Premiered in Teatr Żeromskiego in Kielce Poland, in October 2021
Invited to the 62 Kaliskie Spotkania Teatralne - Festiwal Sztuki Aktorskiej (Theatre Festival) in Kalisz, Poland, in May 2022.
Adaption by Neil Bartlett
Director: Una Þorleifsdóttir
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In The Plague published in 1947 Camus wrote that the first thing the bubonic plague brought to people was exile. Over 70 years later, isolated in our homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, cut off from friends, relatives and the workplace, Camus’ novel reveals itself as extraordinarily pertinent to our times. The political scientist Ivan Krastev claimed that the pandemic has erased our “private life experience”, simultaneously creating a sense of heightened fragility and preventing us from constructing an idea of the future.
The Plague documents the development of an epidemic in Oran, French Algeria, in the 1940s – although the real subject of Camus’ novel situates itself somewhere unspecified, beyond any specific place or time. The book is a commentary on any infection that could afflict a society: a disease such as COVID-19, but also a dangerous ideology or a narrow-minded populism. In his reworking of Camus’ text, the British writer Neil Bartlett suggests that the viruses currently plaguing Europe come in many different shapes and forms.
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Adaption: Neil Bartlett
Translator: Jacek Poniedziałek
Director: Una Þorleifsdóttir
Set, costume and lighting design: Mirek Kaczmarek
Music: Gisli Galdur Thorgeirsson
Assistant director: Brynhildur Karlsdóttir
Translation during rehearsals: Agnieszka Moskwa
Cast:
Rieux: Joanna Kasperek
Rambert: Bartłomiej Cabaj
Tarrou: Wojciech Niemczyk
Cottard: Andrzej Plata
Grand: Dawid Żłobiński
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Review:
Krzysztof Krzak, Teatr dla Wszystkich: "Zaraza" czasu Zarazy
Kamil Pycia: Zaraza
