Frozen Poland: Theatre in a State of War 1981 Part Two: Blog 17

Lech Walesa - Founder of Solidarity

Morning all

A couple of people have contacted me to ask me to  write about the rest of my 1981 time in Poland following on from the first post about it last week. I was always going to. So here goes.

Actors are pretty much of the same tribe the world over! What was curious about my time in Wroclaw was that the motley group of actors we met and worked with all belonged to what might be described as a movement. I had always experienced being part of a theatre as being a kind of self selecting family, but what made this Polish experience feel more like a movement was I guess the reality of the political imperative. This was about real people and real lives up against oppression on a daily basis. 

In my previous experiences in the west we still had choices and a certain notion of free expression, however deluded that might actually be. We might pontificate about politics, make work that shows two fingers to the political doctrines we despise, but most of us still go home at the end of the day with little fear that the door might be broken down by soldiers or the police.

So a movement seems to me to be a fitting description of the actors and directors I met in Wroclaw. Even the actors club was nothing like I had experienced before. There people met to talk in hushed words about the military take over. It was dangerous and you never knew if you might be talking to a secret agent. Sounds exciting, but it was really frightening. Actors and directors are political even if they don't know it. The work we make creatively everyday is by definition political, and I don't mean of party politics necessarily. Its about people's lives, the truths of human experience, loss, oppression, joy and the belief in the possibility of transformation and change.

In Poland in 1981 it was more explicit and urgent for this movement of artists, because it meant life or death. If you were found criticising the army or gathering people to talk you put yourself and them at tremendous risk of being 'disappeared' without trace. 

But artists are relentlessly imaginative and resilient, living as we do at the margins, and no more so than those in Poland in 1981. This ability to reinvent is smart, and what emerged in the work being made at that time was a further push into metaphor and abstraction. You see if you use analogy, parable and metaphor in the narratives you weave and perform no one can actually accuse you of dissension. This is in fact an artistic gift, it forces you to go deeper into mythology and universal stories. Its the only way to comment safely. Hamlet takes on a whole new meaning and relevance when performed in a state of war.

Of course for our company, this was to be a short sojourn in the reality of other people's terror. But they welcomed us and assumed that because we were there we were part of their fight. 

This experience was seminal in my development as an actor and director. This was no playing at it. You were either in or not. We all chose to be in.

After the late evening with pickled herrings and eggs and evaporating-on-your- tongue Spiritus, we fell into our beds back at the Monopole exhausted. It took a lot of energy to grasp the real tyranny we were witnessing. But it was palpable everywhere.

The next day we were to go to the large civic hall which was to be our theatre and to get the show in. It was planned that there would be four performances. Seeing the size of the hall was a bit of a shock. It had a capacity of about 4,000, which seemed crazy. This was after all no music gig. The last performance we had done had been at the Dovecot Arts Centre in Stockton-on-Tees with about 30 people in the audience! Thirty in this space would be ridiculous. 

That day was frustrating, dealing with different power sources, people not turning up because they had to do something important elsewhere shrouded in secrecy. Our values of getting the job done were stymied most of that day - and we were irritated by the fact that it took 14 hours to do a 6 hour get-in. When we asked for people to hurry up, our lovely host Jan just shrugged and smiled as if to say 'you just don't get it do you?' and we didn't really.

That night the same Jan invited us to his home for dinner to introduce us to some other actors he worked with. We went back to the hotel to freshen up. And then to Jan's. We had to get the tram to a small suburb just outside the town. We arrived at a stop outside a grim looking block of flats, one of about 30 all the same. 

A smiling Jan met us and took us up the stairs which reeked of urine to his flat. The smell made me retch, but I tried not to show it, as I did not want to look so soft! But Jan grinned as he opened the door to his flat. It was jam packed full of about 20 people. The vodka was flowing and voices were raised, laughing and speaking vehemently. Those gathered turned and waved to us to join them. We squeezed around the table, sitting on anything to hand. The conversation did not cease as glasses were passed to us. Jan's wife was ensuring that people's drinks stayed refilled as she squeezed around the table. 

Immediately I noticed something strange - the long table which took up most of the room was covered with a beautiful white lace tablecloth. And on the cloth a vase of beautiful artificial flowers. Around the table china plates and silver knives and forks promised of a feast. I did wonder how Jan's wife could ever cater for so many people in this tiniest of flats. 

Heated and concentrated conversation that was kindly translated for us by Maciej our polish actor, seemed to point to the fact that one of their number had disappeared that morning. They were urgently sharing information, talking about the fact that he must have been picked up from his flat as it had been disturbed and looked like he had had no time to take anything. They were sure he had been taken to a military prison and were trying to work out how to get information.

It was deeply shocking, I had an experience of unreality and had to pinch myself not to think I was in some sort of bizarre film. But of course you can't ask too many questions as it would be prurient. So we just witnessed it and joined in drinking. Jan's wife came in with a large tureen of some sort of steaming soup I thought. As she began to ladle it out, I looked at my pristine china bowl and saw that the content was hot water with a couple of cabbage leaves floating in it. That and a bit of black bread was the sum total of the meal. It was heavily salted and we drank it as if it were a wholesome bowl of food. No one commented. We didn't. It dawned on me that everyone was holding onto their liberty and dignity as we sat there absurdly drinking hot water from bowls.

As the evening wore on and more vodka flowed, people began to relax and then the singing started. It was amazing, strong, at times out of tune, loud and familiar. Folk and political songs that we didn't know of course, but whose rousing nature made us join in as if we did. Then the storytelling, big gruff men crying as they remembered their lives, shared their loves. And they were actors, musicians, directors and writers so you can imagine the spirit. I cried my eyes out about people I didn't know, caught up in the power of emotion and humanity.

I slipped out to the loo to get some tissue to wipe my blotchy face, to find of course there was no loo paper or soap. They were being rationed to a bar and four rolls a month. This was obviously coming to the end of the month. A piece of newspaper and rusty water had to suffice.

We got a late tram back to the Monopole. I slept another night like a baby. And in many ways at 21 I was a baby. 

Enough for today - part three will follow shortly.  Today I have to apply my thinking and writing to completing our big three year development strategy for Arc! Its exciting.