Reviews from the Edinburgh International Festival 2008
Philip Fisher, THE BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE
It is hard to imagine a production of this exploration into suicidal despair that could be further from James Macdonald's original of the late Sarah Kane's final play at the Royal Court eight years ago. Nothing is the same as that ensemble scream of desperation, not even the language spoken on this occasion, Polish (with supertitles).
Where that production was spare and sought to refuse identity, Grzegorz Jarzyna focuses every one of the 14 scenes on a central figure played brilliantly by Magdalena Cielecka, who had already made such an impression on Festival audiences in TR Warszawa's first production, Dybbuk.
The bleakness of her character's life is conveyed as she receives visits in some kind of state mental asylum. What seems like rock bottom when she meets her partner then a doctor finally appears like relative bliss.
Scenes with a dream lover and her younger self offer hope but this soon disappears after repeated suicide attempts and what is described as chemical lobotomy.
Finally, her bloody death seems almost an unmitigated relief, so great was the anxiety and despair suffered by this poor, mentally tortured young woman.
Magdalena Cielecka, who has been playing this part since Grzegorz Jarzyna originated this production is 2002, not only needs tremendous technical ability but also great courage to portray someone in such desperate straits.
She proves herself up to the task and is the key element in a marvellous, gripping evening, never more so than in a dazzling sequence, which explains the seemingly random numbering of scenes.
As the woman falls into a prescription drug induced delirium, the same numbers reducing from 100 in 7s fall through the action like snow, each representing a dosage of yet another failing pill.
This is a beautiful, powerful and extremely moving vision of Sarah Kane's final message and it is just a shame that it only spends a few days in the UK. Is it too much to ask whether the Barbican might be tempted to bring it to London one day?