Lawrence of Arabia is a theatrical telephone game, exploring our mediations and misunderstandings, checking received notions. It is a farce about identity, put together by the cooperation of several groups: the creative team, foreigners living in Poland, as well as the actors from our theatre. Finally, it is an attempt of putting on someone else’s shoes, looking at familiar issues from the outside and a fantasy of theatre created for a multilingual and multicultural society. It’s also a play on viewers expectations - because what exactly do they know about Sudan? When was Poland a banana republic? Why does Zorro wear a burka? What is more remote to us: Venezuela or an Amazon warehouse?

The creators decided to invite newcomers, not rooted in Poland and those forced to leave their native countries to cooperate. The goal was to avoid constructing a phantom image of the Other. Expectations were contradicted, perceptions turned around in unexpected ways and the play gained its own comedic dimension. Comedy emerges as a serious, concrete remedy against generalizations and fantasies relating to identity.

Performance in the project Atlas of Transitions. New geographies for a cross-cultural Europe.

Project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. 

Partner: Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw