Public Broadcast Laboratory; 207; Polish Laboratory Theater
- Transcript
mayor whaley you you know tonight the american premiere performance of jessica tells he's bullish on social issues introduction acropolis he held a specialty wear sky to a world renowned british director the same thing at all last night egypt's first introduction to the polish laboratory fear by louis friedman bpl is bad and oh yeah the language is polish but the actors are
members of the polish laboratory theater and the play was written by stanislav this beyond ski at the turn of the century good evening i'm louis friedman and actually i don't speak polish and it's possible that some of you don't either we are presenting a play tonight and thailand polish because we believe that it's a fascinating and moving experience in the theater ten years ago years ago a task he was a young actor in poland and he found in the laboratory in order to explore the forms of the fear they're using the theater in the pursuit of the truth since then wherever his work has been seen in paris or mr mexico city has been acclaimed as one of the most exciting mines to work in the theater since thomas loves me peter brook the british director who's probably best known for is production outside has been in my era and disciple of protest before a long time i
asked him in paris won his first impressions war when he went to the polish laboratory theater levine's most that's right was of them can stay disciplined were killed over the years which was not unfamiliar i know that scene and many times working which again was interesting exciting but which in this case brenner passed a barrier and the barrel the bread pasta was in this rational communication
they reached a point in their work when the result of what they were doing began to communicate so directly to one vote dozens of languages completely vanished there's a sense of what are they about what does this mean what point in the story one stage in the acting as those members and vanished and it was and i had her but what was moved in the conventional sense one in the act of producing an emotion with something very much deeper more fundamental his actors through long and arduous disciplines a choir an understanding of certain reforms and i think that the most powerful characters are strong impression see them refine their refund and the sense that through the language of shifting rhythms under
control they then mate will they create work that speaks directly to something very deeply hidden inside each person so that those in a moment in the first performance when i didn't feel my breath quote different play something in me was disturbed rouse and then beginning to meet with them in the sense that happens in jazz and jazz as a limited partners' lives of innocent in a much more concrete way something began to beat with his performance and to know that a physical feeling of contact with a performance in the regional player the scene was the cathedral in krakow national shrine very much like westminster abbey figures in the tapestries statues convention rules and acted out scenes from the bible
from home are they right there was a survey of western culture and the plane was the test and the values of their culture for him the cathedral was polish acropolis the burial place of the tribe's symbol of the civilization with a grid just the sixty years later it was no longer an effective somebody asked where now with a test of the civilization take place his answer is the burial place of the tribes was the extermination camp at auschwitz for the actors now prisoners in auschwitz ed hula crematorium and as the rookie re enact the fantasies about a season play an improper because it seemed to me that something very horrible the horror of that is of
the rooms of the very notion of concentration camp actually emerged in the acropolis has something of the nature a dangerous nature of amendments amendments all that i've seen one i shouldn't think you have but know one imagines a black mask to be that comes a point when alicia and federal forms of people dressed up there's always becomes unimportant and what actually happened is that a certain quality of people actually manifest itself not been seen significant acropolis by the same all sincerity and mastery of the rhythmic elements to the pulse of life in a concentration camp actually came out in the open and i had a feeling of something hulu announced a true repentant and one bus
stops stump speech two prisoners working among the corpses find a man who is not yet dead is it reminds them of the agony of christ and they ask themselves can hear them talking or is he listening only to his own suffering they talk sardonically about god the creator and executioner s at certain moments in the crop of this occurs and mean less hiring was not described was not referred to was not brought into our imagination is something that what's happened actually was brought into being here i think that in the swell and said that the particular value of the crop of this is that we were launched a lot of the real thing is a lot less than the word reel of great sense when the real lot through trial fantasy you dribbling so we imagine a showman something the core of reality in
