More than words can say

One of the joys of being a professional theatre critic is the post-show discussion with your theatregoing companion. If the performance is especially thought-provoking, this can last longer than the play itself. Sure enough, when I participated in the recent World Congress of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), representing its new member Thailand, the discussions lasted way beyond the evening performances.
“T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T”, Grzegorz Jarzyna’s adaptation of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film “Teorema” (1968), at Theatre Warszawa, seemed to be our clear favourite.
The play focuses on a charismatic stranger who enters a bourgeois family home – an apparently normal one with a father, a mother, a son, a daughter and a maid – and engages in a sexual relationship with each and every one of them. The family is changed beyond recognition.
While many critics saw this stranger as a Christ-like character when the film came out in the late 1960s, theatre critics today, especially in our diverse community, refused to be so restrictive in their interpretation.
I’m not a fan of Broadway musicals but as I watched the stranger figure, the song “For Good” from “Wicked” popped into my head: “I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return.”
With sparse dialogue delivered effortlessly by the Polish cast alongside English surtitles, the play’s visual impact on the audience’s emotions was astounding. It brought to mind a respected Thai film critic’s comment about the Chinese epic “Hero” – “It’s so beautiful it hurts.” In this enigmatic stage production, though, there were no flying arrows or swinging swords, just razor-sharp images and ideas that cut deeper into the audience’s mind.
And this brings to mind the many Thai theatre-makers who try for cinematic effects in their productions, mostly by simply projecting images on the white screen upstage and stealing the focus away from the live actors. “T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T” proves that you can create a cinematic experience on stage without a screen, utilising instead immaculate control of the stage visuals – the set and lighting design, the positioning and movement of the actors.
Flowing from one scene to the next at an easy pace, the two hours without an intermission were without flaw as there was always something happening on a different part of the almost bare stage to sustain the audience’s attention.
As playwright Jarzyna didn’t bombard our ears with beautiful words and big thoughts, his characters were never reduced to talking heads.
As director, he took full advantage of the time and space the audience shared with his actors, letting us feel what they felt, slowly but efficiently, and allowing the thoughts to germinate and grow organically in us.
Since its stage premiere in 2009, “T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T” has been restaged many times with this most recent run coming in late March, at Theatre Warzawa where Jarzyna is resident director. Los Angeles, Wellington, Belgrade and London have also been treated.
Earlier this year, the Hong Kong Arts Festival presented Jarzyna’s production of Sarah Kane’s “4.48 Psychosis”, and I’m quite sure that the Asian premiere of “T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T” is coming soon.
Visit www.TRWarzawa.pl for more details.

The writer’s trip to IATC’s World Congress was supported by the Office of Contemp-orary Art and Culture, Ministry of Culture.