Marcin Liber’s play is inspired by various acts of rebellion throughout modern history; its direct impulse was the events around the Polish Theatre in Wrocław. The scandal that broke out after Cezary Morawski became the director of the artistically accomplished institution, despite angry opposition from the team, revealed a particularly brutal administrative and political violence towards the actors working there. The same actors appear here under their own names in the first part of the piece, sharing their personal stories. They talk about objectification and the disrespectful attitude of the people in power toward artists; they wonder about the possibility of freedom when it comes to art itself. As the play unfolds, the audience is presented with scenes depicting a variety of famous rebels, played by the same actors. The director juxtaposes stories about the ecological collective Fuck for Forest; the story of Ryszard Siwiec, who in 1968, as a form of a protest against the aggression on Czechslovakia, immolated himself; and the story of Oksana Szałygin, a courageous and uncompromising artist. This panorama of contemporary rebels, built around a diverse polyphony of threads, becomes a kind of a utopian space for all the dreamers out there who long for a better tomorrow.

Liber—together with the artists invited to take part in this project and the musicians from the band RSS Boys, whose songs are heard throughout the play—reflects on the price that must be paid for nonconformity and the courage to oppose the dominant order. On the other hand, a series of performative strategies is adopted to engage the spectators in the process of rebellion against the status quo and investigate the limits of the participatory theatre. As a result, the whole show is filled with a vibrant, contagious, rebellious energy.

Direction: Marcin Liber
Dramaturgy: Krzysztof Szekalski
Production design: Mirek Kaczmarek
Music: RSS BOYS
Media: Natalia Kabanow
Casts: Anna Ilczuk, Katarzyna Strączek, Marta Zięba,Rafał Cieluch, Andrzej Kłak, Michał Opaliński