At the Polish Theatre in Warsaw, a new production is blurring the lines between reader and story. Directed by Igor Gorzkowski, Open Your Eyes draws on two short stories from Olga Tokarczuk's 2001 collection Playing on Many Drums: 'Open Your Eyes, You're Already Dead' and 'Dress Rehearsal'. The result is a crime comedy that invites the audience into a playful, self-aware exploration of narrative itself.
When the Reader Steps Into the Story
The first story follows a passionate consumer of crime novels who, growing impatient with the slow pace of the plot, literally crosses into the fictional world she is reading. 'Here we have a device that may be more familiar from cinema than from theatre,' Gorzkowski explains. 'We have a world in which the heroine from a realistic setting crosses into this stylised, fictional reality in search of sensations that are missing from her life.'
Actress Anna Cieślak, who plays the Reader, describes her character as the engine of the production. 'She is the driving spiral that sets the rhythm of the comedy,' Cieślak told Euronews. 'My task as the Reader is to lead the audience into a free, playful meander of the imagination and wind up the tempo so that everything tightens more and more and heads in a specific direction.'
'Reading gives you courage, gives you space and also gives you distance from today's fast-paced world.' — Anna Cieślak
The production is also a subtle homage to Tokarczuk herself. Actress Ewa Makomaska, who plays the character Ulrika, wears styling that echoes the writer's distinctive hairstyle. But she is quick to clarify: 'I am not playing the author, Olga Tokarczuk. It is an inspiration, but also a wink to the audience and to the author herself.'
A Cast of Flawed Characters
Gorzkowski notes that Tokarczuk's story assembles a lineup of figures reminiscent of Agatha Christie's crime novels, each invited by a world-famous writer. The underlying plot involves a succession battle for the throne of the most widely read crime writer. 'Each of these characters arrives from a different country and from a slightly different crime-fiction convention, but the author is playing with the form here,' he says. 'That is also delicious to stage in the theatre.'
Makomaska adds that the characters are deliberately unsympathetic. 'Here nobody has a soft spot for anyone. All these characters embody the very worst traits. They are jealous, they are in love with themselves. Above all, they are petty and childish.'
A Pandemic Premonition
The second story, Dress Rehearsal, takes a darker turn. It follows a hostile couple forced into confinement after a mysterious explosion and an apocalyptic announcement. 'That situation sharply intensifies relationships and means these conflict-ridden situations can no longer be dodged,' Gorzkowski says. 'The collection dates from 2001, but it describes, in a painfully precise way, the reality we know from the pandemic period.'
Despite their different narrative styles, the two stories share a common thread: characters trapped in a state of hopelessness and normality, forced to respond in unexpected ways. 'At first glance it might seem that these stories do not have much in common,' Gorzkowski concludes. 'But what links them is the condition of the main characters, who are immersed in a kind of hopelessness and normality and, in different ways within the action of these stories, have to respond to that normality.'
The production runs at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw, offering audiences a chance to reflect on the enduring power of literature in an era of constant digital distraction. As Cieślak puts it, 'Reading gives you courage, gives you space and also gives you distance from today's fast-paced world.'
