Theatre as the opening of a conversation and an invitation to reflect: ARE WE INDEED SO SPECIAL? The BOSKA KOMEDIA / DIVINE COMEDY Theatre Festival opens on 6 December 

On 6 December 2024, Kraków will again become the centre of the theatrical world and fervent debate as the 17th BOSKA KOMEDIA / DIVINE COMEDY International Theatre Festival, following this year’s provocative motto – You Are So Fucking Special – will open and captivate local and international audiences alike.

This year’s festival motto, You Are So Fucking Special, inspired by the iconic song by British band Radiohead, emphasises the creative individuality of artists and the uniqueness of every human tale. Bartosz Szydłowski, Boska’s Artistic Director, emphasises that the motto is a manifesto of acceptance and affirmation of diversity. “Our dramatic tales, even those brimming with pain, can be a source of strength if we build a compelling narrative”, says Szydłowski. “The festival motto makes no claims; we’re asking questions and creating a spectrum for our audiences to explore.”

Thus, BOSKA KOMEDIA / DIVINE COMEDY is also a festival of asking difficult questions, unafraid of provocation and examining the moods of dramatically polarised Western societies. In an era of intense self-construction, confronting questions about our true place in the world is worth the while, and the festival provides an ideal space for such reflection.

This year’s programme encompasses over twenty meticulously selected performances: both Polish productions and a selection of foreign works. Of particular note is INFERNO: the competition for Polish productions, whose international panel of judges are Snježana Abramović Milković from Croatia, Francesc Casadesús i Calvó from Spain, Thobile Maphanga from South Africa, Giacomo Pedini from Italy, and Deepan Sivaraman from India. Working together as the Jury, they will award 11 prizes. PURGATORIO is the section for presenting performances that do not take part in the competition; this year’s eight plays include two international productions.

Finally, PARADISO, with its seven performances, will, as always, lead to stage emerging talents who have taken on artistic challenges in their search for their unique theatrical identity.

Inferno is Competition. The performances selected for it by a panel composed of curators (Jacek Cieślak, Małgorzata Jabłońska, Magdalena Piekarska, and Jacek Wakar) and the artistic director reflect the internal temperature of the Polish stage within the new political reality. It is also an attempt to answer whether Polish theatre remains a reliable tool for measuring social moods and continues to act as the looking glass that allows the artists to see their own reflections. Are we really “SO FUCKING SPECIAL”, as the motto of this year’s Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy boldly asks? Or do we merely feed on the conviction, overinflating our egos, drowning in self-creation, and we have already drowned in the process of self-creation while concealing our disappointment with the new Poland and the world, and also our inner loss and confusion?

Competing in the INFERNO are eleven performances. Among them is Wesele / The Wedding directed by Maja Kleczewska at the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre, an accusatory reinterpretation of Wyspiański’s Polish classic. In turn, inspired by Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak’s bestselling book Chłopki, Remigiusz Brzyk takes Reymont’s great epic novel Chłopi / The Peasants to the stage of the Ludowy Theatre, offering a new perspective on the role of women in the country. The rural world is also the setting for Marcin Wierzchowski’s hypnotic Piękna Zośka / Zośka the Beautiful put to stage by the Wybrzeże Theatre, masterfully portraying the pervasive violence that closes hearts to the expression of emotions, breeds toxic love, and invites crime to the family. This year, women play a pivotal role in the Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy. The struggle for female agency is explored in Dzieje grzechu / The Story of Sin with Wojtek Rodak directing the National Stary Theatre in Kraków. And Marta Górnicka’s Chór Kobiet ensemble returns to present Matki. Pieśni na czas wojny / Mothers. Songs For Wartime – a powerful commentary on the war in Ukraine.

Anna Smolar’s Antygona w Molenbeek / Antigone in Molenbeek, based on the drama by the eminent Belgian writer Stefan Hertmans, shows what contemporary exclusion in the Western world looks like. The play tells the story of Nouria, a talented law student of Arab extraction, who stands up to fight the soulless state machinery as she endeavours to retrieve her brother’s body from the morgue. Jędrzej Piaskowski’s Persona. Ciało Bożeny / Persona. Bożena’s Body with the Zagłębie Theatre in Sosnowiec sheds light on class exclusion, both in society and within the theatre world itself.

In his Człowiek z papieru / Man of Paper anti-opera, Jakub Skrzywanek from Warsaw’s Powszechny Theatre resurrects the legendary Agnieszka from Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble, moving her to the glitzy world of a tinsel music gala, where you sing joyful hits about Polish poverty and hopelessness. Last year’s winner of the most important Divine Comedian statue, Mateusz Pakuła, takes his audience on a journey into the musical universe of the 1970s in his Złote płyty / Golden Records performance by the Capitol Theatre in Wrocław.

