Witaj Barabaszu. Nowe dramaty

This collection of Jarosław Jakubowski’s dramatic works presents a wide range of subjects: a forgotten political hero gone mad, the exposure of former communist functionaries, or an eccentric old man bogged down in a murderous routine. But despite this variety, at their core each of these plays is marked by History – in that the personal stories of the protagonists barely constitute a small portion of a larger, less subjective, and more unsparing social or national narrative. 

Jakubowski’s protagonists hover close to death – they occupy borderland between life and the beyond or have already passed into that world and are called on by the living to give testimony or pass judgement. This summoning of spirits helps reveal the darker side of the human psyche, the gathering place for experiences that have been expelled from memory, including that of the collective. At the same time, however, certain social mechanisms are exposed that sentence individuals to isolation, loneliness, insanity or even damnation. 

The free treatment of figures and events from Polish history helps move them beyond their national context into a more universal, trans-cultural realm. Perhaps precisely such a manner of writing about history – not based on facts but on psychology and enriched with speculations and legends, not avoiding unequivocal opinions no matter how grotesque they might ultimately prove to be – might lead to a mature and mindful discussion of the problem of national identity that is otherwise drowned out by media noise and political clamour.