When the immobilized polar expedition is threatened with the specter of slow destruction, its crew performs "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare on board to relieve boredom and anxiety. For them, the effort to perform becomes an effort to survive—a way not to go crazy in inhumane conditions.
The Pole, like Shakespeare's island, is a space of illusions, strangeness and loneliness. To survive there is to survive in a vacuum. It doesn't matter who you are - ice crushes everyone the same. Previous bonds break down, values are reshuffled, and lonely polar explorers together face the prospect of disappearance. A complete disappearance in which their experience is forgotten and their remains unrecognized. Their captain, like Prospero, obsessed with conquering the Pole, has only one motto: "Forward." In the name of venturing beyond the boundaries of known reality, he is ready to recruit natives, eat his own dogs and set up theaters in the frost. He believes that there is meaning lurking in the void, even as they themselves sit hungry and dying under the mast of a sinking ship.
"The Tempest" in this edition is a story about the fight against vacuum. The performance combines Shakespeare's text with fragments of journals from polar expeditions. The life of the crew is intertwined with the fate of the drama's characters, and the polar space merges with the space of the stage. Surviving at the Pole, at its core, turns out to be a performative experience. After all, each of us has our own private Arctic and in it we give our own performance.
Production
Studio Theater named after Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz in Warsaw / Poland
Creative
Adaptation and Direction: Alexander Dulak
Set Design and Costumes: Krystian Szymczak
Music: Wojtek Kiwer
Director's assistant: Viktoria Dulak