a work about one takes the greatest nightmare of incomprehensible nightmare about the concentration camp and one's tempted to think that the greatest reality that you can find in the concentration camp is it's a reality in other words the documentary approach what can go beyond the statistics the books that tell us the facts of the concentration camp the device who have great skill and with the deep humility felt in the investigation ended through an investigation but he couldn't in any way but a glass of imagination of dramatizing of a concentration camp that you have to keep in the dignified honorable thing these are the facts and that something that contriving waters that would mean she can can't do more than that alongside the case there was an attempt to make to have an
international competition to create a memo a lot of cash to commemorate one of the concentration camps in the end it was founded really works about with inadequate and the only work the object that could symbolize the concentration that with keeping the concentration camp itself that existence throws that was it an exception that defies those who he has made an imaginative work of art which a defense side has the trappings of thought that says about what that is doing is now ally it's an authentic movements chanting in ritualistic ways and one could say this is turning reality of the concentration camp into something inferior at an attempt by an artist to make a beautiful work about two prisoners are sorting the hair from the corpses it's ensure quality reminds them
of physical love in the past it propels them into a fantasy of the wedding night through it the chorus of prisoners chance to love to love to love and gradually as one enters into his intentions and into what has achieved by his actors one sees that this is not what they're doing is making the spirit of that concentration camp live again for a moment and so in a sense of their work is more of the state was even statistic refers to the past and even the man describing as in the courtroom what happened with us the past he does something that no film can do the film also refers to the past he actually makes sense of the concentration camp for men and reappear and that was that i'm going to stay at sunset or chicken fingers income say that doesn't exist anymore in this
world that has nothing to do with mankind a terrible experience seeing something we mustn't forget because it happened then like the business two prisoners cross examine the third who speaks in the voice of a woman who has lost in the past last and forgetting the experiences that they've taken on the experiences for the receiver he wishes he wishes you do not have today the takeaway there but few people who can resist and those people there were a silent because they've seen something of her own eyes or rather not it was
b understood i think you have to recognize that the people who need the can draw most his words and his activists across the dozen men were if an unknown mr rich knowledge understanding and clinton he has something to say there's something of the difficult for him as an artist to transmitters is difficult and painful and he can only transmitted through intense work which he does not with words like a writer or with aids like alike than wrestling with is thinking with kansas with a small group of highly trained can be true that as he works move for the law and prove a
man a woman engaged in a hysterical debate he looks backward towards the past the consolation to her death to history she says throw away the book's twenty one other people's pain for live this minute love what he is saying is that there is an anonymous communication between him and them is like a search for certain truths in themselves that they undertake together now in a sense because they give the river of fire indeed in this it's almost impossible for them to work a year after year without an audience accepted as buffoon as the theater the theater doesn't exist without an audience and poking contradictions
in that way to try to make myself clear the theater hastert concord well in front of a pair of eyes of the reason that the present no ending the atrocities language a pair of eyes the spectator is the witness sen leahy led to commit atrocious acts maybe lead to commit an extreme act that act has no sense in this as a witness a man who climbs out on google motivated his eventful and then threaten sometimes noblemen the street or doesn't throw himself on the street commenced his extreme act in front of a witness but yet there was no communication no that necessitate communication between the man who jumps and we'll be human mystery of what has lead him to wash to john and the people watching vote of there to witness his extreme action now in a sense in
the doctor's clinic extreme acts in front of witnesses the witnesses can watch the men they can watch a number that they can refuse oh an exceptional cases they can find their way to a very great anticipation but this is neither expects too often ignored amounted in the way that in traditional jazz and there is a basis of communication which is what the film is about you know this is not about communications that one doesn't understand this one has meant starting point with just a remarkable work is not about communications it is not about doing something about doing something something thats imperfect upstairs and says i was not moved this is no criticism could be a criticism of him himself god make one wonder why i want you moved and he doesn't get the criticism of the play in won't occur for instance constantly uses as a reference
