Direction, choreography, costumes and performance:
Hertz Haus (Magdalena Kowala, Natalia Murawska, Joanna Woźna, Anna Zglenicka)
music: Wojciech Wilk
dramaturgic consultations: Patrycja Kowańska
lighting consultations: Filip Ejsmont
duration: 60 min
premiere: 26.07.2024 produced as part of the ShakespeareOFF 2024 competition
performance for adult audiences, nudity
The performance received the main prize SzekspirOFF during the 28th Shakespeare Festival in Gdańsk.
To be or not to be for the body. In cultural and social contexts, we use concepts and – however – judgements. A dirty body or one that is clean? Unsullied or remaining what it is in its essence? Are there universal criteria for resolving dilemmas? For the creators, physicality, guts, digestion and excretion, blemishes, eczema and stains are important; a laboratory where physiology meets philosophy.
In the performance "To Bitch or Not to Bitch", Hertz Haus takes Shakespeare's poem "The Rape of Lucretia" as a starting point, but without reaching for direct representations of violence. Instead, it focuses on the traces that rape leaves on the female body and female psyche, and on caring for the wronged body.
This is also a story about the border separating clean from dirty, and what can be shown in the theater from what should not be shown.
