WYWROTY/SUBVERSIONS: on the 15th International Retroperspektywy Theatre Festival, Łódź (20-30 August, 2026)

"I didn't know who I was supposed to be...at fifteen," sang Taylor Swift, about two decades ago. Retroperspektywy Festival, by contrast, seems notably secure in its identity as it reaches that same birthday this year, even as the festival continues to grow, expand, adapt, evolve. 

Audience watching The Tiger Lillies concert

Disruptive, punky spirit, embracing warmth, social concern, intellectual depth, drive to experiment, and sheer playfulness and fun remain the characteristics of one of Łódź's most exciting and vital cultural events, which combines theatre shows and concerts with workshops, "happenings," exhibitions, DJ sets, dance, discussions, and more. 

Tomasz Rodowicz in Konferencja ptaków

This year, the festival takes "Wywroty,"  or "Subversions" or "Upheavals," as its title. The idea is to work "against the limitations, closures, blockages and manipulations that currently exist on all fronts," in the words of Tomasz Rodowicz, Artistic Director of Teatr CHOREA, Retroperspektywy's founder. 

Ola Shaya

According to Rodowicz, the intention of this year's edition - one that resonates with the festival each year, really - is "to open people up, to burst bubbles" through, as main programmer Ola Shaya puts it, the creation of "communal experiences where the divide between artist and audience dissolves." 

Konferencja ptaków

The festival opened in characteristically bold fashion with Konferencja ptaków (Conference of the Birds), a welcome reunion for CHOREA and the crazy genius of director Łukasz Kos, whose  collaboration on Śmierć na gruszy (Death on a Pear Tree) made for a startling start to the festival's 2021 edition. Based on Farid ud-Din Attar's 12th-century Persian poem, which was notably adapted for the theatre in the 1970s by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière, Konferencja ptaków was slightly less anarchic than the previous collaboration but still wild enough, drawing on both the poem and Brook's dramatisation, and starting out as a species of delirious avian rave. 

Konferencja ptaków

Throughout, live music and sound effects by Maciej Maciaszek added atmosphere and texture, complementing the kinetic energy and dreamy beauty of the recorded and live camera work by Kamil Wallace Walesiak. CHOREA's commitment to finding contemporary and enduring resonances in ancient texts was very much in evidence in this account of the epic quest of the Birds to meet a legendary, winged king. 

 

Konferencja ptaków

Another layer was added to the performance by the strongly-felt spirit of one of CHOREA's signature shows After the Birds, including in the presence of some returning cast members. Rodowicz, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, Joanna Chmielecka, Małgorzata Lipczyńska and Paweł Smagała formed a superlative ensemble, alongside memorable cameos from Wallace Walesiak and Kos himself. 

PlastSupper

A second striking addition to the opening night was Mi­cha­li­na Ko­stec­ka and Do­mi­ni­ka So­bo­lew­ska's PlastSupper, a culinary installation, its title a religious pun, evoking the vexed relation between humans and plastic, especially as it has entered the food chain. As white-clothed servers proffered coloured pasta and other delicacies at a ceremonial table to the sound of Marta Kluba's musical compositions, a surreal, ironic feast worthy of a Peter Greenaway cinematic tableau developed. 

Jan Ma­żew­ski's Kół­ko Gra­nia­ste

A more traditional but equally compelling exhibit opened downstairs at Fabryka Sztuki in the form of Jan Ma­żew­ski's “Kół­ko Gra­nia­ste” ("Square Circle"), a set of acrylic on canvas paintings evoking childhood imagination, solitude and moments of connection. I felt pulled back to these paintings again and again; Ma­żew­ski's work created a contemplative space to return to: modest, soulful, and very beautiful. A festival regular, DJ Papa Bo Selektah, meanwhile, delivered a fantastic set to close the opening night. 

