Factory 3

Abstract

The article analyses Anna Karasińska’s work as a director, attempting to place her theatre and filmmaking experience on the map of contemporary theatre (post-theatre). In the five productions Karasińska has made since her début work in 2015 (Ewelina’s Crying, The Second Performance, Birthday, the Fantasia, All Imaginary), she seems to break the art of theatre down, conjure up the effect of strangeness and ask: ‘What is this?’. An ontological quest, overlaid with a paradoxical sense of humour, lies behind the simplicity of the question, and the formal simplicity of Karasińska’s theatre. A practitioner of micro-theatre and auto-theatre, ever since her first production Karasińska has been much in demand, receiving invitations to festivals in Poland and abroad, and being approached by mainstream theatres.

She came to theatre as a so-called mature individual, at the age of 37, with a wealth of experience which, though diverse, had scarcely anything to do with theatre. Her work in theatre is a laboratory of sorts. She clearly has a need to physically exist within the structure she herself created: she appears on stage, or else she’s present in voiceover (albeit live). Stage and costume design seem to represent and illustrate nothing, not to construct a narrative of any sort in Karasińska’s work – they are there to render meanings indistinct. By offering theatre in its unadorned form, Karasińska invites us to take part in an identity game on the theme of the theatrical situation: what it means for those who take part in it as co-authors and audience members. In addition, Karasińska plays with the context of great forms and critical theatre, prevalent in Poland. Her brand of theatre is distinctly her own.