whether he's moved on oct nine and a form of theater that has a dubious reference because one has to know whether one thinks that the moving of walter kerr is something that can be held up as a yardstick is he an old human being and all of his responses ones that week sharon respect but still understand what he means is it's a quick shorthand i was a movement of the apple isn't doing his job fairly was too intellectually was too close it was to withdraw un the play wasn't quite there and he says because you will be indifferent is active women being different not out of a lack of respect them up and those feelings is not the nature of that undertaking and an entire audience is indifferent that is not a group that organs were then be an equally good witness that will be like the people whose stewardship of the windows in harlem and watched the murder in the
street and did not intervene and did not make signs of being move on well past their word that they want it was still there and that was to witnesses and that is what he is working for in acropolis the reality of the concentration camp coexist with the reality of the fantasies an old man calls to his son husain aces and suddenly the story of jacob from the book of genesis begins jacobs feels his blind eye and she said right rachel that didn't work attempts to make visible what normally is invisible the name of both one former fisher
is to put on the stage visible and tangible things that break theater for instance is very much a pitching directly on the stage of visible gestures visible concrete things the way people are dressed the way they look corresponds to visible of details that can be found in the external world the holy spirit is the broad definition carrie kahn has always existed that world again which is going through is a certain form of ritual when people could come together and a certain place but bad that something invisible suddenly is vast the engineer that you could attach it so that people who request a brother request
comes in to me say there's certain naive and optimistic people living happily in certain niche leafy suburbs of your of my country i'd say auschwitz ever existed no matter if it is a different phenomenon is a magical fit because they vague abstraction love evil and so on suddenly comes into existence and you actually come up against something that and then the moment when you're sitting in the theater that you have not come up against elsewhere that you have seen it as clearly as if you come to visit to toe to toe like the warning that us why has been caught trying to escape but nothing is little suddenly a vision of troy began last
year maybe it's better to be approached wouldn't say understood positive approach that if one recognizes that it comes from poland and the polish color seeps through this work including even today as a communist country is also an immensely catholic country and it manages to be communist and catholic at one and the same time in a form of coexistence that also is a constant an intense and passionate commission and rubber now in this very extreme climate which for us
is far from a rational humanist all protestant tradition and one reason to get close relationship with always is a religious duty and religious riots you go to polish intensity of political system and we're getting near to russia and in russia there's not only the founder of the commonest and that there was also very close by another church tradition the greek orthodox church where you have a much greater division between the congregation and what happens behind screens even than than the catholic church in both cases in the catholic church the most important things happen in a language that a lot of the congregation that follow in the greek orthodox church they have been in and out of
sight and the fact that they're still in ceremonies being conducted for people to witness for people to take part in that not in all sense of the word if we english or american say take part in once we think of everybody singing together with their church service in which everyone picked up that means a jovial priest at just twenty one says well let's jazz it up and let's listen together that is our notion of active participation religious ceremony the father you move to the east lynn neary reports a different notion which is there's a mystery the mystery is being carried out by people who have drenched themselves in it and therefore a certain degree specialists they understand the mystery of course we that we stay on the fringes allowed to get that far one industry is done for its own sake
and were not treated with content that we're not welcome to another slap on the back that we're there and we make the links we want or not that makes its own conventions the actors put their arms inside their costumes and like greek statues they become trojan heroes lovers personnel in khartoum and cassandra sings a tune and lying on his back a triumph for season four of troy while hegedus leads a single gesture of the hand why does the angel the lifeless dummy is it different times the patron saint of the dead bodies at auschwitz and christ alone
