Битеф

ging conveys all that we understand by a human being. The delirious horror the vision is enhanced in the final images. Hideous, anthropoidal figures emerge. They seem out of focus, translated verbatim from Bosch’s canvases. A terrible old Indian (Stanislaw Brudny) announces, as if he were pronouncing a death sentence: Tis six an'a half. The creeping, drunk Sailor mumbles: Mozart was the guy who wrote the Bible. The Old Woman (Wiesława Niemyska) warns in an ominous whisper; This isn’t a good place for you. in Black (Gaba disemhorse ac'ТШ*IЩЙИИр!Й: distant clock strikes the Hours ¡ike a metronome of fate. All these are omens of death. Above the Farolito bar, a dingy an ТЬеу~|ЩЩ*ке a mixturese&ptíffcgmen and mers from stímewhere in the imje' verse. They are to execute the Consul. When the shot is fired, the Consul-Walczewski, wriggling on the floor, will only manage to say ih surprise: Christ, what a mean death. When the black act curtain falls to cut him away from the hor: ror and transport him to the other ■ side of existence, he utters the ! exotic, magic half-whisper Popo■ catepetl, Popoca... The beauty of i the stage vision of The Slow BlackI out of Images is enhanced by'Sta; nislaw Radwan’s music, ideally , harmonized with the matter and - the spirit of the show. The same is - true of Barbara Hanicka's costu- mes. If her name had not been r mentioned in the programme, one г would have thought that the cos- g - turnes were designed by Grzegor- • ł zewski. This is indicative of the tà-3 lęnted designer’s modesty and understanding of what joint effort in 1. the theatre should mean. As rey gards the cast, the actors, except the two protagonists, Teresa Bud-3 zisz-Krzyźanowska and Marek II Walczewski, have no easy tasks to i. perform. They appear in loose it episodes, and this is their whole :- scenic life. They play human sha5, dows, allegories of people. But i- how they act! They, too, are in peri- feet concord with the tone, matter s- and rhythm of the whole. □ ElžI- hieta Morawiec

tion could well bear the title The Obscure Garden of Earthly Delights. Maria and Yvonne are the two faces of woman: which is the face of love and which,is,the face of treason? In Grzegorzewski, their roles are interchangeable - the two characters pass the stage.twice uttering the same dialogue (in Lowry’s novel the characters engaged in this particular conversation are the Consul and Laruell) reversing their lines. The question whether Yvonne has really returned becomes one about what has returned, tove or treasonrThe answer should be sought in the mirror symmetry of the two characters. Equally meaningful and symbolic in this section of the play is the cinema performance. It does not matter whether the cinema really features in Under the Volcano. Cinema is the 20th-century Arcadia, a place where dreams come true, an island of a happy Utopia, a refuge from the world. We watch the cinema audience seated amphitheatrically in profile. Their emotions are apparently controlled by the Great Manipulator or even the Hangman, dressed as an executioner, he moves the black saw and thus sets the audience in marionette-like motion. He is the artist’s obscure alter ego. Then comes the most penetrating scene in this section of the show, loneliness in a crowd. The Consul-Walczewski, surrounded by a dense crowd of men, cries out his longiness for Yvonne across the anonymous group. Scraps of memories end with the dramatic coda: I am dying without you. For Christ’s sake, Yvonne, come back to me... Matches in the hands of the crowd symbolize candlelights of the Mexican All Souls’ Day. They harbinger the Consul’s death. They are blown out and die down as he utters his last word. The scene has a replica in the final sequence. The Valkyrie's Asylum, set in the Farolito. a bar from Lowry's novel Yvonne’s monologue is an outer) of hope, longing and despair, add ressed as much to the Consul as tc all people. It is a lonely spel meant to counteract calamities Yet, just as the Consul’s words, ii , reaches a void. To these two. see ' nes, the characters-allegories characters-symbols owe their di mension of consummate huma nity. This prayer of ultimate des pair, this whining of hope and lon