Post by @federicabalbi
Seen at Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 19th of August 2024
5 stars – powerfully unsettling
Sheol is the name of the afterworld in ancient Hebrew traditions. According to different textual sources, it has either positive connotations to it, or negative, or neither.
A soprano and three musicians are the characters of this performance created by the Grotowski Institute and Katowice Miasto Ogrodów (TEATROGRANTY 2021). The action is set on the thin line between objective and subjective reality, when a traumatic event tends to blur it. Through light effects, accumulation of objects, sounds, and movements, this performance gives life to suspended time out of time, the time for grief, where hints of folly lurk from shadows and thick vapour.
The concept of Sheol was first drafted in 2020 by Monika Wachowicz (who is also performer, writer, costume designer, and stage director) and Jarosław Fret, when the Polish government made abortion unlawful, with severe punishments for doctors who might be discovered practising it. As a consequence, women died from dangerous pregnancies, others had to continue their pregnancy even if they were carrying a dead foetus. Sheol also finds inspiration in Chagall’s paintings and in Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No.3, known as ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’, whose heart-wrenching third section is about a woman mourning the loss of her son.
Noises and voices are blown out of proportions in this ‘sound experiment’ that also has an extraordinarily strong visual component. Medical tools collide in sound with musical instruments; obsessive actions try to restore some normality to the woman’s life, while making it lean towards the opposite edge. Music by Marcin ‘Cozer’ Markiewicz and musical arrangements by Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time (Jan Skopowski and Kamil Grabowski) convey the play its unique atmosphere. Like Nobody Meets Nobody and The Border, Sheol takes place in Grotowski Institute’s tent. The secluded yet communitarian atmosphere guaranteed by the tent contributes to the effect of feeling everything with increased intensity: joy and grief, hope and despair.
3rd-24th August; 8.30 pm
Running time: 75 minutes
Venue: Pleasance at EICC – Grotowski Institute
Tickets and Info: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/sheol
Company Website: https://grotowski-institute.pl/
Butterwort 
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