Lazzi, Witkacy Idiota

Review in Issue 17-4 | Winter 2005

Playing simply with a clock, maracas and a pair of Hawaiian shirts, Lazzi presented the life of Polish ‘total’ artist Stanisław Witkiewicz ('Witkacy') as a metaphysical double act. Drawing on both his biography and characters from his plays, the show began and ended with an image of his suicide in 1939, caught between the invading Nazi and Soviet armies. In between, the performance moved from an expository 'act one', with the expressionist couple of madman and doctor, to a wordless hallucination ('act three') of Witkacy as portraitist of the audience, with an engaging if disconcerting eye contact. For all the commitment and energy of the performers, though, I couldn't help wondering whether the real challenge might not have been to stage one of the plays, exploring the possibilities of Witkacy's poetics of 'pure form’ against their demands, rather than simply reciting them. Not that this is a criticism of Lazzi, but rather of the conditions for presenting work at the Fringe – increasingly limiting for both companies and audiences.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Festival
Presenting Venue
Date Seen
  1. Aug 2005

This article in the magazine

Issue 17-4
p. 26