is a difficult world we asked peter brook if he had a word of advice to someone who had never seen this kind of theater before my advice would be useless because i would say maybe and reddit is nothing that anyone can do about that either you are you are and i think that if people have prejudices the grid will bring them into the open so people who want to resist it resisted even hot out and people are already open the most likely feel something and go along with it immediately i was distraught sing it assuming there's mass audience coming in suspicious men not knowing what they were about expect the force but what's happening gradually explaining the preconceptions so that four times they were about a final solution made
open and then receiving a very troubling experience which was remade from what could possibly mean to them but which was so intense they couldn't refuse of a time that happened and the other hand doing something which audiences do with iran in his case it was totaled and the reason they uploaded was on an automatic habits just to show that they're like what they've seen but because this got them off the hook it would cost back in this place that was a cop out and said that i sympathize with the band got a heart next on big deal second season this evening the american premiere performance of jersey could those cues polish laboratory theater production acropolis the deal continues in one another hit me
ra ra ra ra and now
the polish laboratory theater in acropolis the audiences in direct contact with the actors in acropolis the audience from the witnesses of the living the play begins with a prologue in which the playwright summarizes the material he calls it a picture of the development of mankind and says he's delighted to find in every scene a breath of fresh air through every scene rises the music of the people dominates the play these big the fbi oh it's big
you're welcome in singapore and then when i did and he noticed that the vessel is that the bottom of the amc's humans cause he's been cited and you know we're all paying got this in the
course of business it's the scene is that night before resurrection the eve of judgment day harris quit smoking it is real now this is the real place of the judgment day he styled mayor he says that wherever he describes as a great one two prisoners were suffering she
was so shy and they haggle found another vehicle ramming this thing scott is not as you know you kind of put it down and so it gets to own bed <unk> though the river is low for all you know he's not you know who's
going to want to call a lot of the guys that was wrong is the way he forms the news negotiate but it says she ate soldiers and gruesome one all of them more than fast dr louis ck it has been i mean no no i got
to prison that is the law so thankful yeah yeah chris lulu
mr webb no they are ghost there's been there's been debate yes and ask about where you taking me that we're going for certain questions
you know that the group had them and that i think i mean i'm going to get into the body at what stage or just give it so much you know on tuesday thank you that day we
just aired will be worse we are using needle for why i'm not receiving you you are alive while i say about ethical eu gifts as bad publicity have also says that russia's small guy somewhere says tom dart simple set forces will follow them as god yeah it's beans the party
it is he says car or walks or not the motion all can go you think i only she's open checkpoint so yes look at the shadows
this is semi oh yeah all day as he prison any questions
these larrabee that's all oh yeah oh yeah yeah he is anxious
start preparing meals for a final ascent to fight back you we have a new gin up or less people who you're so goodly shooting these don't want to have a equity a short memorial a tree a shot in the yard would love you ought to be a good family and he had no more rebecca persuades jig and this scene is that he was you know it started it's awful well yes thousands of them
he still goes on the disputed issues through what is is a half months old system deficits which is the law that oh yeah jacob foods is blind father by wearing a heavy ghost as it were you either
but shaman of which didn't you have the vision of both on the fifth today he really is at the point because the actors but the story of the poop paint the people the people this became the patient with but to
protect the president ok so claims the inheritance that isaac has already given him and i said i'm just political upheaval with other disaffected in shootings at least fifty f yeah we'd get loaded friends the government wouldn't figures who petitioned the fifth ago kevin just because at that was lucky and we'd been divorced yeah corporate money will go through the moon yet to use why is that it's going to impose penalties should congratulate opened an element that was what i mean and what un got a political
tension with abadi teach moms but he and other thing is the usual and there was any appointment of the wintertime and a sweet rabbit fur more with the guitar you have your vision album where the three up for your knees shoulder or use a minority things
sixteen will or will it go on the journey he sleeps in a field of dreams of angels descending a staircase
