Don’t be misled by the opening scene of this production. Though we hear Stanisław Wyspiański’s Wyzwolenie / Liberation and see Radosław Krzyżowski and Dorota Segda– distinguished actors of the Stary Theatre – in the classic roles of Konrad and the Muse, this is not about presenting a new take on the Polish classic. Jakub Skrzywanek – Artistic Director of Kraków’s National Stary Theatre and winner of the Passport Award of Polityka weekly in the Theatre category – has fashioned Liberation into a frame that he shatters with the titular “assassination”: an event meant to change the course of history by a brutal invasion into the lives of its actors that at the same time pushes the theatre into the spotlight of attention of the media and politicians.

In The Assassination of the National Stary Theatre, Skrzywanek and his team blur the line between fiction and reality, mixing real figures with those invented for the play, also intertwining multiple timelines. All these devices form part of an artistic experiment aimed at jolting the audience out of passive participation in the social, political, and ideological processes that trap Poland in a vicious circle of martyrological narratives. Festival audiences watching the Kraków production of Skrzywanek will surely recall his earlier works featured at Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy. In Człowiek z papieru. Antyopera na Kredyt / Man of Paper. An Anti-Opera on Credit, we were participants in a gala addressing poverty and social inequality, while in Spartakus. Miłość w czasach zarazy / Spartacus. Love in the Time of Plague, the director staged the wedding of a same-sex couple. The Assassination of the National Stary Theatre is another production that the young director uses to explore the limits of theatre and its potential as a tool for transforming social and political imagination.

---

This play features artificial smoke, flashing lights, projections, and strobe effects. It also addresses themes that may be distressing for those in mourning or experiencing PTSD.

---

Photo by HaWa