END OF SEASON CONVERSATION

Following the end of the 2021/2022 theatre season at the Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw, I spoke to Slawomir Grzymkowski

Tomasz Ostrowski: The 2021/2022 theatre season at the Warsaw Drama Theatre, despite working in the shadow of a pandemic, brought the production of six premieres, very well received by audiences. The undoubted hits of the season were The Art of Intonation and Amadeus, directed by Anna Wieczur. 

Slawomir Grzymkowski: We are very happy with the quality of our work, because that is the most important thing. This is our priority when we embark on any new task. We think about creating the best possible work, the best possible show, and that this also translates into audience attendance. And that is fortunately the case here. There were six of these premieres, and as a result a large part of the team was involved in their preparation. The pandemic was certainly a handicap, but the restrictions gradually eased, the restrictions affected our work less and less, we no longer had to meet virtually, we could rehearse normally. Up to a certain point we had compulsory tests, so we were protected and managed to protect the team.

As the 2021/2022 season draws to a close, you have participated in the preparation of two premieres: "The Art of Intonation" based on a text by Tadeusz Słobodzianek (premiere 8 January 2022) and "Amadeus" based on a drama by Peter Shaffer (premiere 8 July 2022). Was 'The Art of Intonation' your first encounter with Anna Wieczur?

In stage work, yes, but before that we met at a reading at the Drama Lab. The reading was recorded and presented on the Drama Laboratory's You Tube channel. Then, between 'The Art of Intonation' and 'Amadeus', Anna Wieczur invited me to the Polish Radio Theatre. At the time, we were realising Juliusz Słowacki's 'Maria Stuart'. I have a feeling that we liked each other in this work and there is a certain thread of understanding between us, a lot of mutual trust. That's why this collaboration works very well for us.

I remembered from our earlier conversations that what interests you most about theatre is the opportunity to be actively involved in the creative process of a performance.

Yes, and this has not changed. Anne allows that kind of participation. She is a partner and allows the actor to partner in building the role, but also to suggest ideas for the character or ideas for resolving scenes. This was the case for the recent premiere of 'Amadeus', as well as earlier during rehearsals for 'The Art of Intonation'. Our work was accompanied by a great deal of trust and faith on the part of the director in the actor, that the actor would lead his role in the direction she wanted. This worked well in the work. With 'Amadeus', Ania practically gave me and Łukasz Lewandowski a free hand in constructing our Venticelli characters. Of course, she is vigilant in ensuring that this does not slip out of a certain framework. She has very often agreed to our suggestions. It is enjoyable and satisfying work if the actors' ideas are realised, if we can really spark these fantasies for ourselves and realise them.

For the production of 'Amadeus', Anna Wieczur invited as many as five actors taking part in 'Art of Intonation' to play the main roles. I am referring to Adam Ferencego, Łukasz Lewandowski, Modest Ruciński, Barbara Garstka and you. Marcin Hycnar was invited from outside the theatre company to play the role of Mozart. But Anna Wieczur has also previously worked with him on readings as part of the Drama Laboratory. This demonstrates the director's great confidence in this group of actors.

I think this is only natural after a collaboration that has been very successful, which we can say is an artistic and attendance success, because The Art of Intonation is a performance that has been very well received by a lively and always full audience.

I remember that before the premiere there were concerns about whether the content of the play would prove too hermetic for a wide audience.

Yes, it seemed to us that it was too professional a subject. There were such fears, but we did everything we could to tell the story in a way that would be interesting for the audience, even if they were uninitiated in the secrets of theatre. I think that we are not talking about Grotowski, Kantor, Flaszen or other artists, we are simply talking about people who have passions, who have devoted their lives to art. And I think on that level it's communicative and people watch it with interest, and at the same time it's obviously a deeply theatrical situation. I'm talking about history, about these particular characters.
This collaboration with Anna was so successful that when she approached us for a new show, she offered us a part in Amadeus. If there is an understanding, a common thinking about theatre, about what we are doing, then the whole creative process can be shortened in a way. Originally, a completely different cast configuration was considered. But after 'The Art of Intonation' it changed and took the shape it had on the premiere. This was also due to the fact that we did not have a lot of time for this quite complicated project. We managed to prepare the performance in less than two months. And it was very difficult logistically, because we had to harmonise everything with the live music.

