Returning from two months abroad, Andrew Paul was asked by the customs agent, "What were you doing in Poland?" "Directing a play about 9/11 and the American government's response," he replied. "Good or bad?" she asked.

Both, Paul thought. "You must immerse yourself in another world in order to appreciate your own," he wrote in his post-gazette.com journal of his experience.

The artistic director of Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre was in Poland for most of two months, directing the non-English language premiere of "Stuff Happens," David Hare's trenchant play about the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. Paul staged it successfully here last May, and a Polish director he employed at PICT, Tadeusz Bradecki, enlisted him to direct the same play at his Slaski (Silesian) Theatre in Katowice, about 60 kilometers from Krakow.

It would be the non-English-language premiere of the play, which had had noted runs in London, Los Angeles and New York before Pittsburgh. It brought Hare and his Algerian-Jewish wife, Nicole Fahri, to Katowice for the opening, which made Paul and Hare the media stars of the moment.

Paul says the response was more conservative than in Pittsburgh. The Polish audience resisted anything that seemed like Bush-bashing, loosening up only as they realized Hare's play is no simple satire but an exploration of the politics of power, like Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," with which Paul had paired it in Pittsburgh.

Interviewed on three Polish TV networks, Paul had the temerity to say he thought Poles supported Bush "not because they like him but because they're frightened of Putin." He was told that each network edited that out of their coverage.

The opening was grand. He says he and Hare were "called to the stage with shouts of 'rezyseria' [director] and 'auteur.' The proscenium was literally flooded with flowers. It was a very moving experience. No one does openings like the Poles."

In the concluding days of his sojourn, Paul found himself playing tour guide for the Hares, visiting the historic Holocaust-related sights of nearby Krakow and Auschwitz and taking off on a road trip with Pittsburgh friends Michael Ramsay and Mark Clayton Southers, visiting the grave of the great 19th-century African-American actor Ira Aldredge in Lodz "and being pulled over for speeding [and paying the customary bribe] outside the holy city of Czestochowa."

Back in Pittsburgh, he reflected with wry wonder on his international adventure. Pittsburgh theater has had a lot of that, with Quantum Theatre and Squonk Opera joining PICT in touring, and Unseam'd Shakespeare, barebones and Kuntu venturing to the Edinburgh Festival.

But Paul had to get used to working with a European company, where the actors usually rehearse for 12 weeks (he had only seven, generous by American standards) and seemed to take cigarette breaks every half hour. They learned their lines by rehearsing, not studying them on their own, as American actors do -- but American theaters don't have 10 or 11 plays in rotating repertory, with actors appearing in as many as five.

Excerpts from Paul's "Katowice Journal" (read the whole journal at post-gazette.com/theater):

Jan. 7: I am here in lovely, drab, amazingly cold Katowice. We started rehearsing "Stuff Happens" on Saturday. The cast is wonderful and the theater is beautiful. The rehearsals are hilarious, as my Polish is appalling and we do a lot of "interpreting" with one another.

My apartment is on the roof of the theater -- I would describe it charitably as a garret. It has twin skylights and makes me feel like I'm living in "La Boheme." I pile on the blankets to fortify myself against the bitter Silesian cold.

Jan. 14: The Slaski Teatr celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007. It retains a full-time resident company of 35 performers, and 15 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.

Feb. 5: Only three of my actors know their lines, which makes progress slow. I had to stop being Mr. Nice Guy and have been pushing them hard to develop the precision the play requires.

Adam Baumann, who plays Colin Powell, 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. The actors playing the Palestinian Academic and Iraqi Exile are also white. So what we have is a highly unique case of color-blind casting.

You have to love a country that chooses for its president an absurdist playwright [Vatslav Havel]! Can you imagine Sam Beckett as prime minister of Ireland?

Feb. 11: 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 ... I think we'll have a show.

Feb. 18: Over the weekend I was able to catch a world premiere by acclaimed director Krystian Lupa based upon the life of Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol at Krakow's Stary Teatr. The (theater) was packed with young, hip, urban sophisticates -- the sort of audience everyone in Pittsburgh wishes they had but don't. The show started at 6 p.m. and finished at 1:30 a.m.! The first three hours were utterly fascinating, with outrageous displays of male nudity and much nervous laughter. ... Tom Sokolowski should bring the piece in for a couple of performances at (The Andy Warhol Museum) on the North Side.

March 3: After four long (up to 18 hour) days of tech and fine-tuning, we triumphantly opened "Stuff Happens" on Feb. 23. David Hare was there along with his wife. ... (The lengthy curtain call) was very moving. No one does openings like the Poles.

Szymon Kusmider (who played Bush), who I would desperately like to bring to Pittsburgh, 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) in Vienna. He is the prototype of the modern actor, able to work anywhere in the world in whatever language is required.