Andrew Paul, artistic director of Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre, has been in Poland, directing the non-English language premiere of "Stuff Happens," David Hare's fine play about the Bush administration, Blair et al and the run-up to Iraq. Paul directed it successfully for PICT in 2007, and another PICT director, Tadeusz Bradecki, arranged for him to come direct it with his company at the Slaski (which is to say, Silesian) Theatre in Katowice, about 60 kilometers from Krakow.

Andrew's occasional journal entries appeared first in my On Stage Journal, then were collected here, reading backwards from most recent to earliest (Jan. 7). The few passages in italics are my own commentary.

-- Chris Rawson

9 (and last). Monday, March 3: Triumphant Opening, David Hare, Auschwitz and Home at Last

After four long (up to 18 hour) days of tech and fine-tuning, we triumphantly opened "Stuff Happens" on Saturday, Feb. 23. Playwright David Hare was there along with his wife, fashion designer Nicole Farhi, and Pittsburghers Michael Ramsay and Mark Clayton Southers.

New cast member Andrzej Dopierala fit in seamlessly and delivered a flawless performance. There were a few line problems in the second act, but everyone seemed pleased with the result. During the lengthy curtain call, David Hare and I were called to the stage with shouts of "rezyseria" and "auteur." The proscenium was literally flooded with flowers. It was a very moving experience. No one does openings like the Poles.

The post-performance reception and party went on well into the night, and various Silesian delicacies and large quantities of Vodka were consumed. Syzmon Kuszmider, who plays George W. Bush with brilliant aplomb, brought in a bottle of his own 85 proof "Kuszmiderovka." The stuff is deadly. Over drinks, Szymon, who I would desperately like to bring to Pittsburgh to do a play, announced he will head to Sydney, Australia at the end of the year to star (in English) opposite Nicole Kidman in a Polish classic play. He also performs regularly (in German) with Max Reinhardt's Theatre in Vienna. He is the prototype of the modern actor, able to work anywhere in the world in whatever language is required.

On Sunday, I led Mark Southers, Sir David and Lady Hare on a lovely walking tour of Krakow. The Hares were absolutely charmed by the steelworker/playwright and we all had a fantastic day. They were both particularly fascinated (she is Jewish and David is the author of the play "Via Dolorosa" and the script of the film adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader," currently shooting in Berlin) by the Jewish Quarter of Kazimierz and its many cemeteries and synagogues.

We returned to Katowice at 4pm in time to witness the premiers of two new excellent Polish documentary films (one by Beata Dzianowicz, who collaborated on the visuals for "Stuff Happens") about Afghanistan. They were utterly fascinating and added much context to the panel discussion and public interview that followed with Tadeusz Bradecki, Sir David and myself.

I was exhausted and could not sit through the second night performance, so gratefully accepted David's invitation to share a bottle of wine at my favorite Katowice restaurant, Tatiana. What a week!

On Monday morning, the five of us set out for Auschwitz-Birkenau and, arriving at 8 a.m., had the place entirely to ourselves. David and I attempted to decipher the layout (the place is massive), while Nicole, who lost family members there, experienced the magnitude of it. The Hares then headed on to the airport in Krakow (they had another important European opening to attend, "The Vertical Hour," in Brussels), while Mark, Michael and I embarked on a three day road-trip in Tadeusz's beat-up Fiat.

Highlights included Wroclaw (the former German city of Breslau), the grave of the great 19th century African-American actor Ira Aldredge in Lodz, the excellent new Museum of the Warsaw Uprising and rebuilt old-town of Warsaw, and being pulled over for speeding (and paying the customary bribe) outside the Holy city of Czestochowa.

I returned home on Thursday, relieved and exhilarated by the experience. The reviews, from what I can make out in my fractured Polish, are largely positive with one national review saying that the play sends a welcome warning to Poland as regards its unwavering support of American foreign policy initiatives.

At customs in Chicago, the agent asked me "what were you doing in Poland?" "Directing a play about 9/11 and the American government's response to the tragedy," I replied. "Good or bad?" she replied with a knowing smile. Good and bad. You must immerse yourself in another world in order to truly understand and appreciate your own.

