June 16th >>> 8.00 p.m. - in the Pleciuga Puppet Theatre

TECZKI ["The Files"] - performance of the Teatr Ósmego Dnia (The Theatre of the Eighth Day).

Tickets: PLN 20,- & 30,-

On behalf of the Kana Theatrical Centre, the City of Szczecin and the Institute of National Remembrance we would like to invite you to participate in the series of events titled "It Began in Poland" organized as a part of celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the first democratic elections to the Polish Parliament (1989).

On that occasion the Theatre of the Eight Day is presenting its famous performance "The Files" based on the documents of the Security Service (secret police) from 1975-1980. The performance in the new building of the Pleciuga Puppet Theatre will be followed by a meeting with the actors.

Texts' selection: Ewa Wójciak and Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner.
Production: members of Theatre of the Eighth Day.
Space design: Jacek Chmaj.
Actors: Ewa Wójciak, Adam Borowski, Tadeusz Janiszewski, Marcin Kęszycki.

"Our goal is to realize a specific experiment of theatrical and documentary nature, which is inspired by the discovery of our own individual, private dossier in the documentation recourses of former Security Service. These are serious resources - tens of files, hundreds of pages, questionnaires, characteristics, 'theatrological analyses'... A moving story of following, tracking, and finally pressing charges against... thoughts, spiritual storms, intellectual rebellions, moral dilemmas. (...)

We wish to present young people, dreaming, feverish artists, who are looking for the shape and limits of expression, who cannot find the distance to the most crucial questions posed by the great literature they are reading, who truly suffer because of the evil of the world.

And also those officers of the system, who are full of contempt or at least the feeling of superiority, since all in all they were the ones standing on the side of the government who 'knows' - they decipher metaphors in their own way, they construct questionnaires, supplementary indictments for criminal offenses, code messages, reports, and the profiles of "the threat".

Today, we look at it from a distance, it seems that we have found a way out from the totalitarian labyrinth, but the memory of it still inspires horror, sometimes laughter, and at other times it sounds like a warning."

Theatre of the Eighth Day

The premiere took place on January 10th in the seat of the Theatre of the Eight Day (44 Ratajczaka Str., 61-728 Poznań).

"The story told in The Files takes place between 1975 and 1980. It was the period when the Theatre of the Eight Day produced performances considered the most important events in Polish independent theatre of the '70s They certainly found their reflections in the Security Service documents. The whole bunch of the secret police officers would describe them precisely. The Theatre's of Eight Day's actors with amusement read interpretation and analyses of their own theatrical pieces and replay some parts of them after thirty years."

Joanna Ruszczyk,
Security Service Serving Art,
[Newsweek]

"The opening night of The Time of Mothers by the Theatre of the Eight Day took place by the end of June. Now they had only one performance in their repertoire - The Files - an open project. I like that speed. So many things and events take place in Poland that it is impossible to stand aside. And the voice of the Theatre of Eight Day, of the veterans of opposition, the guards of theatrical tradition - being the voice of healthy common sense - is so badly needed as never before."

Łukasz Drewniak,
Above the Language of Hope,
[Dzennik]

"The Files provide an impressive lesson of modern history. The piece is an example of spiritual fortitude of young people who established the students Theatre of the Eight Day in Poznań, named the conscience of the '70s. Their performances had some political undertones, yet the theatre tried to avoid a documentary form, splendidly using capacious metaphor".

Janusz R. Kowalczyk,
Artists Unbroken by the Security Service,
[Rzeczpospolita]

"One could expect the worst: the artists persecuted in the past are now attempting to revenge on their denunciators. Yet the performance is light and funny. Although quite static in form, it is not at all boring and actually really absorbing (.) Actors read denunciations preserved in the Institute of National Remembrance with pity grin, present their own performances from the 1970s smiling melancholically, and play grotesque sketches evoking the mood of communist regime bursting with laughter."

Aneta Kyzioł,
Inventory of the Peoples Republic of Poland,
[Polityka]

Information and tickets:

Kana Theatrical Centre
pl. Piotra i Pawła 4/5
70-521 Szczecin

Tel.:
+48 91 433-03-88
+48 91 434-15-61
+48 607-088-884 (sms)

www.kana.art.pl

Pleciuga Puppet Theatre
pl. Teatralny 1
Szczecin

Tel.:
+48 91 433-58-04