Bronisław Piłsudski Was Here. A Wax Cylinder Musical

The Pomysłodalnia Foundation / playwrights: Piotr Wyszomirski, Magdalena Olszewska, lyrics: Magdalena Olszewska, direction: Piotr Wyszomirski
music: Krzysztof Wojciechowski, choreography and costumes: Karolina Merda, design and manufacture of dolls: Robert Poryziński, visuals: Łukasz Rat Czerwiński
cast: Karolina Merda and Krzysztof Wojciechowski

producer: Joanna Zabuska

The musical tale of Bronisław Piłsudski partly recorded on… wax cylinders.

Józef Piłsudski’s older brother was an extraordinary character and certainly his extraordinary life story will be filmed eventually. For now, Bronisław Piłsudski is more known in the world than in his homeland. His research on the culture of Ainu people is one of the greatest ethnographic achievements of the first half of the 20th century, his works are among the most cited in the world literature in the field of ethnography and anthropology.

As a member of the Narodnaya Volya, the organization of Russian revolutionaries, he was tasked with getting an explosive charge for a bomb that was to be used in the assassination of Emperor Alexander III. His death penalty was exchanged for 15 years of exile. In Sakhalin, he got to know Ainu culture, he married an Ainu woman with whom he had two children – his biography is an unusual story.

“Bronisław Piłsudski Was Here. A Wax Cylinder Musical” is a style hybrid, closest to theatrical performance. Two actors-performers, playing different characters (including both Piłsudski brothers) will present fragments of Broniś life (as he was called still in his adulthood) with particular emphasis on his stay with Ainu people. The most important component is of course live music performed on many instruments from various musical cultures. The original, unique records made in 1903, which he made together with the Polish writer and traveller Wacław Kajetan Sieroszewski on the island of Hokkaido, are used in the show. Polish researchers used the most modern phonogram of Thomas Edison, with which they recorded about 100 conversations and songs of indigenous people on wax cylinders.

The Pomysłodalnia Foundation is run by prosumers and cultural activists who create friendly situations for non-trivial initiatives. We invite professional actors and off-ians to proprietary projects in which we talk about what is important to us and what we lack in contemporary theatre presentations. We offer artists the opportunity to test themselves in new situations and challenges. A special item in our repertoire is a musical performance (including “This is not a love song. Love will distort everything”, “The true story of laughter”, “Being like Charlie Chaplin”,”Bigbit”). A separate format is the Flying Circus of Ideas, in which we practice intervention theatre (“Last Supper”, “Slavery still exists”). Since 2002, we have been involved in a civic medium: Gazeta Świętojańska online.

www.pomyslodalnia.pl