Yours,
Andrew

8. Monday, Feb. 18: Warhol in Poland and Aeschylus on 9/11

Over the weekend I was able to catch two major new productions at Krakow's Stary Teatr (literally, the Old Theatre), Poland's leading dramatic venue; a world premier by acclaimed director Krystian Lupa based upon the life of Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol and a heavily deconstructed Oresteia by 28 year old wunderkind director Jan Klata.

First some context: Tadeusz Bradecki began his professional career as an actor at Stary in 1977, and served as Artistic Director from 1990-1996. While AD, Tadeusz was instrumental in the creation of the Union of Theatres of Europe, the select group of 20 major European companies that includes the Stary, Romania's Bulandra Theatre and Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company. His tenure as Director coincided with the fall of communism and the profound personal, political and economic changes that followed in its wake. He left the Stary in 1996 after falling out with Poland's two preeminent directors, Lupa and Andrzej Wajda, each of whom still directs regularly there.

Lupa's "Factory 2" (Fabrika in Polish) is the theatrical event of the season in Poland, and I was lucky enough to gain an invitation to its opening performance on Saturday night. The Kameralna Theatre was packed with young, hip, urban sophisticates -- the sort of audience everyone in Pittsburgh wishes they had but don't. The show started at 6pm and finished at 1:30am. Yup, you heard me right, seven and one half hours!

Lupa is a major director with an absolutely unique style. I would describe his productions as anti-theatre. They are totally naturalistic, almost to the point of tedium. The first impression is that of hesitant responses with prolonged pauses, as if in a slow-motion movie. Lupa is renowned for the interior life of his characters, and here, at least, he doesn't disappoint. The excellent Stary actors fully inhabit the fifteen principal characters, all members of Warhol's coterie of actors and friends during his days of filmmaking at The Factory.

The director's premise for the play is that Warhol should have, in fact, died following the 1968 assassination attempt. This noble death might have elevated the pop artist, much in the way that John Lennon's tragic death in 1980 made the former Beatle a worldwide symbol for peace. The first three hours of the play were utterly fascinating, with outrageous displays of male nudity and much nervous laughter. We lost about 75 audience members at the first intermission, but I stuck with it. The actor playing Warhol, Piotr Skiba, was absolutely wonderful. But there are simply too many major characters and the final four and a half hours was, for me, diminishing returns. Still, an unmissable event -- I'm glad I saw it! Tom Sokolowski and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust should bring the piece in for a couple of performances at the Museum on the North Side.

Jan Klata's variation on Aeschylus' "The Oresteia" was spectacularly set in the immediate aftermath of the demise of The World Trade Center, with a chorus of Wall Street types (one of them played by Tadeus Bradecki's lovely wife, Magda Jarosz) in suits and ties covered with debris rising up out of the tragedy. The Gods were portrayed as pop stars, with a Robbie Williams look-alike performing a pumped up rock anthem at one point. This is the type of deconstructionist director's theatre that Polish critics love to rave about but, despite the great visuals, it left me cold.

We began the technical rehearsals for Stuff Happens today and were immediately thrown a curve, as Jerzy Kuczera, the excellent actor who portrays British Foreign Minister David Manning, has become severely ill. He has been in the hospital since Saturday and has a history of heart trouble. The decision was made this afternoon to begin rehearsing a replacement, Andrzej Dopierala, who started, script in hand, at 6 p.m. this evening. We have just three days to get him and the show ready. I'll be back in touch soon.

Yours,
Andrew

7. Monday, Feb. 11, continued

The latest installment of Andrew's on-going journal seemed to me best split in half; this was the second half.

I mentioned in earlier correspondence that I was thankful for the opportunity to read. I have now completed the latest novel from J.M. Coetzee, "Diary of a Bad Year," and Alan Bennett's novella, "The Uncommon Reader." The Coetzee is an autobiographical affair in which the celebrated author provides his opinions on the state of the world today, everything from literature to Australian politics to George Bush. The Bennett takes the premise that Queen Elizabeth II has suddenly, late in life, discovered the joys of reading, and whimsically turns her fevered obsession into a hilariously distressing State crisis.

