20 October 2018 (Saturday) 6 pm and 8 pm

Teatr LOGOS (Łódź)

“The Chairs” based on the tragicomedy by Eugène Ionesco

directed and stage movement by Ewa Wycichowska

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

phot. Zbigniew Fidos

choice of texts: Jagoda Ignaczak
direction and choreography: Ewa Wycichowska
music: Aldona Nawrocka
stage design and costumes: Katarzyna Torchała

cast:
STARA: Jolanta Kowalska
STARY: Marek Kasprzyk, Mariusz Saniternik
MÓWCA: Dymitr Hołówko
ANIOŁ ŚMIERCI: Helena Saciuk
CIENIE: Tomasz Fijołek i Paweł Pilarczyk

technical support:
Marek Targowski, Martyna Rzeźnik, Tomasz Gajewski, Olena Volos

Implementation of the set design: Ryszard Warcholiński

phot. Zbigniew Fidos

“The Chairs” is next to “The Bald Soprano”, “The Lesson” or “Rhinoceros” is one of the most famous drama by Eugène Ionesco, which belongs to the absurd theatre trend, simultaneously open the space for interpretation, going beyond the strict convention.

The characters of Ionesco, created in the fifties, can be easily found in every day reality.

The tragifars, in which they participate, becomes also our world and participation in necessity becomes just as obvious as breathing. The spektacle’s creators which was realized in the LOGOS Theater, are focusing on the themes of passing away. They are putting a mirror in front of us which reflects the figures of drama and drama’s character, and the eponymous Chairs, which with full openness are taking those meanings which are given to them by the new situation, theatrical and real.

phot. Zbigniew Fidos

“The eponymous Chairs is acting for over an hour. They seem to be animated by extraordinary power, maybe fate? Maybe God? And so they are. There are a whole bunch of different genres. Chairs are cooperating with two characters in the absolute sense.

(...) This is how simply household appliance becomes a first-rate metaphor, something that speaks about the state of the soul, but also about the mental condition of the characters at the end of their life. Here are desires, aspirations, fulfillment or unfulfillment, tenderness or rough love, longing for youth, but everything without bitterness, sometimes with a smile ... These characters, although we observe their “alternative” reality, are real to pain, what was further strengthened by director Ewa Wycichowska. Drawing the basic matter from the original, she encapsulated it with her own sense.

Eugene Ionesco in this masterpiece, which was an overtone of the poetics of the absurd, was able to combine reality with fabrication, cliché with embracing, poetry with bluntness, and with so much condensation of tensions and meanings. However, you need the imagination of spatial and mathematical precision in the artistic thinking of an outstanding dancer, choreographer and director so that the spectacle about chairs will gain such an intellectual dimension.”
Małgorzata Karbowiak, “Kaleidoscope”