"GREENFINCH BIRD" directed by Jarosław Kilian.

Premiere 11 April 2019 LALKA THEATRE

THE STAGE DESIGNER DEPENDS ON THE STUDIO

A conversation with Julia Skrzynecka (set designer) and Rafał Budnik (sculptor and puppet designer) before the premiere of the play 'Green Feathered Bird'.

Tomasz Ostrowski: You have a great deal of experience in theatre, having completed several dozen stage designs for young audiences, drama theatres and also opera houses. Please tell us what problems you encounter when creating theatre sets.

Julia Skrzynecka: The biggest problem for me at the moment is that people who know how to do something are leaving theatres, the craft of theatre in Poland is dying out, there are no professionals, no one to work with. At the moment, in Lalka Theatre, I have the pleasure of working with the best model sculptor in the country, Rafał Budnik, who is an extremely modest person, but who makes extremely beautiful things. I have been working in theatres for fifteen years and I have not seen such beautiful things.
A big problem in theatres is the extinction of specialist studios, because theatres can't afford to keep people on staff either. There are no specialist schools either.

I also think that in many theatres the importance of theatre craft is underestimated. Making decorations, props, costumes externally is much more expensive and doesn't produce the kind of results you'd expect from the outstanding theatre craftsmen we used to see a lot of in theatre studios until recently.

J.S. I agree with you. I am living a nightmare at the moment, we have 2 days until the premiere, we are completely unprepared with the set design, because every set and prop is made by someone else in this country, because we wanted to do it at a high level. We know who to approach, but they are the last people who can help us, but it is incredibly difficult to coordinate such a production without having people and professionals, craftsmen of artists, on the ground. We are unheard of.

In my opinion, the problem lies in cultural management. There are no people in charge of theatres who would take an interest in the real problems of theatres, who would visit technical studios and learn about real problems. They would try to introduce rational regulations to facilitate economical but, above all, fully artistic management of the theatres. In many theatres these are already the last studios. Currently, more and more theatres have no decorating studio at all. Although much more expensive, it's easier to pay for services externally, as this doesn't burden the payroll fund and is paid from another pool of earned funds. The system is completely sick.

J.S. Salaries in theatres are so low that young people don't want to work for such humiliating money, so they don't come to learn from the old grand masters. When the old ones leave there is no one left to replace them.

Turning the situation around, when we know that the old masters are approaching retirement age, young people should be recruited for apprenticeships a few years before they leave. This is what the departing masters often resent, that they were not given the chance to leave behind their successors.

J.S. Yes, but theatre managements are usually happy for people to leave and for a post to be abolished. This is due to the fact that theatres are hugely underfunded. The arts are dying out, crafts that are highly valued in Western Europe are dying out. In our country, when an artist who can paint horizons on tulle retires, no one can do it after him. With the departure of craftsmen, technologies die out.

Such a craft as dyeing fabrics for the stage, for example. I don't know if there is a theatre dyeing workshop in any other city besides the Teatr Wielki Opera House.

J.S. Mr Zbyszek has just retired from this studio, with two students left behind, but this is the last theatre dye shop in Poland

Let's return to the performance of The Golden Feathered Bird. Sicilian marionettes derive from dell'arte comedy.

J.S. Yes, it was the idea of director Jarosław Kilian. Knowing that we were working with Mr. Rafał Budnik we were aware that we could afford the exceptionally beautiful and very difficult puppets which are the Sicilians. It was the director's idea to create the whole set, puppets and costumes in the atmosphere of the 16th century commedia dell'arte.

You are a sculptor, a puppet builder. How did it all start, with sculpting? How did you arrive at your current profession? When you started your education, the only artistic school for theatre craftsmen, PLTT (State College School of Theatre Techniques), which was dissolved by the Ministry of Culture and Art in 1969 for being too artistic, no longer existed.

Rafal Budnik: I started with carpentry and generally with modelling. I learned as a model maker and a casting model maker. I was supposed to make prototypes of aeroplanes or cars, but I ended up in theatre. In 1990 I was introduced to puppetry by: Eva Farkašová and Pavel Hubička, prominent set designers: a Slovak and a Czech. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia they take great care of theatre craftsmen. If a generation is coming to an end, when it is known that a specialist craftsman will retire from one of the studios, five years earlier and sometimes even more, a designer is taken on, who is already supposed to learn, know what, with what, how. Of course he gets the chisels after the master. He knows what to do with it. In Poland, there is a constant reduction in the number of posts in technical workshops. Specialists are dying without leaving successors. The situation is getting worse every month.

In theater practice, this means that more and more often dolls are ordered for Polish premieres in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
I know that you have a great deal of theatrical experience. You work with many theatres. You are a teacher of the profession. You run a workshop on "Puppet construction" at the Puppet Constructors School at the Animation Theatre in Poznan. What experience do you have of working in different theatres?

R.B. People in theatres are undervalued. This is the biggest problem. Wages are very low. Employees are treated in such a way that if they are already employed they have to do practically everything. They can't focus solely on puppets. They are often forced to do this against their will. They have to work in difficult techniques, for example making laminates, resins without proper protection, without ventilation, without specialised facilities. They get discouraged and run away from the theatres. This should be done in safe spaces and for appropriate pay.

