Jan Klata's Trilogy

«On the stage we have the ruins of a church. Beneath the alter, featuring the Virgin Mary as she appeared in Chęstochowa, there are hospital beds. The play begins in a serious note, and starts from the end of the Trilogy. Tadeusz Huk is giving a funeral oration: "Marshal Wołodyjowski! They are singing your praises, and yet you do not rise, you do not seize your sword! Another war is on the horizon. Christianity and the Fatherland are threatened. Yet the heroes, worn out by war without end as Sienkiewicz wrote about it in his Trilogy, are weary and lying in their hospital beds. But, they rise, they take on their roles, they do so with all the zest they can muster. Their roles are all conditioned - and - as we will learn soon enough; this is no coincidence.

The fact that the actors are too old to play the roles that have been assigned to them allows us a better view of the characters they play. It allows us to leave behind our habits, bread by traditional readings of these books in school or by Hoffman's film adaptation. What at first glance seems a rather brute move on the part of the director turns out to be quite an accurate interpretational maneuver. Krzysztof Globisz as Kmicic? An old guy in a leather jacket as the beautiful watażka? And yet, Globisz tells the story of his character with a lightness and charm - and we suddenly see how infantile the character is, how his courage is interwoven with stupidity and pride. And we see the charm with which he woes young Oleńka (the young and energetic Barbara Wysocka), not to mention Bogusław Radziwił (Błażej Peszek), whose only remaining symbol of aristocratic elegance are underwear from Calvin Klein.

Jerzy Grałek - with his grey hair - plays the part of Skrzetuski, who we remember for his suffering. Anna Dymna and Ewa Kolasińska are Basia and Krzysia. The grey and small ndrzej Kozak is Wołodyjowski. Given these actors, the romantic comedy of Mr. Wołodyjowski sounds like it'll be a fluke - and indeed, we get the sense that for these people - this is their last chance to find love.

Klata obviously has a weakness for Sienkiewicz's heros (perhaps this is also due to the fact that he likes his own actors, and that they are very able to understand his vision for the play). His revision of the Trilogy is not merely about pointing out the short-comings of Polish political thought, with its' xenophobia, feeling of superiority, and short-sightedness. He takes us through all of the wars, uprisings, and betrayals that Polish history is so full of. The actors gallop on their beds, they build trenches out of them. A nurse is always moving to and fro bandaging up the knights and warriors. Things become mixed up and it's hard to tell whether this is still Zbaraż - or perhaps Warsaw during the uprising? Azja Tuhajbejowicz murders kneeling Poles by shooting them in the back of the head. Is this the XVII century in Ukraine - or is this Katyn? Time spans intertwine; national traumas intermingle. Different poetic forms also find themselves coming together - we have comic moments, irony, gravitas - all rolled up in one. And then, just when we finally feel like we've understood what this play is all about - Klata pulls a number on us.

Each of the components to the Trilogy has a different narrative. Fire and Sword is a kind of prelude; where we are introduced to the characters. The actors, just out of bed, have trouble speaking in the specific language of Sienkiewicz (they not only speak dialogues, but even narrative fragments), they get lost in all of the "My Lord Master," and other flowerly language of the epoch. "The Flood" tells the story of Mr. Kmicic, which ends on an optimistic note with a king forgiving him. Mr. Wołodyjowski, on the other hand, is the darkest of the series. The old knights and their pregnant women await their end in a castle. Azja Tuhajbejowicz, as played by Zbigniew Kaleta, is an elegant diplomat will loose his quest to capture a leadership role amongst the Tatars and instead find himself killed. The narration of his crucifixion - one of the darkest fragments of the entire trilogoy - is recited in darkness.

The play ends with the same funeral oration that it began with. Between the two attempts at getting the dead knights to rise for a new battle, we as an audience are treated to a kind of collective psycho therapy.»