The Books of Jacob
Olga Tokarczuk
director
Ewelina Marciniak
premiere
13 May 2016
running time
230 min (2 przerwy)
stage
scena duża

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VIDEO

CAST
KAROLINA ADAMCZYK
KAROLINA ADAMCZYK
Wajgełe
KLARA BIELAWKA
KLARA BIELAWKA
Katarzyna Kossakowska
ALEKSANDRA BOŻEK
ALEKSANDRA BOŻEK
Chaja
MICHAŁ CZACHOR
MICHAŁ CZACHOR
Jakub Frank
MICHAŁ JARMICKI
MICHAŁ JARMICKI
Elisza Szor / Pinkas
MAGDALENA KOLEŚNIK
MAGDALENA KOLEŚNIK
Gitla
MATEUSZ ŁASOWSKI
MATEUSZ ŁASOWSKI
Aszer / Kajetan Sołtyk
JULIAN ŚWIEŻEWSKI
JULIAN ŚWIEŻEWSKI
Benedykt Chmielowski
ELIZA BOROWSKA
ELIZA BOROWSKA
Elżbieta Drużbacka / Maria Teresa Habsburg
BARBARA  DERLAK
BARBARA DERLAK
Jenta
DOBROMIR  DYMECKI
DOBROMIR DYMECKI
Młody / Nachman
MAJA KLESZCZ
MAJA KLESZCZ
Jenta
WOJCIECH NIEMCZYK
WOJCIECH NIEMCZYK
Jakub Frank
BARTOSZ PORCZYK
BARTOSZ PORCZYK
Antoni Kossakowski „Moliwda” / Józef II Habsburg
AGATA  WOŹNICKA
AGATA WOŹNICKA
Katarzyna Kossakowska
JULIA WYSZYŃSKA
JULIA WYSZYŃSKA
Młoda / Chana / Ewa

CREATIVES

director - Ewelina Marciniak
dramaturgs - Magdalena Kupryjanowicz, Jan Czapliński
dolls director - Agata Kucińska
set and costume designer, lighting director - Katarzyna Borkowska
choreographer - Kaya Kołodziejczyk
music - Barbara Derlak (Chłopcy kontra Basia), Wojtek Urbański (from the band Rysy)
director’s assistant - Karolina Szczypek
stage manager - Kuba Olszak

SYNOPSIS

According to a Jewish tradition, the baptism of a commune member is a mortal sin. Nevertheless, in the 18th century, Jakub Lejbowicz, who goes by the name Franek, managed to convince six thousand Jews from the Eastern borderlands of the First Republic of Poland to commit this disgraceful act.

 

Olga Tokarczuk fills in the blank pages of the Polish history by describing the history of the self-appointed Messiah in The Books of Jacob. She lets the Podole Jews speak, both the ones who fought against Franek and those who believed in him, and she objects to a popular, Sienkiewicz-like vision of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Poland that would be dominated exclusively by the gentry and Catholicism. From this viewpoint, the political and religious domination of Poles is viewed as oppressive and unjust, but the equality-based cult of Jakub Franek constitutes one of the few areas of freedom in the modern society.

 

In the adaptation of a monumental novel by Tokarczuk, Ewelina Marciniak focuses on universal values that could have determined accession to Franek’s heretical sect: the need for personal freedom, the equality before the law, a feeling of community, and most of all – the need for faith and religious experience. Marciniak investigates the way in which contact with the divine is not only experienced by soul, but also flesh. She observes how this contact appears in daily situations and rituals, which were the center of a religious cult. She is trying to find out about the closeness between erotic and mystic experiences.

 

For adults only.

Teatr Powszechny
im. Zygmunta Hübnera
ul. Jana Zamoyskiego 20
03-801 Warszawa
tickets 22 818 25 16
22 818 48 19