Cruel to Be Kind

Poland’s avant-garde Theater Kana troupe is on its first U.S. tour, introducing American audiences to its acclaimed brand of biting, sometimes cruel drama.

The primary goal of the company, which stages its critically praised production of Russian Venedict Erofeyev’s “Moscow-Petushki” Sunday at the Orange County Museum of Art, is to rip apart theatergoers’ illusions about life.

And where do the thespians go after a hard day in this offshoot of what’s known as theater of cruelty?

The Happiest Place on Earth, of course.

“They truly loved Disneyland,” said Joanna Klass, a Polish emigre now living in Costa Mesa, who arranged the eight-member troupe’s U.S. trip.

After going to the Magic Kingdom this week, Klass said: “They were really astounded. . . . They had never encountered anything like it in their lives and said over and over, ‘You really know how to entertain in the United States.’ ”

Klass told them to expect something akin to the bad old days in their native country--”just like the old Communist times when you stand in line for a long time.” But those lines never materialized during their weekday visit. “They said I exaggerated.”

The contrast between Theater Kana’s frequently severe style of theater and its members’ admiration for a quintessentially escapist form of American entertainment isn’t as great as it might seem.

“We’re interested in touching a whole range of emotions, mostly pain and transgressing pain,” said director Zygmunt Duczynski, who founded Theater Kana in 1979 and who writes, directs and designs costumes for his productions. (He’s also a licensed psychotherapist in Poland but gave up his practice to devote his time to Theater Kana.) “We’re interested in extremes: the outsiders of the mainstream, the blasphemous, the funny, improper and indecent.”

Their chief method is juxtaposition of contrasting emotions. Plots typically are minimized or eliminated; seemingly unrelated moods, emotions and recollections are played up.

“The reality of our performance is like the reality of dreams,” actor Jacek Zawadki said. “Sometimes it’s not logically connected.”

Klass likens it to American free jazz, which ignores traditional musical structure in favor of free-form improvisation by individuals.

“You swing the audience,” she said, “keep them off balance. They’re never stable, never sure what is going to happen.”

Theater Kana makes the audience vulnerable in an effort to get them to understand themselves better.

“We respect the audience,” said Duczynski, adding that his company would never engage in some of the tactics use by stricter practitioners of theater of cruelty. Klass cited another company’s play-within-a-play, in which actors posing as communist thugs dragged members of the audience watching one performance from their seats to an underground room where another play--the real one--was being staged. “We have a feeling of responsibility for them and their time,” Duczynski said.

Theater Kana’s minimalist approach is heavily influenced by Polish playwright and director Jerzy Grotowski’s idea that minimizing stage trappings such as sets, costumes and lighting can heighten emotional impact.

In “Moscow-Petushki,” the few stage props include a suitcase, a candle, a mirror and a suspended lightbulb.

Zawadki, who portrays the drunken author in Erofeyev’s autobiographical piece, stressed that the one-man show isn’t all cruelty and vulnerability.

“It’s funny too,” he said. “I have big fun with it and get to say some very funny things. The writings of Erofeyev are like being on the edge. You see life as funny and cruel, metaphysical and normal.”

The members of Theater Kana, like most Poles, experienced all of the above at the hands of the totalitarian regimes that existed before the late-’80s collapse of communism.

Government officials typically had little appreciation for the authority-challenging approach of Theater Kana and other troupes. Such alternative theaters were routinely subjected to censorship; actors and writers were frequently intimidated, even beaten.

“We ignored the censorship,” the deep-voiced Duczynski said through Klass, who translated. “We used theater as a tool against the government.”

Zawadki said it was common for artists on their way to a performance to be whisked away and held for 48 hours. Charges were rarely filed, but performances were effectively ended.

And worse.

“I had good friends who were exiled,” said Zawadki, who is fluent in English. Since Poland became a democratic state in 1990, all his exiled friends have been allowed to return home, he noted.

Others have found it easier to leave now, making international touring possible. Thus Theater Kana was able to attend the 1994 Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, where it won the critics’ award for “The Night.” Both works being staged for U.S. audiences are adapted from writings of Erofeyev, a dissident satirist who died in 1990 after Soviet authorities refused to grant him permission to go to France for treatment of throat cancer.

The troupe’s tour has stopped in West Hollywood, Claremont, San Francisco and San Diego and ends Sunday in Newport Beach. Here, as elsewhere, the company’s productions have been lauded. One reviewer for The Times said Zawadki was riveting in “Moscow-Petushki” as a man trying to travel by train from Moscow to the paradise-like village of Petushki but who discovers he’s on the wrong train.

“Petushki is that corner of the world where birds never stop singing and jasmine never stops blooming,” Zawadki said. “It’s everybody’s journey to paradise.”

* Theater Kana presents “Moscow-Petushki” on Sunday in the Museum Education Center of the Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. 2 p.m. $8-$10. Reservations required. (714) 759-1122.