DJ Papa Bo Selektah

Saturday's events took place across a trio of venues that, just like Fotofestiwal a couple of months ago, freshly revealed the dynamism and creativity of Łódź's revitalised spaces. 

Lament/ر ِ ﺛﺎء” 

Despite currently undergoing renovation work, the festival's usual centre of Fabryka Sztuki still remained open for performances. It hosted, among others, Lament/ر ِ ﺛﺎء” , Aurora Lubos's haunting show inspired by the destruction in Gaza. This found Lubos picking her way back and forth across a miniature set of destroyed, smoking buildings, her movements variously expressing grief, despair, and defiance. 

Labyrinth

A tonal contrast was offered in next door's Fuzja complex, which hosted Fabian Krestel's Labyrinth, an absolutely delightful interactive mix of juggling and art-making. And the day ended spectacularly at the Central Textile Museum, with Radar, a transfixing acrobatic dance piece by Il Posto/Wanda Moretti and Marco Castelli Small Ensemble performed on the walls of the White Factory to music ranging from Delibes' Lakmé to Home Alone-sampling polka-techno. 

Radar

The connective tissue between the spaces and events was provided, brilliantly, by more Italians, the adorable company of clowning musicians Compagnia Samovar & Banda Storta. These six avuncular fellows led delighted attendees from place to place with whoops, song and brass accompaniment - sometimes roping unsuspecting passersby into the divine madness.

Compagnia Samovar & Banda Storta

On Sunday, Janusz Adam Biedrzycki and Magdalena Paszkiewicz directed CHOREA's Intergenerational Group  in Brainrot, a broad, sharply funny show, which began with a 2001: A Space Odyssey homage and, in a series of diverse sequences, offered a satirical look at the contemporary challenge to communicate, taking in everything from selfie culture to religion, advertising, The Knife's "Pass This On," the cosmos, and fashion.

Brainrot 

Reminiscent in form and tone of the extraordinary devised Łódź Film School Diploma shows directed by Mariusz Grzegorzek in 2018/2019 and 2019/2020, Brainrot provided a great showcase for the talents of the current group. 

Grief//bot

It was followed by Teatr Kombinat's Grief//bot which modishly but effectively made Artificial Intelligence a protagonist as (like the BBC's recent sitcom hit Ann Droid) it examined how AI might assist the bereaved in working through loss. With a bot based on the biography and data of the late singer, poet and filmmaker Natasza Czarmińska, and audience members invited to ask questions of the model in the final section, the show boasted a tour de force performance from Paweł Palcat, who gave a deeply human face and sense of longing to what sounded in synopsis simply like a tech exercise. 

The Sin of Pride

Maternal loss was also a starting point for Asher Lev's The Sin of Pride, which began with the artist recounting how the death of his mother prompted his move from Israel to Belgium. But the primary inspiration for this piece was Lev's guilt and conflict over the current Gaza war. 

The Sin of Pride

The deceptively gentle, therapeutic opening - with the soft-voiced Lev welcoming the audience and inviting them to write their own current concerns down on pieces of paper - became a radical performance art provocation, with the artist gyrating, chanting and miaowing, before smearing himself in blood and spewing blue liquid over a representation of the Star of David, a symbol he proceeded to destroy in a snarling, feral display.

As a gesture of externalised Jewish self-excoriation, The Sin of Pride wasn't something to be easily shaken off. But by the time Lev was encasing his legs in rubber tubing and propelling himself across the performance space the piece seemed to have degenerated into sheer exhibitionism. Finally washing off the blood, reciting a Palestinian poem, and encouraging the audience to pat their hearts in rhythm to a song, Lev himself appeared to conceive of the piece as a cleansing, bonding collective ritual. But the unsettling result undoubtedly proved the most polarising piece presented on the festival's first weekend. 

