The Trial

Kafka “lives” here. Actors are fired, directors walk out, long-awaited performances are censored, the theater is in decline. An ultra-conservative government dismisses the art director of a historic theater, replacing him with someone of their liking.

Any similarity to people and situations is intentional. Kafka’s “Trial” reflects present-day Poland to a chilling degree. A victim of the practices afflicting the historic Polski Theater in Wroclaw, Krystian Lupa resorts to prophetic dystopia, which echoes our absurd world.

“It is me. It is us. We are arrested”. The cry of the Polish director about the instances of censorship in his country culminates in a five-hour performance cum existential experience, presented on 6-10 March at the Main Stage of the Onassis Stegi. Black tape seals the mouths of the seventeen actors, who strike out against the violation of freedom of expression, government corruption and the annihilation of the citizen in a Kafkaesque country. The nightmare of Josef K., who is arrested by forces of the regime, automatically becomes the nightmare of Polski Theater, of Krystian Lupa, of Poland, of Europe.

After he was banished from Polski Theater, Lupa managed to produce the “Trial” due to the support of European cultural establishments and foundations. The Onassis Stegi was one of the first bodies to back this initiative.

When governments censor the theater, the theater may become a transcending experience

Credits

Direction, Adaptation, Scenography & Lighting Design: Krystian Lupa
Costumes: Piotr Skiba
Music: Bogumił Misala
Video, Lighting Collaboration: Bartosz Nalazek
Animations: Kamil Polak
Glosses: Krystian Lupa, Andrzej Kłak, Marta Zięba, Marcin Pempuś, Adam Szczyszczaj, Małgorzata Gorol, Radosław Stępień
Dramaturgy Collaboration, Directorial Assistance: Radosław Stępień, Konrad Hetel
Video Assistant, Camera Operator: Natan Berkowicz
Costume Assistant: Aleksandra Harasimowicz
Porn Book Illustration; Portrait of The Attorney: Andrzej Kłak
Titorelli’s Desolate Landscape: Ninel Kameraz-Kos
Cast: Bożena Baranowska, Bartosz Bielenia / Maciej Charyton, Małgorzata Gorol, Anna Ilczuk, Mikołaj Jodliński, Andrzej Kłak, Dariusz Maj, Michał Opaliński, Marcin Pempuś, Halina Rasiakówna, Piotr Skiba, Ewa Skibińska, Adam Szczyszczaj, Andrzej Szeremeta, Wojciech Ziemiański, Marta Zięba, Ewelina Żak
Stage Manager, Camera Operator: Łukasz Jóźków / Sylwia Merk
Head of Production: Anna Czerniawska
Coordinator, Production Assistant: Sylwia Merk
Technical Coordinator: Paweł Paciorek
Translated into English: Dominika Gajewska, Artur Zapałowski
Subtitles: Adrianna Książek
Lighting Technician: Karol Białek
Sound Technicians: Piotr Żyła, Radosław Symon
Video Technician: Andrzej Lawdański
Props: Mateusz Andracki

Makeup & Hair: Monika Kaleta / Joanna Tomaszycka
Dresser: Iryna Kacharava, Varvara Kacharava
Stage Services: Robert Tomala, Jakub Płoński

Chief Producer: Nowy Teatr
Producers: Studio teatrgaleria; Teatr Powszechny; TR Warszawa; Le Quai Centre Dramatique National Angers Pays de la Loire
Co-producers: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Bruxelles; Printemps des Comédiens, Montpellier; Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Paris; Festival d’Automne à Paris; La Filature, Scène nationale - Mulhouse; Théâtre du Nord, Lille; La rose des vents - Scène nationale Lille Métropole Villeneuve-d’Ascq; HELLERAU - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Dresden; Onassis Stegi
Partner: Teatr Polski w Podziemiu

Co-financed by Miasto Stołeczne Warszawa

Read more:

The performance premiered in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Nowy Teatr in Warsaw

The ruling Polish party “Rights and Justice” is considered ultra-conservative, as it defends nationalist and Catholic ideals.

Censorship in Polski Theater peaked in 2016, when art director Krzysztof Mieszkowski was replaced by TV actor Cezary Morawski. These developments caused great animosity inside and outside Poland. Ten thousand people signed the petition for Morawski’s removal, including Peter Brook, Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert.

The “Trial” follows the story of Josef K., who is arrested one morning. Trapped in the impersonal system of bureaucratic insanity, he is summarily executed.

Linking the behavior of present-day authority to Kafka’s work, Lupa observes: “This type of strange, grim attack on man through a court; an accusation; removing, extirpating man by means of law; as well as this extraordinary, demagogic discourse that the authorities – and others – are currently employing in the accounting done between the state and the individual …. All of these are components of Kafka; here, we see them occurring in a different constellation, as ingredients in a different cocktail, so to speak, but they remain essentially unchanged”.

Krystian Lupa

In 1943, one of the most important personalities of the contemporary Polish and European theater was born in Silesia, Poland. In his youth, he experimented with studies in Physics but he soon turned to the arts, graduating as a graphic designer from the Krakow School of Fine Arts, after which he went on to study cinema and theater. Influenced by the theater personality and visual artist Tadeusz Kantor, the director Andrei Tarkovsky and the theater director Konrad Swinarski, he started directing in the mid 70s turning to psychological theater, an esoteric theater of human relations, and he has by now become renowned for the way he handles silence and time.
Since the early 1980s, he has presented some of his most characteristic productions in collaboration with Stary Teatr. He soon started cultivating his obsessions through the works of Bernhard, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov and Broch. He adapted “The Brothers Karamazov”, “Platonov”, “The Sleepwalkers”, “Immanuel Kant" and "The Three Sisters”, while in 1996 he joined Teatr Polski.
He visited Athens for the first time in 2004, in the context of the Athens Festival with a theatrical adaptation of Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra”.

The high quality of his art is mirrored in the penetrating performance of his actors and the amazing cohesion of the way he directs. In his 74th year, he continues to produce influential performances, the most recent of which are “Woodcutters” in 2014 and “The Trial” in 2018.