he says laws ms hughes fueling of the kingdom on the body dies and fierce rich you go oh this really only in those suits
gates of heaven will swing why the pink pig of meat sizzling they are you got it
it's somewhat convenient va facilities are made all the low last night standard of time you know you see i'm renee montagne yeah just pushed way it always was and who is leaderless movement lawyer that i was what they saw as those of curly hair oh the pope yes to things and i
head jacob tells his love of ritual head movie news and are these two of its cattle man who knew it that a couple months that suggests a new moon says lance was a new pool is close and that learning invasion us along the rhine in this quaint nod here's how a ritual dreamed of meeting a stranger and falling in love this woman knew or the lowest movie man no you are then
cooled it you achieve by new devotion and said this at sochi to go to go and use aid to seniors and though i know that fair they've announced that have are that could inspire chills that are now to music that same way thirty two it doesn't know just the lending budget bicycle museum oh yeah is as aunts
on these he is there's joy oh well these joe's
hammer home our now is on well the bees the yale you say on you three seth is hung the moon at war
these bees because because there's no way
but the oreo so glad you're here the peak of the power to communicate the
state has been conquered oh yeah the law
it the angel says you will recognize who is master of living creatures are mostly cafe i mean senate republicans mostly yeah he's a multi millionaire
i don't know oh yeah so yeah we've
reduced the law may last year it ends allowances has this one yet the piece be it's been cut to pay for the plan proposes to pay the crematorium is mentioned in the thick smoke the prisoners moment for the sun philip speaks
fb at the best buy has been confiscating you know i'm not the spy is a black beret i'm sure it's an issue and his engineers and he has been listening to the prisoners souls ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta the ice on the river is breaking up you are the
first hard to forecast how one and then i just you know i haven't given up roy i'm telling you know why do you say i know this person how are coming out of their orders it to put it into a billion last year it doesn't seem to
you ride it a lot oh yes oh yeah yeah well thank you boom boom boom i do want to know what he's going to
do how is that again busy very unique we use you know rich guy raz date that was set due south is it
hoyer says he doesn't want to become all because mortgage approvals southerners as locals visit to go as mayor alicia week they listen to a song to sing a song and assess those rulings yesterday that the thing
that wound at that strangely at its way that it's been come tuesday and so in those spirit goes to church in washington <unk> in
those eleven that the us and the us is happy well helen regrets that she's good grief two homeland supported by loving support the incentive to give him the article compose on the tv in the building he
says local law saying tells us that his stupid it is going to be ongoing of ad bill ms davis yeah claims process
yeah years i should say that today india's that on the h e n n cohen i stand at an la brea ca hindustan times and nancy on
multiple world's top ten now who let loose i'm a law that up nationally semitic span especially a few years destroy there are worse
you know he then they learned some early on sunday all on tv the prisoners in the paper congress
these days there's a new film thank you the truth people's poses
and when the thirty and eighty days for the brca genes i hate that stage he was a king david leonhardt talks to god god how in the lion how i suffered souls elliot wave god's laws and waited he reminds god of the promise that they will be saved he
asks when will god come close he gets excited questions are you know the reaction is due to the fact that so what i think what that instantly do that instead announced yesterday new jersey at eight man her glad
you do as hatch is not the same ammonia is all in recent years and as he was a nipple most sordid of those setbacks man city
and everyone was okay is it there's been no goodbyes you stay in good health yeah yeah honestly
oh yeah oh yeah yeah it is
these years yeah oh yeah oh
geez it is not oh oh oh oh geez oh geez now or
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man who move move who is losing their fans back asked a woman and they move in homeland they play in the industry that
we would like to fight the committee to welcome the polish laboratory in a new home where they they haven't been hindustani indian states are it has like sunday bbdo second season returns with a residential live performances by andre wants item off the mormon tabernacle choir and the washington national symphony orchestra it has
to pay nationwide distribution of the preceding program as a service of the corporation for public broadcasting
- Series
- Public Broadcast Laboratory
- Episode Number
- 207
- Episode
- Polish Laboratory Theater
- Producing Organization
- National Educational Television and Radio Center
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/516-nc5s757j69
- NOLA Code
- PPBL
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/516-nc5s757j69).