The Tiger Lillies

An event that definitely did succeed in creating a united audiences was the Saturday concert by cult British band The Tiger Lillies, whose mix of Weimar cabaret and music hall brought longstanding fans to Fabryka Sztuki and clearly won over many new admirers as well. With their signature white-painted faces, singer/pianist/accordionist Martyn Jacques, Adrian Stout (double bass, jaw harp, theremin) and adorably gurning percussionist Budi Butenop seamlessly presented tracks from last year's Songs From the Sewer record alongside older material. As ironic and macabre as some of the band's material can be, the concert was somehow deeply life-affirming, closing with a tender "Birds Are Singing in Ukraine" - and a cheered swipe at Putin.  

From Belgium, Italy, Britain, Israel, Poland, and Belarus, the global artistic expressions presented at Retroperspektywy made for an opening weekend that was by turns comforting and confronting, but always energising. Following the four days of Robert Hayden's dance residency, the festival opens to the general public again today with a packed programme of events including children's shows, New Circus performances, queer cabaret, and free DJ sets. There's much more to explore; further details here. 

Photos by: Agnieszka Cytacka fotografia

Further reading:

Report on Retroperspektywy 2025

Report on Retroperspektywy 2024

Report on Retroperspektywy 2023

Top 5 Theatre Productions of 2025

I didn't love an awful lot of the theatre I saw in 2025, and some of the most hyped UK shows turned out to be least favourites: between the witless Ghosts at Lyric Hammersmith and Simon Stone's even-worse The Lady from the Sea at the Bridge, I won't be signing up for any more "contemporary versions of Ibsen" any time soon. Some flawed plays benefitted from the  magic of great actors, whether Susan Sarandon's touching, graceful work in Mary Page Marlowe or Sheridan Smith's open-hearted, protean turn in Alan Ayckbourn's attempt to convey a disordered mental state in Woman in Mind.

Still, now's the time to accentuate the positive and here are five shows I loved from those I saw in the UK and Poland this year.

Angels in Warsaw (Teatr Dramatyczny, Warsaw)

A variant on Angels in America transplanted to an '80s Warsaw context didn't sound at all promising but Julia Holewińska and Wojciech Faruga made a wonderfully immersive combination of documentary and phantasmagoria here, boosted by a crack ensemble cast and the director's visionary stage-craft. 

Glory Game  (Te­atr Ko­mu­na War­sza­wa/Sticky Fingers Club at Retroperspektywy Festival)

A slo-mo sporting satire no-one could take their eyes off. 

Creditors (Orange Tree) 

The fine Jewel-in-the-Crown-reunion trio of Charles Dance, Geraldine James and Nicholas Farrell found a bit of tenderness and plenty of fresh bite in Tom Littler's gripping production of Strindberg's drama. 

Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych (Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead) (Teatr Jaracza, Łódź)

Agnieszka Holland's Pokot (2017) remains my favourite adaptation of Olga Tokarczuk's novel but Lena Frankiewicz's more hallucinatory staging (from Sandra Szwarc's adaptation) brought plenty that's fresh to the table. Hopefully, after some shaky years, this confident production marks the opening of a strong new era for Teatr Jaracza. 

When We Are Married (Donmar) 

All the single ladies!  Very much in the spirit of the Orange Tree's recent Christmas revivals, a dose of happiness to end a turbulent year from the Donmar in Tim Sheader's delightful production of Priestley's warm and sharp marital comedy.

 

In Form: A Report on the 14th International Retroperspektywy Theatre Festival (21- 31 August 2025, Łódź)

 

Under the title "Awakenings," last year's Retroperspektywy Festival (RPS) celebrated the 20th anniversary of the festival's founder, Teatr CHOREA, initially by looking backwards. The opening event, What's Demeter?, was a compendium show that revisited scenes and songs from some of the company's previous productions. 

Dzień Dobry, Pinky Mouse! during What's Demeter? (RPS, 2024)

The result was sensational: a 3 hour rollercoaster ride that highlighted the depth and range of CHOREA's work in music, drama, and movement across two decades, and which reunited artists associated with the group's past and present. The show was full of surprises and delights; audience-inclusive from the start, it culminated in a magical moment of interaction that danced audience and performers out of the auditorium together. 