Whimsy also rules Bohumil Hrabal's "I Served the King of England," a brilliant Czech novel I picked up in Prague. The story, told almost in the style of a fairy tale, relates the affairs of a waiter between the two World Wars, during the Nazi occupation, and finally under Communism. He sees much and rises to the top of his profession only to lose all and wind up alone and penniless. Jiri Menzel, who won an Academy Award for his adaptation of another Hrabal novel, "Closely Watched Trains," has completed a film of "I Served the King of England," which will be released in the U.S. sometime this year.

I have come to the conclusion that the Poles are obsessed with Dostoevsky's great novel, "The Possessed" (sometimes translated as "Demons" or "The Devils"). Tadeusz Bradecki mentioned the book frequently when we were working on "Hedda Gabler" last year in Pittsburgh, and Andrzej Wajda chose this material for his American stage debut at Yale Repertory Theatre in 1974 (Meryl Streep was in the cast).

I was invited last week to see the final projects of the second year directing students at the Center for Dramatic Arts in Krakow and the material was, of course, scenes from "The Possessed." What to do? I decided I'd better pick up a copy of the novel, which is in three parts and well over 700 pages. I'm about half way through it and it is particularly exhilarating. Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russia in 1869, it serves as an invaluable companion piece to Stoppard's "Coast of Utopia" about the rise of modern thought. This is a fantastic subject and I highly recommend the book to those who always wanted to read Dostoevsky and, like me, never found the time.

Yesterday, I departed early from Katowice and headed South toward Bielsko-Biala, the Aspen of Poland, and the Beskid and Tatras Mountains. I was joined by my translators, Tomasz Markiewka, who is about to finish editing the collected diaries of the great Polish historical novelist Teodor Parnicki, and Maria Korusiewicz and her husband, Leszek. Leszek, 6'6" and 222 pounds, is a retired history teacher, an English translator, yoga teacher and ardent outdoorsman. He is our guide for the 8km hike straight up the mountain to the summit of Skrzycne (don't try to pronounce it, you'll hurt yourself).

Skrzycne has the best and most difficult downhill skiing in Poland, on a course created to support Poland's failed bid for the 1964 Olympic Games. From the summit, views of Bielsko and the valley below are absolutely breathtaking. Hang gliders launch themselves from the peak in an explosion of bold pastels against the clear blue sky -- it's amazing! On the way down the backside of the mountain, Tomasz received a text message -- WELCOME TO SLOVAKIA. Ah, the joy and wonder of open European borders.

Leszek sets a blazing pace, so we were all exhausted and famished by the time we reached the town below, six hours later. Tomasz proposed we dine in nearby Rownica, in a lovely wood and hemp traditional cottage replete with roaring fireplaces, where they do a delicious grilled trout. I had a glass of Czech wine and Maria related the amazing particulars of her second career as a poet and artist.

She is a true Renaissance woman. Her artworks are created using heated metal plates, a special ink imported from France, and a unique paper that is soaked in water before use. The result is not unlike something by Leonardo de Vinci and, in fact, Maria designed the poster for the Boston Museum of Arts Leonardo exhibition. Her works sell for up to $2,500 in galleries in London and San Francisco and she designed a recent ad campaign for Adidas. I have asked her for an opening night gift -- she does a glorious Three Graces.

This week sees us finally move into full run-throughs of Stuff Happens. I'll be back in touch soon.

Yours,
Andrew

6. Monday, Feb. 11

The latest installment of Andrew's on-going journal seemed to me best split in half, so I'll hold part of it until later this week.

Chris, I know you'd prefer shorter letters more often, but this has proven impossible because of the nature of my schedule here. I have no time to breathe during the week and generally relax and conduct correspondence only on Mondays.

My brief trip home was just what the doctor (my wife) [who is, actually, a doctor] ordered. It is absolutely amazing how quickly an infant changes at this age. My beautiful Cristina Ileana is now 16 weeks old! We speak (well, I speak and she laughs and makes bird noises) daily on Skype [internet telephone], which is surely one of God's greatest creations, but there is nothing like touching, hugging and holding, is there?

She was, at first, a bit circumspect upon my arrival, but warmed quickly and we were laughing like I'd never left within a day. I brought back some Polish amber and Czech garnet jewelry for my wife Maria's birthday and a beautiful porcelain doll and Czech magnetic theatre for the bumba. I spent the weekend happily catching up with friends, family, and American politics. It was hard to leave on Tuesday morning.

