An emotionally intense depiction of the last moments of John Paul II’s life and the first moments following his departure. A suggestive portrayal of human weakness and strength in the face of death. On April 2nd, 2005, at 9:37 p.m., the Pope’s personal physician Renato Buzzonetti pronounced John Paul II dead. All social and cultural life came to a standstill in an instant. Thousands of people came out onto the streets, cars and public transport stopped, fans halted league games. The most important words of those days became Santo Subito! (Saint immediately!).
The script bases itself on biographies, recollections and diaries of the Pope’s closest associates as well as on medical and palliative care records, and on the Order of Christian Funerals, Ordo Exsequiarum. Another source of inspiration was Albert Serra’s film “The Death of Louis XIV”.
In their play stage director Jakub Skrzywanek and dramaturge Pawel Dobrowolski look again at the last moments of Karol Wojtyła’s life and ask whether we are all equal in the face of death and illness, whether there are limits to showing illness and suffering, and what happens when things that should remain private become public. These are particularly significant questions to pose within a society that has still not reconciled itself with the death of John Paul II. The almost documentary reconstruction of John Paul II’s departure clearly illustrates that – in the face of death – all humans are equal. Even the Holy Father leaves the world as a helpless, weakening person depending on other people’s assistance. Shortly after his death, his suffering is virtually erased by the urging social need to make him a symbol, a hero of a universally unifying story. The purpose of the staging is neither provocation, nor mockery: it aims to demonstrate the greatness of the ordinariness of human dying. Through a sort of ‘meditative’ concentration the performance enables us to ponder the complexity of each death as well as the fact that on its threshold even the God’s minister becomes an everyman.

Jakub Skrzywanek (b. 1992) ranks among the most distinctive personalities of the young generation of Polish stage directors. He is a graduate from the Faculty of Drama Direction at the Academy of Theatre Arts in Cracow, the Faculty of Philology at the University of Wrocław, and the DOKPRO course at the Wajda Master School. On a permanent basis, Skrzywanek collaborates with Teatr Polski in Poznan and Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw. The latter one put on his productions Mein Kampf (2019), thematizing the phenomenon of the Nazi manifesto, and Immoral Stories (2021), inquiring into the trial against Roman Polanski, a French-Polish film director convicted of rape. Constantly addressing controversial social issues, Skrzywanek often works abroad. In the Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent, he put on stage Underground Girls (2021) relating the status of Afghan women under Taliban rule and the emancipation of women in Islamic regions. Since 2022, Jakub Skrzywanek has worked as the artistic director of the Contemporary Theatre in Sczecin. The jury of the 2022 edition of the Katowice Interpretation Festival of Directing Art unanimously awarded him the 1st prize for The Death of John Paul II. In January 2023, he received the prestigious Polish award Polityka Passport.

The TWB Festival presents two productions directed by Jakub Skrzywanek: The Death of John Paul II and SPARTACUS. Love in the Time of the Plague, which is set in a children’s psychiatric clinic.

‘The performance from Poznan depicts the process of dying, whereby it fulfils the elementary theatrical mission: enabling spectators to reflect the sources of their deepest pains and to steel themselves for presumed and real recurrences of their fears. In simple terms, the Death of John Paul II is a play for everyone regardless of their faith or the degree of their scepticism.’

Piotr Dobrowolski, https://czaskultury.pl

‘Michał Kaleta enacts the role of the dying Pope in an absolutely stirring manner. Throughout the entire performance he doesn’t say a word; he plays with his ill, distorted body, breathing heavily, coughing and flailing his hands in powerless gestures. He plays phenomenally.’

Sylwia Klimek, kultura.poznan.pl

‘The Polski Theatre has come up again with an extraordinarily thoughtful performance in which the whole cast is allowed to shine thanks to the focused work of the stage production team.’

Natasza Thiem, Dziennik Teatralny