Gdansk – Polónia

13th of April 2007
Town Hall of the old city

Part of institutional favors, thankfulness and so forth… I was advised to take the platform to the gardens in the surroundings of the old city hall. I was drove there, the other walked, for the box took all the back seats space.

Malgorzata, Carolina, Pavel, Dan, Rafael…

It was to be used as advertising opportunity for the show to open on that afternoon: Last news at Laznia contemporary art center.
So all the wrong reasons to be there, thanking the local council and advertise the show. But I like to go with the flow with these things. Let’s do it and see how we progress. Trying to relax my partners in the action, and lowering as well their expectation. If people are not engaging in playing is also ok, I told them.

Unfolding the box and the girls were busy with giving away flyers. I sat a bit further away with the guys. After one moment I had to ask the girls to do the same, step aside, things go better with the theatre when it stands by itself.

After realizing that not so many people are using that garden as a passing route we took it, finally, to its natural environment… the shopping streets, those streets crowded with people, tourists. So we went to Dluga… just across the local symbol, Neptune fountain and the actual Town Hall.

Being the characters: Bush, Putin, Lech Kaczynski Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Ujazdowsky(Minister of Culture), Benedict XIV, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (President of Iran) and Pawel Adamowicz (mayor of Gdansk)

No one apart form my team of helpers engaged in the play. But again part of the whole issue is the possibility given to passers-by to engage in the world theatre by mastering the masters of the world, rime ministers, presidents, but no engaging does not mean that people won’t get the message.

Let me clarify. I image myself. It would had to be a great day, when I would be in a good mood, with time and accompanied with friends, to engage myself in manipulating hand puppets in a public square. I should add that I am not a shy person and am able to jump out of anonymity into play, but not so many of us are. To this let’s add that these are the masters of our culture, local culture, tough, no?

Still the turns on peoples heads, the smiles, the nods. I love them. I imagine that they fantasize of jumping into the play, or they walk away imagining what they would have said if they were to speak in the name of the prime minister.


The day after we set the theatre outside LAZNIA. Once again I was suspicious about the spot chosen. The platform was not designed for children, they were never the audience I wanted to address, and the users of the neighborhood of the former city baths are children. What do children know about the world politics, aren’t they just mirroring adult conversations and speeches from TV? Suddenly this was all very interesting, it can be seen what adults think about politicians by the hands and mouths of children. And sure it was great fun, in the end children were paying for us, and adults playing for children. At this moment Mikolaj, a local artist was a tremendous helper, for he was mediating between children, passersby and platform always motivating everyone around.
posted by carla at 10:54 AM