What Is the Theatrical Idea, or: How to Be Loved by Philosophy

Abstract

This analysis of the directorial work of Weronika Szczawińska, based on an interpretation of her production How to Be Loved, demonstrates the staging strategies that the director employs and the main characteristics of her poetics. Mościcki shows that Szczawińska’s theatre is radically epic, its key element the ability – named after Walter Benjamin – to make gestures quotable. Gestures are used to stage memory as choreography or to penetrate ever deeper into the mechanisms of oppression and formatting.