The 30th edition of the Kontakt International Theatre Festival will take place from 29 May to 5 June. Toruń will welcome, among others, Christoph Marthaler, Milo Rau and Robert Lepage.

The programme of the Kontakt Festival includes:

European productions by artists with distinctive, original stage languages, such as The Summit by Christoph Marthaler, The Seer by Milo Rau and Faith, Money, War and Love by Robert Lepage;

Powerful interpretations of Polish classics, from The Teutonic Knights by Jan Klata and The Promised Land by Maja Kleczewska to The Curse by Anna Augustynowicz, in which the artists address questions of community, social change and contemporary tensions;

As well as intimate, dense stories about relationships and community, woven from detail, emotion and what remains unspoken: Scenes from a Marriage by Katarzyna Minkowska, Potok. Community Exercises by Wiktor Rubin and Very Ibsen by Dominika Knapik.

Sales of passes for the entire Festival will begin on 15 April at 12:00 PM. Sales of individual tickets and the pass for three performances will begin on 17 April, also at noon.

The key event of the Festival will be the premiere of Seven Solitudes, the final dramatic theatre production by Robert Wilson, one of the most outstanding directors of avant-garde theatre. The performance is a co-production between the Toruń theatre and the National Kaunas Drama Theatre, created by an international team of artists together with the Horzyca ensemble.

After the Kaunas premiere, Tomasz Domagała wrote:

Almost from the very beginning, the main subject of Wilson’s work was theatre dazzling with images, through which the director told us about his world. And in Seven Solitudes, this world is phenomenally beautiful. It is also, as always, precisely constructed, insightfully combining things that at first glance seem impossible to combine, and finally affecting the audience’s emotions, which appear despite the surgically cold and meticulously planned structure of the performance.

A legend of the Kontakt stage and European theatre returns to the Festival: Christoph Marthaler. In The Summit, six characters meet in a mountain shelter, or perhaps rather in a bunker, literally suspended at the top of a mountain. They speak different languages and seem to be preparing for a political summit on the summit. But, as the director warns, it is not entirely clear what it is. Charlotte Clamens, one of the performers, describes working with Marthaler in Le Monde: his productions are constructed with great precision, but the actors must remain constantly “on the edge”. It is, in a way, a performance of anti-performance.

For the first time, the Festival will present productions by Robert Lepage and Milo Rau. Lepage’s epic work with Schaubühne, Faith, Money, War and Love (Glaube, Geld, Krieg und Liebe), created by an artist often described by European critics as a “visual magician”, runs for almost five hours and forms a hypnotic epic with dramaturgy reminiscent of Netflix. Its starting point is a deck of cards, with each suit assigned to one of four themes: love, faith, war and money. The parallel narratives of four characters create a panorama spanning eight decades of German history.

Toruń will also host one of the most important and most controversial figures in contemporary theatre, Milo Rau. In The Seer (Die Seherin), the Swiss director asks why violence is so seductive. The protagonists are an Iraqi teacher punished by ISIS by having his hand cut off and a ruthless photojournalist. The Seer is a piece of reportage theatre that both unsettles and fascinates: the events described really happened, and the photographs used in the production are authentic.

Andrei Măjeri will present The Cherry Orchard. Ranevskaya returns, ruined, to her family home after several years spent abroad. But her world no longer exists, and the sale of the cherry orchard becomes little more than a formality. In Măjeri’s staging, the protagonist behaves like a dethroned monarch, capricious and in the spirit of Madame Bovary. Her performance is always “through tears”. The queen cannot stop being a queen, even in total ruin.

The Teutonic Knights is not only a literary classic, but also a record of cultural strength that survived a time of political oppression. Director Jan Klata once again confronts Polish myths, dismantling them through pastiche, grotesque and comic-book aesthetics. Beneath this form, the present emerges. Instead of Sienkiewicz’s “strengthening of hearts”, we receive an image of the disintegration of community. Jan Klata received the First Prize and the Best Director Award at the Kontakt Festival in 2009 for The Danton Case.

The Promised Land, directed by Maja Kleczewska, is not a story about the past, but a realistic portrait of a world on the brink of revolution. This time, it is no longer an industrial revolution, but a technological one, driven by modern solutions and artificial intelligence. The performance asks questions about the future of work, the tensions built into capitalism, the brutality of its rules and growing inequalities, as well as the unchanging mechanisms of striving for success.

In Scenes from a Marriage, Katarzyna Minkowska examines marriage and the ways in which we build relationships today, regardless of age, experience or status. Do we still repeat the same patterns, hidden beneath the narrative of romantic love? It is precisely these ordinary, “grey” stories, full of compromises, struggles or acts of letting go, that shape our everyday lives and our sense of closeness.

Potok. Community Exercises, directed by Wiktor Rubin, tells the story of Maria Wojdan, a single mother of four children born out of wedlock, from the village of Potok near Opatów. She is condemned to social exclusion, poverty and contempt. The performance explores folk beliefs, superstitions and rituals, including the dream of becoming invisible, presenting the culture of the Świętokrzyskie region both as the background to the events and as one of their central figures.

Very Ibsen by Dominika Knapik is a black comedy with elements of Scandinavian horror. Characters drawn from the universe of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen meet after the death of their father. Together with them, we will trace hidden secrets wrapped in woollen Norwegian sweaters. The ones that itch the most.

In addition to Seven Solitudes, the Horzyca Theatre will present its second production at the Festival: The Curse by Stanisław Wyspiański, directed by Anna Augustynowicz. In their reading of the drama, the creators focus on its original rhythm and musicality, which carry meanings that go beyond words. The production tells the story of a society consumed by fear and the need for domination, and of tensions between nature and culture, the collective and the individual, the sacred and the profane.

Accessibility During the Festival

Performances with audio description:

Scenes from a Marriage
National Stary Theatre

The Promised Land
Teatr Zagłębia

Polish Sign Language interpretation:

The Teutonic Knights
Teatr im. Stefana Jaracza in Olsztyn

Induction loop:

Performances presented on the Main Stage and at CKK Jordanki will be equipped with an induction loop.

Audio introductions available on the Festival website:

Seven Solitudes
Horzyca Theatre

The Curse
Horzyca Theatre