„DAMASZEK 2045” directed by Omar Abusaad.

Premiere 20 September 2019 Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw

Ahead of the premiere of Damascus 2045, I spoke to Paweł Sztarbowski Deputy Director for Programmes at the Powszechny Theatre:

Tomasz Ostrowski: 'Damascus 2045'. How did it start? How did you select the performers of the show? What is the source of the play's title? Were the script and dramaturgy of the play prepared especially for the Powszechny Theatre, or was the material already ready?

Paweł Sztarbowski: The play is written especially for the Universal Theatre. It was commissioned by us from Mohammad Al Attar. How did you come up with the idea to invite these artists from Syria? The idea came from the fact that we have been carrying out the international project 'Atlas of Transitions. New geographies for a cross-cultural Europe', which involves seven theatres from different countries: Italy, Sweden, Albania, Greece, France, Belgium and Poland. One of the assumptions of this project, whose theme is intercultural cooperation, migration, the theme of refugees, was that we wanted to make a performance directed by someone from outside Europe. So as to break such a Eurocentric context of looking at the world. It was more than two years ago that I came across information about 'Trojans', directed by Omar Abusaada, which he made with Syrian refugee women in Amman, Jordan. They later travelled halfway around the world with this play about the story of the Trojan Women, women who, just after the war for Troy in the rubble of the city, try to find their sons, their husbands to bury their bodies. This story became a pretext for the story of these modern-day Trojan women, these modern-day Syrian women fleeing the war. I was enthralled by this performance. I then started looking for some information about Omar's work. I found out that Omar Abusaada is always working with Mohammad Al Attar, the playwright. I contacted them. We met a few times. They were enthusiastic about the idea of collaborating on a play in Poland. We started to look for a theme together, which on the one hand would be a story about the Syrian war and on the other would fit into the context of what we are discussing here in Poland, which is our problem. It was then that Mohammad Al Attar suggested that perhaps some good perspective would be to write a science-fiction play. Hence the title Damascus 2045, when we are already several decades after the war. There is an investigative officer and mysterious things start happening in Damascus. Among other things, in the war memorial museum, faces start to disappear from the installations and from all the photographs. But also suddenly all the people who were children during the war start being plagued by some terrible nightmares. They cannot sleep. They cannot live with it. It is some unexplained phenomenon. Through this criminal intrigue, we suddenly enter the area of the erasure of history. The erasure of memory. Such an attempt to erase the inconvenient facts of the past with an eraser.

Rectification of history?

The straightening out of history is a subject we are familiar with in Poland. For example, the situation with the change of the exhibition at the World War II Museum, even though this is a more distant prospect for us than the war in Syria. But this future, this glimpse into the future has allowed us to combine these two perspectives. Anyway, this also arose from the fact that there were pictures confronting Warsaw after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising with the destroyed Aleppo. These pictures were compared. The two perspectives overlap in an amazing way. What else was the argument for inviting Omar and Mohammad? The fact that they are established artists. They have performed with great success in Germany, in France, in Belgium and even in South Korea. They are artists in exile. They are not able to work in their own country. For us, for our actors, this is a kind of interesting encounter and encounter with a completely different theatrical aesthetic.

From a different theatrical point of view.

Yes, there is a different perspective to look at reality, at various global phenomena, but also a different aesthetic. The Syrian theater is such a theater of history. Conversational theater based on the word. The actor does not need to act dynamically in any way. What matters is the degree of focus to which it can convey the story. This is an interesting experience for all of us, and I hope that art will be interesting in Poland.

What further confrontations with foreign artists can we expect at the Powszechny Theatre?

We are constantly working with foreign artists: Oliver Frljić from the Balkans realised 'The Curse' here, Árpád Schilling realised 'Falling Down' and will be back in a few months with a new show. The premiere is planned for the end of March. Also as part of the 'Atlas of Transitions' project, we will be showing 'Hierarchy of Needs', directed by Mattias Andersson, in early November. He is such a top Swedish director at the moment. Yes, we are in talks with other artists from outside Poland, who I hope will make performances here in the coming years, if only the budget and possibilities allow us to do so. The theme of intercultural encounter is one of our main programme objectives. It is very important for us to go beyond a narrow national perspective.

Thank you for the conversation

Damascus 2045

Creators:
directing: Omar Abusaada
dramaturgy: Mohammad Al Attar
set design: Bissane Al Sharif
translating text: Agnieszka Piotrowska
video: Szymon Rogiński
music: Nadim Husni
Light Direction: Piotr Pieczyński

Cast:
Laila – Aleksandra Bożek
Sam – Grzegorz Falkowski
Sarah – Natalia Łągiewczyk
Nadir – Oskar Stoczyński
Adam – Kazimierz Wysota