Polish theatre stages play based on Mein Kampf ‘to find out if Hitler’s ideas are still relevant’

Polish theatre stages play based on Mein Kampf ‘to find out whether Hitler’s ideas are still relevant today’

  • Play at Warsaw’s Powszechny Theatre uses speech from Hitler’s autobiography
  • Director Jakub Skrzywanek hopes it will make people reflect on rise of far right
  • One scene features actor reading from book while wearing mask of politician

A Polish theatre will stage a play taking dialogue from Mein Kampf to see if Adolf Hitler’s language and ideas are still relevant today.

Director Jakub Skrzywanek hopes his play at Warsaw’s Powszechny Theatre will make people reflect on the rise of the far right in the country, reports the New York Times.

It will feature a number of provocative scenes, including one in which an actor will read from Hitler’s 1925 autobiography while wearing a mask of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the founder of the Law and Justice Party.

The national-conservative political party is against abortion, IVF treatment, gay rights, and is opposed to accepting refugees. 

Kaczynski claimed in 2015 that they ‘can’t’ accept refugees because ‘they could spread infectious diseases’.

Warsaw’s Powszechny Theatre will stage a play taking dialogue from Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf, pictured in rehearsal, in the hopes it will make people reflect on the rise of the far right in the country

In one provocative scene, an actor will read from Hitler's 1925 autobiography while wearing a mask of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the founder of the Law and Justice Party (pictured)

In one provocative scene, an actor will read from Hitler’s 1925 autobiography while wearing a mask of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the founder of the Law and Justice Party (pictured)

Another scene sees a group of actors using anti-Semitic language in polite conversation while sipping soup around a dinner table.

Mr Skrzywanek told the New York Times: ‘I want to show that the language used by politicians, by everyone, in Poland is worse than the language of Hitler.’

He added that the play was directed at both conservatives and liberals using such language, rather than just attacking those who are right wing.

Mr Skrzywanek said: ‘For me, that’s really the most radical gesture you can do in Polish theater. To not accuse a specific group of people, but everyone.’

The Powszechny previously attracted protests, pictured, after staging The Curse, which condemns the Catholic Church for not acting on child sex abuse allegations

The Powszechny previously attracted protests, pictured, after staging The Curse, which condemns the Catholic Church for not acting on child sex abuse allegations

He also wants to emphasise how divisive politics have become in the country, and draw attention to the rise of anti-Semitism. 

Just last week a right-wing newspaper published an article entitled ‘how to recognise a Jew’ on its front page.

And in January Polish nationalists protested outside Auschwitz on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, claiming it glorifies the million Jewish victims killed at the death complex.

The Powszechny previously attracted controversy after staging The Curse, which condemns the Polish Catholic Church for not acting on child sex abuse allegations made against the clergy.

In that play, an actor simulated a sex act on a statue of the late Polish pope John Paul II below a sign that called him the ‘defender of paedophiles’.

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