“I have written and write plays for the theatre, for the actors, for the directors, I do not write them to be read, though they do need to be read if they are to be staged” – this thought of Bogusław Schaeffer’s seems to ring ominously in the Author’s head, as, in Tomáš Svoboda’s play, he sits shut up in a hyper-realistic home/recording studio, full of instruments, antiquated furniture and books, grappling with his writer’s block. Constantly plagued by the Actor (Bogdan Słomiński) and Director (Łukasz Szczepanowski/Marcin Sztendel) he faces the necessity of writing at least a few sentences, a few words or phrases to get the plot rolling. The dialogue, or in fact sketch, which he finally “chokes out” (inspired by the cacophony of sounds of a typewriter), though very brief and trivial, succeeds in firing his imagination and inspiring the three of them to create variants on the plot: they take this work in the tradition of the literary canon (Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Teutonic Knights) and comically deflate its gravity and alter its content; it also serves as lighthearted dubbing of dramatic scenes from the cinematic reservoir of Western pop culture. The unconventional creative strategies of the Author, Director, and Actor, with audience participation, are overseen by the lively and dauntless Muse (Aleksandra Nowosadko) and music – an inseparable part of Schaeffer’s work, whose original world is brought to viewers by musicians from the Muzyka Centrum / GrupLab Arts Association, in a concert before the performance.

This play about an artist attempting to deal with writer’s block exceeds all expectations. (…) it has an old-world charm.  (…) Breaking the piece into two parts was an interesting idea – one part is a concert of Bogusław Schaeffer’s experimental works.

Łukasz Gazur, Dziennik Polski