A
Little Requiem for Kantor - Ariel Theatre
Director
- Zofia Kalinska
Company - Ariel Theatre
Seen - Edinburgh Festival Fringe August 2000
had subsequent Brazilian tour 24
March to 8 April at the CURITIBA Festival,
a town South of Sao Paulo and Sao Paulo.
Reviewer Thelma Good
On the stage as we enter, in an old store room, the wraith of the young
Kantor sits, still as stone, at a desk, restrained by a large cross
resting on his shoulder. Behind him a woman also sits not moving, wrapped
in her own thoughts. Then some young musicians step into the room, chattering
and carrying their instruments, not noticing the others already there.
They begin to rehearse the haunting Requiem to Kantor by Bartosz Chajdecki.
We are already caught by this spell-binding theatre piece.
Zofia Kalinska and Mira Rychlicka were in Tadeusz Kantor's
Cricot 2 company for 20 and 30 years each, in Poland. Zofia Kalinska
has brought this piece to the Fringe before but it has evolved from
the production some saw in 1998, ( I sadly did not). The rest of the
very good cast are Dera Cooper, Sandy Grierson and Julia Mitchell,
who all live in the UK . For the Brarzilian tour in 2001 Rebecca
Brown takes over again from Julia Mitchell as Death and Sam
Crane joins the cast.
The play is one which leaves us to gain what we can from it and their
approach means that I had seen what Kantor said- "The idea cannot be
killed. The idea can be resurrected." When the play ended we applauded
for a long time then the actors left and we all sat stilled by the force
of this play and the memories of Kantor. Zofia Kalinska, the director
of Ariel Theatre, has a famous workshop on "Exploration of the Extremes
of Human Passions"
© Thelma Good
August 2000 revised March 2001
