This year’s motto, "Words, words, words," is a quote from Hamlet and reflects the event's focus on the power of language.
Festival director Agata Grenda told Poland's PAP news agency that the theme "draws attention to the value of language and the meaning of utterance in a world filled with superficial messages and communication."
Agata Grenda. Photo: PAP/Adam Warżawa
A key highlight of the festival is The Tempest, staged by the National Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre from Lviv and directed by Oksana Dmitrieva.
Shakespearean scholar Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, described the production as "the most intelligent and thought-out interpretation of the play in five decades," according to Grenda.
Grenda also praised The Spirit Enters, an original work by director Weronika Szczawińska and playwright Piotr Wawer Jr.
A collaboration between the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Olsztyn, northeastern Poland, and the Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre, the productiom draws inspiration from Act I of Hamlet, in which the ghost of Hamlet's father appears twice.
According to the festival’s website, The Spirit Enters "is not a classical interpretation, but a theatrical experiment balancing between poetry and pop culture, personal confession and communal experience," raising questions about how people confront the ghosts of their past.
The festival programme also features A Macbeth Song, an avant-garde production by British musical trio The Tiger Lillies and Catalan theatre group La Perla 29.
Polish entries include A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Winter’s Tale from Warsaw-based companies, Coriolanus from Kraków, The Taming of the Shrew from Opole, and Julius Caesar from Legnica.
The festival runs until August 3.
The International Shakespeare Festival was founded by Jerzy Limon, a prominent Polish Shakespeare scholar, writer and translator who died of COVID-19 in March 2021.
In the early 1990s, Limon discovered traces of a 17th-century playhouse in Gdańsk modelled on London's Fortune Theatre. He later spearheaded the construction of a modern replica of the venue, a project that was completed in 2008. Limon served as the theatre's director until his death.
Jerzy Limon (1950-2021). Photo: Piotr Wittman/PAP
(mk/gs)