About Robert Jakobsson and Teater Albatross. Activities in Poland.

A personal background.

We went to Wroclaw

At Christmas time 1970 I was asked by some friends if I wanted to come along to a town in

Poland. One of them had borrowed daddy`s Volvo Duett. Why not? And soon we were on our way. Driving south from Swinouscje through wonderful forests. An old Volga overtook us. In the back seat of the car, was a man with a hat, waving his arm, like saying ”Welcome to Poland”. I was thinking: such a country. How charming people, waving to each other like that. Some minutes later the same man stopped our car. I was very surprised. He stopped us in the middle of the woods. He wanted to change money. I had heard about it, that in Poland you shouldn`t change in the banks. So, why not, he seemed to be such a nice guy.

We had gone for new years holidays to a town that was impossible for me to pronounce: Wroclaw. I met a world that was very different from Sweden. It was full of poor but friendly people and had milk bars that cost nothing. I really liked the milk bars! Although I was not interested in theatre, I followed my friend.to see a spectacle. It was an amazing experience. It was like a door had been opened inside of me. The world was suddenly so big. and I felt absolutely calm. I decided immediately to become an actor, to work with theatre in the future. I brought records with me to Sweden by Marek Grechuta and Ewa Demarcyk. They became dear to me. Especially Grechuta. One of the last days I in Poland I invited everybody, also our new Polish friends for dinner in a good restaurant. As my Swedish money had made me stinking rich – The Volgaman`s money was in my wallet, When I payed, there was a bit of chaos. People were laughing. At first, I didn`t understand. My money was from 1942. Worth nothing. The man in the long black coat, the hat man, was no longer a favourite!

Amazement started dreams of theatre

To begin working with theatre took some time and the years passed, five years later I actually started making theatre and what I had seen in Poland was still my point of reference. After a while, when studying theatre at the University, I saw photos of the play I had seen in Wroclaw. I understood it was a very famous play by a legendary theatre. It was Apocalypsis cum Figuris by Grotowski`s Teatr Laboratorium. So I bought books, read articles and talked to people to understand more about Grotowski`s theatre.

We started ELDTEATERN

By that time, in 1976, I started a theatre called Eldteatern with two friends. We wanted to make theatre that took people far away from everyday life. We did training that originated from Grotowski and Odinteatret. We worked on the countryside with a home made mixture of exercises. We were three people working for three years to make an hour long play about the Russian revolution. We had no connections with the rest of the theatre world.

That same automn, 1976, I saw a big exhibition by Wladyslaw Hasior in Göteborg. The exhibition has stayed with me ever since.. And the future would cross my path with him later. I will come back to this.

After the three years of very intense work, often scheduled from morning to late evening, we had the opening night of the play that was called Resurrection. We got strong reactions and some times later, when we played at an obscure left wing youth club in Gothenburg, the Polish theatre Osmego Dnia happened to see us. It was the Polish/Swedish photographer Johanna Helander who brought them to our performance. They wanted us to come and play in Poland. They talked about a festival in Lublin, Konfrontacje 1981…

The Magician of Lublin

To go to Lublin!? I had read ”The magician from Lublin” by Isaac B Singer, the Polish/Jewish writer. I loved the book, and I became, through Singer, very interested in the East European Jewish world that was exterminated by the Nazis. Singer was my favourite author for many years to come, and of course I looked forward to go to Lublin.

So we went on a European tour with Ressurrection. We played at Akademia Ruchu`s stage near the Old Town. They, Akademia Ruchu made a strong impact on us. We saw an immobile (!) play staging a bus journey. We saw also at the Cultural Palace something by Josef Szajna. We filmed during the performance. They were angry.

And then, in 1981, we visited the Konfrontacje Festival in Lublin. Poland was boiling with Solidarnosc dreams. The shops were empty. The people were full of hope.

The strongest thing, though, for me, was not the festival, but the visit to Maidanek. It shook me deeply. And was the first of many visits, culminating with our spectacle in 1986 in a barrack of Maidanek for surviving political prisoners. At this first visit in Maidanek I lost control of myself. I ran towards the fence, and tried to tear it down.

The Old town of Lublin had a special atmosphere, full of history. We wanted to come back. We got many new friends, for example the people of Teatr Provisorium and the other Lublin so called student theatres. And a young girl, Beata Ziemska, that we, a short time later, helped to go to Sweden, was our wonderful host.

