On Thursday, Forum hosted performances by Tamara Arciuch, Bartłomiej Kasprzykowski and Bartosz Opania. The troupe came to Bolesławiec with the performance “Under German Beds,” based on the book by Holger Schlageter and Justyna Polańska. The actors were warmly received by the Bolesławiec audience.
The performance “Under German Beds,” directed by Łukasz Witt-Michałowski, is a theatrical impression based on the book of the same title. It tells the story of Justyna, a Polish cleaner whom the Polish media first turn into a celebrity, only for the same journalists later to cast her into media oblivion and blame her for the mass layoffs of Polish cleaners in Germany.
The book by Schlageter and Polańska provided some of the more spicy stories from the lives of prejudiced, perverted, malicious or downright annoying Germans. There is the story of an elderly woman who defecated beside the toilet to check how thoroughly a Polish woman cleaned. Another concerns a married couple who hid euros in various places to catch the Polish woman stealing, because the stereotypical German is convinced that Poles steal. There is also the tale of an infantile young German who loves teddy bears and tries to persuade Justyna to have sex for money. And there are the cleaner’s German neighbors, who collected rubbish thrown onto the lawn outside the building and left it at her door, convinced that only Poles could have littered in a public place, since Germans are far too orderly for that.
The main focus of the performance, however, was the media circus surrounding the cleaner-turned-writer. At the beginning, Justyna (Tamara Arciuch) is invited onto the program “Warto pomawiać,” hosted in a highly biased manner by a certain Jan Podpuszczalski (Bartosz Opania). From the outset, Podpuszczalski decides that Germans are fascists and Nazis, and that Justyna is their victim.
Justyna then appears on numerous talk shows. A series titled “S jak sprzątanie” is made around the theme of her book, with the Kroczek brothers in the leading roles. Andrzej Bujda makes a monumental, tragic film based on the novel, with an actor named Daniel playing a Polish cleaner. An opera is also created on the basis of the novel. At the end of this media circus, Justyna appears as a judge on programs modeled on “You can clean.”
Eventually, as a celebrity, she is invited onto a program where two journalists first treat her like a star and then begin attacking her mercilessly. For a long time, Justyna cannot believe that her fall from the media spotlight is inevitable. At last, she leaves the stage vilified, to the sound of fame that has already faded for her.
The performance had superbly conceived set design by Maciej Chojnacki. It consisted of brilliantly arranged installations made from several hundred white plastic buckets. It was also a great pleasure to watch the talented actor and parodist Bartosz Opania.
During the performance, however, viewers may find themselves asking several questions. Is it worthwhile to make a theatrical piece about such a subject? Do we learn anything more about people from it than we know after reading “Pudelek,” “Życie na Gorąco” or another “Fakt”? And how will we react when a Ukrainian woman writes a book about cleaning under Polish beds?
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)