Two nations, two traumas, one city.
Who can tell us where and what our home is? Who are we and who do we become the moment we leave our former life and set out in search of a safe haven? Will our “new home” turn out to be good for us, will it be safe, will we know how to find ourselves in it? Won’t the ghost of a German come out of the closet and try to chase us out of here? Who were the people who lived here, who slept in this bed, who lived in my house before me? Questions that are hard to find answers to, and which are still relevant despite the passage of years.
The community of Gollnow before World War II was made up of Germans. German Gollnow was a charming town located on a vast river, today’s Ina. After the War, Gollnow became Goleniow, to which residents of the former lands of the Second Polish Republic began to flow. They came to the destroyed city with the hope of a better tomorrow, a safe home.
The play “Station Witness” is an attempt to find connectors between two communities that, under difficult circumstances, had to leave their homes and travel into the unknown to find a safe place to live. The authors are searching for the myth of a new place, asking about their own and shared identity. They build a tradition that is new, still sought after and multicultural.
Station Witness, is an original performance by the Gate Theater, based on interviews conducted with former and current residents of Goleniów. The community of the “Recovered Territories” before and after World War II was made up of Poles and Germans who, due to the political situation, were forced to migrate. The show was inspired by authentic stories of people who had to find their way in a new, completely different reality after World War II.
An important element of the performance, is the music played live by the Band of the Gate Theater. The tunes used in the show are melodies played by the Bolechowska Orchestra, which was founded after the war. The orchestra’s musicians, upon arriving in Bolechow (a village near Goleniów), found post-German musical instruments and sheet music to German songs. This became the impetus for them to start their own orchestra and to expand their repertoire to include melodies that were important to themselves.
Review of the performance:
http://www.dziennikteatralny.pl/artykuly/dwa-narody-dwie-traumy.html
Cast: Evanthi Athanasiadi, Jennifer Crissey, Aleksandra Slusarczyk, Weronika Więzowska, Konrad Bartoszewicz, Patryk Bednarski, Bartłomiej Kwaśniewicz, Aleksander Kwietniak, Aleksander Sielicki, Wojciech Rosiński, Kamil Więzowski
Directed by: Daniel Jacewicz
Co-dramaturgy: Dorota Porowska, Edyta Rogowska, Thomas Avenhaus, Marcin Kęszycki
Set design: Kinga Dalska
Video: Michal Zak, Michal Nogala
Music: Kapela Teatru Brama
Light: Wojciech Rosiński, Elias Saadeddine, Filip Stachura
Sound: Jacek Galkiewicz.
Premiere: 6.11.2021 r.
