I call to my aid laughter and the power of song and music. In principle, one can talk about a play that is located somewhere between opera buffo, an operetta and a musical. We are staging “Twelfth night” to enjoy the currently experienced complications of artificiality and probability. With total impetus, we plunge into the “artificial”, the “theatrical”, the “absurd”, believing that, finally, we will land in the vicinity of true laughter and real emotion. In other words, in life. / Piotr Cieplak

The National Theatre does not disappoint, offering us a decent and, in places, a wise entertainment, without losing the sense of a classical work. Today, this is quite something. / Piotr Zaremba, “Polska Times”

“Twelfth night”, directed by Piotr Cieplak at the National Theatre in Warsaw, reminds us of the power of music, its health-giving properties, the sense of loss to which people are condemned when they reach for its convoluted melodies. […] Music restores the figures to life, cranks up the jokes, prompts the pranks, leads to madness and draws into illusion. In this tempest of emotions, only attentive protagonists will not crack their heads on the mast. /Przemysław Bollin, “Newsweek”

Viola, miraculously saved from a shipwreck off the coast of Illyria, disguises herself as a man and enters into Duke Orsino’s service. The Duke is tormented by his passion for Olivia, who is in mourning for her brother. She, in turn, looks with a kindly eye on the Duke’s attractive new courtier.

The unbreakable bond between music and romantic or existential games, on account of constant disguises,, role- and gender-changes, takes on a perverse nature. This allows new light to be thrown on the features of this emotional fever and on the attempts to discover one’s own identity. In this variety of tones and emotions, the art of theatre is revealed, as is the inter-personal theatre, full of irony and melancholy.

Performance selected to the Golden Yorick Competition finals.