Tramway

Katowice 1998, Düsseldorf 2002

Tramway

Katowice 1998, Düsseldorf 2002

Evening. Four actors get into a tram. They change. They make up. The doors close and the tram moves on a forty kilometer loop. Spectral, lit from within, it doesn’t stop anywhere. No one leaves. No one gets on.

The show runs into the small hours and those who manage to get a glimpse of it drivers, pedestrians, commuters waiting at the tram stops – see fragments of the action: a man who washes and shaves, a woman preparing supper, a young couple arguing then kissing. Nothing special. Everyday activities, yet, separated from their ordinary context, looking odd and disturbing.

“This experimental performance, shying away from the viewer, stunningly captures the very basic truth of perceiving somebody else’s existence – writes Leon Herlig. – What we see is by design partial and fragmented. After all, the people we come across on our life’s path walk by and disappear, we do not even notice when. Like the actors on the tram’s platform, they perish in the darkness not even saying goodbye, and never ever will we be able to follow their lives with the tidy precision of soap operas and traditional narratives.”

conceived, staged and directed by Lech Majewski costumes Dorota Lis

with Anna Wesołowska, Jan Bógdoł, Marek Kiedroń, Sabina Głuch