”Ressurection” got very strong reactions in Lublin, and in the Biuletyn of the Festival there was written very good things about us. Actors are often insecure, and need to get good feedback every now and then. I was at that time often – and am probably still - suspicious of audiences aplauding after the play. An act of courtesy. This Biuletyn was different, they had interviewed spectators. And they were really enthusiastic. I kept it for a long time. Actually I still have it. Our play began in the streets, I was walking around, covered in bandages, with a red flag, saying HELLO. The Police arrested me. I continued the play in the Police car, still only saying HELLO… The Festival saved me from the police car.

In August 81 and 82 I was back in Poland again. Big demonstrations in Warsaw, I think it was in 82. I saw an old man being beaten by a Zomo man. I was all dressed in white, I had a big bouquet of flowers (with a little camera inside) I was walking around by the Old Town. The police stopped everybody from going into the Old Town… But when I came walking very slowly by myself dressed all in white, with the flowers, the police opened up their barrier for me! I walked alone over the big square at the entrance to the Old Town. Behind me people were fighting, running and screaming. This was, I think, the summer when the big flower crosses were lying in the center of Warsaw. Everything was so special. Verfremdung, one

might say.

The Camps

The unreality matched my visits to both Auschwitz and Maidanek..In Birkenau I was walking in winter with a guide, a French speaking ex prisoner, who wanted to tell me many things. He had a vey intense way of comunicating. I didn`t understand much. He was really old.. When he talked about the war, it was like if it was still going on. It was a thick fog, and the naked chimneys looked unreal. Suddenly I see a deer walking just a few meters away from us. I will never forget this.

In Lublin, I always stayed with my friend Malgorzata. From her attic window I had a view over Maidanek. I had some contacts with the ex political prisoners. They had an association called Klub Maidanka. Very nice old people that told me their amazing stories. They said I could come with my theatre and play in a barrack in the Maidanek Camp. They wanted to arrange it.

By this time I had left Sweden and was working with an Italian theatre, Teatro Nucleo.

It was there I got the news about the Jaruzelski Coup in December. I phoned friends in Poland and Sweden from the local bar outside the theatre. It was a nightmare. And the telephone calls were much too expencive.

TEATER ALBATROSS and our crow

In 1984 I was back in Sweden. I formed Teater Albatross with my exwife. In the summer we went to Poznan to visit Osmego Dnia. Our plan was to travel around in Poland for a while

later. We brought a crow from Sweden. The crow got ill. It was all suddenly very dramatic. One night the crow died. I remember that just before he died, he was suddenly absolutely recovered, I woke my wife up: Look, he is OK! In the same moment he died. We went home to Sweden. My wife found it too heavy to be in Poland during that period. The people from Osmego Dnia thought that we returned home because the crow died. But that was not the case. Anyway, it amused them a lot.

In 1985 we had made a play, BLACK FLOWERS, about the Holocaust. We went on a tour to Poland. Osmego Dnia, Provisorium and Akademia Ruchu helped us. We played in Bialystok, Lomza, Torun, Bygdgoszsc, Katowice, Slupsk, Krakow, Poznan, Lodz, Lublin and Warsaw. We played in Dom Kultura`s , in theatres, in Student clubs. We played also in a gymnasium (lyceum) in Torun. Often, it was young people, somehow outside the established society, that helped us. In some places the Mayor and very official people were involved. Then we got medals and vodka.

It was a strange time. We were not so wellknown in Sweden, and in the beginning it was somehow easier to sell our spectacle and get big audiences in Poland than in Sweden! Besides, in Poland we were extremely rich. In Sweden we had nothing. In Poland we ate Bif Tatarski, in Sweden plain spaghetti.

PAGART

We came back in 1986. This time the official Art-Agency, PAGART helped in organizing

the tour. The Background: When we were going to play in one of the Dom Kultury`s in Warsaw in `85, we went a week before playing (passing from Lomza to Torun) up to PAGART`s office in Warsaw. We wanted them to see our play. They were very unfriendly. They said they only supported professional theatres. Albatross was, according to them, just a student theatre. They were not interested. When we left the office (very angry because of the arrogance) we told again when and where we were going to play next Saturday in Warsaw. – Anyway, we played in Warsaw, in something which I remember looking like a big apartment, is that possible!? After the play an old woman came to us. She was crying loudly. After a while we understood that it was the woman from PAGART. The boss. She was completely wild about our play. Suddenly she could speak German, and probably some English. She told us about her life, about the war, about the Home Army. She was sometimes crying, some-times telling. She later became our friend. Her name, I think, was Alina Jablonska.

