Cezary Goes to War

A legendary performance. It toured the world, receiving enthusiastic acclaim everywhere it went – rewarded with standing ovations in New York, Munich, and Santiago de Chile. In 2025, a television version produced by Teatr Telewizji premiered.

The play deconstructs military ethos and pride to make the audience aware of their toxic dimensions and oppressiveness. The play draws on the author’s personal experience of having to appear before an army conscription committee. This memory serves as the vehicle for a funny, witty, and spot-on critique of nationalistic war discourses, which resonates with particular force in modern-day Poland. Using elements of Moniuszko’s and Szostakiewicz’s musical compositions and Nijinsky’s ballet Afternoon of a Faun, the director engages the audience in a series of subversive identity games that not only undermine gender norms but also turn the military ethos on its head.

The director’s biography, written for four actors and a pianist, becomes a pretext to redefine the existing concepts and create their own queer fantasy system. The performance, in which Nijinsky’s Afternoon of the Faun comes to life in the men’s dressing room with one of Moniuszko’s songs, aerobic exercises with Shostakovich’s battle symphony and the memory of recruitment commision’s decision from years ago becomes an impulse for launching performative, camp variety. The performance counts among the most important theatre events of 2017. Awarded for the best artistic team at 10th ITF Divine Comedy in 2017.