Where Are Last Year’s Snows. Premiere
Where Are Last Year’s Snows
27 Jan. 1979
Palazzo delle Esposizioni
Roma
Where Are Last Year’s Snows. Cast
Cast
Maria Kantor
Teresa Wełmińska
Zbigniew Gostomski
Andrzej Wełmiński
Wacław Janicki
Lesław Janicki
Jan Książek
Stanisław Rychlicki
Krzysztof Miklaszewski
Roman Siwulak
Dominika Michalczuk
Krzysztof Dominik (music)
Characters
Grand Geometrician
Rabbi
His Pupil
Gravedigger
Bridegroom
Bride
Grand Actors
People in the Street
Inhabitants of Our Town
The Well-known Man
Death
The Last Judgement Machine
Rope
Where Are Last Year’s Snows
Rehearsal for a performance Dominika Michalczuk, Zbigniew Gostomski photo Jacek Szmuc
“Cricotage is a kind of activity which stems from the experience of the Cricot 2 Theatre and from the method of acting discovered and practised there.
Cricotage cannot be equalled with a happening, i.e. it does not have the “open form’ of the latter – the form capable of accepting participation on the part of the audience.
Cricotage is not “performance” – a form which is omnipresent around the world today, a form in which the prevailingly puristic and abstract kinds of attitude manifest themselves in real space,
through the human body,
with all its ballast
of biology
and naturalism.
In order to protect its puristic character against the danger of “impure”
biological
emotional
psychological
hallucinatory states –
“performance” postulates
minimal signification.
With time this minimal signification, so important at the moment of its discovery,
has become subject to abuse – a versatile device used at no risk whatsoever.”
(Tadeusz Kantor, the programme of the play, Cracow 1984)
Where Are Last Year’s Snows.
This Straight Line, a scene from the play A group scene photo C. Harris
“Cricotage does not eliminate emotional states or strong tension.
Cricotage relies on REALITY.
Liberated from any kind of “plot.”
Its fragments, relics and traces
torn by the power of IMAGINATION,
defying all the conventions and the “common” sense
are joined together and strained to such an extent
that at any time they
could rupture
and disintegrate.
This sense of
danger
and imminent
disaster
is an essential feature of Cricotage.
What remains is the problem of the symbol.
Characters, situations, remnants of action
are not symbols.
They are rather EXPLOSIVES,
which cause short-circuits.
They come near the “IMPOSSIBLE” and the “INCONCEIVABLE.”
Despite their manifest references to real life meanings, they do not at all
Meet the need for a solution that would follow the everyday logic. It would be
an unpardonable simplification to try and explain them through such meanings.
All the real-life meanings are instantly denied and erased.
In an instant a wedding becomes a funeral ceremony.
A “pre-programmed” message does not exist.
What exists is an AURA
which makes Cricotage resemble symbolism.
All interpretation based on “meaning” will therefore be false and inappropriate.
Apart from all this, this is an attempt to make one more step forward again –
after The Dead Class.
The cricotage Where Are Last Year’s Snows is the first announcement
of a new production
by the Cricot 2 Theatre.”
(Written in the year 1978, before the work on the performance of Wielopole, Wielopole was begun)
