After the „Nike” Award, the premiere of „Our Class” by Tadeusz Słobodzianek
Tadeusz Słobodzianek said that he always “writes for the stage”, and during his speech he invited to the premiere of his play. The Polish premiere of this play directed by Ondrej Spišák will take place in Warsaw, in the Teatr na Woli on October 16th at 7 pm.
„Nasza klasa”, published by słowo / obraz/ terytoria, is a drama describing the tragic stories of people who at first lived next to each other, and then started killing themselves. It is not a text with a thesis prepared in advance and the director transposing it on stage will have to reject easy, binary oppositions and search for the existential experience of the times of the Second World War.
Słobodzianek constantly repeats that his goal is a catharsis. He does not want to participate in the polemics of historians, investigators, politicians and journalists, he prefers to provide his audience with an experience. It is the audience who is supposed to take part in this drama.
Apart from its universal significance – the play gained recognition in countries such as England and Israel – in Poland it obtains another context: the Polish-Jewish relations. The Righteous Among the Nations, the so-called “szmalcowniks” (people who blackmailed hiding Jews and Poles who offered them shelter during the Second World War) and the rest of the Polish society, often presenting a passive attitude. Three figures out of which the most important is often passed over and the two first opposed in an unjustified way.
Tadeusz Słododzianek wrote „Our Class” remembering the works of Anna Bikont and Jan Tomasz Gross. Their findings and conclusions became a material for theater. As the chairwoman of the jury of the “Nike” Literary Award Grażyna Borkowska emphasized during her laudation: “The drama of Słobodzianek is a part, an element of the work of grief that has to be done so that the history of Jews – not only from Jedwabne – would become a part of our experience, both historical and moral”.
The author clearly refers in his work to the pogrom that took place in the Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10th, 1941. During these tragic events representatives of the Jewish local community were driven to a barn and burnt alive.
Although this event was not a secret, it only became well known in 2000, when Jan Tomasz Gross published his work „Sąsiedzi” (“Neighbors”). His book, as well as Anna Bikont’s book “My z Jedwabnego” (“We from Jedwabne”), published in 2004, was nominated to the “Nike” Award in previous years.
The play „Nasza Klasa” presents Poles and Jews from one school, located in a town in Eastern Poland. The Jewish community lives here next to the Polish community, neighbor next to neighbor. The stories of its main characters begin in the twenties. Those who play together later become perpetrators and victims.