Ragnarok during What's Demeter? (RPS, 2024)

Supplementing its customary mix of performances, concerts, workshops, discussions and exhibitions with some fresh elements, this year's just-concluded edition of RPS took "In Form" as its title - as a theme, as an inquiry, and as a challenge. In the words of the organisers: "What does it mean to be in sha­pe, in form, to­day - in a world of over-sti­mu­la­tion, ten­sion and trans­for­ma­tion? Ar­ti­sts from dif­fe­rent co­un­tries an­swer the qu­estion: what form does the­atre take to­day, in the face of cri­sis, so­cial chan­ges and tech­no­lo­gi­cal re­vo­lu­tion?" The festival programme provided responses - as well as further questions - of all kinds.

Ubu Roi

If a warm, embracing tone defined What's Demeter?, the opening show of this year's festival was - in keeping with the idea of challenge - a more confrontational proposition, though one that generated plenty of audience laughter throughout. Premiered in 1896 when the author was just 23, Alfred Jarry's absurdist precursor Ubu Roi at least partially demonstrated its enduring ability to provoke in Konrad Dworakowski's production (eccentrically designed by the director and Marika Wojciechowska), a collaboration between CHOREA and Grupa Coincidentia. 

Ubu Roi

Dworakowski's staging leant hard into the play's Rabelaisian vision and scatological humour - existence as a cycle of consumption and excretion - as well as its parodic elements of Shakespearean tragedy, and its Polish provenance and afterlife. (Translated in 1936 by Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, the play was adapted as an opera buffa by Krzysztof Penderecki in the early 1990s.) The production also found plenty of topical political resonances without semaphoring them - at least until Ukrainian and Palestinian flags were brandished by the cast at the curtain call. 

Ubu Roi

Jarry's play remains clearly a young man's work, and for those for whom a little caricature and absurdism goes a long way, the evening had its lags, failing to match the kind of magnetic synthesis of elements that Dworakowski previously achieved with his great stagings of Bruno Schulz material, Schulz: Skrawki and Schulz: Pętla. 

Ubu Roi

Still, there's no denying the distinctiveness of the production's puppetry-and-punk aesthetic, or the commitment of the company, from the counter-intuitively cast Paweł Chomczyk as a decidedly un-obese Ubu, to Dagmara Sowa as the grasping, acquisitive spouse, plus CHOREA stalwarts Joanna Chmielecka and Janusz Adam Biedrzycki as Byczysław and Król Wacław/Queen Rosamund respectively, and the Belarusian actor Siarhei Artsiomenka as Captain Bardior. 

 Divny Sad exhibition, Ana­sta­sia Ry­dle­vskaya

Work by Belarusian creatives was in fact an integral component of this year's festival. It was a poignant one, too, since several of the featured artists have settled in Poland after fleeing Lukashenko's Belarus, and reflect on the experience of exile in their work in contrasting but equally creative ways. 

Snake Charmer

Ana­sta­sia Ry­dle­vskaya, now based in Gdańsk, not only contributed the art exhibition “Di­vny Sad” (“Won­der­ful Gar­den”) to RPS, and designed masks for the Tylko dla dziewczyn (Just for Girls) events; she also delivered a terrific outdoor concert performance, mostly drawing on material from her third album, Snake Charmer (listen here).  

Snake Charmer

Quiet and modest in her demeanour during the festival's opening speeches, Ry­dle­vskaya proved a distinctively bold artist both in her vivid, striking paintings, often evoking instances of painful or productive me­ta­mor­pho­sis, and in her performance style, which combined playful energy and shamanic intensity, as it took place outside, under the (very appropriate) Black Moon of the festival's first Saturday night. 

