A Strong Dose of Theater at the End of the Season - June at the WMT

The last month of the 2023/2024 season at the Wrocław Pantomime Theater is a colorful kaleidoscope of theater before the summer holidays. Audiences will have the opportunity to see the best titles from the past months.

◆ "Alpine Symphony. A spiritualist-mime thriller inspired by the figure of Wanda Rutkiewicz with music by Richard Strauss," directed by Cezary Tomaszewski.

Cezary Tomaszewski is known to Wrocław audiences from "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The Musical" at the Capitol Musical Theatre. The play is a finalist in the 30th National Competition for the Staging of Polish Contemporary Play.

This phantasmagoric story revolves around the missing body of Wanda Rutkiewicz, which haunts and summons a team of mimes at a moment when refusal to discuss, escape, and disappearance seem to be the only right way. "Alpine Symphony" is a journey in search of corporeal-political healing, leading through mountain pastures inhabited by white, fluffy Yetis resembling popes, and apparitions eerily similar to Tomaszewski; meadows shrouded in the legend of Wanda, floating in the mist; Tibetan monasteries atop eight-thousanders.

Performances: June 13 and 14 | 7:00 PM, Centrum Sztuk Performatywnych Instytutu Grotowskiego (PIEKARNIA Żywa Kultura), Księcia Witolda street 62

◆ "The Discomfort of Evening" directed by Małgorzata Wdowik.

This season's standout production has swept awards and is participating in the most important theatrical reviews both in Poland and internationally. Wdowik's performance has been showcased at various prestigious festivals including: the International Theatre Festival Divine Comedy in Krakow – winning best set design for Aleksander Prowaliński and Jan Baszak, and best supporting actress for Urszula Kuśnierz; the International Theatre Festival CONTRAPUNCTUM in Szczecin; the 44th Warsaw Theatre Meetings in Warsaw; and the 28th International Theatre Festival Kontakt in Toruń.

Based on Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s book "The Discomfort of Evening", the play is a visual narrative about the experience of loss and how it accumulates in the body and imagination; it explores an attempt to confront the tragedy that confines a 10-year-old protagonist and her relatives in a world engulfed in mourning; about the need to find meaning in death. It is also a story about maturation and the end of childhood.

The only show in Wrocław: June 16 | 5:00 PM, Centrum Sztuk Performatywnych Instytutu Grotowskiego (PIEKARNIA Żywa Kultura), ul. Księcia Witolda 62. 

◆ "Microcosm" inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's "Thumbelina," directed by Konrad Dworakowski for FATHER'S DAY.

This touching and humorous performance is designed for families and will be staged in the beautiful setting of the Garden of the Wrocław Pantomime Theater.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote "Thumbelina" exploring the metaphor of a two-and-a-half centimeter girl representing vulnerability, obedience, and innocence; while simultaneously pointing out the enormous influence of the external world on what happens to the protagonist. "Microcosm" is a free interpretation of this popular fairy tale.

Performances: June 23 | 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Garden - WMT Summer Stage, Aleja Dębowa 16.

◆ "I Love Chopin" directed by Jędrzej Piaskowski, dramaturgy by Hubert Sulima

The latest premiere at WMT delivers a hefty dose of ironic humor and a poignant view on the life and work of Chopin.

It seems we know everything about Chopin, but that's not true. Even a cursory glance beyond the official, school-taught narrative about his life and work reveals many secrets and paradoxes. Topics that are uncomfortable, thus repressed. Those that don't fit into the stereotypical stories of longing for the homeland, storks over flowered meadows conjured in mazurkas, or about "Szopen" — the romantic heartbreaker of women. Chopin's closets have much to reveal. For example, the matter of love letters written by the composer to Tytus Woyciechowski. Chopin's music has become a portal to the nooks and crannies of reality and the margins of imagination, but also to seeking consolation, comfort, and escape in it.

Performances: June 27 and 28 | 7:00 PM, Centrum Sztuk Performatywnych Instytutu Grotowskiego (PIEKARNIA Żywa Kultura), ul. Księcia Witolda 62. 

◆ "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" directed by Radosław Rychcik

We'll conclude the season with a grueling and exhausting race in Radosław Rychcik's adaptation of Horace McCoy's novel and the famous film by Sydney Pollack, featuring a daring performance by Jane Fonda. In the Wrocław theater, the role of Gloria will be performed by the magnificent Agnieszka Dziewa, accompanied by an acting showcase from the entire Pantomime team.

The story takes place in the 1930s in the United States. Victims of the financial crisis dance in a competition where the main prize is a large sum of money. It's a tale about poverty, hunger, money, and the struggle to survive.

It's also a story about determination, dreams, hopes, and perseverance. It's a tale of illusions and their loss, a story about something cracking inside a person, something breaking that can't be put back together.

Performance: June 30 | 5:00 PM, Centrum Sztuk Performatywnych Instytutu Grotowskiego (PIEKARNIA Żywa Kultura), ul. Księcia Witolda 62. 

Until the end of the month, there is an open call for submissions to the fifth edition of PantoZIN under the theme "ON THE WAVE" coinciding with the September premiere of "Wpław" choreographed by Weronika Pelczyńska. Creative interpretations of the theme "ON THE WAVE" in any form—textual (maximum text length is one A4 page, approx. 1800 characters), visual, musical, interdisciplinary, etc.—can be submitted until June 30th! Authors of selected works will receive 200 PLN gross.

Submissions should be sent to: sylwia.wanot@pantomima.wroc.pl.