Przemysław Przybylski organized a press conference at which he expressed his opposition to the staging of the play “The Death of John Paul II” during the Contact International Theater Festival. The councilor of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship appealed to the marshal to immediately remove the performance from the repertoire, saying that the theater is dependent on the provincial government, which has been seeking for years for the Polish pope to become the patron of the region.
Teatr im. William Horzyca in Toruń. The cultural institution published an extensive statement in which it states that the action of councilor Przybylski “is another attempt to censor art, especially theater in Poland.”
The Horzyca Theater does not agree with the actions of the PiS councillor. “It’s the complete opposite of dialogue”
The theater authorities assure that they tried to establish a dialogue with the councilman Przybylski, unfortunately to no avail. “Let’s not judge, let’s talk. One of the most important assumptions of the Kontakt Festival is dialogue, and unfortunately today we were not invited to dialogue. We learned about the planned conference from journalists, and we would be happy to invite you to a joint conversation. Before the conference, Renata Derejczyk, the director of the Festival and the Horzyca Theater contacted with Mr. Przemysław Przybylski to establish this dialogue.
– I invited the councilor to the Sunday performance and together we agreed that in today’s world death is considered taboo – you die in a hospital, a hospice, away from your loved ones. That is why it is worth talking about death and getting used to it. For me, this performance is a preparation for passing away and learning how to accompany our loved ones in the last moments, informed the director of the theater Renata Derejczyk.
Art is subject to various interpretations, and in our opinion, judging a performance based on selected comments, as was done at today’s conference, is detrimental to the artists and the performance, argue the theater authorities.
“Mr. Przemysław Przybylski demands that the performance be removed from the program of the Kontakt Festival. For us, this is an unprecedented attack on art and freedom, and a complete denial of the dialogue for which our festival is the space,” reads the statement.
The play “The Death of John Paul II” performed by the Polish Theater in Poznań is to be staged on June 4. The show is one of the most awarded. The director, Jakub Skrzywanek, received the Konrad Laurel at the Interpretations Festival in Katowice, and the actor playing the main role, Michał Kaleta, the prize at the Divine Comedy Festival in Krakow.
Source: Gazeta
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