{"id":511,"date":"2009-05-09T13:55:38","date_gmt":"2009-05-09T20:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=511"},"modified":"2009-05-09T13:58:43","modified_gmt":"2009-05-09T20:58:43","slug":"krum-translates-warlikowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=511","title":{"rendered":"Krum Translates Warlikowski"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every look, every conversation is a translation, and every translation an interpretation. Hanoch Levin\u2019s \u201cKrum\u201d had just appeared at the Cameri Theatre, in a TR Warszawa production directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. I sat with Krum \u2013 Polish actor and translator Jacek Poniedzia\u0142ek, on the roof of a Bauhaus building in the center of Tel Aviv. There were two of us at the table that night, surrounded by ghosts. He spoke of Warlikowski, Levin, and Krum, telling his own story through the stories of others.<\/p>\n

Poniedzia\u0142ek, whose translations of plays have been published in the theatre magazine \u201cDialog\u201d, met Warlikowski twenty years ago when they were both students at the National Academy of Theatre in Krakow. \u201cWe started to work together and to love each other,\u201d says Poniedzia\u0142ek, \u201csharing the same passion for theater.\u201d Describing a relationship that has not lost its intensity, although for the past two years it has been solely a working partnership, he says: \u201cMy point of view is quite often different from his\u2026 We talk all the time \u2013 about our dreams, fears, and fantasies\u2026our projections of the plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing a Polish version of Hanoch Levin in Israel is dramatically different from anywhere else in the world, both in terms of the audience\u2019s familiarity with Levin\u2019s work, and the complicated relationship between Jews and Poland. Warlikowski\u2019s Krum opens with several actors walking onto the stage while the house lights are on and members of the audience are still finding their seats, establishing an almost casual atmosphere. The lights dim. A huge close-up of a man\u2019s anguished face appears on a screen, Krum mourning his mother\u2019s death. Anyone familiar with Levin\u2019s work knows that we are hearing the end of the play. But the fun is just beginning: Krum\u2019s \u201cdead\u201d mother gets up from her seat in the first row to face the audience, playing out her scene with Krum who stands on the stage behind her, while another scene plays out simultaneously as spectacularly miserable Tugati asks the neighbors to play him some sad music so that he may experience the release of tears.<\/p>\n

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Poniedzia\u0142ek tells me that changing the order and staging scenes simultaneously is one of Warlikowski\u2019s \u201cfavorite ways of doing things.\u201d His production of \u201cHamlet\u201d at Beit Zvi in 1999 began with a sequence of several scenes performed at once with the entire cast onstage. As Poniedzia\u0142ek explains, \u201cEveryone knows Hamlet\u2026Shakespeare\u2019s introduction is not so necessary.\u201d Rather than delete text, Warlikowski engages the audience by playing with the staging in a way that thwarts expectations. This style of directing resembles Warlikowski\u2019s thought processes as described by Poniedzia\u0142ek: \u201cChaotic \u2013 the way he talks. He\u2019s pulling lots of threads in the same moment in one simple monologue. He sometimes abandons one context and jumps to another one. [there are] many layers in his mind, [he is] constantly thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warlikowski first heard of Levin\u2019s plays while in Israel and brought Poniedzia\u0142ek an English translation. \u201cI fell in love with the play,\u201d he recalls, \u201cit was clear, strong, funny, poignant, so real \u2013 all the qualities we need.\u201d Of the process of translation he says, \u201cIt\u2019s my work, but with lots of fights. Krzysztof is a person who fights.\u201d Of Levin, Poniedzia\u0142ek says, \u201cHe was writing so Polish!\u201d Creating a contemporary colloquial translation out of \u201cthe language of my childhood, the playground, my mother\u2026a Krakovian, very local language, the language of the street, the neighborhood,\u201d Poniedzia\u0142ek says, \u201cthe actors loved it. There is a saying in Polish: the language suits your mouth and tongue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levin\u2019s writing feels very Polish to Poniedzia\u0142ek who takes note of the \u201cimage of the Polish mother \u2013 strong, powerful, maybe sometimes rigid and cruel, sometimes nervous and hysterical.\u201d Drawing parallels between his own life, Levin\u2019s life and the character of Krum, Poniedzia\u0142ek says, \u201cMy father also died when I was a boy. His life was with his mother, who maybe not intimidated him, but\u2026my mother once said, when I told her that I want to be an actor \u2013 we are shit and you are going to be the same, so don\u2019t think that you are going to be something else. I could imagine that his [Levin\u2019s] mother might say something similar\u2026not having self-confidence, hopelessness for your children that has its source in a hard life, in poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krum, who returns home after years abroad having accomplished and learned nothing, is \u201cvery selfish, very lost\u201d according to Poniedzia\u0142ek, who is anything but. He brings an ease and charm to his portrayal of Krum, enhanced by the cinematic intimacy of the audience\u2019s first encounter with his grief. Moving effortlessly from his slick seduction of Truda to his awkward lust for the unattainable Cica, he establishes himself with the audience as a familiar face from the neighborhood, as if he is not an actor playing a role, but just one of the guys. The affinity between acting and directing style works to enhance this rapport as the barrier between stage and audience is non-existent. The actors not only address speeches to the audience, but actually talk to them, offering criticism, advice and cookies as casually as one would to a neighbor. Warlikowski \u201cloves to set scenes in front of the audience,\u201d says Poniedzia\u0142ek, \u201cIt\u2019s a kind of confession, a conversation in front of the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

This dialogue, the exchange of ideas and feelings, is at the heart of the creative impulse in Warlikowski\u2019s work. Poniedzia\u0142ek describes\u00a0 him as \u201cvery greedy for knowledge, wants to know and understand\u2026in our years of travel spending the summers in Tuscany reading constantly, eating fruits in bed with five open books and surrounded by remains of fruits \u2013 apples, pears, tangerines and cigarettes.\u201d When I comment that unlike the selfish Krum, he seems to think and talk more about Warlikowski than himself, Poniedzia\u0142ek readily concurs, \u201cBecause he is for me much more important than myself. I do theater because of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the difference between Krzysztof and other directors?\u201d he says, \u201cwhy do I claim to be so fulfilled and happy \u2013 the most important thing is freedom. We are creating the piece as much as he does. Not \u2018I am an instrument\u2019 \u2013 he wants people, not actors, people with their knowledge, pain, their past, their childhoods, love affairs and broken souls.\u201d Explaining that unlike in Western theatres where a play will run for a certain time and then disappear, their plays are revived time and again, each time undergoing a creative process that introduces changes to be \u201cattractive\u2026to let the audience be more interested in what we do, to laugh.\u201d Describing Warlikowski as \u201cvery witty, very much an intellectual, he wants people to think,\u201d Poniedzia\u0142ek adds, \u201cSometimes people don\u2019t want to think very hard. If they can have fun, think, and take something with them in their souls \u2013 then we win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Image credit: Elizur Reuveni slideshow from “Krum” and reception at The Cameri Theatre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every look, every conversation is a translation, and every translation an interpretation. Hanoch Levin\u2019s \u201cKrum\u201d had just appeared at the Cameri Theatre, in a TR Warszawa production directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. I sat with Krum \u2013 Polish actor and translator Jacek Poniedzia\u0142ek, on the roof of a Bauhaus building in the center of Tel Aviv. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}