Partly because of this meeting PAGART in `86 organized an International Student Theatre Festival in Stodola, the famous Student club in Warsaw. I think it was made in co-operation with Akademia Ruchu. We were happy to come back. I remember that the money for the boat trip to Poland was given to me in my hand by a Polish tourist visiting Gothenburg. The Boss didn’t want to have anything to do with the Western banks! Another peculiar thing: We wanted to get petrol money from PAGART. We were a bit fed up with the fact that we, when we bought petrol, had to fill a canister, and then carry it to the car. And it had to be a Pole, that bought the petrol. So, most of our hos, nowadays famous theatre people in Poland have carried heavy canisters for us. With PAGART helping us we thought there would be an end of this embarrising thing. No, no. Alina Jablonska said: Give some chocolate to the workers of the petrol station, and they will let you buy the petrol at Polish prices! Poland was always Poland. Our hosts still had to carry the heavy canisters.

In a barrack in Maidanek

I think it was during this tour that we played in a barrack in Maidanek for the ex political prisoners. It was in 1986, and Slawek Skop at Provisorium in Lublin fascinated us and helped us a lot. I bought from him his Polish loudspeakers that I still use. He was dreaming of going out into the World, even of conquering the World, and we should help him and Provisorium to do that! Within a year Teatr Provisorium visited Sweden., both Stockholm and Gothenburg. In Gothenburg they played at the Angeredsteater, which was then an institutional theatre with many Stalinist people in the staff. I remember Provisorium telling me about the strange discussions after the play!

It was very special, a sort of holy atmospher to play in the barrack in Maidanek. Aproximately 40 ex prisoners, nearly all dead now, saw us. They were sitting completely quiet, immobile. None looked at the text. We were insecure. Were they bored? We talked during the lavish dinner they gave us afterwards, No, they were not bored! But,most of them had not been back inside Maidanek since the war. They had worked very much with the Klub Maidanka, visiting schools, telling about their experiences, writing reports about their experiences and so forth. But to be back in the barrack was very strong. Then they were surprised, that our play was so Jewish. It was nice, but it surprised them! One of the old prisoners had also invited school children at the age of about 15 years to come. The youngsters were moved to be there with the old prisoners. And the the old ones were moved by being there with the young people. In our spectacle we had a big carousel made of glass, an idea that had emerged from the carousel outside the Warsaw ghetto, the carousel from the Campo di Fiore poem by Milosz. Playing there in the barrack made history come back for me. The tivoli music and the beautiful coulors from the lighted, spinning carousel inside the barrack made fiction real. I was overwhelmed.

Tokalynga Teaterakademi i Halland

In 1988, Teater Albatros bought a big house in the countryside outside Gothenburg. We called the house Tokalynga Teaterakademi. Teater Albatross is still based there. Polish friends, actors and non-theatre people, have found their way to visit us.

Wladyslaw Hasior

In 1989 I got into a personal and artistic crisis. After renovating our house we were preparing a new play. Suddenly, the work was so difficult. People were angry. The actors left. Also my wife left with my five year old daughter. I was completely alone in a gigantic house in the middle of the forest. I knew nobody living nearby. I went into a depression. I did nothing. No plans. Nothing. No paying of bills. There was only one thing that gave me some consolation: a program, a leaflet, about the Polish sculptor Wladyslaw Hasior. The program from the exhibition I had seen in 1976. I was so fascinated. One day, through a Swedish sculptor, I got to know that Hasior had an exhibition in Tallinn. I succeeded to get the telephone number to the biggest Art Gallery in Tallinn. I knew through the leaflet that Hasior spoke some French, and I got to speak to a man speaking, in a strange way, French. I could not really decide whether it was Hasior I was talking to or not, but I said to the man that I would come, at a certain date, to Tallinn and see the exhibition.

And I came to Tallinn. I found the Gallery and there was the exhibition. In the middle of the big room there was a man that looked like Hasior`s photo in the leaflet. He said to me: Monsieur Robert Jakobsson? It was him. I loved the exhibition.

