Photographic reconstruction of the stage design for a production of “The Return of Odysseus”

The stage design for Tadeusz Kantor’s adaptation of “The Return of Odysseus” was limited by the dimensions of the room in which the performance took place. It was a real shabby room at 3 Grabowskiego Street in Krakow – one of many of that kind in occupied Poland. Decorations featured a platform bearing an object resembling a cannon barrel. The scenery also included: a rotten board, a muddy cartwheel, a military greatcoat and a German loudspeaker taken off a pillar in the Planty Park by Kantor and his friends. The scenery was thus made of real objects, thus implementing the idea of “reality of the lowest rank”. This was meant to provoke a conflict between real life in occupied Krakow and the illusion of a stage form. The photograph was taken in the district of Kazimierz, Krakow, and supplemented by Tadeusz Kantor by means of collage (pasted cannon, support for the cannon).