Wierszalin review

One evening, while visiting my family in Poland, I was taken on a surprise visit to the theatre. I’d not been to a theatre in Poland and was slightly apprehensive to begin with, as I’d been told the play we were going to see had caused controversy, particularly within the Church and definitely wasn’t for the faint-hearted.
We arrived in the small town where the theatre was supposed to be, but with no typical theatre in sight, only a small hut with crowds of people surrounding it. Seeing the only building in the vicinity with people around it, we went towards it and found that what we thought was just a small hut, was in fact the world renowned “Theatre Wierszalin”, our destination for the night.
Wierszalin is a small theatre company, based in an old Communist headquarters in Supraśl, North Eastern Poland. Their success in Poland hasn’t been as big as it ought to have been because of strong opposition form the Church who find their productions offensive and insensitive. This, however, has not stopped them. Wierszalin have taken their work to numerous theatres around the world, including Broadway, where one director was so impressed by their work he made a documentary about them.
The play I went to see was about a true story that happened in a village not far from Supraśl. Rumours of a new prophet called Iliah were spread around in the Russian Orthodox Church. This was at the time when the Russian Communists had invaded Poland. The play was all about how this prophet came about and how he came to not be, and portrayed the dangers of religion through the maniacal obsession and dangerous fixation some of the ‘believers’ came to have with this prophet, but also of the terrible and heartless destruction of anything religious by the Russians.
Right from the start, the production was terrific to watch. It attacked all of the senses with astonishing intensity and really gripped the audience for the whole duration of the play. Although the theatre is in a tiny space (there can’t have been more than 100 people in the audience) the sound they produced was really astounding, making it probably one of the most powerful pieces of drama I’ve ever seen.
Polish theatre is traditionally very symbolic and Wierszalin was no exception. Everything that they presented was a symbol for something, nothing was simply as it was presented. Visual symbols were used throughout, such as the cross for the dominance of religion, the actors’ white faces and black lips were a symbol for the inevitability of death (the whole play was about the end of the world), the character who turned into a Russian at the end wiped the crosses with blood after having murdered all of the other characters, symbolising the abolishment of religion and the Church by the Russians.
There were certain parts of the play that I couldn’t quite grasp because the language that the actors used was quite dated to be appropriated to the time period, and occasionally they spoke in Belarusian, which really confused me. However, the actors’ meaning was always clear through the way that they visualised everything.
The actors switched between characters quite often and I sometimes found it difficult to grasp who each actor was presenting. Although gestures, expression, movement and speech were used to perfection and everything from facial expression to their tone of voice presented the characters they were playing with exceptional clarity, it was again the language barrier that prevented me from understanding everything. However, I don’t think that mattered in the end as I understood most of it and the main themes. Being an abstract play, it was more important for the actors to impress upon the audience the meaning of what they were presenting rather than the story itself.
I’d say there were some Artaudian elements to the play, although mostly it was a narration and definitely was not as a mad as Artaud, but some of the techniques were put in there to frighten the audience, such as a metal spade being thrown onto the floor, the lights and the extraordinary music. The actors broke into song so often it could have almost been called a musical, however I think that in this case the music was again used as a symbol. It was always sombre and in a minor key, very similar to Church hymns, again emphasising the dominance of religion within the society.
The play exceeded all of my expectations and as soon as I left the room I was plunged deep into thought, which I think is exactly what the actors wanted to happen after having watched their brutal yet fantastically moving play about religion, the end of the world and death. Maybe it wasn’t the brightest of plays I’ve ever seen, but it was definitely one of the most thought provoking and awe inspiring. If you ever happen to be in Poland I highly recommend going to see one of Wierszalin’s productions, even if you don’t understand Polish it is worth going just to see the visual masterpiece that they create on stage.