- Description
- Episode Description
- On Sunday, January 12, PBL broadcasts its videotaped production of "Akropolis," masterwork of Jerzy Grotowski's Polish Laboratory Theater. The episode provides American audiences with their first opportunity to see Grotowski's troupe in any medium. The Polish players, acclaimed as the most influential avant-garde theater company in the world, were to have toured the U.S. this fall. Last summer, however, at the time of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the State Department cancelled the tour. To make "Akropolis" Jerzy Grotowski, director of the Polish Laboratory Theatre, transformed an epical Polish play into an apocalyptic summation of western civilization. In 1904, the Symbolist poet Wyspianski wrote "Akropolis" as a celebration of glories of Poland, then under domination by Czarist Russia. The fever of nationalism and of the struggle for independence was then at its height in Poland. The Poles needed an art and a literature that would enhance their sense of dignity as a nation. In the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, Poland became free, only to lose its independence again in 1939 as Hitler's first conquest. On Polish soil took place scenes of the work indignities in the history of man's inhumanity to man, the horrors of concentration camps, among them Auschwitz. In the 1940s after re-conquest by the Russians, Poland attained national sovereignty again. The postwar Polish government, wishing to destroy the hated camp where men of all nations suffered and died, and yet to preserve memory of it as a warning for future generations, asked sculptors around the world to submit designs for a monument. But, finally, the government reached the conclusion that no monument could symbolize or express the horror of Auschwitz; only the camp alone could do that, and so the camp remains the buildings as they were in the time of the Nazis. Wyspianski in his play had chosen the medieval Royal Castle of Cracow as the symbol of the glories of Poland, as Poland?s Acropolis. In that setting, Wyspianski told the tale of Isaac's sons, interweaving it with an episodic reenactment of the Trojan War. When Grotowski approach Wyspianski's text in 1962, it seemed to him that a more fitting locus for what, in his eyes, Western civilization had culminated in, was Auschwitz. To him it was the Acropolis of a civilization apparently hell-bent for destruction. In transposing the text to Auschwitz, other dimensions were added to the play as doomed prisoners working under the whiplash of their oppressors, remember what they have been, what man has been in his short history, and re-incarnate their Greek and Hebraic ancestors. In its work the Polish Laboratory Theatre touches upon all of the arts, from music and dance to painting and sculpture. Reviewers have said that the richness and range of the actors' voices bring the performance of "Akropolis" close to the complexity and seniority of a symphony or cantata. Indeed director Grotowski refers to the text as "the score." Date: January 2, 1969 You don't need to know Polish to respond to the Polish Laboratory Theatre's performance of "Akropolis." As British director Peter Brook remarks in his introduction to the play, the Polish troupe succeeds in breaking through "the barrier of rational communication," the barrier of languages. "Through a language of ever shifting rhythms, under total control, they create work that speaks directly to something very deeply hidden inside each person." For a synopsis of the action, PBL producer Lewis Freedman has provided the following guide: "This play is intensely poetic. It speaks in symbolic language and often with archaic speech. It is impossible to translate literally. We are providing, on the air, a synopsis of the action and an identification of the characters. Occasionally a sentence will be translated directly. We believe that an English speaking audience can experience this production as a vivid and moving piece of theater. The prologue. The author summarizes the Biblical and Homeric material of the play and declares that he is pleased to find in each scene a breath of fresh air. He adds that throughout the entire fantasy will run the music of the people, the folk music. The Opening Chorus. The prisoners begin to build the crematorium. They set the scene: the burial place of the tribes, the night before Resurrection, the air thick with a suffocating smoke the judgment to be pronounced, afterward only the smoke remaining. Scene One. Two prisoners at work lament their unending suffering. They speak ironically of God as Creator and Executioner. They find a man among the corpses who is not yet dead. His agony is not unlike the agony of Christ. They ask themselves whether he can hear them talk or whether he listens only to his own suffering. He dies, and they return to their own