END-OF-SEASON CONVERSATION
After the end of the 2021/2022 theater season at the Drama Theater in Warsaw, I spoke with Slawomir Grzymkowski.
Slawomir Grzymkowski: We are very happy with the quality of our work, because this is the most important thing. This is our priority when we start each new task. We are thinking about creating the best possible piece, the best possible performance, and that this also affects the audience's attendance. And, fortunately, in this case. There were six such Premieres, so most of the team was involved in their preparation. The pandemic was an obstacle, of course, but the restrictions were gradually eased, the restrictions were less and less about our work, we no longer had to meet virtually, we could conduct regular rehearsals. Up to a certain point, we had mandatory tests, so we were protected, and we managed to protect the team.
At the appropriate end of the 2021/2022 season, you participated in the preparation of two premieres: "The Art of Intonation" based on the text by Tadeusz Slobodzianka (premiere on January 8, 2022) and" Amadeus" based on the drama by Peter Shaffer (premiere on July 8, 2022). Was "the art of intonation" your first meeting with Anna vechur?
In stage work, yes, but we used to meet for reading in the drama lab. The reading was recorded and presented on the Drama Lab's You Tube channel. Then, between the art of Intonation and Amadeus, Anna Wechur invited me to the Polish Radio Theater. Then we played "Mary Stuart" by Juliusz Slovak. I have a feeling that we enjoyed this work, and there is a certain thread of mutual understanding and great mutual trust between us. Therefore, this cooperation is going very well for us.
From our previous conversations, I remember that in the theater you are most interested in the possibility of active participation in the creative process of the play.
Yes. And that hasn't changed. Anya allows such participation. She is a partner and allows the actor to collaborate on creating a role, as well as offer ideas for the character or ideas for resolving scenes. So it was at the last premiere of "Amadeus", as well as earlier during rehearsals for"the art of intonation". Our work was accompanied by the director's great confidence and confidence in the actor, that the actor will lead his role in the direction in which she expects it. It worked at work. With "Amadeus"Anya practically gave Lukasz Lewandowski and me a free hand in building our characters. Of course, she is vigilant to ensure that this does not slip out of a certain framework. She very often agreed with our suggestions. It's an enjoyable and rewarding job if the actor's ideas come to fruition, if we can actually bring those fantasies to life and bring them to life.
In the production of Amadea, Anna Vechur invited as many as five actors who participated in the art of intonation to play the main roles. I mean Adam Ferenc, Luka Lewandowski, Modest Rucinski, Barbara Gorstka and you. For the role of Mozart, Marcin Hiknar was invited from outside the theater troupe. But Anna Vechur also worked with him on previous readings in the Drama Lab. This shows the director's high confidence in this group of actors.
I think this is natural after a collaboration that was very successful, which we can talk about as an artistic success and attendance, because "the art of intonation" is a performance that is very well received by a lively, responsive and always full audience.
I remember that before the premiere, there were concerns that the content contained in this play would not be too airtight for the general audience.
Yes, we thought it was too industry-specific. There were such concerns, but we did everything possible to tell this story in a way that will be interesting to the audience, even those who are not privy to the subtleties of theater. I think we are not talking about Grotowski, Kantor, Flachen or other artists, but simply about people who have passions, who have dedicated their lives to art. And I think that at this level it is communicative, and people watch it with curiosity, and, by the way, this is, of course, a deeply theatrical situation. I'm talking about the story, these particular characters.
This collaboration with Anya was so successful that when approaching the new performance, she suggested that we take part in Amadea. If there is mutual understanding, joint thinking about the theater, about what we do, then you can somehow reduce the entire creative process. Initially, a completely different configuration of actors was considered. But after the "art of intonation", it changed and took on the form that was at the premiere. This was also due to the fact that we didn't have much time for this rather complex project. We managed to prepare the performance in less than two months. And it was very difficult from the point of view of logistics, because we had to play live music.
Anna Vechur once again proved that she is a very experienced and versatile director. Director of drama and musical theaters. Between " the art of intonation "and"Amadeus", she prepared a large production of"Aida" at the Baltic Opera. Her experience led to the effective preparation of the play "Amadeus", in which a huge ensemble appears on the stage: thirteen actors, sixteen soloists and opera soloists, as well as an orchestra of forty people.
Yes, Anya has experience working on big musical performances, and this led to working on Amadeus. This allowed her to seal the whole project. It worked very precisely. It was clear that he had a vision of what he wanted to achieve. Combine musicians and soloists together with actors.
The obvious difficulty in training was the need to synchronize the actors with the music. In the scenes, Anna Vechur uses thirty-two excerpts from Mozart's works. For a performance, proportions are important, so that both the voice of the actors and the music reach the audience.
What you said was not easy. Theaters are not technically ready for such things. I don't like microports, for example, but they are certainly necessary in such an endeavor and probably work well. But this is already the merit of our experienced people. I am referring to our sound technicians who work on musical projects in the drama theater.
Where did this big orchestra on stage come from? How were the musicians chosen?
The orchestra was created as a result of a huge casting call, for which more than 400 musicians from all over the country applied. Jacek Laszkowski, who is the conductor and music director of this company, together with the first violinist made a choice of musicians after several stages of listening. I believe that they are extremely gifted young people with incredible energy, a desire to work and learn something new. It was a very interesting meeting for the actors ' ensemble, as well as for the musical ensemble, that is, for instrumentalists and soloists. The two worlds met because working in opera has a different character. Musicians have a different style of work. They are very disciplined. The theater is more open to improvisations. The musicians, although subordinate to the conductor and the score they have in front of them, nevertheless looked curiously at our various proposals. Very often they reacted vividly to these rehearsals, to what was happening on stage. And we could look with fascination at how beautifully they play and sing, and how the music somehow penetrates the form of this performance.
