Angry

Soon a new hero will appear in Warsaw. It will be a different city...

Oh, the gates of Warsaw! Every great city has in its architecture a certain detail, proper only to that city, in it only growing into a symbol of custom. In Warsaw, such a detail is the gate. Are there no tenement houses with gates outside Warsaw? They are. I think everywhere, but only in Warsaw the door of the house somehow defined the life of several generations. (“Bad” Leopold Tyrmand)

Behind the gate, evoked by Tyrmand, hides the Evil One and the multitude of passages that make up the novel. The opening of this gate is an invitation to travel, to discover a universe at once bright and dark, whose cartography defines its geographical and temporal contours. It is the gaze of man that is the source of the creation of the city. This gaze, which crystallizes the need to take root and expand the individual, can create or destroy a city in the blink of an eye. Nevertheless, from construction to destruction, under reconstruction, Warsaw survived.

Far from obeying the vision of urban planners, the city is constantly transforming itself, on every street corner, according to the desires and hidden fears of its inhabitants. The physical structure comes to life and develops: at every step, before our eyes appear gates, windows without glass or illuminated, illuminated windows, evoking in us a sense of danger or security.

The city, like any living being, is in constant motion, and its plasticity seems to be an extension of our body. In the novel Bad, it becomes organic and it is no longer known who shapes whom — the man, the city, or the city of man... We all look in a special way at a house, a building, a street, a neighborhood, and each of us lives in it in our own way, exerting a more or less visible influence on our surroundings. However, we do not know the many nooks and crannies that sometimes appear during our urban hikes.

These unexpected discoveries confront us with an obvious fact: we wonder if the city we built has not suddenly gotten out of our control, because in some ways it seems alien to us. Like a creature that has liberated itself from the power of its creator, the uniqueness of the city fascinates us, while leaving a feeling of anxiety. Its dark sides reflect our intimate dark sides, reminding us that everything is ambivalent. Our subconscious seems to run through a maze of streets, where the best coexists with the worst, as long as the bad is really the worst for us...

However, his nature as the mythical Phoenix does not protect him from the traces of passing time and battles, as Tyrmand perfectly shows, by overexposing a city strongly marked by the vicissitudes of history. It is through studying the pulse of the city that we can diagnose the state of our society and assess the way in which the city approached the turning points of history, both at the level of the urban community and at the individual level, that is, at the level of each citizen.

Even today, when democracies are shaky and war is just around the corner, society is torn between the desire for peace and rebellion, between hospitality and self-closure. As in Tyrmand's novel, the threat that lurks beneath the surface makes society turn to the figure of a savior. The invisible and omnipresent Evil is a being, a specter that appears every time history trembles, and a distraught man turns to the figure of a man of providence. People pass away, cities remain, and their strata bear witness to the passing of successive generations.

In a post-futuristic world, in which the asphalt on the stage gives way to a virtual city that is constantly “self-generating”, theater, the art of arranging space, allows us to reflect on heterotopic places, “other spaces”, to use Foucault's term, in which man redefines space-time.

Text: Rébecca Pierrot (playwright)

availability Entrance to the building without stairs. The show takes place on the ground floor. Accessible toilet for people with disabilities. Induction loop. If you need support (e.g. assistance, headphones) please contact us 3 days before your scheduled visit: dostepnosc@powszechny.com +48 797582769

The availability of the event (Polish subtitles for the deaf) was ensured as part of the 14th Festival of Culture without Barriers.