Zwierzęta, które zjadły swoich ludzi / Звірята, що з’їли своїх людей
Nisza, Warsaw 2022
Languages: Polish and Ukrainian
Ewa Sułek’s black comedy echoes the theater of the absurd from the mid-20th century – the dramas of Beckett, Ionesco, Mrożek, created in response to the horrors of world war. The Polish author’s play predates the current war: it was written in 2019, five years after the outbreak of war in Donbas and the annexation of Crimea, three years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What it has in common with the drama of the absurd is the questioning of the “normal” order and the building of tragedy through farcical comedy. It is a story about the absurd world of war, in which the dead are more alive than the living, and animals become more human than inhuman people.
Roman Pawłowski