Soloists not only sing solo, but also are a choir, actively participate in the stage action.
And they do it fantastically. The opera has an advantage over the theater. He can afford the momentum. Theater and opera budgets are incomparable. We are poor relatives of the opera.
Here the opera singers still dance.
Yes, they were persuaded to dance. They just have acting assignments, they play in acting scenes. It was very interesting for them, and I think it developed and inspired them. They're opera actors. We are thrilled with them, with their participation and with the fact that they are one hundred percent included in everything that Anya asked for.
It happens in the play that Amadeus is an actor, changes with Amadeus as an orchestra conductor.
It was the idea for Martin Hicknar, who plays Amadeus, to switch with a conductor dressed as Amadeus, so that he could always assume that Mozart was conducting this orchestra.
The play "Amadeus" is a gigantic organizational, financial and human enterprise. More than seventy people appear on the stage simultaneously in many scenes. What are the prospects for this performance?
I do not know because I do not know the financial details, but I believe that part of this cost is paid off. And that's probably most of it. We play all the performances with a full audience. Tickets are very expensive.
The struggle for entrance tickets begins to resemble the atmosphere in the drama theater of the old days of the Warsaw theater assemblies, when the old theater came from Krakow with performances by Svinarsky or Wajda, and the audience occupied the stairs of the audience and the sides of the proscenium. Here they are not yet sitting on the stage.
But it is not known whether they will sit like this in September, after the holidays. Yes, because the interest is huge, not only among the Warsaw audience. We know that audiences from all over the country come to see this performance. There is not only a rumor, but also in the era of social networks, many people after visiting the theater write that they saw a fantastic spectacle. Access to this information is then huge. I hope that after the holiday, this interest in the performance will not disappear. Let it last as long as possible so that we can play, because the huge amount of work put into this show is powerful, it really costs us a lot of effort. There is also satisfaction when after each performance, after the last scene during the applause, people get up. When they react very vividly to the ending because they are excited and excited. This is also the embodiment of acting ambitions.
Let's go back to the scenario itself. Isn't there a live orchestra in Shaffer's drama?
Schaffer himself wrote perhaps six theatrical versions of the script, plus an additional film script that differs significantly from our version. I do not know if other versions have an orchestra or not. I think it depends on the implementers. And finance, of course. However, most often records are used.
In fact, the whole story was invented by Alexander Pushkin and recorded in the one-act drama "Salieri and Mozart". As the main motive of the drama, he used the well-known information that the sick Salieri, dying thirty-four years after Mozart's death, babbled that he had killed Mozart.
Yes, but Pushkin focused only on these two figures. Only Salieri and Mozart were there. And here we have an extensive story told in several planes. An important context is how power and politics affect the fate of an artist who either has the support of this power and is able to exist, or, despite a huge talent, through certain political and social systems, will not even come to the voice and will not be able to compose. He dies in poverty. There are plenty of similar examples.
Here we look at the history of two outstanding musicians, because Salieri was also a great musician and composer. Only Salieri could appreciate Mozart's genius. No one from the court or from the inner circle of the court – in this version of the script we are talking about-can appreciate and see this wonderful talent.
Both in Milos Forman's film and in the theater play "Amadeus", the main character of the drama is not Mozart, but Salieri.
Because it's his confession.
His imaginations, conversations with God and claims that the talent that should be his participation, God gave Mozart.
Yes, this is Salieri's story from beginning to end.
Let's go back to Venticellich, the characters you play with Luke Lewandowski. Characters that are important for the theatrical performance, striking with images and expressions of stage actions that are not present in the script of Foreman's film.
They are gossips in the theater scenario. People who pay Salieri and bring him all the information he can use against Mozart.
In the film "Amadeus", Salieri's hired and paid maid, who is supposed to keep order in Mozart's house, is engaged in snitching and stealing secrets and even sheet music.
Yes, in the movie, she's a maid. I do not know how this happens in other theater scenarios, because I only know this one. The Venticelli serve as informers, spies. Anyone can pay them, and they can work for anyone. Turning to working with Anya, Luke and I began to think that these are not real-world characters, that they can be given a more metaphysical character. They play the role of modern social networks, but negative ones that cause conflicts and disagreements.
Like fake news?
As one reviewer has well pointed out, in some ways they are Salieri's own subconscious. They behave in a way that he would never allow himself outwardly. After all, he is noble, adheres to the norms. It would seem that he is a wonderful, wonderful person. It may seem so. And in fact, these two demons, Venticelli, are also a projection of him. The most evil thing in this head is the awakening jealousy, the awakening desire to kill or maybe just destroy Mozart's career. At the same time, they act as commentators, start the play and finish it. But they are also the epitome of something worse in human character and behavior, and here Anya allowed us to develop their meaning in the play.
What are your expectations for the new season?
We don't know anything yet. A few days ago, the season ended, we have no information from the new management regarding the next season. I hope that this collaboration will work well, and that we will all take care of the good quality of the performances of this theater.
Thank you so much for the conversation.
Thank you very much.

photo: Tomasz Ostrowski