Krakow Festival Office
Divine Comedy 2010
Divine Comedy 2010
Persona. Simone’s Body
Director: Krystian Lupa
The scandal that accompanied the premiere production (One of the actresses, Joanna Szczepkowska, rebelled against the director, showed her naked buttocks to the spectators, made a Nazi greeting gesture, and later long explored the meanings of this performance in the media), somehow overshadowed somehow the intentions of Krystian Lupa. And yet Simone’s Body is the second part of the Persona diptych. The play opens in the same space as the previous part: this time the sound stage, where Marilyn Monroe took shelter from the world, plays the role of the rehearsal stage, where a young, eccentric director is getting ready to put on a production on Simone Weil. The philosopher is to be played by a Bergmanesque character, Elizabeth Vogler, an actress who returns to the profession after 30 years of “silence”. The heroine doubts whether it is fair to make a play on Simone against her, with contempt for her theses, and disbelieving her honesty. Nevertheless, the rehearsals start, and the director and his collaborators provoke a long improvisation – a psychodrama especially for Elizabeth. It is as if a trip into the interior of one of the dreams described by Weil is to be a trap for the actress. It is to coerce her into an uncontrolled reaction, to kindle her senses, and to compromise her own perception of Christianity and the person of Weil.
As is his style, Lupa enters deeply into the intimacy of his actors, talks them into emotional transgressions, and provokes extreme situa-tions.
Photography: Grzegorz Ziemiański
Divine Comedy 2010
Divine Comedy 2010
Persona. Simone’s Body
Director: Krystian Lupa
The scandal that accompanied the premiere production (One of the actresses, Joanna Szczepkowska, rebelled against the director, showed her naked buttocks to the spectators, made a Nazi greeting gesture, and later long explored the meanings of this performance in the media), somehow overshadowed somehow the intentions of Krystian Lupa. And yet Simone’s Body is the second part of the Persona diptych. The play opens in the same space as the previous part: this time the sound stage, where Marilyn Monroe took shelter from the world, plays the role of the rehearsal stage, where a young, eccentric director is getting ready to put on a production on Simone Weil. The philosopher is to be played by a Bergmanesque character, Elizabeth Vogler, an actress who returns to the profession after 30 years of “silence”. The heroine doubts whether it is fair to make a play on Simone against her, with contempt for her theses, and disbelieving her honesty. Nevertheless, the rehearsals start, and the director and his collaborators provoke a long improvisation – a psychodrama especially for Elizabeth. It is as if a trip into the interior of one of the dreams described by Weil is to be a trap for the actress. It is to coerce her into an uncontrolled reaction, to kindle her senses, and to compromise her own perception of Christianity and the person of Weil.
As is his style, Lupa enters deeply into the intimacy of his actors, talks them into emotional transgressions, and provokes extreme situa-tions.
Photography: Grzegorz Ziemiański