My return trip was immediately thrown a curve when bad weather in Chicago delayed my flight to O'Hare. I arrived at the gate for my Lufthansa flight to Munich at 2:20pm for a 2:30 departure and was told they'd already sealed the doors. I was just about to despair and figure out an alternate route to Krakow when alarms started going off all around me. The plane, it so happens, was returning to the gate, as they needed to remove a sick passenger. One man's curse is another man's fortune.

I boarded, only to be seated next to the worst behaved child I have ever seen. An absolute monster! He refused to be restrained by a seat belt and threw a tantrum for well over 30 minutes until air-borne. He then refused to let me sleep and punched me in the head every time I closed my eyes. His parents, Poles, thought this was funny. I arrived in Munich at 6 a.m. and raced across the terminal to catch my 6:30 to Krakow, only to find the kid was on this flight too! He was happy to provide a repeat performance.

I arrived in Krakow right on time and was met promptly by my driver from the Slaski Theatre. Despite all this, I managed a full production meeting and evening rehearsal on stage. Buzz Miller and Jim Mueller, who designed the projections for the Pittsburgh production, graciously provided me with DVD's containing imagery to help my Polish team complete the visual design. I also brought back the costume worn by George W. Bush on the aircraft carrier.

We are firing on all cylinders now as we enter the crucial final two weeks before opening. My cast know their lines (most of them) and the rehearsals are becoming much more focused and dramatic. The set has been constructed (but not yet installed) and the video and projection design is in its final stages. A tailor is constructing all men's suits and the costume shop at the theatre is constructing the outfits for Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush. I think we'll have a show.

Yours,
Andrew

Note the interesting point of comparison between the children in the two halves of Andrew's letter. Of course no one else's child is ever as wonderful as one's own. But might having your own child change your attitude toward those of others, even on a transatlantic flight? . . . Maybe that happens only after you've had the experience of traveling with your own child after he or she has reached a difficult age.

5. Tuesday, Feb. 5

I'm sorry I've been out of touch so long -- things have been cranking up a notch with the production and we are all working extremely hard. Friday, Jan. 25, we halted rehearsal at noon for a minute of silence in honor of the 20 Polish airmen who died in a horrific crash in the Northern part of the country earlier in the week. The deceased included an Air Force General and many distinguished pilots who had served honorably in Bosnia and Afghanistan. The Polish government declared three days of mourning and all theatrical performances for the weekend were cancelled. The Polish press called it the worst Polish military disaster since the end of World War Two.

WWII leads me to the other big news item in Poland this week -- Andrzej Wajda's Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film for his acclaimed "Katyn," about the Katyn Forest massacre of 1941. Stalin had 20,000 of the finest officers in the Polish Army executed (single bullet to the back of the head) and buried in mass graves in the forest. The Nazis discovered the graves in 1943 and attempted to use the carnage as propoganda against the Soviets. The Soviets denied any involvement. Mikhail Gorbachev finally admitted the grisly crime in 1980, releasing Stalin's hand-signed letter authorizing the executions to eliminate dissent. I purchased Wajda's beautiful book documenting the film and incorporating the shooting script, numerous stills, and copies of documents and evidence pertaining to the massacre. I've yet to see the film.

Okay, we have now completed 30 rehearsals totalling 120 hours of work on "Stuff Happens." It's finally been fully staged and we have been able to work frequently in the theatre itself, which is enormously helpful. We have run Act 1 several times, but have yet to get through Act 2 without stoppages. Only three of my actors know their lines, which makes progress slow. These guys are used to a leisurely twelve weeks of rehearsal, and they do not like to work on their performances outside of rehearsal. I had to stop being Mr. Nice Guy and have been pushing them hard to develop the precision the play requires. We have only 10 more rehearsals before tech, so the process has become fraught with tension. We'll get there, but I'm sure we'll be biting nails.

In my previous letter, I mentioned the excellent actor Adam Baumann, who plays Colin Powell. I'm sure some of you may have already picked up on this, but he is Caucasian, as is Krysztyna Wisniewska, who plays Condoleezza Rice. Obviously, I'd have preferred to cast black actors, but the company (and region) simply doesn't have them. It would also be near impossible to bring in black actors from elsewhere and teach them Polish, which is a difficult language to learn on the fly. The actors playing the Palestinian Academic and Iraqi Exile are also white. So, in effect, what we have is a highly unique case of color-blind casting.

