Review: PPA - THE 43RD STAGE SONG REVIEW IN WROCLAW at Capitol Musical Theatre, Wroclaw

The legendary festival and song contest helped us all kick off the spring with music. How was it?

The line-up was almost entirely made up of Polish shows except for one (King Size directed by Christoph Marthaler). The main idea of this year's festival was positivity, so everything we could see was somehow related to it. Tickets sold out almost immediately, proving that audiences love the familiar notes and melodies. At this time, Wroclaw is somehow flooded with performances on several stages in the city.

A very important element of the whole event was the festival club, located in the basement of the Capitol Theater, it was a place where one could chat and meet after seeing a performance. It's also a kind of extension of what was happening on stage and the opportunity to discuss what we saw with those who watched and the creators. The organizers definitely wanted to cultivate the idea that after the meeting in the theater hall, we do not return to hotels or houses, but we meet. The atmosphere of this place was unique and full of openness.

The festival itself had many ingredients.

The first is the actor song contest, which every year generates a lot of discussions and marks the beginning of the birth of new stars and personalities in the scene. Next is Nurt Off, which is the enormity of performances, concerts, and events that dominated Wroclaw for 10 days. Finally, we have the club trend, which provided us with doses of music that made us dance from various contexts, so there was South America, but also jazz, the Far East, and covers of a duo avant-garde-punk. After the concerts, DJ sets kept the dance attitude going.

And the shows? There were so many and it's hard even to try to sum it all up, but there are a few worth mentioning: Rodowitch is the first of them.

Musically it's a pearl, thematically a strange creation of futuristic-historical science fiction which, seasoned with a good dose of humor and great aesthetic impressions, is truly astonishing. Outstanding action, pleasure in deconstructing not only our reality but also a tradition (Dziady), art (an armful of prophets and authors falling above us from the sky), archetypes, a bit of life, a bit of death. A joyful musical treatise with a reaction to the absurdity of the reality in which we live. It was light, funny, and discreet. With brilliant technical performances and a dedicated main trio: Klaudia Waszak, Andrzej Skowron, and Jan Kowalewski take us on an exciting and eye-opening, and also incredibly funny journey. What potential to put on a big show.

Another noteworthy event is King Size. It is even difficult to classify what we have been able to see and hear, and it would be better to say: we feel. It was the absolute essence of acting songs, the only non-Polish show, moreover, it was in English, German, and French. 4 characters: Tora Augestad, Bendix Dethleffsen, Michael von der Heide, and Nikola Weisse. The total high and abstract humor could have been confusing, but once you turn off the comprehension and analysis, you can easily get into this series of nonsensical parts that are presented on stage. In short: Mozart, Freiheit, or Jackson Five in piano/voice arrangements, an old woman eats pasta from a leather handbag by rolling it around a salad spoon, a character who only moves his head sings under the bed, someone always comes out of the closet, strange faces, space arrangements, and other oddities. Full of caricatures, mockery, bizarre kicks. An absolutely interesting, surprising position, and simply magnificent in all its strangeness.

PPA is also about taking risks and sometimes stepping out of line. For me, it was How I Became A Nationalist. An overly complicated story about dictatorship and propaganda with no backbone or consequences. Macedonian Salad is full of references and bold statements straight from the textbook pages, but not topic overload. It's a bit like a child wanting to pretend to be a grown-up by force and dressing in oversized adult clothes and clumsily walking around in huge high-heeled shoes that make us feel a little sorry for the silhouette, we grab our heads and stare indulgently. There is no doubt: these shoes are beautiful. The performance is extremely engaging and the highly effective actors, puppets, and all the rest of the props are very interesting to watch.

The jury of the Acting Song Interpretation Competition, Joanna Duda, Ralph Kaminski, Anna Kazejak, Filip Łobodziński, and Krzysztof Mieszkowski, decided that the Grand Prix - the Golden Toucan statuette - was awarded to Marina Mashtaler.

The jury justified their choice as follows: the greatest personality of the evening; the amazing timbre of voice; absolutely true; two beautiful versions of songs; strong and elegant in transmission; I would like to see it again; in the first song it talks about a predatory world, the second text is a revolution towards depression; huge dynamics; moving; in a fragile body, the power of existence; remembered emotions.

Photo: Maziarz