Koncert życzeń / Request Concert

It is evening. A woman is alone in her apartment. She executes even the simplest actions with the utmost precision: dinner, TV, cleaning up her flat, playing solitaire – all activities become absurdly funny rituals of a seemingly trivial everyday routine.

Polish star actress Danuta Stenka inhabits the tremendous talent of being completely silent on stage. She need not do anything, she only needs to be there, and audiences are unable to take their eyes off her. An open space that can be seen into from all sides reinforces her magical presence. She inhabits this space, so close to us that we, the spectators, can read the character’s magazines along with her. Her world is organised according to a geometric plan; it is entirely hermetic – to touch her, we would only have to reach out. Only when the life of the stage character is over, the actress notices that she has not been alone throughout the performance. She looks at us, the audience, from a different world, with a glance that is no longer alive. Until this moment, Danuta Stenka has rendered even the tiniest detail more painful and diabolical than the worst disaster. For every detail is lethal.

This marks the first participation of young director Yana Ross from Lithuania, a graduate of Yale University, at Wiener Festwochen.