In Britain or the United States it would be outrageous to cast this way, but here it seems absolutely normal. We lose an element of racial politics that I incorporated in Pittsburgh, but we gain the overall effect of 16 actors entering a space, invoking many characters of diverse backgrounds, and telling a story. It's a story we think we already know, but in the telling we perhaps come to question our own perceptions of what transpired. Well, that's the hope anyway.

I note with interest the opening of "Amadeus" at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre this week, as I spent last weekend walking in Mozart's shadow in the glorious city of Prague in the Czech Republic. Mozart's "Don Giovanni" premiered here and Milos Forman shot much of the film in this beautiful, arts-friendly city. I stayed in a tiny little hotel near the Charles Bridge, in the shadow of Prague Castle, and attended the noon Changing of the Guard introduced by Vaclav Havel following the demise of Communism and modeled on those at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. The crowd was sparse (tourism is light in January), so I had a bird's eye view and really enjoyed the over-the-top theatricality of it.

You have to love a country that chooses for its President an absurdist playwright! Can you imagine Sam Beckett as the Prime Minister of Ireland? Havel is no longer in power, but he has written a new play, "Odchazeni" ("Leaving" in English), which he says will be his final statement as an artist. He is in ill health. I purchased a copy of the play in Czech, which I can't read. If any Post-Gazette reader has the langauge and would be willing to do me a basic translation, I'd be greatly appreciative. The English language edition won't be out for another year.

[If anyone wants to work with Andrew on this, send me an email I can forward to him.]

I also shared a few drinks with Ewa Zembok, a delightful young Polish director who is completing her post-graduate work in directing at the Czech National Theatre School, at Havel's old Theatre Under the Balustrade. A great many of his early plays, including "The Memorandum," premiered here before he was jailed as a dissident. The Theatre has a dozen plays in rep including Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," Adam Rapp's "Red Light Winter", and "Platonov" and "Uncle Vanya" by Chekhov.

It is Ewa who informed me of Havel's ill-health and regaled me with the unbelievable story of how "Odchazeni" got turned down at both the Czech National Theatre and the Theatre Under the Balustrade because Havel insisted upon casting his young second wife in the leading role. Apparently, she's not much of an actress! He married her shortly after his beloved first wife, made famous via his prison "Letters to Olga," died of cancer in 1997. The country has never forgiven him for it and his popularity is only a fraction of what it once was.

Ewa, who is a veritable fount of information, then described the haunting tale of the ghost who hovers over the Theatre Under the Balustrade. Evidently, the virtuoso young director who staged "Uncle Vanya" ten years ago (still in the repertory), lived in the Theatre while working on the project and hung himself one night from the flies. Can you imagine performing the play on the very stage where this happened?

I was pleased to see that Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll" is currently in rep at the Czech National Theatre, and bought a copy of the Czech text, which has numerous original essays accompanying it. The play was dedicated to Havel.

[Stoppard's play is set half in Prague and half in London. It's wonderful -- one of the Broadway plays I've seen but haven't yet had time to review.]

I also re-read Havel's "Largo Desolato," which is all about the repression of personal freedoms under Communism. The piece seems to have a new relevance in this age of uncertainty.

I have five days off, so I traveled back to Pittsburgh this weekend to surprise my wife Maria for her birthday and see my beautiful daughter, Cristina. I flew through Paris and had to clear security four times on three flights. Apparently I was a flight risk because I'd been in Poland for four weeks and was returning sans luggage. I had to be taken aside and interviewed by airport security. Still, despite my moaning, it beats the alternative, right?

All best,
Andrew

4. Sunday, Jan. 20

"Stuff Happens" translates (in our text) as "pewne rzeczy sie zdarzaja," though I have the actor who opens the show say the first line, the title, in English. Polish is quite a difficult language to learn. It also requires more syllables than English to say precisely the same thing -- the Polish text is 4 full pages longer than my original, this is not insignificant! It makes directing for rhythm and tempo quite tricky. We are continually reevaluating the text in rehearsal to find the optimal way to bring out the nuances.

