BY PIOTR LACHMANN
8th July 2016, 2 PM, Gate Theatre Notting Hill
Gliwice Hamlet is a palimpsestic, poetic play in which two actors in a rehearsal setting enact episodes from Piotr Lachmann’s childhood in German Gleiwitz, which in 1945 became Polish Gliwice. The story is emblematic of German-Polish relations around WWII, when national borders and identities changed rapidly in the turmoil of political transformations. Interwoven in the evocation of multiple locations and historical moments, and in references to Greek theatre and to Shakespeare’s tragedy, is a self-reflexive commentary on the nature of theatre as a medium and the role of media in contemporary society.
Translated from Polish by Aneta Mancewicz and Bryce Lease
Directed by Arne Pohlmeier
Post-show discussion hosted by Bojana Jankovic
The event is free but booking is recommended: book here
Piotr Lachmann is a Polish-German writer and director of video-theatre and film. Born in 1935 in Gleiwitz, Germany (present day Gliwice, Poland), the central theme of his work has consistently been memory and trauma, seen through the prism of his own personal and political experience. Published since the 1960s as a poet, essayist, author of radio plays and translator, in 1985 with actress Jolanta Lothe he founded in Warsaw the Lothe Lachmann Videoteatr Poza (‘Videotheatre Beyond’), Poland’s first experimental laboratory for intermedial theatre. Hamlet gliwicki was first staged by Videoteatr Poza in Gliwice and Warsaw in 2006.