Pragmatists as part of Witkiewicz’s 140th birthday celebration

Trap Door Theatre is committed to seeking out challenging and obscure works. Whether a forgotten European classic, an international project rarely seen in the United States, or an untarnished piece of American literature, Trap Door seeks diverse voices and presents them through innovative expression. We mix established and imaginative techniques to illustrate the absurdities of living in today’s society. . In 2025, Trap Door returned to international touring with its production of The Pragmatists by Stanislaw Witkiewicz to perform at three venues throughout the area including The Cricoteka-Tadeusza Kantora Museum & Modern Cultural Institute (Krakow), Teatr Witkacy (Zakopane) as part of Witkiewicz’s 140th birthday celebration, and Teatr Druga Strefa (Warsaw).

Founded in 1994, Trap Door began as a nomadic troupe, thrilling the European theaters of Stockholm, Berlin, Zakopane, and Paris with its grass-roots, avant-garde expressionism. On these stages, the trademark style of myth, ritual, and revolution first crystallized. 

Trap Door has been honored with several After Dark and Orgie awards and in 1996, earned its first of many Jeff recognitions for co-founder Sean Marlow as Best Actor in his powerhouse role in Jean Genet’s, The Maids. Since its inception, the theater’s unique work has earned ongoing support from local, national, and international philanthropic and cultural organizations including The Chicago Saints, The Illinois Arts Council, The Mayer & Morris Kaplan Foundation, The Richard Driehaus Foundation, The Alphawood Foundation, The Bucktown Community Organization, The French Embassy, The Romanian Embassy, The U.S. Embassy in Romania, The Trust of Mutual Understanding, The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Goethe Institut, and The Swiss Benevolent Society Chicago.

Life “is a story / told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / insignificant nothing.  But what about death?

In a setting that is at once a torture chamber, a chamber of the heart and a chamber for a virtuoso recital, two former friends struggle for supremacy in an existential conflict. They share the same dilemmas, the same failing world, the same despair; they are “pragmatists” because instead of facing the ultimate mystery of existence, they try to find means to alleviate the pain, which condemns them to relive the past and experience the future ahead of time.

Following his previous directorial triumphs - “First Ladies” and “Judith: A Parting of the Flesh,” TUTA Theatre founder Željko Djukic returns to Trap Door Theatre from Serbia to direct Witkiewicz's first published work.