I said to Hasior that I wanted to play theatre in his exhibition. (I was surprised when I heard myself say it.) - A lovely idea, my next one is in Sodertalje, in Sweden! I went home, still depressed. After a while the Director of Sodertalje Art Gallery, phoned me: I´ve heard from Hasior that you will play theatre here!? I said that I was depressed, and had no idea what to perform. He said that Hasior wanted me to come May the 10:th, and that they would give me a lot of money! So, I couldn`t say no!

And one sunny April day, i started to get ideas, texts, images… I went to Sodertalje, I played my little play, the finale was burning a pike that I was holding.

After a while Hasior came over the stage to me. Suddenly I saw how big he was. And now his eyes looked for mine! He gave me a true bear hug, taking my breath and said, with a strong voice: Teatr Hasiorski! – I thought it was a positive signal and was happy.

I went home again. Became depressed again. But Hasior convinced me to come to his next exhibition too, this time in Esbo, Finland. Playing there was also very nice.

The day after the show I asked Hasior if I had permission to make copies of some of his works, to have my own Hasior exhibition. He didn`t like the idea and said no but changed his mind when he saw how sad I was of his reaction. - Ok, but you must call them replicas, not copies!

Through the coming years, until W Hasior’s death, I kept some contact with him. I visited him a couple of times in Zakopane – in his Museum where he gave me his special tea and told me incomprehensible stories in French. (We were very bad, both of us, in French.) I also visited him in Brussels, where he had an important exhibition. There I bought from him one of his favourite standar`s: The Winner. The Winner is still in the permanent Hasior exhibition in Tokalynga Teaterakademi. Welcome to visit, dear reader!

When Hasior died in 1999, I wrote an obituary in Dagens Nyheter ( The biggest morning paper in Sweden), I cut from the text:

”Hasior wanted, facing that Krakow was going to be the European Capitol of Culture in

the year 2000, to build a wire system above the city, on which he was going to attach dolls

with wings. Burning angels that would go between stations different from the usual ones”.

At home, in Tokalynga, (The name of the tiny village where Teater Albatross is situated) I started, now with some new collaborators, to make these replicas. It was a nice way of getting to know the neighbours, They gave me their rusted crap, old broken farmeing tools and so on… I needed those objects to be able to make the replicas of Hasior`s sculptures. And suddenly I was very active. The neighbours came to have a look at what we were doing. Some Polish friends like Zbyszek Morawski from Wroclaw, joined in helping me getting the things together. And we did not only make the replicas. I found so many lovely things through which I could also express myself that also my own sculptores took form. One day, telling about my depression, I asked myself: - depressed, why do I say I am depressed?! …

To the Teatr Laboratorium

I started touring. The play was called: ”The Burning Man”. The content was to a large extent about my experiences in Poland. Especially in the Maidanek Concentration Camp, where I had experienced some personal extraordinary things. We played a lot. We were 3 men playing now. We got an invitation to Wroclaw, to play in the Teatr Laboratorium, Grotowski`s former theatre. This was in 1990. Exactly twenty years after I had seen the play that changed my life. And we were there now, to play for some of the same people.

A day after our last performance there I was stopped by a young girl in the street. She wanted to tell me something. She did not feel comfortable going to that theatre, because her father used to play there. The place was holy for her. But our performance was something she had loved, She wanted to thank us. Her father had died recently, His name was Ryszard Cieslak. He had lived and breathed through the theatre. She missed him. I remembered, that it was her father that had spellbound me the most. She was twenty years old. We became friends.

This meeting with what was left of the Teatr Laboratorium was important. Stefa Gardecka, a wonderful woman from the office, was to help us a lot. She also became a good friend.

Allen Ginsberg in Poland!

And when we a few years later, in 1994, had made a play about the life of Allen Ginsberg, the American poet, Stefa and Osmego Dnia and Teatr Provisorum helped us touring in Poland. We came to new and old places. At Osmego Dnia Teatr we had a workshop for youngsters.. This was very inspiring. The youngsters were full of life. I had the feeling that the americanisation that had swept through Poland after the Berlin Wall had fallen, was diminishing.

