We ask the audience to travel back to the time before the Enlightenment, which “rationally” abolished theatrical dissections as unaesthetic, incomprehensible, macabre, and barbaric. Yet it is not only about an aesthetic shock, but also about reclaiming a fundamental loss.
With the disappearance of the anatomical theatre, the foundations of ethics and aesthetics vanished as well—since reason and thought ceased to be understood as bodily, fleshy forms, marked by decay and transience. This is how we interpret Tulpa’s preface: as an intention to restore the concrete to both art and life, to restore the materiality of death. And this is how we understand Rymkiewicz’s purpose, present also in his poetry and essays—to speak of fundamental matters, of death and art, always in the presence of the concrete. What is this concrete? It lies on the dissecting table, and even takes part in the play.
/ based on the play The Anatomy Lesson of Professor Tulip after Rembrandt by J. M. Rymkiewicz /
Direction & script: Dariusz Kunowski
Music: Jerzy Kornowicz
Scenography & costumes: Dariusz Kunowski Cast: Piotr Herbich, Jarosław Kaczmarek, Katarzyna Żytomirska, Agata Brzozowicz, Andrzej Bocian
Sound & lighting: Sebastian Cybulski
Anatomy Lesson
performance by Scena Lubelska 30/32 Theatre
A humorous cabaret-style performance with a musical accent by Scena Lubelska 30/32. In the spirit of the old theatrum, we present to today’s audiences an anachronistic horror of a dissected corpse—perhaps the author himself.
