Playwright Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk, photo: www.agencjadramatu.pl

Polish playwright Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk is in Los Angeles presenting two public readings of her plays

Los Angeles audiences have the rare opportunity to encounter Sikorska-Miszczuk’s unusual brand of very dark comedy and to hear this playwright’s work in English translation. "Pantofelnik’s Suitcase" (alternately titled "The Suitcase"), directed by Katharine Noon (Ghost Road Company), takes the stage at the Atwater Village Theatre, on the 29th of November. "The Mayor", directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera (Playwrights’ Arena) comes to USC, on the 1st of December.

The two plays which are topically joined: both deal with contemporary Polish citizens trying to come to terms with their history, particularly the history of the second World War and the troubled relationship of Poles and Jews. Sikorska-Miszczuk bases the world of her plays, in part, on the Polish town of Jedwabne, which endured a bloody pogrom near the end of the war - an event extensively publicized and explored in Jan Gross’ "Neighbors" and Tadeusz Slobodzianek’s "Our Class".

Sikorska-Miszczuk’s work takes a different tack than other writers on the subject. She makes frequent use of surrealism, breaking the fourth wall with self-referentiality, and acerbic irony. She acknowledges the disturbing humor that can arise around situations of historical atrocity.

"Suitcase" is a play about the struggle between the desire for oblivion, and the desire to know the truth. It weighs acknowledging a painful truth against perpetual uncertainty. Author Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk based the idea of the play around an article on such a real-life occurrence. The play enjoyed a successful run at Warsaw's Jewish Theatre earlier this year and is back on the stage in Warsaw, while also making rounds across the globe, starting in Los Angeles. In Warsaw, the play returns to the Estera Rachel and Ida Kamiński Jewish theatre on the 5th-6th of November and the 9th-11th of December, 2011.

When he crossed the threshold of the Shoah Holocaust Museum in France Fransua Zako had no idea that he would discover something that would change his life forever. Fransua has tried to forget about the Holocaust and erase all traces of his father, Leo Pantofelnik, even adopting a French name to get rid of all bonds and pursues the carefree life of a typical Frenchman.

Yet he could never do away with the past, constantly tormented by a melancholia and pain he cannot explain. Pantofelnik, writes a letter to heaven trying to reach his lost father. As a retired fellow in the autumn of life, he takes a trip to the Holocaust Museum, partly out of boredom, partly out of curiosity for that voice inside urging him to find the 'truth'. With the help of a Miserable Tour Guide who becomes newly inspired by the story, he embarks on his quest. Among the displayed items, belongings salvaged from Auschwitz, Fransua discerns his father's suitcase, who perished in the camp. His life is irrevocably altered. The discovery of the suitcase opens Fransua's heart to the truth. The reading is based on the translation by Artur Zapałowski.

Sikorska-Miszczuk explained the link between the two works, which are intended to make up two independent parts of one whole:

In 2009, I wrote "The Mayor", a play in which I tried to tell the story of a mythical Town that has to face the Truth about a past atrocity. (...) Two years later, I concluded that the story I had told in "The Mayor" was too ‘cryptic.’ The main character - the mayor of the title - is a real-life person described by the journalist Anna Bikont in her excellent and riveting reportage "Jedwabne - the desperate search for something positive" (Gazeta Wyborcza daily, March 2002). I decided therefore to retell the story, based on the facts and expertise, as another of my characters, Franswa Jackoh, says to the Miserable Tour Guide at the Holocaust Museum in "Pantofelnik’s Suitcase". (…) I was looking for a less mythical space in which to place my characters. All the same, the play is a fiction, and not a docu-drama.

"The Suitcase" is based on the story of Michel Leleu who fled with his mother to the Swiss Alps in order to escape the persecution of the Nazis. His father, Pierre Levi, was arrested in 1943 and sent to his death in Auschwitz. Leleu also tried to suppress the trauma of war and forget, however the discovery of his father's suitcase in had a profound impact on his life. He took back his father's name and launched a search for more family relics.

Culture Spot LA's Dara Weinberg compares the playwright's style and surrealist techniques to the likes of Sarah Ruhl, but with sharper edges, adding

The facts of history and the characters’ confused psychological responses to those facts give these plays teeth. Her dramatic sensibility, unlike Ruhl’s, does not necessarily move towards the happy ending. It may be more accurate to compare her to Tony Kushner; or it may be that there is no exact analog for her writing in the English-language theater. LA residents will have a chance to decide for themselves.

Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk has written film and TV scripts, short stories, and radio plays, in addition to dramatic works for the stage. The Suitcase won the  Metaphors of Reality competition organized by the Polish Theatre in Poznań. The play also received an award at the Festival of Polish Contemporary Plays in Gdynia, and the radio production of The Suitcase was awarded the Grand Prix of the Polish Radio and Television Theatre Festival in 2009. Sikorska's play The Death of the Squirrel-Man won first prize in a competition for a play about Ulrike Meinhof held by Teatr Usta Usta, Poznań and Teatr Rozmaitosci, Warsaw. The performance was invited to represent new Polish drama at the 2008 New Plays from Europe biennale in Wiesbaden, Germany. The play appears in the recent PAJ volume, New Europe: Plays from the Continent. The author's recent plays, Madonna and Loose Screws, have also been award-winning efforts. Sikorska's plays are published in a number of anthologies of contemporary Polish drama, translated into French, German, Swiss, and Romanian, in addition to English. She lives in Warsaw.

The reading has been made possible with the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

Ghost Road Company presents Pantofelnik’s Suitcase, by Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk, directed by Katharine Noon

Tuesday, 29th of November, 8 p.m.
Atwater Village Theatre
Free admission
For reservations and information, call (310) 281-8341 or visit www.ghostroad.org.

USC School of Theatre presents The Mayor, by Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk, directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera

Thursday, 1st of December, 7 p.m.
MCC Studio Theatre
Free, no reservations required

A short talkback with the playwright will follow the performance.

For information, call the School of Theatre at (213) 740-8686 or visit theatre.usc.edu

Source: culturespotla.com, culture.pl