My Winter's Tale: A Polish Theatre Road Trip

I am thirty-two years old, I am standing in the middle of a dark road in Poland, and next to me, lying on its side, is my rental car.

Let me rewind.

I had written to the largest theatre in Krakow, Teatr Stary (The Old Theatre), asking if I could watch them rehearse something. I had no previous connection to this theatre, I contacted them out of the blue. At that time, if you wanted to write to someone in Poland, you mailed a letter. So I had a Polish friend write the letter for me in Polish and sent it off. When I received a letter in return (also in Polish), I carried it around for a week, not knowing what it said, until I could connect with my friend for a translation.

The Artistic Director of Teatr Stary said, sure, come whenever you want, here’s what we are producing this year. And I showed up in November of 1990 to watch them rehearse Fantazy, by Juliusz Slowacki, a bonifide classic of the Polish theatrical canon. Teatr Stary had three theatre spaces, each performing 10 plays apiece in rep for a total of 30 plays. The price of a ticket was about three dollars, the regular price. The only price. The Polish communists wanted to make sure that everyone could afford to go to the theatre, even though the only ones who wanted to were the intelligentsia. The government used to regularly shut work down for a day and force everyone to go to the theatre. Think of that. Anyway, I saw all thirty plays. I don’t speak Polish, and this experience cemented my lifelong exploration of a non-language-based theatre. Please see my previous post about that. One of the plays was Andrzej Wajda’s Hamlet IV, please see my previous post about that.

After six weeks in Krakow, the dramaturg at Teatr Stary suggested that I get out of town to see some other groups. As a matter of fact, she said, “Gardzienice Theatre is performing this Saturday. Gardzienice is a famous theatre, the director worked with Grotowski, and they do not perform often.” (Gardzienice is pronounced gar-jah-NEET-sah.) They were doing a piece called Carmina Burana. They were 200 miles north in a tiny town of the same name. It would take me three and a half hours to drive there. Piece o’ cake.

On Saturday, I took a tram to the rental car place, where the rental car woman gave me a paper map, with the route drawn on in magic marker. She drew a circle around a blank area which they told me was my destination. This is where Gardzienice is, she explained. It was so small it was not on the map. I looked at the completely blank space inside the circle and nodded.

The weather in Krakow was perpetually rainy that winter. I was told that it rained even when it was below freezing, something having to do with the pollution.

I started driving at noon on that Saturday. It was an 8pm show, so, even if I got lost, I would be there in plenty of time. I did not actually have an address for the theatre, but the village was tiny. The dramaturg told me that If I rolled down my car window and yelled “Gardzienice” and “Teatr,” at a passer-by, someone would be able to direct me. I hoped that was true.

So I headed out of Krakow in the dreary rain, driving east on mostly country roads.

After a half an hour it started to snow. None of that pesky pollution to keep the snow at bay now that I was in the Polish countryside. It soon became clear that this would not be a few flurries, but an out-and-out snowstorm. My speed decreased with the increase of the snow and I began to do the math in my head of when I would get there, owing to my decreasing speed. ETA: Four o’clock, four thirty, five o’clock, five thirty…

By the time it actually was four o’clock, and I should have arrived already, I was just about halfway there. It was dark and snowing hard and I was on a tree-lined stretch of road which was miles from any town in every direction.

Then I hit the black ice.

The car began to spin on the road like a carousel and I prepared for the inevitable impact. The car spun forever, but must have only been a couple of seconds and finally the car and my stomach come to a stop, both sideways, in a ditch of water, eight feet below the side of the road.

Discovering that I was miraculously unhurt, I turned the car off. I climbed out of the door that was facing the sky, like an astronaut exiting his capsule from an ocean recovery, and climbed up onto the road.

The snow-covered road was tree-lined, with no light in any direction. No houses. Nothing but white and darkness. Classic horror movie scenario.

I don’t know how long I stood there. There was no place to go. And then I saw a tiny figure walking toward me out of the snow. It came toward me like an angel in a Christmas movie. As the figure came closer, it became clear that it was a 9-year-old boy. My savior! Although I don’t speak Polish, I had learned how to say two phrases perfectly: “I am an American.” And in case it wasn’t painfully obvious, “I don’t speak Polish.”

This little boy looked at me, looked at the car, and then looked back at me. He stared at me with absolute fervor, making some strange gesture with his fists, and said, “Linka! Linka!” I of course, did not know what this meant. I could also say “I don’t understand” in Polish and so I did. The little boy, faced with someone who could not understand him, did what everyone does: He repeated himself louder. “LINKA! LINKA!” And the same strange fist gesture. I looked at him and shrugged, the universal language of despair. My little imp shrugged back and continued walking on his way until he disappeared into the snowfall - like the ghost that perhaps he had been all along.

Only later did I discover that “linka” meant chain. The boy reasoned that if only I had a chain, I could pull the car out of the ditch. With my bare hands, I’m guessing.

I was standing there thinking, if only someone would invent a portable phone that you could keep in your pocket and use in emergencies…

Finally, I saw headlights coming toward me. The car in question slowed down until it stopped about thirty feet from me, in the center of the road. I as I stood there in the spotlight, I saw a large Polish man get out of the driver’s side and walk toward me. He stopped and looked at me, looked at my beached whale of a car and then back at me. This time I said nothing. I didn’t have to tell him I was American – it was sadly evident.

He turned around and looked at his vehicle. At that moment five more men got out of the car and walked toward him. Now, six big-armed Poles were standing in a semicircle around me. I looked at them and said nothing. They looked at me and said nothing. Then, without saying a word to me or to each other, the six men climbed down into the ditch, grabbed underneath the car with their hands and lifted it off the ground like it was an inflatable pool toy. They then carried it up the ravine and set it back onto the road, tires to the ground. The driver then gave me the universal gesture for “There’s ice on the road, you American idiot.” And without a word they got into their Toyota and drove off.

I showed up to Carmina Burana a half hour late and slipped into the back of the small performances room as secretly as I could. But apparently not secretly enough. Afterwards, I told the director Staniewski how much I liked the performance. He spoke English and merely said, “Ah yes, you were the one who came in late.”

Yes, I was, I thought.

After the performance, the cast led us with torches through the cold, dark Polish woods to a stone farmhouse, warmed by a fiery hearth. Everyone - actors and audience - ate, drank, and talked until morning. We slept on the floor and drove home the next day.

Perhaps in a future post I will tell you about the play.