Work - Where are Last Year’s Snows
Premiere: 27.01.1979 r., Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
It was a short, 25-minute cricotage shown three times at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. The title comes from Francois de Villon’s poem. The cricotage was performed by the actors of the Cricot 2 theatre.
Where are Last Year’s Snows was the first of the series of cricotages, short theatre forms by Kantor outside of the Cricot 2 theatre, though sometimes with its actors. The cricotages contained threads used later in the plays of the Theatre of Death.
On the stage people in white, paper clothes tug on a rope separating life from death. The Great Geometrician takes careful measurements with a wooden ruler. In the next scene he puts on a costume changing him into a Rabbi. Then disappears, to come back in the company of a Little Rabbi. Along the length of the rope walks an Individual With a Belly, carrying a large package. Suddenly a large white box drops out of it. The Individual With a Belly, watched by Two Bystanders, tries unsuccessfully to repack the box. After this an Individual with Newspapers appears, commenting the news he reads with random exclamations. Various characters walk across the stage: Two Curious Men, Gravedigger – Maniac, people with buckets. That Well Known Man in a Nazi uniform walks into the game’s space. The Groom is preparing himself for the wedding. The Rabbi and the Little Rabbi bring in the Machine of the Judgement Day. From that Jericho Trumpet sounds the song of Warsaw’s ghetto: “Our city is burning.” The Bride is violently dragged by her groom. Two Cardinals dance the Argentinian tango. The wedding turns into a funeral. In the finale a great white veil covers the dead body of the Bride. Across the stage marches That Well Known Man.