On Thursday, 17 June, the premiere of the play “The Physiology of Taste”, directed by Grzegorz Roman, will take place in the Forum hall. The cast includes: Daria Ławniczak, Sebastian Bejgier, Adrian Stachów and Paweł Kafel. – We have been preparing the play since March – says Grzegorz Roman. – It is an adaptation of “The Physiology of Taste”, a book written in 1825. Its author was Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who was the first to describe the low-carbohydrate diet still used today.
Here is a summary of the work’s plot: A state councillor is hosting a dinner, but at the last moment he has to leave. He goes to an audience with the king. The guests are already seated at the table. No one serves dinner because the host is absent. The invitees therefore wait for the councillor to return. To make the wait pass more quickly, they begin discussing topics related to the culinary arts.
– I asked myself: do we live to eat, or do we eat to live? Very often, we do not pay attention to how great an influence food has on our existence – the director of the play emphasises. – Through this performance, I want to stimulate all the senses of the audience and create 4D theatre.
How does he intend to achieve this? You will be able to find out this Thursday at 6:30 p.m.. Admission is free. – I would like theatrical life to start thriving in Bolesławiec again – adds Grzegorz Roman.
The set was designed by Barbara Bednarowicz, and the music was written by Julia Niewar.
This is how Marek Włodarski wrote about “The Physiology of Taste” in “Gazeta Wyborcza”:
This little book was written in 1825 by a man who spent most of his life in positions connected with the French judiciary. Honoré de Balzac himself devoted a separate article to it, praising its literary lightness and craftsmanship. In time, the little work entered the canon of gastronomic literature – Brillat-Savarin was even nicknamed the Pope of Gastronomy. These meditations are one of the first, and remarkably successful, attempts to codify the culinary sphere and the pleasures of the table. The contents include, among other essays: “A Philosophical History of Cuisine”, “On Appetite”, “On Beverages”, “On Gourmets”, and “On the Pleasures of the Table”. And this is only a modest part of the book’s actual contents. Knowing this text is the foundation of understanding among true gourmets, while their alphabet consists of the aphorisms it contains: “The fate of nations depends on how they nourish themselves” or “A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with one eye”. It is truly a shame not to read the book, know it, and have it in one’s bookcase. Could anyone today, following Brillat-Savarin, also cry out to the heavens if a day passed without soup: dies perdidi?
(information GR/ii)
