austraLasia #2129

The Disobedient Prophet - budding Polish 'Eliot' premières on Pesach eve

JERUSALEM: 20th April 2008 -- The setting was haunting enough: a paved stone 'long room' with high vaulted ceiling in the 19th century Ratisbonne Monastery, on the eve of the Jewish Passover; a day warm enough to wither the castor oil plant in the garden, and an international cast to choose from. That was about all Adam Piekarzewski needed, by way of props and persons, to première his eighth play in as many years.
    It was not Jewish theatre, nor Jewish playwrights that came to mind as we sat riveted to our seats for an hour, but the extraordinary talent of a 24 year old Polish Catholic, and Salesian theological student from PLN to boot who, without perhaps being too steeped in the ways of Thomas Stearns Eliot, had achieved something of the man's dramatic grandeur. What Adam did with the 'simple' story of Jonah, The Disobedient Prophet, through a sole protagonist who doubled as Jonah and Jonah's narrator, and a 'chorus' of three mute but moving (whirling and even drunken dervish) figures, was what T.S. Eliot did with Murder in the Cathedral.  He moved his audience from naturalistic perceptions to transcendent awareness.
    It is how Adam did it that is interesting. He used the rhythm of psalmody with a counterpoint of contemporary music. Indeed, the music was the second 'voice', and on at least two occasions the protagonist (a class performance of faultless memory by Matthew De Gance SUE) and the music merged in song.  The props were little more than Don Bosco might have found for his 'teatrino' at the Oratory of old, but they painted a bold stage picture, and some were planted further down the auditorium as a subtle reminder that Jonah's story just might be ours too.
    Adam spoke to me a day or two before the première. As confident as he now is in English, he wrote the play in Polish (but here in Israel) and had it translated, at Ratisbonne.  He does not always write religious plays and in fact, Adam said, his most successful play to date, produced in 2005, was 'The Chant of the Paranoid'.  It has been taken up and directed in a number of Polish theatres. His struggle, he told me was that he writes better about religious experience than anything else, but knows that often religious experience couched in religious language does not work today. Hence the choice of very direct religious language on this occasion was a gamble (one that in this critic's view paid off).
    Contemporary drama has attracted Adam since his humanistic education in secondary school in Poland.  It was not a Salesian school.  He came into contact with Salesians through Parish, Oratory, Scouts - and had not thought of religious life or priesthood as an option till his final years at school.
    Adam (and Matt) are not alone in talent at Salesian Monastery, Ratisbonne. The other three on stage (Manuel Gallo SUE, Sasika Lokuhettige LKC, Francesco de Ruvo ILT)  did not utter a word but they kept up an hour of tight and intricate choreography that would have had the rest of us unknotting ourselves for the remainder of the night!
    GC26 made specific mention of 'educative projects to help young people to a critical and responsible use of various kinds of media (mass, folk, personal, convergent etc.) and encourage their active involvement in the social communication field and where youth express themselves '. It was precisely the need for a wider range of communicative tools, including good old Salesian 'teatrino', that urged the Chapter Assembly to offer that initial and not exclusive list.  Salesian Monastery Ratisbonne, it seems to me, is giving an early lead to at least one intervention at the 'new frontiers' of post-Chapter Salesian energy.
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Title: australasia 2129
Subject and key words: SDB General Ratisbonne, Jerusalem, Drama
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2129