DJ Papa Bo Selectah

Alongside Papa Bo Selectah, who delivered a dynamic DJ set, a third Belarusian artist mobilising music was Igor Shu­ga­le­ev, whose Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea (My Name is Mrs. Trof­fea), a solo dance performance created with director Ser­gey Sha­bo­hin, proved an explosive highlight of the festival's first Sunday afternoon. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

Premiered at Teatr Nowy in Warsaw in 2022, Sha­bo­hin and Shu­ga­le­ev's piece fuses present-tense immediacy and historical awareness as it links Shu­ga­le­ev's experience of the Berlin rave scene to the mysterious "dance plague" that began in 1518, when one Frau Troffea began to dance frantically in the Strasbourg streets, apparently inspiring hundreds of other citizens to do the same over several days, resulting in many deaths. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

The overall structure of Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea is that of a club night in microcosm. Shu­ga­le­ev enters wet-haired and nude, and proceeds to dress himself for the night's partying, as phone footage of Belarusian political protests and his own journey out of the country are projected on the screen behind. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

Across the following 30 minutes, Agniesz­ka Kryst's choreography then takes the performer from little more than a leg twitch into a violent crescendo of movements and contortions that are by turns disturbing and cathartic, and accompanied by pounding techno courtesy of Mi­ki­ta Bu­ba­sh­kin & Gray Mandorla Studio, and To­masz Jóź­win's high intensity strobe lighting.

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

With Troffea herself also visualised on the screen in one section in images that add a spectral silent cinema dimension to the show, the piece draws a throughline between the dance plague and contemporary rave culture, presenting both as manifestations of rebellion by marginalised social groups. 

Ich he­iße Frau Trof­fea 

Historically dubious as this connection might be, it proves powerful in performance, as the show reimagines Troffea's action not in terms of medical pathology but rather as an expression of a resisting, revolutionary spirit that still abides today as a challenge to oppression. 

Tomasz Rodowicz during Hoson Zes / Lśnij  

While Troffea twirled in the intimate confines of Fabryka Sztuki's Sala A_22 auditorium, this year's RPS was also characterised by, in the words of CHOREA's Artistic Director Tomasz Rodowicz, "a search for innovative forms in the performing arts that open up new ways of engaging with audiences." 

Pipe Up

This involved using some different spaces for events - from the neighbouring Fuzja complex where the Norwegian company Panta Rei Danseteater presented their delightful and quietly visionary family show Pipe Up at the former power plant, to the appearance of two trailers in the Fabryka Sztuki courtyard, one which became home to Te­atr Com­pa­gnia Sa­mo­var's Of­fi­ci­na Oce­ano­gra­fi­ca Sen­ti­men­ta­le, the other to Teatr Łątek Supraśl's Nosferatu - a Diary of the Plague. 

Night Piece N° 7

By far the most experimental of the festival's offerings was Night Piece N°7 by Stuttgart's O-Team theatre group. Fresh from a recent presentation in South Africa, the piece takes the form of an all-night self-described "meditation ritual" which aims to keep participants in a liminal state between sleeping and waking across 11 hours, blending ob­ject the­atre, installation, con­cert, per­for­man­ce and sta­ged exhi­bi­tion elements - all with the bonus of a shared breakfast in the morning. 

Happy Hour

Other visiting shows pushed formal boundaries in less extreme but nonetheless striking ways. The Czech director/designer Jan Mo­cek's Happy Hour developed into  a strangely compulsive relay of creation and destruction through the movement and (re-)stacking of 150 squeaky Styrofoam panels. These were transformed by the show's sometimes focused, somnambulant, distracted or disruptive trio (Tin­ka Avra­mo­va, Iri­na An­dre­eva, Ar­se­niy Mi­khay­lov) into various simulacra: a stack of books, a graveyard, a mountain, a monument.