My trip to Auschwitz evoked recollections from several Poles, most of whom have only been there to work or to take some out-of-town guest to see the camps. Adam Baumann, who plays Colin Powell, shot a film there with Willem Defoe called "Triumph of the Spirit." He played a Nazi SS Officer and related a harrowing story about a young actress who apparently suffered a nervous breakdown from the realistic recreation of a "selection" scene on the rail tracks at Birkenau.

Tadeusz Bradecki took many guests to the camps during his time as Artistic Director of Krakow's famed Stary Teatr, including the beautiful Bollywood actress Smita Patil (who died tragically at age 31 while in childbirth) and the legendary Swiss playwright Friedrich Durenmatt. Patil found the experience underwhelming (had she seen worse?) and Durenmatt only managed a couple of knowing grunts.

Last Monday, I spent a fabulous day in Krakow. The city lies in a valley and was blanketed that morning with a thick fog. This gave my perambulations a welcome sense of John Le Carre-like intrigue. I experienced the gorgeous central square, ringed by its magnificent houses and towering spires, then headed south to Wawel Cathedral, burial place of Poland's Kings and poets. Continuing south, I entered the Jewish district of Kazimierz. Or, rather, the formerly Jewish district as there is nary a Jew to be seen. It's shocking to find half a dozen synagogues and burial sites mixed in amongst the trendy bars, hotels, restaurants, and discotheques. One becomes immediately conscious of just how thorough the Holocaust was as one walks the streets and alleys of what was once one of the most thriving Jewish communities in Europe.

My legs were enjoying the stretch, so I continued across the River Wisla to Podgorze, the former Jewish Ghetto and the site of Oskar Schindler's Emalia Enamel Factory. There's not much to see there, though signs indicate that a museum is currently under renovation. Still, the place is familiar from the Spielberg film, which was shot in and around the factory. Podgorze has a moving sculpture dedicated to the victims of the tragedy, a series of empty chairs arranged in staggered rows, haunting the central square.

My television only gets five channels, mostly airing bad American television programs dubbed into Polish, so I have been doing a ton of reading. I just finished Robert Harris' "The Ghost," which is a thinly veiled thriller about a recent British Prime Minister and the ghostwriter conscripted to deliver his memoirs. Suffice it to say, the book provides a frighteningly implausible explanation for Tony Blair's undying support for the American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I highly recommend it.

The perils of the internet: I've just completed a lengthy letter to my design team incorporating a complete list of all projection and sound cues for "Stuff Happens," only to have my server time me out while in the process of sending. I made every attempt to retrieve the document, apparently without success. It looks like I must re-type. I'll be back in touch soon with more adventures from Silesia.

Best,
Andrew

3. Monday, Jan. 14

We've completed a week of rehearsals and progress has been good. The actors seem to be taking to the process and the political conversations, from a Polish context, have been most stimulating. Szymon Kusmider, who plays Bush and is my only non-company actor, was completing another project last week, so he joins us this week as we work through the first act.

The Slaski Teatr celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007 and is the pre-eminent professional theatre in this region. They retain a full-time resident company of 35 performers, and 15 of these will appear in "Stuff Happens." The actors are paid a monthly stipend plus fees for each performance and can make as much as $2,000 in a good month. The Theatre owns a slew of flats and also provides housing for the actors and their families at a modest cost. As in the States, the actors rely on additional earnings from teaching, film, televison and commercial opportunities to make ends meet.

My scenic and costume designer, Pawel Dobrzycki, has done tremendous work, enhancing many elements of my Pittsburgh production for the larger proscenium space in Katowice. In his early 50s, he has had a distinguished career in Poland and all over the world, including a "King Lear" at London's Young Vic and on world tour, directed by Helena Kaut Howson and starring Kathryn Hunter as Lear, with Marcelo Magni as The Fool.

I have picked up a nasty chest cough, which I cannot quite seem to get rid of. It kept me inside last week, but did not stop me from visiting Auschwitz and Wadowice this weekend.

Auschwitz is a truly depressing experience, but an essential one if we are to avoid repeating its horrors. The day I arrived the camp was back in the news courtesy of our esteemed Commander in Chief and his latest (unintended) verbal gaffe. "Why," he asked, "hadn't we bombed Auschwitz during the War?"

It's actually not a bad question. By 1944, when the killing was at its zenith, we had intelligence about what was happening there. Why couldn't we sabotage the rail lines or destroy the gas chambers and crematoria?

