On Fire!
screenplay:
Marek David
director:
Adam Steinbauer
dramaturgy:
Lenka Dobrovolná
stage and costume design:
Judita Mejstříková
music:
Sabina Kašparová, Martin Svoboda
actors:
Mark Kristián Hochman, Natálie Pelcová, Naďa Kovářová, Adam Mašura, Ondřej Hrbáč
On September 8, 1968, the traditional national harvest festival is held at the Stadium of the Decade in Warsaw.
Among the participants is 59-year-old accountant Ryszard Siwiec. He is holding a briefcase in his hand.
Polonaise dancers run out onto the field. Ryszard Siwiec pours paint thinner over himself, throws leaflets around him, strikes a match, and sets himself on fire with a cry of "I protest!"
Four days later, he succumbs to his injuries in the hospital.
His wife Maria is bound to secrecy. She cannot even tell her children about the cause of death.
The obituary states that Ryszard Siwiec died after a short illness. The communist regime manages to keep his act a secret.
Paradoxically, the first human torch protesting the occupation of Czechoslovakia did not take place in Czechoslovakia, but in Poland. Jan Palach, Jan Zajíc, Evžen Plocek, and others followed.
The performance deals with the phenomenon of human torches, the principle of self-sacrifice. It asks what obligation we as a society have to someone who voluntarily undergoes suffering and sacrifices their own life for us.
What will a person endure in order to live and die true to themselves?
