fell into drug addiction, alcoholism and poverty without care and support.

Starring: Magdalena Nieć/Justyna Orzechowska, Gracia Niedźwiedź, Katarzyna Ptasinińska/Kaja Walden, Dawid Czupryński, Adam Serowaniec

The performance used the songs of the band Dżem.

The play “We, Children from the Zoo Station” is addressed to young people over 13 years old. Spectators between the ages of 11 and 13 may participate in the performance only with the written consent of their parents/guardians.

Duration of the show: 60 minutes without a break.
Note: Strobe lights are used in the show.

We kindly inform you that the sale of group tickets (more than 15 seats) for performances played from Monday to Friday in the morning is carried out by contacting the Group Reservations Office.
We are implementing the project “Class in Warsaw. Warsaw with class.”

“We, children...” vibrate, breathe freshness and unforced expression. The studied means of expression were completely renounced. The scenography of Wojciech Stefaniak is limited to strips covered with transparent tape forming screens and metal stools. That's enough; the driving force behind the staging is the energy of a five-person acting team, set in motion from the very beginning like a phrygue.

(..) special words of appreciation deserve Adam Serowaniec and Christiana, who plays the main role (the whole play is a kind of her diary), Grace the Bear. Nothing can be blamed on the other performers either: Marcel Sabat poignantly plays a fast-moving drug addict who fights with the remnants of his strength to preserve the remains of dignity; Katarzyna Ptasinska is very convincing as a demoralized and cynical drug addict to the bone, and Magdalena Nieć has a very difficult task playing a double role: once a mother the main character, once her peer in the group and in the scenes immediately following each other.

All the roles in the play were taken on their shoulders by five young actors. They're great. For me, fragments of Christiane's mother's confessions performed by Magdalena Nieć were particularly traumatic. I suspect that these words could be signed by many mothers who live in other cities, countries, who did not notice when they became mothers of drug addicts.

The performance “We, children from the Zoo station” in Kamienica is exactly as it should be. Simply. Every detail is polished, there are no half-measures, all scenes are balanced in their message. It's bitter and accurate, but without overindulging with nudity and syringes.

(...) I was at the show today... I am impressed by the acting... It's really hard and hard art... the friction was piercing me all the time from what was coming at me every minute. Despite reading a book, watching a movie, the show made a thunderous impression on me... I am also the mother of a girl and I will tell you that such plays should be staged in order to observe, to show what to choose and what to avoid.

Teatr Kamienica undertook to stage a play with an extremely difficult subject, reminding everyone who once came across the reportage “We, children from the Zoo station” about its enormous value. Once again it has been shown that with the help of the means given by the theater it becomes possible to discover new interpretations.

Traditional theatrical means such as costumes, props and scenography were kept to a minimum. Especially the latter, prepared by Wojciech Stefaniak, is a big advantage of the show. On the stage there are only slats glued with transparent tape, forming screens and metal stools. Thanks to these sparing means of expression, the story told had a chance to become the most important.

The brilliant adaptation did not require special decoration or fancy music, and yet the scene was seething with an excess of emotions. The show catches the heart from the beginning and holds until the end, not allowing the slightest breath and even when the lights went out and the scene was deserted, everyone waited for more, struggling with inner insatiability.