Fantasia

Six actors, a bare stage, harsh lighting, no script. Seated behind the auditorium, invisible for the audience, microphone in hand, the director Anna Karasińska, a vital force in Polish theatre, gives directions, composes mini narratives. Impressively precise in their approach, the actors are promptly transformed in this laboratory of improvisation. If the imagination is a muscle, then this is its gym.

What magical link unites actors and spectators, one that has the latter believing in an entire world when in fact the stage is empty? Rebelling against the theatrical heritage of the Polish masters, Karasińska questions the rules governing the actor’s work, thereby activating our power of evocation. From shadow to light, she brings forth anonymous figures of daily life: the cashier at the supermarket, the passenger next to you on the bus, the pedestrian on the street. With a gesture or a grin, fauna spring to life and then disappear. In music, a fantasia is an instrumental piece of no fixed form, shifting between two poles, between freedom and rigour. Exactly like Fantasia.

Produced by TR Warszawa
Directed by Anna Karasińska
Performed by Agata Buzek + Dobromir Dymecki + Rafał Maćkowiak + Maria Maj + Zofia Wichłacz + Adam Woronowicz
Dramaturgy Jacek Telenga + Magdalena Rydzewska
Set and Costume Design Paula Grocholska
Choreographed by Magda Ptasznik
Lighting Design Szymon Kluz
Stage Manager and Direction Assistant Malwina Szumacher
Producer Katarzyna Białach
International Projects Agata Kołacz

Presented with the support of Instytut Adama Mickiewicza in association with Centaur Theatre

Written by Diane Jean
Translated by Neil Kroetsch

Premiered at TR Waszawa, Warsaw, on April 9, 2017