Fobia / Phobia from Markus Öhrn and Karol Radziszewski has Warsaw’s Nowy Theatre presenting a comic and grotesque theatre of cruelty, where gay hit squads introduce order among corporate chaos, showing no mercy to the artists even if they seem to support their actions. The theatre has one more play entered into the competition this year, and it is Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Elizabeth Costello. Consummate actors create a portrait of a decadent Europe, powerless in the face of the imminent end.

PURGATORIO is another regular section of Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy, and this year it is dominated by two international productions: Quanta’s director, Łukasz Twarkowski – one of the hottest Polish names in international theatre, combines modern technology with sensitivity to the actor’s inner landscape to build an uncompromising vision on stage. The world he created for the company on stage is structured around “intersecting events, quanta, and changing fates of characters”. Within it, the audience are subjected to the emotional power of images that has them all but experience distortions of time and space. The Kraków performance is the European premiere, attracting guests from around the world.

In turn, Neurony lustrzane / Mirror Neurons is a coproduction of the legendary Sasha Waltz & Guests dance ensemble and Rimini Protokoll based on the concept of Stefan Kaegi who directs the whole, melding documentary theatre with dance theatre. The audience, representing a brain made of communicative synapses, plays a special role in the play.

Every festival’s must haves are crowd-pleasers aimed at a broader audience. On the one hand, classic theatre with outstanding acting: Count Aleksander Fredro’s Zemsta / The Revenge with Maciej Stuhr and the Komedia Theatre in Warsaw received from its director Michał Zadara a gangster mise-en-scène, and Rewizor / The Government Inspector, featuring Tomasz Karolak and Krystyna Tkacz, offers excellent therapy through laughter thanks to the bravado theatrical entertainment directed by Łukasz Kos.

On the other hand, there come uncompromising plays grappling with hard-hitting topics. A real theatrical eye-opener of the recent weeks is Ocalone / The Rescued, directed by Maja Kleczewska and starring Agnieszka Przepiórska, which recalls the atrocities and suffering of women at Zieleniak during the Second World War. Polowanie na osy / Wasp Hunting, directed by Natalia Korczakowska, adapts Wojciech Tochman’s exceptional reportage about a young woman sentenced to life imprisonment, and features brilliant performances by Dominika Ostałowska, Wiktoria Kruszczyńska, and Maja Pankiewicz. Finally, Agata Siniarska’s null & void: a radical solo piece serving as a reply to the catastrophe of today’s world, as her body becomes a medium conveying pain, accusation, and rebellion against wars, destruction of the ecosystems, and indifference.

The programme of accompanying events invites to Kraków theatres to productions such as Jan Klata’s Państwo / Der Staat // Republic (Słowacki Theatre), Michał Nowicki’s Requiem dla snu / Requiem for a Dream (Barakah Theatre), Dariusz Starczewski’s Czy ja muszę to pamiętać. HAMLET / Do I have to remember that. HAMLET (Sztuka na Wynos), and Paweł Szumiec’s Jak spieprzyliśmy wszystko / How wee Fucked it all up (KTO Theatre). Theatre artists will have an opportunity to participate in pitching sessions with festival professionals from around the world.

PARADISO section will abound with works by emerging artists and creatives. Graduates of theatre academies search for fresh theatrical language and bring up new subjects. Being the melting pot for casting the future Polish stage, this section is brimming with surprises. It includes student performances from the National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, the Dance Faculty in Bytom, as well as directorial examinations and debuts from Anna Obszańska, Tadeusz Pyrczak, Barbara Bendyk, and Hana Umeda.

The festival also proposes meetings with artists, discussion panels (including two international ones), and late-night talks at the theatre club. Curated by Agnieszka Kozak, these events help to build Boska Komedia’s unique aura, activating new realms of audiences each year. The powerful visual identity for this year’s festival has been created by Victor Soma.

Join us in Kraków for an energetic and uncompromising theatre, poised to embrace new challenges!

The festival has been organised continuously since 2008 by the Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, a cultural institution of the City of Kraków, with the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The festival is cofinanced from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The festival’s majority funder is the City of Kraków.

We extend our thanks to the directors of our partner institutions, without whom the festival could not be possible: Ewa Godlewska-Jeneralska, Director of TVP-Kraków; Delfina Jałowik, Director of Bunkier Sztuki; Krzysztof Głuchowski, Director of the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre; Dorota Ignatiew, Director of the National Stary Theatre; and Zbigniew Grzyb, Director of NCK Nowa Huta Cultural Centre.

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Graphic design: Victor Soma