Ladies and Gentlemen,
On March 27, 2022, we celebrate World Theatre Day. This year, Peter Sellars, an American opera and theater director, known for his pioneering interpretations of the classics and popularizing contemporary music, was invited to deliver the traditional address. In his message, he emphasizes:
“We are living in an epic period in human history and the deep and consequential changes we are experiencing in human beings’ relations to themselves, to each other, and to nonhuman worlds are nearly beyond our abilities to grasp, to articulate, to speak of, and to express. […] we are living at the edge of time.”
The current dire political situation resonates strongly in the Polish message prepared by Monika Strzępka and Dramatyczny Kolektyw (‘The Dramatic Collective’) of which she is the founder:
“When we think “theatre” today, an image of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol shattered by missiles flashes before our eyes, with ДЕТИ written in enormous letters outside the building. An image of a theatre-shelter which has not been spared by the atrocity of Putin’s war. Then, we see images of the stage and auditorium of the Maria Zankovetska Dramatic Theatre in Lviv turned into a refugee home. Next, there are images from Polish theatres where people who have escaped violence now live and where intensive action for real help to Ukraine is taking place.”
After two years of struggling with the pandemic – so difficult for the Threatre Artists and Employees as well as for the Audience – the theatre is now facing an even harder challenge. We believe that Art – as a carrier of the highest values – deepens sensitivity, empathy and a sense of community, and thus contributes to the promotion of the idea of peace.
