THE OTHER SHOW. Director Anna Karasińska

The title refers not only to the fact that it’s the second play by director Anna Karasińska, but also to what happens in the other sphere of the show, namely the audience. In classical theatre the audience usually remains unnoticed and overlooked, but in the play produced by the Polish Theatre in Poznań it becomes the subject and gains full agency over the course of events. Besides addressing the audience members directly, the actors frequently mingle with them, creating a physical theatrical community and providing a shared “here and now” experience. Short and witty scenes, such as instructions on how to behave at the theatre, are a point of departure for initiating and provoking increasingly complicated games with the mechanisms that govern performative situations. Meanwhile the boundaries between observers and performers blur, as Karasińska deploys a wide array of strategies taken from happenings, physical performance art, and quasi-theatrical presentation conventions.

“A second play directed by a film director and graduate of the Film School in Łódź who debuted in 2015, with a brilliant show entitled Ewelina is crying staged at TR Warszawa as part of the Teren TR programme. In the Polish Theatre, Anna Karasińska dealt with the phenomena of theatre audience: its customs, expectations and stereotypes related to the reception of art. Actors of the Polish Theatre star in The Other Show which happens every night among theatre audience. They reveal different types of audience members and their habits as if they were separate species. At a metaphorical level, it addresses the issue of truth and falsehood as viewed through the prism of the specific circumstances of a theatre audience member.” (from the theatre’s archive of reviews)