Burn Monroe, Save Lupa

«When Krystian Lupa took hold of a digital camera during the rehearsals for Factory 2, many people had their doubts. Is the master trying to be trendy He is reaching for the toys of his own younger pupils, betraying his world where the slow was celebrated, the world of Jung, of middle europe lost in the pages of Bernhard or Musil. By becoming interested in Warhol and the roots of popculture, does Lupa himself wish to become a pop culture phenomena?

Following two plays, one sees that the stories of the artists of the Factory and the biography of Marylin Monroe contain more philosophical musings than even Zarathustra or Kalwerek. Nowhere else has Lupa taken up the subject of "humanity vs. Personality" as in his latest play on the subject of Marylin Monroe, let alone the subject of the "stages of theatricity" and Jung's notion of the conflict between personality and the shadows.

In the first part of the triptic (the following parts are going to be dedicated to the Armenian-Greek mystic Georgi Gurzijewow and the French Philosopher Simone Weil), the director catches Marylin (played by Sandra Korzeniak) as she is trying to escape. The sex goddess is making her first attempt to look upon herself away from the flash of cameras. For a moment, she is free and without the burden of having to fulfill public expectations, without having to worry about her career or schedule. She attempts to reach for those spheres of intimacy which have not become the realm of the media. She wishes to discover whether or not she is a real artist. She wants to discover whether or not she is really human.

To the great irritation of her trainer, Paula Miller (played by Katarzyna Figura), the wire of Lee Strasberg (the founder of the most famous acting school inf the US), Marilyn returns to her idea of performing Gruszenka from the Brothers Karamazow. What's worse, she wishes to perform honestly, melancholically, exhibitionaly, with no fluffly stylizations. She clings to the scene in which Grusza, drunk, sends Mitia away for a moment in order to take a hard look at her own failed life. Her emotions, and her own existential problems. The star of comedies and other light bits of entertainment wants to do the same. She practices Gruszenka's monologue without fail, in various intonations from mad, to silent, to sleepy, hysterical, borring and so forth. However, goddesses are not allowed such toys. This is the brutal and fearsome truth uncovered in this play by Lupa.

Marilyn does not have the right to a private existence, she does not have a right to experience bouts of artistic self-doubt, or come to understand her unhappy marriage to her ex-husband Authur Miller. As more friends and associates visit with her, they compel her to be completely faithful to her media persona. "You don't understand who you are - you're more important than Christ! You owe it to the world" says Paula. The psychoanalist, Greenon (played by Włądysław Kowalski) forbids her from complaining about the stupidity of her roles in new films. For the epileptic young guard (Marcin Bosak) who comes to watch as she sleeps, she remains a mere sex fantasy. Even those who seem closet to her, like the photographer Adre de Dienes (Piotr Skiba) is not innocent. It is his portfolio that has transformed the once ambitious Norma Jean into a legendary celebrity and the property of the masses. Marilyn looks upon herself as the victim of his experients. He is constalty making a star of her, without giving her a moment of respite. He looks upo her with the eyes of a reporter; resigned and fascinated, visiting his child in some hospital. Sure, he sees the pain and the suffering - but, he also thinks to himself - what great pictures these will make!

The play is also a record of the struggle that actress Sandra Karzeniak undertakes with the character of Marylin Monroe. The actress inside the actress; the legend inside the woman, the vamp inside the professional. Monroe oozes from her almost to the extent that Grusza oozes from Marilyn. "I'm not rebelling; it's Grusza who's rebelling from inside me," screams Marylin, throwing a glass against the wall. "How can I perform in accordance to someone's whims? I'm not an ideal!" screams Korzeniak during the rehearsals. This reminds us that not only Marilyn Monroe is under the pressure of collective violence. Even the actress performing the role is hurt - she will now forever compare herself with the ideal that she is expected to perform as. Constantly checking her weight and breast size to compare herself to a sex goddess. Nevertheless, Korzeniak is able to bring out the human in Marilyn Monroe; not merely the sexual goddess. The humanity she presents is full of pain and terrifying moments of self-awareness. It's sort of like Marilyn is an alzheimer's patient who briefly lulls back into remembering what was forgotten. She suffers, she panics. She is unsure of herself. She tries to seduce those around her because that is her only source of escape from the problems which confront her. In the final scene, Marilyn is given up in sacrifice by the crowd. She burns like old movie film roles - as if she had always been merely an illusion.

Krystian Lupa has managed to flesh out a play about the fight for humanity and to show this struggle in full. A similar moment of auto-destruction was shown by Grzegorz Jarzyna in TEOREMAT. There, however, an outside force compelled changes in the hero. In Marilyn, the source of the tragedy seems internal. It is a heroic egoism. Marilyn attempts to have the courage to be unpopular and normal - and she fails. It is no coincidence that Lupa takes up this subject, since with each passing month, he garners more and more awards and becomes more and more of a cult figure - and is forced more and more to conform with his image.»