Non-Divine Comedy

Count Henry has it all. Status, money and authority. The approval of the art world. Influential friends. Loving wife. A wonderful son. But all this is sometimes not enough to fill the void in the human heart. Sometimes that's not enough to stop the coming end.

The world is shaking in jobs. Plaster falls from the decorated ceiling. The floors of the palaces tremble. The revolution is coming. All scandals and secrets of power are to be revealed. And in these are people from Henry's closest circle involved. People whom he regarded as friends. Or did he not want to see who they really were? Maybe he owed them too much? However, it is impossible to remain blind.

The revolutionaries, led by Pankracy, want the whole truth. But are they ready to accept it? Are we as a human being ready for this? Are we ready to accept the whole truth about the world when we are often unable to accept the truth about our own family and ourselves? And the truth will be painful, because it will be about the harm done to the weakest and least. Losing his sight, Orcio tries to open his father's eyes to what was happening right under his nose.

The characters do not wander, they spin in an epileptic dance. Everything is too sudden, too fast, too incomprehensible. It's so easy to overlook what's important. It is so easy to sleep the apocalypse when it takes place in our country, on our street, in our house, in our head. It's so easy to overlook all of this when we bring our big, inviolable, egoistic I to the fore.

Director: Piotr Pacześniak Dramaturgy: Piotr Pacześniak Scenography and costumes: Łukasz Mleczak Choreography: Małgorzata Czyżowska Light direction: Monika Stolarska, Michał Piosek Music: Bartosz Dziadosz Video projects: Natan Berkowicz Assistant director: Maurycy Polewski Inspectors: Magdalena Matusewicz/Karachi Grool Gromek Vocal consultation: Joanna Sykulska Video assistant: Piotr Bontron

Sylwia Achu (guest) Mariusz Adamski Alan Al-Murtatha Konrad Marek Cichoń Piotr B. Dabrowski Michał Kaleta Piotr Kazmierczak Barbara Krasińska Denis Kudijenko Kacper Kujawa (guest) Jakub Papuga Monika Roszko Aleksandra Samelczak Paweł Siwiak Damian Sosnowski (guest) Andrzej Szubski Kornelski Trawkowska Ryszard Zajaczkowski Children: Hanna Jakubiak, Liliana Krzywosz, Stanisław Maciantowicz, Klara Klonowska, Antoni Małdziński, Olaf Pęczkowski, Aleksander Simons

Portraits of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and Trump hang in the noble castle, the rich man scolds the poorer that he did not wear a suit in his living room, the political, business and church aristocracy play on an island full of children, and the cross glowing over everything in the finale turns out to be a projection of an algorithm.

It takes a brave imagination to frame these scenes and images in the frame of Krasinski's romantic drama “The Non-Divine Comedy”. And to fill this frame with dozens of scenes, alternately sublime and banal, to allow a dozen actors to show their best qualities, in a capital way leading a group of child actors along the way.

The evening at the Non-Divine Comedy by Piotr Pacześniak at the Polish Theatre in Poznań will not be easy and pleasant. But worth the trip and effort. In a world of ubiquitous ease, endearment and simplification, theater as a thought-provoking art has more and more meaning and value.

The first impression was not very encouraging. It seems as if the show is actually asking for rejection and denial. For the first dozen minutes of the “home” part, the chaos, ugliness and tiring clumsiness, barely kept in check by the surviving dramatic lines of the original, produced in me a growing desire to wave my hand and throw myself to the devils. Who knows, if it weren't for the fact that I specially went to Poznań all day from the other end of Poland, maybe I would have left ahead of time. However, this would be a mistake, because this ease of rejection, which the show seems to convey in an almost suicidal gesture, begins to work like a snare after a dozen minutes, disturbing and drawing gradually into the pictorial and emotional whirlwind of this - literally - non-divine comedy, played by the whole world tumbling on the stage.

Pacześniak, as a playwright and director, created from a non-divine comedy a play that does not facilitate anything and, as it were, in an act of self-defense, combating his own simplifications, forcing him to be attentive and thinking (unless, of course, “who has the habit — to think”). Of course, not thinking about Krasinski and his classic drama, because these are topics that are certainly exciting, but only a dwindling handful of specialists and non-school-bound readers. The theater for thought that is being built here concerns today's world and, above all, mine, yours, hers and his participation in it. And not where Epstein and Trump came from, but what we have arranged for those who are already coming for us: what we have prepared for our children.

The musical leitmotif of Pacześniak is Amy Winehouse's song Back to Black. But when I think of this spectacle, driving home the next day after watching it, something completely different comes to mind, which sounds almost like a literal description of the scene with Leonard and the children of the revolution: “Pass me that lovely little gun/My dear, my darling one/ The cleaners are coming one by one...”

Pacześniak does not for a moment build a historical museum or open-air museum of old ideas on the stage. His “Non-Divine Comedy” is a deeply pessimistic treatise on our present day. The director unceremoniously exposes the progressive oligarchization of democracy, the clear crisis of liberal values and the ever-growing social inequalities.

On the scene, we observe a terrifying collision of two destructive forces. On the one hand, we have a self-satisfied elite (aristocracy), completely detached from reality, who in their self-conceit and egoism have forgotten about the rest of the world. On the other hand, the powerful force of the revolutionary crowd, which is summoned, but blind in its destructive anger. Developers do not give the audience easy answers. The show forces the viewer to confront their own contradictions in a difficult way and raises the open question of how easily we are cheaply manipulated in the age of digital information overload. It is difficult to fully convey the character of Poznań's “Non-Divine Comedy”, not to mention its brilliant visual layer. The scenography by Łukasz Mleczak creates an extremely cold, stuffy and claustrophobic space. This stark picture perfectly corresponds to the progressive disintegration of human relationships and the creaking of social structures.

The use of stroboscopes and modern pulsating video projections enhances the feeling of being surrounded in the viewer. It is a theater that directly attacks our senses and does not allow us to breathe a single moment, which effectively captures the growing chaos of the revolution that is approaching with great steps. “Non-Divine Comedy” directed by Piotr Pacześniak is one of the most important events of the current season at the Polish Theater in Poznań. It is a bold work that does not for a moment escape from the difficult legacy of Krasinski's original text (including his problematic anti-Semitism), subjecting it to a sharp, critical vivisection.

If you are looking for a theater that presents an intellectual challenge, is visually modern, and at the same time remains uncompromising in its assessments — this performance is a must.

ATTENTION! — flashing images/projections and strobe lights are used in the performance. Smoke and cigarette smoke also appear in the show.

Theatre 2026Non-Divine Comedy directed by Piotr PacześniakoFinancing: 120 000 złTOTAL VALUE: 383 135 PLN DATE OF SIGNING: 02.06.2026

The task is to stage Zygmunt Krasiński's “Non-Divine Comedy” directed by Piotr Pacześniak at the Polish Theatre in Poznań. The task includes the production of the play and its exploitation in the period from the beginning to the end of June 2026 as part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Polish Theatre in Poznań. The play is intended to recall Krasinski's archdrama in the complexity of romantic thought and raise the question of the responsibility of the individual. The play diagnoses social critical points: inequality, the spectre of upheaval, the crisis of liberalism and the oligarchisation of democracy.

The main objective of the competition is to increase the presence of Polish classical texts in the repertoires of contemporary theatres and to strengthen the interest of today's creators and audiences of the theatre, as well as to restore to the repertoire valuable works of Polish drama, forgotten or rarely staged. The “Living Classics” competition is organized by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute with funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.