California /Grace Slick

California /Grace Slick

Drama

„California and the Pacific Wall, against which the Wave of Westward Colonial Expansion Crashes and Is Turned Back into Intensified Inner Worlds, as Performed by the Inmates of the Palo Alto Mental Health Facility Under the Direction of Mrs. Grace Slick”.

The new SND building, Drama hall
10. 6. 2019 19:00 h - 20:50 h

California is the geographic, cultural, and mental space referenced in René Pollesch’s latest production based on his play written especially for TR Warszawa. The intellectual and social trends originating in 1960s’ California have radically transformed the West. Today, the City of Palo Alto at the very heart of the Silicon Valley is the hub of the Internet and tech giants and the place where the present and future of capitalistic world is decided.

René Pollesch takes us on a trip to the Pacific coast and back on a crest of a civilizational wave returning to today’s Europe in the form of digital technologies, virtual realities, and new economic paradigms. His play is an attempt to understand where colonial expansion and search for new territories has led the Western civilisation. Our guide is Grace Slick, the rock and roll star of 1960s and the icon of the hippie movement in the US. Psychedelia and dot‑coms, sexual revolution and the conquest of space, virtual worlds and start‑ups all meet in this production, Pollesch’s third at TR Warszawa after Ragazzo dell’ Europa and Jackson Pollesch.

California In the words of the director:

There is only one image, one photograph that shows all of humanity. All but three people.

Yes, three people were missing from the image that showed all living humans, contained all of humanity, and united all of humanity; the first photograph of our planet taken from space. In a sense, it was a global picture, a universalistic icon. And yet, as we know, the three people who took that shot were not actually in it.

It is often said that the student protests were the defining event of 1968, but the true sign of that time is the photograph taken by the Apollo 8 crew. By those three astronauts. It marks the moment when the progress of mankind starts to lose its thread.

It is the moment when the outward expansion into space to which we owe that picture, that universalistic icon, turns back on itself, creating the ultimate inside.

From that point onwards, the Earth no longer has an outside.

At the same time, in California, the wave of westward colonial expansion encounters a physical, geographic border – the Pacific Ocean – and starts looking for new territories to conquer: technology, the non-material fabric of virtual reality, and psychology. California is at the forefront of progress that opens the irresistibly alluring epoch of withdrawal and amplification of the within. We are witnessing it today.

Californian ideology, Californian network capitalism, Californian avant‑garde – have taken the rest of the capitalist world by storm.

Premiered: December 8th, 2017

Text, director: René Pollesch
Translation: Karolina Bikont
Set design, costumes: Nina von Mechow
Director's assistant: Karolina Gębska
Stage manager: Katarzyna Gawryś-Rodriguez
Production manager: Katarzyna Białach

Cast
AGNIESZKA PODSIADLIK
TOMASZ TYNDYK
JUSTYNA WASILEWSKA

Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes (no interval)

Subtitles:
Hosted at SND

Note

Hosťovanie TR Varšava v rámci Festivalu Eurokontext.sk