How to Lift the Curse? Oliver Frljić and the Poles
How to Lift the Curse? Oliver Frljić and the Poles

Summary/Abstract: Agata Adamiecka’s article is devoted to Oliver Frljić’s affective The Curse, a play of unprecedented social impact in the post-transformation history of theater in Poland. Adamiecka chiefly focuses on the closing scene, where a wooden cross is cut down and a noose is hung around a plaster figure of John Paul II, as the clearest acts of symbolic violence, through which the artists affectively work on the audience, simultaneously showing themes that are most powerful taboos in the public sphere. Turning her attention to the wave of violence that actress Julia Wyszyńska experienced after the premiere, as well as statements by the Minister of Culture and other representatives of the political right, the author demonstrates how The Curse reveals the structure of symbolic power in Poland, with the inextricable alliance between state and church powers, and the permanent marginalization of women in the public sphere and the restriction of their rights, particularly when it comes to deciding about their own bodies.

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