The dilemmas of people-paprika-makers at the Contemporary Theatre

"Paprykarz szczeciński" by Marcin Liber at the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin is a comedy about life and death, and about what we have inside, under the aluminum lid. As one of the viewers said in a survey conducted by TW: "If Szczecin were a can of paprykarz, what would have to be inside? Kebab from Bar Rab mixed with the juiciness of the word "typiara".

Artur Daniel Liskowacki wrote about this art: "Let's imagine such a world. No, let's imagine such a country, or even better: Szczecin. In which we are all what we associate with Poland, or even more precisely: what we appear to ourselves. Szczecin's paprykarz! And we appear to be them - no matter whether seriously or just jokingly - adopting Szczecin's paprykarz, an iconic regional product with a tradition dating back to the Polish People's Republic, as our cultural identifier, a kind of emblem. A sign of local identity.

The creators of Paprykarz szczeciński at the Contemporary Theatre – the author of the text Michał Kmiecik and the director Marcin Liber – seem to start from such a diagnosis, only to move on to a more capacious story about community and identity in general.

The people-paprikas they bring to life on stage become a symbol of the community as such; searching – on the one hand – for that which unites it and defends it from the outside world, but on the other – avoiding all searching, xenophobic, closed to this world, like the cans in which their characters are dressed. And the cans are what they are called, large and round, with only heads and limbs sticking out of them".

Performances: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 7 p.m.

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