Firecrackers explode, the windows of a blood-sucking factory owner’s flat tremble with the workers’ shouts, and the echo of heavy boots blends with the melody of a rousing song – the tkocze (weavers) are coming to claim what’s theirs. But why tkocze rather than tkacze? In this Katowice production, the weavers speak Silesian, while the factory owners speak Polish. Director Maja Kleczewska and dramaturg Grzegorz Niziołek thus reference the literary original, first published in 1892 in the Silesian vernacular. The play by German Nobel laureate Gerhart Hauptmann tells the story of the Silesian weavers’ uprising in the Sowie Mountains in the first half of the nineteenth century. The creative team have transposed the narrative into our contemporary time, to highlight exploitation and injustice – but also revolt and solidarity – breaking free from the conventions of a historical chronicle. The Weavers astonish with their immediacy: it is hard not to glimpse today’s Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk in the factory owner Dreissiger, portrayed by Mateusz Znaniecki. The production also strikes with sheer stage energy, thanks above all to the ensemble of the Silesian Theatre. Contributing strongly to the dynamism of the production are Justyna Łagowska’s sets that offer several playing spaces, notably a hyper-realistic interior of a workers’ flat arranged so close to the audience that you could almost touch it.

Maja Kleczewska’s productions presented at Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy consistently draw huge audiences and win recognition of the jury. In 2018, her Pod presją / Under Pressure – also produced by the Silesian Theatre – won the festival’s Grand Prix, while the moving Ocalone / The Saved was among the most widely discussed works of last year’s edition. The Weavers are another pearl in the necklace of classics reimagined by the acclaimed director – following her Kraków stagings of Dziady / Forefathers’ Eve and Wesele / The Wedding – which she uses to speak – at times with brutal clarity – about the matters and anxieties of the modern world.

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The production includes scenes of violence and nudity, and loud pyrotechnic effects. No animals were harmed in the making of this production.

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Photo by Przemysław Jendroska