J.S. I wanted to add that these are usually real artists. People who love theatre very much stay in theatre. They don't do it for the money. Disrespecting them is incredibly painful.

R.B. I, after 27 years of working in the theatre from the position of sculptor, constructor, metalworker, sometimes shoemaker, I did everything that could be done within the theatre studios, I left with a salary of two thousand three hundred zlotys. Often theatre work doesn't close in on eight hours. Sometimes it's twelve hours and sometimes 16 hours, especially before premieres. Of course, these hours are not paid, but are taken on an hour-for-hour basis.

Do you have many people who want to study at the seminar?

R.B. Duże jest zainteresowanie tymi warsztatami. Niektórzy uczestnicy są tam z woli teatrów, częściowo są tam osoby po scenografii teatralnej, po lalkach, częściowo są to pracownicy domów kultury, którzy pracują z dziećmi. A są też aktorzy lalkarze, jak na przykład występująca w spektaklu „Ptak zielonopióry” Olga Ryl-Krystianowska, która była na ostatnich warsztatach. Organizując te warsztaty najbardziej zależało Panu Markowi Waszkielowi, żeby adresować je w pierwszej kolejności do pracowni teatralnych, żeby nie zatracić w teatrach umiejętności konstruowania i rzeźbienia lalek.

In the play” Golden Bird " we will see Sicilian puppets. The oldest ritual Sicilian puppet (marionette à rebours) is worn with a wire coming out of the head, and the freely attached members move by inertia in accordance with the laws of gravity. Here we are already dealing with a Sicilian puppet. How many of these dolls did Julia create and how many will we see on stage?

R.B. In the performance we will see 12 dolls. Often, even in the Middle Ages, Sicilian puppets had wires that allowed them to animate their hands, sword, and shield. Here we have a wire coming out of the head, arms and legs suspended by threads. These are technologically combined puppets. They are a bit like the Belgians. There are also such dolls.

Do puppets cause much trouble for actors?

R.B. The most important thing is the weight of the puppets. Some of the puppets are in armour. I tried to limit the weight as much as possible. When I carve from wood I always weigh the puppet. For example, Renzo weighed 700 grams, but when I added the armour he already weighs 1 kilogram 500 grams. Maybe even a bit more. The armour has to be hammered from a minimum of 4/10 mm thick sheet metal to profile the right shape. Tap out with a hammer just enough for the sheet metal to yield and profile. The heads are always carved in wood.

Do you live in Belarus and travel from theater to theater?

R.B. I move so much between puppet theaters, drama theaters, and even opera houses, and now I work a little more abroad in the Balkans, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Germany.

J.S. The production designer in the theater depends on the studio. If there is no studio in the theater, if there are no wonderful artisans, the art of scenery also freezes. If the set consists of a sofa brought from Ikea and clothes, and not costumes bought somewhere in stores, it ceases to be art, it ceases to be theater.

What was the collaboration between you and Mr Rafal like?

J.S. Mr Rafal received the designs too late and sculpted these dolls beautifully at an incredibly fast pace. We are working at top speed. Even recently we have been working 20 hours a day to make it in time for the premiere. We have a little too little time for everything. I'm sorry to say again in such a martyrdom way. It's all due to a lack of money. Because if things were normal, premieres could be held less often, there would be more time for everything. The theatre has to play to make a living. Constantly non-stop And constantly new things. A premiere in this theatre is almost every month. Stage rehearsals took about a month on stage. The theatre has no rehearsal room. The actors have been working with puppets for a short time. They are also thrown in at the deep end because they get the puppets too late, at the last minute. The actors are incredibly committed to this project because they believe in it. They walk around all day with their puppets and learn them and the puppets learn the actors. My beloved professor Marcin Jarnuszkiewicz claimed that puppets have souls, so they teach each other.

What do you have next in your professional plans?

J.S. My next premiere will be at the NOVA Opera House in Bydgoszcz. It will be Stanislaw Moniuszko's The Haunted Manor. The premiere is already on 27.04.2019.

No more dolls?

J.S. Without dolls, although maybe there will be some small doll element.

Thank you so much for the conversation.

* Earlier, in 2015, about the excellent State Secondary School of Theatre Techniques ( which graduated, among others: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Maciej Wojtyszko, Barbara Kędzierska, Józef Napiórkowski, Jan Bernaś, Antoni Poroś, Jerzy Turek, Wojciech Pokora, Jacek Fedorowicz, Krystof Kozlowski...) and about the bad condition of the specialist studios of theatres I wrote: "Let's save the theatres!" on my Facebook group-TEATR pages.

 

PTAK ZIELONOPIÓRY - comedy inspired by the fairy tales of Ital Calvin, Carlo Gozzi, Bolesław Leśmian

Directing: Jarosław Kilian
Decorations and dolls: Julia Skrzynecka
Music: Grzegorz Turnau
Vocal training: Aldona Krasucka
Sculptures and doll designs: Rafal Budnik
Choreographic consultation: Iwona Runowska
Lighting design: Karolina Gębska
Assistant Director: Aneta Harasimczuk
Set designer's assistant: Maciej Krajewski
Composer's assistant, editing: Paweł Piątek

Accordion: Rafał Grząka
Violin: Bartosz Blachura