IMMORAL FAIRY TALES director Jakub Skrzywanek

Premiere 25 September 2021 - Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw

Before the premiere of the play IMMORAL TALES, I spoke to director Jakub Skrzywanek.

Tomasz Ostrowski:  We are ahead of the premiere of the play Immoral Tales, inspired by the film work of Walerian Borowczyk. After "Devils" directed by Agnieszka Błońska in the current repertoire of the Powszechny Theatre, this is another performance on the subject of sexuality. Borowczyk's 1974 film consists of four independent parts.

Jakub Skrzywanek: In the first version of the film, which was screened in the UK, there was another part entitled. 'The Beast', which was later (in 1975) developed into a full-length film. But this is just a curiosity.

What inspired you in Borowczyk's work?

I was primarily interested in two things. Firstly, the artist himself, who once had a major influence on me. It was a coincidence that at the age of fourteen I saw - illegally, let's be honest - 'Immoral Tales' at a film festival. For a young lad, brought up in a Catholic family, quite conservative but in a sensible way, what I saw on screen was a shock. It was about breaking taboos, being bold in imagery and playing with symbolism. The context itself - watching an erotic film in a public place, in a cinema hall with other viewers - also worked strongly. I remember the confusion, the sense of shame, the embarrassment. It still works strongly in me today; Borowczyk showed how transgressive, liberating art can be. Today, of course, I understand how strongly this film has aged, not only through the form, but also through the way it is told and the point of view that is not fully understood. It is a very masculine, even patriarchal way of looking at sexuality and femininity.

Secondly, the structural premise was also an important inspiration. With us there are three stories, with Borowczyk - as you rightly pointed out - there were four. We quickly realised that it was difficult to use a single story to talk about sexuality and eroticism. We decided to create a performance using completely new stories that could fulfil similar functions to those in the film, that is, describe contemporary sexuality and be transgressive, but in a more innovative and safe formula for the audience and the creators.

Some shots in Borowczyk's film are romantic, such as the images of the rising tide as a backdrop for a young girl's impending sexual initiation, but there are also images of sexual violence. Today, Borowczyk's work is classified as a genre of erotic cinema. In 1974, when the film was released, it was considered pornographic.

This is, of course, a perennial problem, as Borowczyk himself has said. In one interview he said that Disney films are much more erotic than what he creates. In a way I can agree with that. We are still afraid to accept that sexuality is something really common, very close to us. The first etude you mentioned begins with a few minutes of insistent close-ups on the body, or more precisely on the bottom of an actress who is riding a bicycle. This is one example of a typically patriarchal cinematic view, one could say that it is somehow unsavoury. That's why we have rejected such optics, and formally we are discussing this with an etude about Polanski. We also refer to the accusations that were made against Borowczyk. It is difficult for us to determine how true they were, as the artist died shortly after they emerged. Nevertheless, it is worth remembering. The case is not as clear-cut as in the case of Polanski, in whose testimony we can easily find an admission of guilt, i.e. cohabitation with a 13-year-old girl, giving her drugs and alcohol. He escaped punishment, fled the United States, but this story is well documented, so we decided to do a kind of reconstruction.

We will see 3 independent parts on stage. Please characterise them.

The first part is very much about the space of adolescence. This is a sphere that is firmly anchored in our collective imaginary and the personal experience of maturation of most female artists in Polish conditions. Weronika Murek, very loosely inspired by 'The History of Sin', has created a story about how difficult it is for young people today to discover their own sexuality, how difficult it is to talk openly about sexuality or even to develop a healthy psychosexuality under the conditions of a conservative culture and the domination of the Church.

The second part is a strong voice, a manifesto that in a play about sexuality we think should appear. We explicitly say that sexual violence, rape to be precise, does not count as sexuality, but is just violence. We cite the transcript of the 1977 State of California vs. Roman Raymond Polanski trial and try to dispel the various myths, legends and attempts to dilute what has built up around the case over almost fifty years. We are trying to reconstruct in front of the audience what happened and openly, publicly ask if we have a consensus on it. In the face of the facts, are we born to disagree with the public acceptance of rape, of violence? Unfortunately, it is often tolerated, especially if the perpetrator is a priest, celebrity or other public figure. Can we still turn a blind eye to this? I think it is very wrong. We need to talk about it.