affairs. Scene Two. Two prisoners are sorting out the hair of the dead bodies. The sensual reality of the hair propels them into memories of love. They evoke a fantasy of the wedding night. The chorus of prisoners chants, "to love, to love, to love!" The prisoners notice the audience watching and identify them as the "living." Scene Three. Two prisoners seize and cross examine a third. The victim speaks as a woman who is lost in forgetting and cannot remember the answers. The questions are about the events that took place at a tomb. The tomb was blocked with a large stone. The questioners bring the woman back to the present. When she notices the audience watching, she is told that they are alive, lovers, the happy ones. Scene Four. Two prisoners engage in a fierce and hysterical harangue. The man reaches backward to myth and religion for consolation, the woman cries out to throw away the books and find consolation in the present, in making love. Their impasse is not resolved. They describe the audience next to them as shadows. Scene Five. A father calls to his son, and the son answers -- and suddenly the story of Jacob from the Book of Genesis begins. Isaac commands Esau to prepare a meal so that he can receive the blessings and the heritage. Rebecca counsels her second son, Jacob, to disguise himself with a hairy goat skin and take Esau's place. Esau is in the forest hunting. Jacob deceives his blind father and receives the blessing. Esau discovers from Isaac that he has been duped. Rebecca sends Jacob away to her brother in order to escape Esau's wrath. Jacob, burdened with guilt, dreams on his journey of the Angles descending from Heaven. He meets his Uncle Laban and fights with him over the hand of his daughter Rachel. Jacob is consumed by love for Rachel. The marriage of Jacob and Rachel. Leah replaces her sister on the wedding night but is rejected the next day by Jacob. Jacob, years later, a rich man, wrestles with the Angel of God on his return home. Their struggle is only resolved when they accept the idea of necessity. Scene Six. The prisoners are moaning for a sight of the sun and are suddenly interrupted by a warning. A spy has been caught trying to escape. The spy was a black crow who had been listening to what their souls were whispering. A flower has been discovered on the slope of the castle and the winter ice on the river is beginning to break up. The vision of Troy begins. Scene Seven. The prisoners are caught up in a dream of Troy, alive and eternal. Two male prisoners are the lovers Paris and Helen. They are taunted by the others. Hector talks to Priam about his life while Hecuba sleeps. The lovers chatter. In the tower Cassandra sings a love song. The family ridicules them. Cassandra sings a demented version of the love song. Priam foresees the destruction of their world. Scene Eight. The prisoners are called to roll. Hector sees his death. Cassandra in a mad vision predicts the death of all of them. She calls for her sisters, the black birds, to come and cover her with their feathers. David recounts to God how he slew Goliath, how he bore the hatred of Saul, and how he waited for God to redeem him and his people. His prayer is a desperate prayer for salvation. The prisoners collapse in hysterical fear, then say goodbye to each other with the words, "stay in good health." The scene is suddenly the bank of the Jordan -- crowds of people have gathered -- the last day is dawning -- the skies are black with the Harpist to sing, he who sang God's song to god -- he hesitates, remembering his sins -- then he begins. Scene Nine. The prisoners follow the Harpist in an ecstatic procession to find their salvation. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Broadcast Date
- 1969-01-12
- Asset type
- Episode
- Genres
- Performance
- Drama
- Topics
- Performing Arts
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Duration
- 01:28:21
- Credits
-
-
Performing Group: Polish Laboratory Theater
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Stage Director: Growtowski, Jerzy
Writer: Wyspianski, Stanislaw
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Identifier: cpb-aacip-516-nc5s757j69.mp4.mp4 (mediainfo)
Format: video/mp4
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 01:28:21
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “Public Broadcast Laboratory; 207; Polish Laboratory Theater,” 1969-01-12, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 13, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-nc5s757j69.
- MLA: “Public Broadcast Laboratory; 207; Polish Laboratory Theater.” 1969-01-12. American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 13, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-nc5s757j69>.
- APA: Public Broadcast Laboratory; 207; Polish Laboratory Theater. Boston, MA: American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-nc5s757j69