Klata, exception and commitment

Abstract

Jan Klata’s stage productions deal with topics related to his country’s (Poland) socio-political life. Whatever subject of a public debate becomes a subject-matter of an analysis and, if possible, of a staging proposal, where he takes sides. Provoking the audience, he makes it polarize sharply and this polarization often involves the proper cast members. His objective as a director relies on classical dramatic texts or on well known novels or poems which he shapes according to a deeply critical vision of the society of his time or of the period which immediately preceded it, under the communist regime. Together with these staging proposals, he alternates other ones based on his own texts, which revolve around Polish social, political or ethnic conflicts. In these cases he chooses non-professional actors in order to propose a theatre of exception.

Keywords: Provocation; feedback between actors and audience; horizon of expectations; political theatre; theatre; marginalized groups; signs; therapy.