The third part, on the other hand, draws inspiration from my previous documentary work with young people, and more specifically with one fandom group. I discovered how much this space is filled with fetishes and sexualisation. In the realm of online fandom, it is not difficult to become overstimulated. Reproduction of harmful patterns occurs at a very young age. In the representatives of these groups, I was particularly surprised by the evident fear of entering into direct relations with another person. Perhaps people today are increasingly so disillusioned with interpersonal relationships and face such a high level of anxiety that they flee to other spaces, looking for extra-human equivalents. In our performance this is shown in the final dystopia, a certain vision of the future, perhaps not so far away.

Jedną z przyczyn tych zjawisk jest bardzo zacofana edukacja młodzieży i zaniechanie prawidłowej edukacji seksualnej. Ludzie zapatrzeni są tylko w siebie. Nie zważają na potrzeby partnerów. W efekcie, jeśli nawet zakładają rodziny, to te w przeważającej części nie przechodzą próby czasu.

Today, in most school classrooms you will find children from broken marriages. In big cities, this phenomenon is becoming an everyday occurrence. We in the theatre should also consider why the traditional family model is running out of steam. We can pretend that it is still the main model, but that will not stop its decline. The question is: how do we build these relationships anew? How do we change the system, also socially and economically, to cope with the challenges of the 21st century? Today, families are most bound by mortgage loans. This shows total confusion. A certain social and cultural compulsion is dying out, fewer and fewer people feel obliged to replicate this pattern, but can we openly admit it and agree on a different model?

Why is the show not open to audiences aged 16 and over?

This is a very important question. We couldn't do it because the scenes we show in the play - hence the participation of female consultants for intimate scenes - do not allow people under eighteen to participate. On the one hand, we regret this, but on the other hand, we are aware that this show is about something different and is aimed at a different audience. For me, this issue is very important, which is why this season at the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin, where I am programme curator, I have invited Michal Buszewicz to collaborate with me on a production called Sexual Education. And it will be an empathetic story aimed at a specific audience group, namely high school students. This is much needed.

How do you find yourself as a programme curator working with Anna Augustynowicz?

Great! I am very happy to work with Anna. I learn a lot from her. It is a great relationship for me and a great wisdom of Anna Augustynowicz in that - which I appreciate very much - she has allowed me programme and artistic autonomy. I have a sense of support from a great artist, a great director who has been working in Szczecin for years, and I can learn with her a completely different form of working with a theatre company on a programming level. I am very happy about this. We have started my first season and we will see what happens next.

What are your directing plans?

After 'Immoral Tales', I am planning an intimate project, more of a workshop, carried out at the invitation of TR Warszawa's education department. It will be 'Autocorrection', with the participation of students of Warsaw's 13th Colonel Leopold Lis-Kula High School. I think that it is extremely important after the successive waves of the pandemic to give voice to young people, so that they can talk about the problems that directly affect them. At the end of the season, at the Współczesny Theatre in Szczecin, I will be directing the play Spartakus, based on Janusz Schwertner's reportage Love at the Time of Cholera, about the situation of Polish child psychiatry. We are writing Spartacus into the department of child psychiatry. We want to speak out very strongly about the situation today, to show how young people cannot cope with reality and how the education, health and care system cannot help them.

An extremely important and timely topic as the fight for support and a clinic for these young people continues.

Yes, let's fight for the youth and not forget them, let's take their problems seriously.

Thank you for the interview and I wish you perseverance in tackling difficult, but at the same time very topical social issues.

Thank you very much.

 

IMMORAL FAIRY TALES

CAST:
Aleksandra Bożek, Arkadiusz Brykalski, Michał Czachor, Grzegorz Falkowski, Andrzej Kłak, Natalia Lange, Maria Robaszkiewicz

CREATIVES
directing – Jakub Skrzywanek
the script – Weronika Murek, Jakub Skrzywanek
dramaturgy – Weronika Murek
scenography and light direction - Agata Skwarczyńska
costumes – Joanna Hawrot
choreography – Agnieszka Kryst
video director – Ioann Maria
music – Konstanty Usenko
intimate scene consultants – Agnieszka Róż i Jewgienia Aleksandrowa
assistant director – Karolina Kowalczyk
assistant set designer - Sara Sulej
stage manager - Iza Stolarska
legal advice – kancelaria DotLaw

The scenario uses an excerpt from the book "Sex in the Big Woods. A botanical guide for lovers in nature" by Łukasz Łuczaj