"The Arrival" is a musical poem based on Shaun Tan's album The Arrival. Separation, longing, loneliness, alienation - these are the feelings accompanying anyone who leaves their country, family and decides to travel into the unknown - in pursuit of a better life.

Before the premiere, I spoke to Wojciech Koscielniak, author of the script and director of the play:

Tomasz Ostrowski: The performance " The Arrival " at the Theatre Academy in Warsaw is not your first contact with students of theatre schools. I know that you have prepared graduation plays at other theatre schools. " The Arrival" is written by you according to Shaun Tan's book without text (picture book) "The Arrival". What guided your choice of diploma play taking into account the individual needs of your students.

It is well known that the most important thing here is the students and their individual stage creations.

Wojciech Kościelniak: As far as the first part of the question is concerned, this is actually my next degree. I've had the pleasure of working with students from Kraków three times, probably two or three times with students from Wrocław. I managed to direct one diploma in Łódź. In Warsaw, this is my second graduation performance. So my apprenticeship is already quite long. I've been able to learn this already.

In Warsaw you are preparing a performance with students from the musical theatre acting department, in Lodz, Krakow and Wroclaw it was students from the acting department. Were these also musical performances?

I've done most of my diplomas with the acting departments, and there they sometimes do music diplomas. They are probably on a different level than the work here of colleagues who already sing like singers. In Łódź (at the Film School) it was a diploma called 'Cyberiada' and it was a musical diploma. However, what I was guided by is that these conditions are several. Firstly, the subject should give young people a chance to say something relevant about the world today. Secondly, it should give them a chance to express themselves, to show their skills. It should be written in many equal roles. It's important to remember that, in my opinion, a diploma is not entirely successful if there are one or two lead roles and the rest only work as 'satellites'. That's not why you study for four years, so that you don't get a chance later on. Another point is that I try to construct this script in such a way that it shows the students' strengths. There is also another aspect. It's simply about being able to prepare something that will interest people, rather than doing the same musical material for the thirtieth time, for example, Jacques Brel songs, which I love, but which are already very exploited. It is very difficult to do them anew today to tell some new content. Or the songs of the Old Gentlemen's Cabaret, which are absolutely brilliant and I also love them, but mainly as teaching material and less as a diploma, which, however, should present something new. I looked through dozens of items looking for what this could be in existing material and in one that could possibly need to be written. I decided on something, look at this book, which was a pad for my computer so it wouldn't heat up. And when I saw that I was holding it in my hand and I started to look at it better, to think what the story was about, I thought this is the opportunity, because these are very evocative images, very emotional and beautiful. Anyway, Shaun Tan painted this coming-of-age story for several years. It makes a great impression. It imprints very deeply when you read it. I thought: this imprinting is the material from which a performance can be made. It is very important to experience something yourself first, so that you can then process it further. Reading this album was a great authentic experience for me, so I didn't have to make any special effort to write texts based on it later.

How did you select the students for this graduation performance?

As far as the choice of actors is concerned, it is a little bit from the outside. There are seven actors who are available. I wanted each of them to have an equal role. This material allowed for that. With a little expansion of some of the characters that exist in the book, it was possible to build a performance made of more or less equal stories about each of these people. On the other hand, the psycho-physicality of each of them is different, each fantastic, each carrying a certain characteristic. On the one hand, I tried to take that into account when casting the individual characters, and on the other hand, I also learned a great deal about them during rehearsals and tried to deepen those interesting sides that they have.

You work with the excellent choreographer Ewelina Adamska-Porczyk. How has her work transferred to your students?

I think she moved so much that I think they loved her and that's the best answer. Because what could it be, because Ms Ewelina Adamska-Porczyk has such a wonderful ability that wherever she appears she just captures the hearts of the actors, all the dancers. She brings an unbelievably wonderful energy, but also reason, and a great interpretation. She enhances the value of the performance in an incredible way. It's always a great honour for me to work with Ewelina as an outstanding artist, and I'm therefore delighted that it worked out well this time too.

I know that you have been preparing the texts and scripts of your performances on your own for some time now.

The scripts, in the sense of adaptations, I have largely created myself from the beginning. Apart from my first works, when I worked with Romek Kolakowski. But we would have to go back a dozen years or so earlier. Adaptations may not be a simpler thing, but there you need a greater sense of drama than the ability to write sentences and construct a plot, because the plot is set by the very book you are adapting. Then came a stage where you had to write what was called in our working slang song drafts. In order for an author to write the lyrics of a song he or she has to have a project, simply to know what he or she wants from the song. I usually wrote it in a kind of unfinished form, some kind of rhymed or semi-rhymed version, so that there would be a hit song, and actually with each year, with each of my subsequent work, it turned out that these drafts of these songs were more and more fine-tuned. I would get signals from one composer or another that he would actually be happy to write music to a text that he had read as a project. I don't want it to sound like I'm going to take anything away from those colleagues I worked with as lyricists, because they are outstanding people and I love their work. However, it seemed to me that such an important thing as a script, if I could get it under control - and let me remind you that a script requires a great many revisions, constant adding and writing off - if I had control of it myself, it would be worth a try. Those first works of mine were very well received, I was happy about that, and 'The Jazzband Singer' was already completely mine, the author's. 'The Newcomer' is probably the third or fourth work of mine that is written entirely by me.

You work very intensively, one could say non-stop. One show comes out after another. Does this work overlap in some cases?

It did happen to overlap, but that was usually due not to planned work, but to some kind of postponement. I remember, there was a situation where I was engaged to open two big stages after renovation, namely the Musical Theatre in Gdynia and the Capitol Musical Theatre. At the Capitol it was 'The Master and Margarita' and at the Musical Theatre in Gdynia I was preparing 'Peasants' according to Reymont. In one case the work was delayed, which meant that the dates overlapped and were two weeks apart. This was possible because the plays were produced unevenly, but the premieres were parallel. On the other hand, working on two shows simultaneously for me is impossible. I also try to work in such a way that the scripts for the things I am going to realise are written a year or often two years in advance, so that there is enough time to write the music, design the set and costumes.

As I hear in the corridors, the students are very happy to work with you, so I conclude our conversation by wishing you and the students of the next generation of drama schools to visit them as often as possible.

I always try and hope that such contact with students is a kind of barter. That is, I take as much from them as I hope they take from me. It's very good if I can meet young new energy, how they see the new world and look at the world, because it's changing all the time. It is worthwhile for both sides to learn 

Thank you for the interview. All the best, and especially great new topics.

Thank you. Cross your fingers.

 

THE ARRIVAL

Creators:
script and direction - Wojciech Kościelniak
music – Mariusz Obiyalski
choreography – Ewelina Adamska-Porczyk
sets and costumes – Bożena Slaga
lighting direction - Tadeusz Trylski
vocal training – Anna Serafińska
music director – Jacek Kita
assistant director – Małgorzata Majerska

Cast:
Patrycja Grzywińska - Happiness
Natalia Kujawa - Chinese girl
Małgorzata Majerska - Wife
Dominik Bobryk - Intelligent
Filip Karaś – Paszczogon
Michał Juraszek - Newcomer
Jakub Szyperski - Old