Werner Schwab

THE PRESIDENTS

(Die Präsidentinnen)

Świebodzki Train Station Stage THE PRESIDENTSphoto Marcin Kopeć more photos >>

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  • translation MONIKA MUSKAŁA
  • arrangement of text, arrangement of music, set design and directed by KRYSTIAN LUPA
  • CAST
  • Erna BOŻENA BARANOWSKA
  • Greta HALINA RASIAKÓWNA
  • Mariedl EWA SKIBIŃSKA
  • Virgin Mary ALDONA STRUZIK/DOMINIKA FIGURSKA/ANNA ILCZUK

improvisations on Besame mucho theme MIECZYSŁAW MEJZA
recorded in studio of Stary Theatre in Cracow

the opening at the wiebodzki Train Station Stage
on 17 September 1999

A brilliant Krystian Lupa production of a play by the scandalizing father of today’s brutalists, Werner Schwab.

The Presidents, a play that no Austrian theatre wanted to stage during the playwright's lifetime, is a story of three women who have no life beyond a TV set, religious bigotry, humiliating work, and reminiscing about the past. The women belong to a social class that we normally prefer not to see. Their inner life is shallow, memories insipid, language deficient and vulgar. Their mental horizons do not stretch beyond petty bourgeois routine and cruelty. The women live in a dream world, and the loss of control over the illusion leads to a bloody finale.

The play is an intense experience on a par with an ancient Greek tragedy. Boena Baranowska, Halina Rasiakwna and Ewa Skibiska turn in stellar performances.

licensed from: Agency of Drama and Theatre, Warsaw, and Authors’ Society ZAiKS, Warsaw

the production suitable for adult audiences only

photos

running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

Tickets

35 zł (norm.), 29 zł (conc.)

Festivals and tours

  • 30.10.1999 – Replica Theatre in Stockholm (Sweden)
  • 6.05.2000 – XL Kalisz Theatre Meetings
  • 12–14.05.2000 – V Festival des théâtres a l’Est de l’Europe "Passages"/V Festival of East European Theatres "Passages" in Nancy (France)
  • 18.05.2000 – XI Gliwice Theatre Meetings
  • 24.09.2000 – I European Regions Theatre Festival in Jelenia Góra
  • 4.10.2000 – I International Women’s Art Forum in Radom
  • 16.10.2000 – XVIII Gorzów Theatre Meetings
  • 17.10.2000 – VIII Zielona Góra After-Vintage Theatre Meetings
  • 28–29.10.2000 – Rozmaitości Theatre in Warsaw
  • 8.03–3.04.2002 – tournée in France
  • 27.05.2002 – VIII Festival "Paths of Theatre: Meetings" in Kielce
  • 14–15.05.2003 – Lupa Festival in Cracow
  • 21.11.2004 – VIII Theatre Festival Maski in Poznań
  • 26.04.2008 – X Theatre Days in Polkowice
  • 18–19.09.2008 – XI Festival Internacional de Teatro Experimental FITE-Q/G 2008/XI International Festival of Experimental Theatre FITE-Q/G 2008 in Quito and Guayaquil (Ecuador)
  • 24.11.2008 – Polish Theatre Festival in Riga (Latvia)
  • 2–3.04.2009 – XIII Europe Theatre Prize in Wrocław
  • 16.05.2009 – IV Festival of Polish Contemporary Plays R@Port in Gdynia [section R@Port Europa]

Awards

XL Kalisz Theatre Meetings (2000):
- Bożena Baranowska, Halina Rasiakówna and Ewa Skibińska - first awards for actresses

Reviews

If not for the risky, almost exhibitionist acting, this production would not exist. Halina Rasiakówna, Ewa Skibińska and Bożena Baranowska all go beyond the point where the actress stops to like herself. Unkempt and graceless, they fight and yap. Utterly shameless, they spread their legs, rock their hips and share their erotic dreams about men. Rasiakwna has gone the furthest of the three – her Greta is a butch: awkward, with a heavy gait and eyes holding a grudge against everyone and everything. Yet a silent scene added by the director during the intermission says more about Schwab’s characters than acting: three giggling children watch the three women, prodding their motionless bodies with sticks as if they were heaps of dung.

Roman Pawłowski, "Gazeta Wyborcza"

Three women in one microworld in the lab. Based on Werner Schwab’s brutalist text, Krystian Lupa has created an austere production that causes physical suffering. [...] Lupa’s production has a great rhythm. [...] Krystian Lupa succeeded in making a superb and extremely important piece. In his production, Schwab’s difficult text has more punch. The director is faithful to the original play and uses theatrical devices with great skill, without overdoing it. The audience might feel psychological discomfort but it is a good thing, because it may help them understand – they will not become men without qualities. I wish Lupa's experiment would invest our lives with such qualities.

Tobiasz Papuczys, Dziennik Teatralny, www.teatry.art.pl