Glory Game

Best of all, perhaps, was Te­atr Ko­mu­na War­sza­wa/Sticky Fingers Club's Glory Game, conceived and choreographed by Do­mi­nik Wię­cek. The show opened with its performers, Da­nie­la Ko­mę­de­ra, Do­mi­ni­ka Wiak, Mo­ni­ka Wit­kow­ska, Na­ta­lia Din­ges, Piotr Sta­nek, and Wię­cek, as dignified physical icons - noble and naked, a collective running back and forth in slow motion - before deconstructing that vision to reveal the often absurd aspects of competition and the contemporary mediatisation of sport. The piece's revelation of a sneaky, humourous side was delightful; the performers' physical control and expressiveness was breathtaking; and the concept felt fully realised, offering completely fresh, funny, exciting and subversive solutions to the staging of sport. 

A Ty jak to wi­dzisz?

The CHOREA Youth Group premiered a "demonstration" performance of A Ty jak to wi­dzisz? (And how do you see it?). Directed and choreographed­ by Ja­nusz Adam Bie­drzyc­ki and Anna Ma­szew­ska, this proved to be a lively, affectionate and often hilarious piece inspired by Do­ro­ta Kas­sja­no­wicz's book 30 zni­ka­ją­cych tram­po­lin (30 Disappearing Trampolines) which presents the titular object in multiple short scenes; these vary wildly in perspective, tone and genre. The show will return in a full production in November, and deserves to be widely seen.

 

Sta­ra ko­bie­ta wy­sia­du­je 

Meanwhile, the veteran stage actress Irena Jun received a loving reception and delivered a tour de force performance in Tadeusz Ró­że­wicz's 1968 play Sta­ra ko­bie­ta wy­sia­du­je (The Old Woman Broods), here distilled and reconceived as a monodrama but with its metaphor of a monstrous garbage dump to describe the crisis of today's civilization still sadly resonant. Ta­de­usz Wie­lec­ki complemented Jun's vocal dexterity and supple command of the text with music played live, while old video footage of the actress and Ró­że­wicz in conversation made for a poignant opening to the intimate and charged performance.

The Dzi­dzias

All of the concerts were of a high standard, and ranged from the sensuous sound of Karakal, fronted by the charismatic Turkey-born lyricist/vocalist Ayşe Abacı, through the punchy, progressive indie rock of The Dzi­dzias, to the off-kilter energy of the Ballady i Romanse concert by Ewa Żurakowska and Horsy. This set Adam Mickiewicz poems to thunderous drums and proggy arrangements, delivered with pleasingly uninhibited vocals, theatrical flair and encouraged singalongs by Żurakowska. 

Grze­gorz Wierus during Hoson Zes / Lśnij

As often - 2023's LIVET: Suite for the Earth will live long in the memories of those who were lucky enough to see it - the festival concluded with a concert as well. Hoson Zes / Lśnij was the debut of CHOREA's new Chór Spół­dziel­czy (Cooperative Choir), made up of a mix of novice and experienced singers. Conducted jointly by Grze­gorz Wierus and Elina Toneva the choir presented a deeply stirring performance of Ancient Greek music - a fitting finale for a festival in which dialogue between past and present cultural expressions stood out as a vital aspect. 

Hoson Zes / Lśnij

The above remarks focus on only a selection of highlights of RPS 2025. Thanks to the efforts of this year's main coordinator, Ola Shaya, and team, this edition of the festival felt particularly packed. It also sustained momentum, with careful attention paid to the themes and sequencing of each individual day, and with room for fun details - such as surprise cameos from Julia Jakubowska's wonderfully frenetic 80s-styled fitness instructor. 

Julia Jakubowska

Like many other attendees, I'm sure, I invariably leave RPS feeling changed "on a cellular level" (as certain Americans currently like to put it...): challenged and expanded intellectually and with a sense of inhabiting one's body more fully, purposefully and presently. At once playing to its strengths as a festival and broadening its horizons, 2025 found Retroperspektywy in exceptionally good form. 

Photos by Agnieszka Czytacka fotografia