JaWa
Everything in this production is on the move. The events are set in motion by the founding of the community company JaWa. Its employees are unhoused man Jan, and Waldemar - who just got out of prison. Work becomes for them an opportunity to establish a complicated relationship with two artists from Szczecin – Iwona and Janek. This encounter will take them to one of Warsaw's theatres, Komuna Warszawa, which the group will start renovating as part of an artistic residency. The trip offered them an opportunity to form improbable bonds, go through crises, and ponder the nature of trust and whether real change is possible. Over the course of this performance, which chronicles the artists' work with JaWa, the protagonists' situation changes dynamically. We walk a fine line between being housed and unhoused, between addiction and freedom. The feasibility of this enterprise is also put into question, and the meanings of the words success and failure become rather murky. This moving and humorous story is symbolized by a small trailer on a stage. It acts as a mobile home, a mobile screen, and the venue for this story, guiding the audience through the trials and tribulations of JaWa and its employees.
By and with Turkowski & Nowacka
Screen performance Jan Rozpędzik, Waldemar Wieczorek, Artur Czechowicz, Alina Gałązka, Olga Kozińska, Grzegorz Laszuk, Dorota Kwinta, Piotr Szczygielski, Szymon Olbrychowski and others
Scenography Piotr Szczygielski
Costume Iwona Nowacka
Production management Warsaw Olga Kozińska / Komuna Warszawa
Curator of “Tough Love” season Anna Smolar
International management Dorota Kwinta
Video translation into English Sean Gasper Bye
Production Komuna Warszawa (as part of the residency programme)
Coproduction Noorderzon / Grand Theatre Groningen
Supported by Stowarzyszenie Teatr Kana (Szczecin), social enterprise JaWa
Co-financed by The City of Warsaw within the Culture Hub project
Premiere November 2022, Komuna Warszawa
„(...) a touching story about dignity, freedom, wealth and poverty, friendship and addiction“
Przemek Gulda / guldapoleca
„Such a performance as JaWa redefines theatre, it becomes a testimony of something, what is definitely bigger then an evening in a theatre. (...) This project is a story about humanity in all its complexity and ambiguity.“
Anna Smolar in an interview for Dialog
„(...) its generating a field, in which we, viewers and artists, enter the adulthood together during this one hour of the show “
Anna Smolar in an interview for Dialog
„How to help in a good way? How to decide about someone’s needs from the position of a person who provides help? Can you know better for someone? How to experience the personal engagement in a project? We will not get explicit answers to those questions on stage. Which leaves us with a collective state of being in the dark and a struggle to achieve that the project and the incorporated relations are as honest as possible.“
Katarzyna Niedurny /Didaskalia
