Polish theatre company praised in Scotland

The Polish company are presenting two shows during this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Carmen Funebre, one of its old, highly-acclaimed productions, which runs until Saturday, August 19; and Silence, a new project that runs until August 26.

The artistic director of Teatr Biuro Podróży, Paweł Szkotak, has said: “We are delighted to receive this award. Edinburgh has always been special for us. It was here that we first performed in 1995, in the rain, to a tiny audience in a school playground and ended up winning a Fringe First and the Critics’ Award. Since then we have toured all over North America, India and Europe, but we keep coming back here. Our company is 30 years old this year, and this is the most wonderful birthday present.”

In her review of Silence, Scottish arts critic Mary Brennan wrote: “It’s twenty-three years since the Polish company, Teatr Biuro Podróży, unleashed the hectic fire, ear-splitting cacophony and Armageddon-on-stilts of Carmen Funebre on an awestruck Fringe … They provide a spectacular framework for a collage of evocative images that reach back into history—but are at their most harrowing when echoing our own conflicted times … Callous violence, valiant beauty and plaintive humanity over-lap and collide as history repeats in a fiercely physical Silence that asks troubling questions. A viscerally memorable experience for those who stand and watch.”

Founded in 1988, Teatr Biuro Podróży is based in the western Polish city of Poznań. (mk/gs)