fot. Jarosław Darnowski

12 November 2019 (Tuesday) 7:00 pm

LOGOS Theatre

“PURGATORY” based on “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri

translated by Edward Porębowicz

LOGOS Theatre audience, ul. M. Skłodowskiej-Curie 22

phot. Jarosław Darnowski

staging, direction and choreography: Ewa Wycichowska
music: Jacek Wierzchowski
costumes: Małgorzata Górna-Saniternik
dramaturgical preparation of the text based on “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri: Jagoda Ignaczak
staging production Ryszard Warcholiński
text recording: Andrzej Papajak

CAST:
Virgil: Mariusz Saniternik
Dante: Marek Kasprzyk
Statius: Dymitr Hołówko
Souls: Jolanta Kowalska, Martyna Rzeźnik, Piotr Nowak
Beatrice: Karolina Łukaszewska
Cato: Marek Targowski
Guard: Tomasz Fijołek

technicians:
Paweł Pilarczyk, Tomasz Gajewski

The recording of the texts was carried out by: Mariusz Saniternik, Marek Kasprzyk, Jolanta Kowalska, Waldemar Sondka, Ewa Wycichowska, Martyna Rzeźnik, Piotr Nowak, Jagoda Ignaczak.

phot. Jarosław Darnowski

“The Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, called “The Divine”, according to the account, by Giovanni Boccaccio, from the perspective of contemporary audience is not a work that can be assimilated at ease and without a distance. The images painted by Dante are much more like exhibits in the museum of literature than an appeal bringing people to reason, a warning of eternal condemnation or an expiatory form leading to salvation. We are watching Dante’s travel with curiosity or admiration for the literary artistry, having more and more difficulty to enter the path of identification. Immersed in the hasty everyday existence we will not spend, as T. S. Eliot used to say, our whole life trying to understand “The Divine Comedy”. Successive editions contained many footnotes that carry us further away from the essence of the work instead of bringing us closer to it.

Why, then, are we meeting during the performance of the LOGOS Theatre in the space of the Purgatory — Purgaotorio created by Dante?

The theatre has to have the courage to talk about people walking through the antipodes of good and evil or even descending in the abyss of humanity as the way to the sacrum often runs through profanum. Using a contemporary form of staging the artists tap into the perspicacity and perfection of Dante’s work. They find in it the grounds to enter into a dialogue with the audience who does not want to replace the illusion of the theatre with the illusion of life.