She was a friend of someone else / Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2023

Only Dreamers Left Alive

Since January 2021, Poland has had a near-total ban on abortion following an October 2020 ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) that outlawed the most common form of legal abortion. Previously, Poland had already had one of Europe’s strictest abortion laws, with terminations allowed in only three circumstances: if the pregnancy threatened the mother’s life or health, if it resulted from a criminal act (such as rape), or if the foetus was diagnosed with a serious birth defect. The TK ruling outlawed the third of those justifications, which had previously accounted for around 98% of all legal abortions in Poland. The tribunal – a body widely seen as being under the influence of the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – found that such abortions violated the constitutional protection of the right to life.

In spite of the overwhelmingly negative reaction of the public, which got to the streets for the largest protest in Poland since the fall of communism, uniting hundreds of thousands of Poles (especially the young and women), the current parliamentary majority supports the ruling and talks for a referendum were quickly hushed by the PiS. And this is where “she” comes in – or rather, stays in. Indeed, She was a friend of someone else «is a story with too many beginnings, too few endings – and an exhausted narrator. With a powerful dramaturgy and a minimalist direction, Polish theatre-maker Gosia Wdowik explores the link between burnout and activism: the fear that rights are not guaranteed forever, and that the moment one stops paying attention, they can disappear».

By embracing the worn-out, depleted temporality of a listless mind, Wdowik invites us into a sluggish, dense and torpid world made of spilled glasses, heavy limbs and even heavier bedcovers in which everything is literally fuming with exhaustion (but not self-pity). Relying a lot on digital solutions and incursions in her work and intermixing the rarefied action on stage with a deluge of storytelling, the active member of GILDIA (Union of Polish Theatre Makers) defiantly inflames the audience’s patience with a finely polished mirror held up to the unhinged time of despondency, thus managing to crystallise in front of our eyes the all-too-well-known lethargic, isolating feeling produced by our achievement-based society of self-exploitation.

As Polish writer Weronika Murek, invited by Wdowik to reflect on professional exhaustion, exquisitely purports, She was a friend of someone else is also «a tribute to the many women whose energy and labour has been going into resisting oppressive misogynist systems and the criminalisation of solidarity among women. So there we go: you’re living your best life, you’re living your childhood dream, and spending your time doing what inspires you and what you love. Then one day, you’re not able to get out of bed. The work never starts, so it never finishes, right?». Not a success story, then, nor a failure one. Just a performance with empty frames, waiting for its protagonists to rest, recuperate and, eventually, rise against – again. Together.

The show was played within Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2023
Beursschouwburg
rue Auguste Orts 20-28 Auguste Ortsstrraat
Saturday 20 of May, 22:00
Sunday 21 of May, 16:00 and 20:30
Monday 22 of May, 20:30
Tuesday 23 of May, 19:00

Kunstenfestivaldesarts presents
She was a friend of someone else
by Gosia Wdowik

concept, text and direction Gosia Wdowik
dramaturgical support Maria Rössler
visuals and creative technology Jimmy Grima
set design Dominika Olszowy, Tomasz Mróz
light design Aleksandr Prowaliński
sound design, composer Jakub Ziołek
performed by Jaśmina Polak, Oneka von Schrader, Gosia Wdowik
work with/by Agnieszka, Dominika, Jaśmina, Ania, Urszula, Marta K., Justyna, Natalia, Julia, Martyna, Ola, Małga, Krystyna, Marta, Zosia, Edka, Doris, Yulia, Agata, Kinga, Beata, Iza, Zuza, Ewa, Magda
production Nowy Teatr, CAMPO
coproduction Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Teatro Municipal do Porto, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Frascati Producties, HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, SPIELART Festival, Dublin Theatre Festival, Beursschouwburg, Points communs – Nouvelle Scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise/Val d’Oise
special thanks to Jan Tomza-Osiecki, Marta Jalowska, Dorota Glac, Kamila Worobiej, Martyna Wawrzyniak, Marta Nawrot, Keerthi Basavarajaiah, Justin Schembri

She was a friend of someone else is part of a research based on I’ll just say it and see what happens created by TERAZ POLIŻ (Marta Jalowska, Dorota Glac, Kamila Worobiej), Martyna Wawrzyniak and Gosia Wdowik, which premiered on 21.12.2021

Ph. Thomas Lenden