“I Shall Never Return”

The problem of the contrast between individual human lives and general history is accentuated in the performance. In his text “Ocalić przed zapomnieniem” [To Save from Oblivion], Kantor criticizes whatever can be described as mass phenomena, underlined with ideology and subjected to the rules of a social or political system. “Opposing these powers, there is the Little, Poor, Helpless but wonderful History of individual human lives.” The artist believed that is was only in individuals that “TRUTH, SANCTITY and GREATNESS” have succeeded in persevering. Individual human life requires opposition against “‘General’ and official history”. As a result of such confrontation, the human being can be “saved from destruction and oblivion”. Performing this on stage, Kantor considers himself to be a victim voluntarily participating in this ritual. The end of the performance – the scene “The Great Emballage of the End of the 20th Century” – is most symbolic. By the sound of Hector Berlioz’s “Rákóczi March” These Serious Gentlemen wearing tailcoats and bowler hats cover the actor and objects on stage with black canvas, thus producing an emballage – the grave of contemporariness. The actors are saved by a Jewish woman in rags, Barefoot Slut-Scullery Maid.