EURIPIDES - "ELECTRA"
(cheironomia).
Theatrical essay

Premiere cast (2002): Mariusz Gołaj, Joanna Holcgreber, Marcin Mrowca, Anna-Helena McLean, Grzegorz Podbiegłowski, Anna D±browska, Agnieszka Mendel oraz: Julia Bui-Ngoc, Aleksandra Gronowska, Alicja Żmigrodzka, Justyna Jary, Barbara Songin, Bartek Nowakowski.

Present cast (2011): Mariusz Gołaj, Joanna Holcgreber, Marcin Mrowca, Anna D±browska, Agnieszka Mendel, Pawł Kieszko, Dorota Kołodziej, Emilia Raiter, Artem Manuilov, Martin Quintela, Paulina Dziuba
oraz studenci Akademii Praktyk Teatralnych
Animation: Daniel Tumanowicz, Rafał Tumanowicz

Direction, text adaptation, dramaturgy of gestures:
Włodzimierz Staniewski

collaboration: Mariusz Gołaj


"Scene from Electra"

Tragedy of Feelings

"Scenes from Electra" based on Euripides's tragedy, a new performance produced
by Gardzienice is a result of Wlodzimierz Staniewski's work on gestures in ancient tragedy, which is a part of their antiquity project. The early stage of Gardzienice's research on reconstructing ancient Greek and Roman music culminated
in the production of 'Metamosphoses' based
on Apuleius.


fot. Zbigniew Bielawka

Electra is considered to be a tragedy in which
a traditional myth was approached in a brave
and innovative way.

Scenes from ‘Eurypides’, a new production by the Centre for Theatre Practices „Gardzienice”, introduce a new way of staging Greek Tragedies.Staniewski revives what has been lost in Greek theatre: the element of dance and music.(...)

It is evident that the dialogue with antiquity brings about extraordinary results.(...) The most interesting example is the alphabet of gestures that was created for this particular performance on the basis of ancient drawings. Through gestures alone the Gardzienice actors express love and pain, joy and despair, life and death.The signs they make in the air guide us through the meandering narrative.(...)
At a time when we make reference to the culture, Staniewski and his company make us realise that along with the beauty of its architecture, sculpture and poetry we aslo inherited the dark side of that culture – its fascination with war, violence and death.

/Roman Pawłowski, ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ 19.05.2004/


"Scene from Electra"

„Elektra” is the first production in the history of the Centre for Theatre Practices to use a literary text in its entirety.The production also involves uses a new kind of different theatrical language. On this occasion, Gardzienice based their work on the art. of gestures- chieronomia- a long- forgotten acting practice rooted in the ancient theatre.

/Teresa Dras Kurier Lubleski, 5.09.2004/

In its production of ‘Electra’, the company created an exceptional alphabet of gestures based on the ancient art. of chieronomia. This practice is the major means of expression in the production. /Grzegorz Józefczuk/ -‘Elektra’ is like a well- the deeper you descend, the greater is the fear and the louder the echo of each the problems it touches upon.The viewer struggles to arrive at an answer to the questions about the fatal force that winds up the spiral of misery, crime and fear.Why is man so helpless facing these forces?

/Włodzimierz Staniewski/
/Grzegorz Józefczuk, ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ Lublin 13.05.2004/

For the first in Electra Włodzimierz Staniewski confronted a strictly dramatic work.
He approached Euripide's play primarily
as a tragedy of feelings. A mythical story
of a daughter, who loved her father so much
that she had to kill her mother, was used
to demonstrate extreme emotional states
- great love and intense hatred, blind revenge and paralysing sense of guilt.


"Scene from Electra"

Włodzimierz Staniewski makes a reservation
that the first public show on October 13th, celebrating 25th anniversary of Gardzienice should not be treated as a premiere. It is a work in progress, and at the same time 'a work
at the foundations', since apart from the regular actors Mariusz Gołaj, Elżbieta Rojek, Joanna Holcgreber, Marcin Mrowca, Ann -Helen McLean, Grzegorz Podbiegłowski and Anna D±browska, there are also 8 students of the Academy
for Theatre Practices performing.


fot. Dorota Nowakowska

It is too early to formulate categorical statements, but I would dare say that "Scenes from Electra" is going to be a turning point.


fot. Zbigniew Bielawka

The dramatic substance, saturated with extreme emotions, gets subordinated to usually expressive acting in which an emphasis is put
on gestures. The most impressive scenes
are the ones reserved for Electra.
Their suggestiveness was intensified


fot. Dorota Nowakowska

by unforgettable acting of Ann-Helen McLean, (Polish and English speaking), especially in two superb, moving scenes of lament and triumph.

Janusz R. Kowalczyk, "Rzeczpospolita",
"Plus - Minus", October 5-6, 2002

The story is not told but created: here and now, in front of our very eyes. It is not a plot, but theatre- experience, and not only sign.It activitates all dimensions andplanes of time, exploiting all available tools of narration, as well as making the fullest possible use of the power of actors.(...)

The message is conveyed not so much through the gestures of the actors as their energy- their unrestricted will to establish communication with the audience, passing their truths on to them.(...).

The impact of their expression is more powerful than the imperfections of their verbal and gestural languages.(...)

The energy of acting, powerful-or rather pushed to the limits of the impossible- turns despair into ecstasy, and gives suffering terrifying features.(...)

There are also masks- colourful, taken from various traditions(...) they expose the theatricality of presented reality, its spontaneity.They also serve to create an expressionistically distorted image of the world reminding one of James Ensor’s paintings.

/Grzegorz Niziołek, ‘Didaskalia’, 61/62, 2004/


fot. Zbigniew Bielawka

„Gardzienice” have no mercy.Watching their productions is like reading a great text in the perpetual present, like reading a thick book in a few minutes, seconds.(...)

I knew by heart their gestures and words and rhythm, and everything from which they brew their extraordinary spectacles, but at one point it took off,rising up above the materiality of gestures, words, rhythms and everything that was there-as if angels were playing.

/Andrzej Stasiuk, ‘Didaskalia’, 61/62, 2004/

‘Gardzienice’s’ performance is also a music show, but it is unlike anything that we have come across before.(...)We need to develop a deeper understanding of musicality (...) which is born in a body, and capable of grasping the mystery of this world...

/Leszek Kolankiewicz (talking with Jadwiga Rożek, ‘Didaskalia’, 61/62, 2004/

We get confronted with an ideal balance between a form and the energy and force of naturalistic expression boiling within it.The ‘protagonists’ experience affects us as if, following Aristotle’s wish, they evoke ‘the feelings of mercy and fear’.

(...) This precise movement, studied and practiced, conveying the emotional states of mythical heroes, contains the characteristics of ogganic naturalness due to the perfection of the company’s acting skills.

/Aleksandra Rembowska, ‘Theatre’, 4/6, 2004/