(Andrew can't know about the extensive coverage of this back in the States, with discussion about the debate that did take place in the U.S. government at the time.)

Standing on the tracks and staring straight into the famous guard tower above the entrance gate at Birkenau, it seems unimaginable that 1.5 million people lost their lives here. Still, days later what truly shocks and disturbs me is not so much that the Nazis killed these people, but that they also felt the need to inflict psychological torture upon them, which makes me shudder to the core of my being. "No more poetry after Auschwitz," in the words of the German philosopher Theodor Adorno. No, indeed.

Just 20 kilometres from Auschwitz, Wadowice is the birthplace of Karol Wojtyla, a playwright and thespian who later became Pope John Paul II. Whatever one thinks of the Roman Catholic Church, it cannot be denied that he played an enormous role in the demise of Communism in the former Eastern Bloc. Wadowice has a lovely town square, anchored by a beautiful onion-domed parish church where the future leader of the church was baptized. His birthplace, a simple two-room apartment, is now a museum packed with photographs from all stages of his life.

Before departing, I made sure to order a kremowki, a delicious creamy custard slice the region has made famous.

Back to rehearsals -- I'll update you on my continued travels to Krakow in my next letter.

All the best,
Andrew

2. Friday, Jan. 11

I cannot believe the weather you've been getting -- global warming is becoming scary! I've been saddled with a cold, but the rehearsals are great and I will see Auschwitz and experience Krakow this weekend. Still, I miss my wife and daughter! Six weeks to go . . . .

David Hare and his wife, Nicole Farhi, will both be here on February 23rd for the opening. It should be a memorable evening. No one does openings like the Poles!!! They had about a dozen curtain calls on "Polterabend" and summoned the author to the stage with chants of "auteur, auteur." I'm thinking Hare will get the same treatment.

All the best,
Andrew

1. Monday, Jan. 7

I am here in lovely, drab, amazingly cold Katowice. We started rehearsing "Stuff Happens" on Saturday. The cast is wonderful and the theatre is beautiful. I think we will do some interesting work. The rehearsals are hilarious, as my Polish is appalling and we do a lot of "interpreting" with one another. I have three bilingual assistants and many of the actors (the younger ones) have good English. The official opening is now set for Feb. 23. I have been chatting with David Hare and think he will be able to attend.

I have seen two excellent shows here this weekend; Tadeusz Bradecki's world premier production of a new play called "Polterabend" and McDonagh's "A Skull in Connemara." "Polterabend" is a Silesian history play which looks at how the people of this region have been victimized by the machinations of history. In Poland, Silesia is known as Slask, in the Czech Republic as Slezsko, and in Germany as Schlesien. All three countries have at one time or another been the dominant power and the people, consequently, suffer from issues of identity. It will serve as an excellent companion piece to "Stuff Happens," which personalizes the power-brokers of modern history. A sort of micro and macro look at the politics of destruction.

Upper Silesia is the most densely populated part of Poland, with well over two million inhabitants, and Katowice is the region's largest city. The guidebooks all say to avoid it and even the locals apologize for it, but it has its charms. I would whimsically describe it as a cross between Doctor Zhivago and the Cold War (I keep expecting to run into Omar Sharif and Julie Christie on the century old electric trolley system used to travel across the city). I have been here just three days, but have already discovered a wonderful Russian restaurant called Tatiana that offers the most delectable cream of asparagus soup I have ever tasted.

My apartment is on the roof of the theatre -- I would describe it charitably as a garret. It has twin skylights across the slanted ceiling above my bed and makes me feel like I'm living in "La Boheme." I pile on the blankets to fortify myself against the bitter Silesian cold, but I'm starting to get used to it now. I decided to stay in Katowice this weekend and prep for the play, but plan to see Auschwitz and experience Krakow next weekend. I'll report further then.

All the best,
Andrew

I love the idea of Andrew, with his Irish & Classical background, running right into Martin McDonagh's play, part of the Leenane Trilogy along with "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" and "The Lonesome West." In fact, "Skull in Connemara" is a quote from "Waiting for Godot" by another Irishman of some note. And you'll be pleased to know that I wrote him right back and pointed out it was in the 60s here -- typical meteorological chauvinism.