Anna Wieczur has once again proven herself to be a very skilful and versatile director. She directs in drama and musical theatres. Between "The Art of Intonation" and "Amadeus", she prepared a great staging of "Aida" at the Baltic Opera. Her experience resulted in the efficient preparation of the production 'Amadeus', in which a huge ensemble appears on stage: thirteen actors, sixteen opera soloists and an orchestra of forty. 

Yes, Anna has experience of working on large musical productions and this came to fruition in her work on Amadeus. It allowed her to glue the whole project together. She worked in a very precise way. You could see that she had a vision of what she wanted to achieve. To unite the musicians and soloists together with the actors.

An undoubted difficulty in preparation was the need to synchronise the actors with the music. Anna Wieczur uses thirty-two fragments of Mozart's works in her scenes. Essential to the performance are the proportions so that both the actors' voices and the music reach the audience.

What you mentioned was a difficult undertaking. Theatres are not technically prepared for such things. I, for example, don't like micro-ports, but they are obviously necessary in such an undertaking and I think they work well. But this is down to our experienced people. I mean our sound engineers who work on musical projects at the Drama Theatre.

Where did the big orchestra on stage come from? How were the musicians selected?

The orchestra was created as a result of a huge casting call, to which more than 400 musicians from all over Poland applied. Jacek Laszczkowski, who is the conductor and musical director of this project, together with the first violinist, selected the musicians after several stages of auditions. I believe that these are extremely talented young people with incredible energy, a desire to work and to learn something new. For the acting ensemble, but also for the musical ensemble, i.e. the instrumentalists and the soloists, it was a very interesting meeting. Two worlds met, because, however, working in opera is of a different nature. The musicians have a different style of work. They are very disciplined. Theatre is more open to improvisation. The musicians, although they are subordinate to the conductor and the score in front of them, nevertheless looked at our various proposals with curiosity. Very often they reacted vividly in these rehearsals to what was happening on stage. And we were able to watch in fascination at how beautifully they play and sing, and how the music in a way also penetrates the characters of the performance.

The soloists don't just sing solo, they are the chorus, actively participating in the stage action.

And they do it fantastically. Opera has an advantage over theatre. It can afford to have momentum. Theatre and opera budgets are incomparable. We are the poor relatives of opera.

Here, the singers - opera soloists still dance.

Yes, they let themselves be persuaded to dance. They just have acting assignments, acting in acting scenes. They found it very interesting, and I think it was developing and inspiring. They are, after all, opera actors. We're delighted with them, their commitment and the fact that, they went one hundred per cent into everything Anna asked for.

It happens in the play that Amadeus the actor, alternates with Amadeus the conductor of the orchestra.

This was the idea that Marcin Hycnar, playing Amadeus, would swap with a conductor dressed as Amadeus to suggest all the time that Mozart was conducting this orchestra.

The production of 'Amadeus' is a gigantic organisational, financial and human undertaking. More than seventy people appear on stage simultaneously in many scenes. What are the prospects for this performance?

I don't know, because I don't know the financial details, but I suppose some of these costs are recouped. And I think it's a big part. We play all the shows to full audiences. Tickets are very expensive.

The fight for tickets is beginning to resemble the atmosphere in the Dramatic Theatre from the old days of the Warsaw Theatre Meetings, when the Old Theatre from Krakow would come with performances by Swinarski or Wajda, and the spectators would occupy the stairs of the auditorium and the sides of the proscenium. Here they do not yet sit on the stage.