A nice new place was Teatr Kaana in Stettin. A rough theatre with a really worn theatre floor. Very kind people. Great audience. There was just one problem: We ate for free in a certain restaurant. After the food I like coffee with milk. And I had noticed - since 1970 - that there usually was no milk in the restaurants. No fresh milk. So, I did not drink cofee in Polish restaurants! But as we were going to eat there for 5 days, and the waiter refused to get milk for me, I decided one day to take a walk after eating lunch, and buy the milk myself. The shop was surprisingly far away. Anway, I enjoyed my coffee with milk. After dinner the same day I wanted my milk with the coffee. (I had asked the waiter to put our milk in the refrigerator.) But in exactly the same way that he had said the other days, that they don`t serve milk, he said it again.. We were surprised. - It is in the refrigerator, I said. - No, we poured it out, as we don`t serve milk! The Berlin Wall still seemed to be there.

We went again to Poland in 94 and 95. Stefa Gardecka helped us, and so did Bureau Podroszy, a new very successful theatre from Poznan.

To Kaziemerz Nad Wisla

In the summer of 1994 I went with Susanna, a friend, to Kaziemerz Nad Wisla. We stayed at the school-teachers boarding house. I wanted to see more of this legendary, former Jewish, village. Such a beautiful place! The village, the surroundings, the Wistula river! As I was walking in the footsteps of the Jewish history I was visiting the former synagogue. The woman that worked there told me, in a rough way, that it was a cinema, not a synagogue! In the end she took away a black curtain, voilà, behind it was a big painting from the synagogue time. It was evident that she didn`t like me.

The day after I was talking to a theatre Director from Lodz. We were walking on the shore of Wistula, on the other side of the river there was a wonderful ruin of a castle. We were talking about different things. I said that it was strange to me that this town Kaziemerz, which had been a Jewish shtetl before the war, now was like this history had never happened, so few signs of those horrific days. He was somehow unaware of the history! This educated man didn’t even seem to believe me! I was frustrated, and thought that I wanted to make a play about the Polish- Jewish history and play it in the main square -Rynek- in Kaziemerz Nad Wisla.

We played street theatre about the Holocaust.

And it happened! In 1998 Teater Albatross came to Poland to play the play HOLY!, that told about the Jewish world that was annihilated in the Second World War. It was a street performance. With big Hasior-inspired sculptures.Teatr NN from Lublin helped us organizing a tour, both in the Lublin district, and all over Poland. In Lublin we played in the Old Town for more than 2500 people! In Kaziemerz nad Wisla, Deblin, Lubartow and Tykocin we had generally a very big and warm audience. In Lubartow, the audience of 700 people didn`t leave after the show. They saw us taking care of our props, and pack the busses. And, after an hour or so, they started to drop off. Many came to me, or someone else of Albatross, to say aproximately: - Thank you. My name is Jacek, I work in the factory over there. Welcome back to our village. Hope to see you again! Goodbye! I think at least 40 people came to me like that! We were moved.

We also played in towns like Gdansk, Warshaw, Krakow and Walbrzych. Always big audiences. Some people followed us. We saw them in the audience again and again. One of those people gave us a drawing. One woman gave us a beautiful ring after the show in Kazienmerz nad Wisla.

Of the widely discussed Polish Anti-Semitism we saw only very little.

We were visited

When we were visiting Lublin in 1998 with HOLY!, we invited people to visit us at Tokalynga in Sweden.

We were very surprised when 15 people came to visit in August the same year! A company

sent their staff to us!

And we were even more surprised when around 30 people came -a school class- the year after.

Both groups stayed about a week.

After the 1998 tour with HOLY! Albatross hs not been back to Poland. Myself, I have gone for vacations and I’ve been around visiting friends a few times.

But in this time I have had one strong connection to Poland: We made a play, THE ORCHESTRA, about the Women’s Orchestra in Auschwitz. We played it a lot in the years 2003-2007, and we will play it again when we organize a Polish Festival 2008. I alwys felt that THE ORCHESTRA is a very Polish play!

Once when I was visiting Zakopane and Hasior`s Museum, a man took me by the arm. He took me into his house, to his TV, which was on. He said something incomprehensible and pointed to the TV, where an airoplane went straight into a skyscrape. Strange pictures, it looked like New York. He was very upset. A week later I understood what had happened in New York on September eleventh.

I end this story here. Someone just told me that Marek Grechuta has died. I am sad. I had the hope that one day he would COME BACK.

Robert Jakobsson 06 11 14

Helping hand with the language: Henrik Hinder