Returning to Reims with Ukrainian surtitles

The production is inspired by the renowned French sociologist Didier Eribon's book. As a young man, Eribon moved out from the working-class suburbs of Reims and settled down in Paris. This enabled his coming out, paved the way for social advance, but also disclosed a sense of shame because of his working-class background. After his father's death the author returns to his hometown to confront his own past and class identity. Returning to Reims is a kind of personal confession, a reckoning and accusation thrown at himself.Shown at Nowy Teatr Warszawa.

A similar journey – from Krakow's Olsza II housing estate to Warsaw – was made by Jacek Poniedziałek, who plays the role of Didier Eribon. The symbolic meeting of these two names on stage reveals the universal nature of social advance mechanisms which have developed in Europe in the last decades. In the case of Poland they became a part of experience of the generation of the political transformation. Have we coped with our class past? Does the Polish society still hide in “the closet” for fear of exclusion