But it remains to be seen whether they will sit that way in September, after the holidays. Yes, because the interest is huge, not only from the Warsaw audience. We know that audiences are coming from all over the country to see the show. There is not only the word-of-mouth, but in the age of social media, many people write after visiting the theatre to say they saw a fantastic show. Access to this information is then huge. I hope this interest in the show doesn't disappear after the holidays. Let's hope it lasts as long as possible so that we can play, because the amount of work that goes into this show is massive, it really costs us a lot of effort. There is also satisfaction when after every performance, after the last scene during the applause, people stand up. When they react very vigorously at the end, because they are moved and delighted. It is also the fulfilment of an acting ambition.

Let's return to the script itself. There's no live orchestra playing in Shaffer's drama?

Shaffer himself wrote, I think, six theatrical versions of the script, plus an additional film script, which is significantly different from our version. I don't know if there is an orchestra in the other versions or not. I think it depends on the realisers. And the finances of course. But most often recordings are used.

In fact, the whole story was invented by Alexander Pushkin and written down in the one-act drama Salieri and Mozart. He used as the main motif of the drama the information he had heard that the ailing Salieri, dying thirty-four years after Mozart's death, mumbled that he had killed Mozart.

Yes, but Pushkin only focused on these two figures. There, there were only Salieri and Mozart. And here we have an extended story, told on several levels. The important context is how power and politics affect the fate of the artist, who either has the support of that power and is able to exist, or, despite his immense talent, through certain political and social arrangements, does not even come to the fore and cannot compose. He dies in poverty. There are a whole host of similar examples.
Here we are watching the story of two outstanding musicians, because Salieri was also a great musician and composer. And only Salieri was able to appreciate Mozart's genius. No one from the court, or from the immediate circle of the court - in this version of the script we are discussing - is able to appreciate and perceive this extraordinary talent.

In both Miloš Forman's film and the theatrical production of Amadeus, the main character of the drama is not Mozart, but Salieri.

Because this is his confession.

His imaginations, his conversations with God and his resentment that the talent that should have been his, God bestowed on Mozart.

Yes, this is Salieri's story from start to finish.

Let's return to the Venticelli, the characters you play with Lukasz Lewandowski. Characters that are important for the theatrical performance, surprising with their images and expressive stage actions, which do not exist in the script of Forman's film.

They, in the theatrical scenario, are the gossipers. People who are paid by Salieri and bring him all the information he will be able to use against Mozart.

In Amadeus, the denunciation and the stealing of secrets and even sheet music is carried out by a maid hired and paid by Salieri to keep order in Mozart's house.

Yes, in the film it is a maid. I don't know how it is in other theatrical scripts, because I only know this one. Venticelli act as informers, spies. Anyone can pay them and they can work for anyone. Referring to Anna's work, me and Luke started to think that they are not characters from the real world, that they can be given a more metaphysical character. They act as contemporary social media, but negative ones, ones that create conflict and division.

Like fake news?

As one reviewer well pointed out, in a way they are the subconscious of Saliere himself. They behave in a way that he outwardly would never allow himself to. After all, he is distinguished, he sticks to norms. He would seem to be a wonderful, wonderful person. It might seem that way. And in fact these two demons, Venticelli, are also his projection. The very evil that is in this head is an awakening jealousy, an awakening desire to murder, or perhaps just to destroy Mozart's career. At the same time, they act as commentators, beginning the play and ending it. But they also embody something of the worst in human character and behaviour, and here Anne has allowed us to expand such their meaning in the play.

What are your expectations for the new season?

We don't know anything yet. A few days ago the season ended We have no information from the new management about the next season. I hope that this cooperation will go well and that we will all make sure that the productions of this theatre are of good quality.

Thank you so much for the conversation.

Thank you very much.

Pictured is Slawomir Grzymkowski as Venticello in the production of 'Amadeus', directed by Anna Wieczur,