Theatre of the Eighth Day – Polish Cultural Institute

The fervour behind the brilliantly crafted stage pictures, the cast of four’s unselfconscious yet heightened use of bodies, faces, and voices, takes on a harrowing immediacy at such close quarters. 
                                                – Mary Brennan, Glasgow Herald, 1988

The legendary Theatre of the Eighth Day from Poland returns to theU.S. with the revival of their celebrated production Wormwood, with the original cast. First presented in Poland in 1985, it was famously banned at the time because of its open and frank depiction of life inPoland during Martial Law. Wormwood is brought to the U.S. by the Polish Cultural Institute on the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. 

Wormwood was the famous dissident group’s last production in communist Poland. It’s history is almost a parable for the absurd fate of culture under totalitarian regimes. The Polish Communist Party shut down the production, and the would-be audience was met by a police cordon at the scheduled premiere at the Adam Mickiewicz Universitytheatre in Poznan. The ensemble outwitted local party officials and the police by organizing a secret premiere the following day at a different time in the same location.

After performances in churches and clubs of the independent culture circuit
in many Polish cities, it was to be presented at the Edinburgh Festival in 1985, but the authorities granted passports to only half the group’s members. As a consequence, a new production, Auto Da Fé,was quickly devised. Based on Tadeusz Konwicki’s A Minor Apocalypse, a biting (and banned) satire on life in Poland at the end of the 1970s, the production won the Festival’s Fringe First Prize. Polish authorities denounced the award, claiming that the ensemble "did not exist." 

With story, text and design created collaboratively by members of the Theatre of the Eighth Day's ensemble, Wormwood is directed by Lech Raczak and features music by Arnold Dabrowski. It is performed byEwa Wojciak, Adam Borowski, Tadeusz Janiszewski, and Marcin Keszycki.

Performed in Polish with English supertitles.

Founded in 1964, the Theatre of the Eighth Day was one of the most uncompromising theater groups in Communist Poland and remains just as uncompromising today. It made its U.S. debut to critical acclaim at the MADE IN POLAND Festival in New York City in November 2008, with its 2007 avant-garde docudrama, The Files, based on actual secret police reports made between 1975 and 1983 on the Theatre’s actors. Tom Sellar, in a Village Voice review of The Files, wrote: … it’s a small miracle to sit face-to-face with actors who made history by risking everything to tell the truth – today, having won, they look a lot like truth’s living embodiment .

Abrons Arts Center 
Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand Street 
New York, NY 10002