An artist in doubt, an exploratory artist, an artist experiencing a personal and creative crisis. An artist stuck for years in a totalitarian system which has branded him, trying to protect himself through inner immigration.

One day some friends come round asking him to set himself on fire. Though initially he wants to refuse, the idea slowly grows on him: his last day of life could become his final work, and his public suicide is the only gesture that could possibly oppose the system.

Tadeusz Konwicki’s “A Minor Apocalypse” was created in a period when communism was in decline. It was a caricature, a show of resistance, a moral examination of the consciences of his generation, and ammunition against the system; over time, it also became a colorful document of a seemingly bygone epoch. Yet is the spectre of totalitarianism gone for good?

In today’s world, where, on the one hand, the threat of Russian imperialism has come back to haunt us, and on the other political surveillance has become the domain of a technocracy that invades every field of our lives, “A Minor Apocalypse” fascinates us as a dystopia that is not so unreal. After the self-sacrifices of Ryszard Siwiec in 1968 and Piotr Szczęsny in 2017, who rose to become symbols, could a similar gesture make sense in 2030, 2060, or 2100?

Etymologically speaking, an apocalypse is an “unveiling”—a point when the truth comes sharply into focus, reaching us as it never had before. We set off alongside the play’s main protagonist into a terrifying and delirious dream of a future we should not allow to happen, but which is forever returning in our nightmares as a potential reality.

Waldemar Raźniak’s play is a vivisection of a man facing the impossible. This is three hours of intense concentration, the air thick with evil lurking around every corner, gloom pierced by neon light, and unnervingly intelligent technologies. (…) There are no weak roles here, every character is compelling and attractive in their own way. In the foreground we have, of course, Grzegorz Mielczarek’s everyman. His Author runs the gamut of emotional states, from despair to euphoria. Alongside the purely plot-driven events, he wages his own internal battle (as a man, a rebel, an artist). It is an understatement to say this is a lamb at play before being led to the slaughter. I cannot remember the last time a role made such a considerable impression on me.  (…)
“A Minor Apocalypse 20XX” is an important play, inspired by the present, while immersed in the universal.
Piotr Gaszczyński, Teatr dla Wszystkich

Note:
Sensory stimuli in the performance: loud sounds, flashing lights effect, flickering images on screens, smoke, cigarette smoke.
There are vulgarities in the performance.