Plays

1989 is a production directed by Katarzyna Szyngiera featuring formal references to 'Hamilton'. Lin-Manuel Miranda's revolutionary musical introduced rap to Broadway, proposing a novel language of storytelling attractive to both younger and older audiences. The person behind the sound of our musical is one of the best Polish rap producers – Andrzej Mikosz "Webber", known e.g. for his long-term collaboration with "Łona".

1989 is a production directed by Katarzyna Szyngiera featuring formal references to 'Hamilton'. Lin-Manuel Miranda's revolutionary musical introduced rap to Broadway, proposing a novel language of storytelling attractive to both younger and older audiences. The person behind the sound of our musical is one of the best Polish rap producers – Andrzej Mikosz "Webber", known e.g. for his long-term collaboration with "Łona".

A Christmas Carol bears as much relevance today as it did in Dickens' time. A world devoid of compassion and solidarity, in which an indifferent rich man determines the lives of entire families, did not end when humanity entered the post-modern era. Nevertheless, the authors of the play do not want to dwell on this grim diagnosis. Their aim is to look with compassion and understanding at the character of Ebeneezer Scrooge.

The stage setting of this Victorian story of a miser haunted by ghosts serves merely as a pretext to talk about the misery of a man who does not love himself. Because Scrooge, much like the mythical Narcissus, only sees the surface, and is incapable of introspection, and thus of love. In this sense, the central character of A Christmas Carol is more of a victim of the circumstances in which he happens to live than a villain. His transformation is not only a shift from egoism to empathy, but also breaking free of the stereotypical perception of one' s role in the world.

Produced in collaboration with the National Bank of Poland.

Four friends and someone who is only here for a while. Fun, old age and big dreams.

The characters in the play are close to each other. They spend time together, discuss life, support each other, know about each other's weaknesses, witness each other's new infatuations as well as illnesses and ageing. They free themselves from the expectations imposed on them and start anew on their own terms.

The play is based on the stories of several older people interviewed by the script's creators. The themes that emerged from these conversations included the idea of freedom regained in adulthood – the absence of commitments towards their family and career, the feeling that ‘you no longer have to prove anything to anyone’ – as well as freedom defined as independence, which has to be fought for in order not to lose it. This ambiguous situation that comes with old age leads to new loves, decisions to relocate, the desire to pursue your dreams, to reclaim your physical well-being, or the need to make a film about the political situation in the world.

The performance shows that sometimes it's not too late to implement even the craziest plans, though it may prove difficult.

A world just after a fratricidal war. A world in which all the strong and healthy have died. Only the old, the unfit and the very young have remained. They are the ones who must rebuild the world – those who no longer have the strength to work and change, and those who are not yet capable of changing the world. The external war is over, but it continues in people's minds – they must continue to fight, take revenge, create enemies. The war with swords turns into a war with corpses. Can reconciliation between the young and the old only happen after death? When and how to let go? Is it possible to stop fighting, taking revenge and settling scores, and simply live a normal life?

The musical ‘Antigone’ tells Sophocles' tragedy in contemporary rap language. It builds a bridge between the world of ancient heroes, values and choirs, and the world of today's young people, whose rebellion and heroism blend with confusion, fear and uncertainty. Bisz, one of the most important contemporary Polish songwriters and rappers, will be responsible for the lyrics and music (along with Michał Szlempo).

The show, under the working title ‘Australia’, will invite the audience to an interactive encounter with anxiety-ridden characters, struggling with both latent individual phobias and the increasingly widespread fear of nuclear war. We will tell the story of a family that ends up in an airport in the middle of the night, frantically trying to get out of the country. In the intimate space of the Machine House, we will examine where our fears come from, how quickly we are able to transmit them to one another, and what they can lead to. We will ask: How do we distinguish between what appears to be valid and what might be considered paranoia? Just how bizarre states and reactions can anxiety lead us to? Is there a way to effectively make people feel safe? And how often is our own helplessness the source of our dread?

[...] one cannot be satisfied with the role of an unwitting performer of existential activities. And inself-defence,
one must pursue the meaning of everyday life as if it were a lurking criminal.

We are going to philosophise. Though perhaps philosophising may seem like the wrong term in this case, because it is associated with the mind, and here it's about philosophising with the body, philosophising about what we experience, and how we experience it as carnal beings. As beings in female bodies. Philosophising is mostly associated with the "heights" of the human (meaning: male) intellect, and to many it seems the opposite of a daily routine filled with trivial activities. We, on the other hand, wish to philosophise about the ordinary, the banal, the trivial, about the cleaning up, the busyness, the puttering around and tending to everything. About the daily labour that is the essence of our existence. This is where we’ll be searching for the meaning and properties of our human-female existence. In the existential reality that takes the form of a washcloth, a cherry fruit or a piece of meat.

Flesh and blood, symbols of life and death, of what is natural and sacred. But whose flesh and blood? For a very long time, a woman's body did not belong solely to her. Subjected to patriarchal control, moral and religious prohibitions and commands, treated as a commodity by the capitalist system, pushed into the realm of taboo, it was both an object of male desire and female shame. The female blood belonged to a different category than the blood oozing from the wound of a male hero. It is ‘unclean’ blood, which has even been deprived of its colour, replaced by blue in the ads. The experiences of half of humanity, both ordinary and those particularly difficult, are still too often considered unworthy of disclosure, silenced and hidden. The women in the play ‘Flesh and Blood’, directed by Iwona Kempa, will speak about what is inappropriate to talk about, what is, at best, whispered about. They will talk about the experiences of women's bodies and women's blood from a female perspective.