(costumes and props)
directed by Paweł Świątek, Jerzy Szaniawski Dramatic Theatre in Wałbrzych (2024)
A treatise on Polish identity and history, based on the text pilgrim/majewski. On stage, modern‑day Flintstones meet Slavs lost in their own contradictions – two groups who, in a humorous and deliberately anachronistic way, grapple with the question of where we come from and where we are heading. The performance balances comedy and grotesque, powered by a versatile ensemble that moves with equal ease through family scenes, war tableaux, and love stories.
The costume concept is built on three key words: the 1990s, anachronism, and “pseudo‑scientificness.” The costumes construct a world that is intentionally inconsistent – colliding imagined prehistory with the aesthetics of the 1990s, creating a vision of the “origins of humanity” that resembles a TV reconstruction more than actual history. Three groups of characters inhabit this world. The People From There – modern “Flintstones” – are a hybrid of prehistory and 90s pop culture, where colourful tracksuits, synthetic fabrics, and nomadic improvisations meet a cartoonish idea of “primitiveness.” The People From Here – the Slavs – wear costumes that combine traditional under‑tunics with 1990s jackets, and woven belts in both ancient and contemporary versions. The third figure is The Person From Everywhere – a character outside both worlds, a living pictogram inspired by cave paintings, appearing like a literal quotation from Cro‑Magnon drawings.
Together, these elements create a world that is both familiar and entirely invented – full of humour, intentional chaos, and conscious inconsistency, giving the performance its distinctive, subversive tone.
photo: Tobiasz Papuczys