XVII MFG Iwona Princess Burgundy

Competition performance of the XVII International Gombrowicz Festival. Polish Theatre in Bielsko-Biała

“Iwona, Princess of Burgundy” - Gombrowicz's first drama, from 1935 - a stage grotesque, the action of which takes place in a fantastic space of the royal court, with an absurdly hierarchical structure, on which she suddenly appears - Iwona - “formless, loose”, colorless, and on top of everything silent. So annoyingly Inna that she begins to focus all her attention on herself.

In “Iwona...” Gombrowicz wrote a record of social mechanisms and conventions, and above all he made an attempt to diagnose the situation of a person involved in relationships with others.

The multiplicity of interpretation possibilities causes this outstanding drama and the question: “What is Iwona silent about?” often returns to theatrical stages, resonating with reality on many levels, which seems to be confirmed by Lena Frankiewicz, director of the Bielska production, declaring:

At the starting point, I asked myself two fundamental questions: what is this world we are entering and who is Iwona — in this world and in front of herself? We live in a time of digital dictatorship, where our value is measured by clicks, likes and views. Captive of the struggle for popularity algorithms, we create better, alternative variants of our resumes, in which the most private becomes public. Dystopian future-fiction from the TV series “Black Mirror”? No, this is our new reality. Dominated by the dictates of beauty, youth, popularity, we agreed to this agreement, or rather a pact, without even knowing with whom we pact. The only decision we can make is whether to participate in this race or to let go, which for the digital world is synonymous with disappearance, self-annihilation.

The license to use the work, illustrative music and choreography was granted by the Association of Authors ZAiKS.