Friday, December 6 – Sunday, December 8, 2024, at 1 PM
La MaMa, The Downstairs Theater
66 East 4th Street, basement level New York, NY 10003

The Books of Jacob
story by Olga Tokarczuk
directed by Krzysztof Garbaczewski
Tickets are free, but please RSVP.

La MaMa, CultureHub, and the Polish Cultural Institute NY present The Books of Jacob. In this quantum, Kabbalistic, VR spectacle, the story of Jacob Frank comes to life simultaneously in seven locations around the world in a synchronized performance happening in New York, Serbia, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Greece. Actors performing on physical stages in each country and on a digital stage in virtual reality, capture a world on the brink of change as they animate the story of a young Jew in the  18th-century who experiences ecstatic visions travels across the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, meeting heretical condemnation one moment and messianic recognition the next. The Books of Jacob is a live performance that audiences can experience in-person in each country or online in VRChat. Audiences at La MaMa will have the opportunity to put on a VR headset and experience the production digitally, as well as from their seat where the virtual environment will be projected and layered into the scenography. The digital performance network activated as part of this project transforms how theater is experienced and  expands the theater’s global reach. Through La MaMa, CultureHub, and Dream Adoption Society’s global outreach, teams of artists and theater groups in different parts of the world are connected in a VR environment. Real-time translation services and subtitles in the virtual environment facilitates this multilingual production.

Garbaczewski’s project draws from Nobel prize-winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk’s epic historical novel The Books of Jacob. Garbaczewski was first drawn to the book while incorporating metaphysical texts into his theatre practice, especially those of Jewish messianic thinker Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank – the 18th Century man who claimed to be Sabbatai Zevi reincarnated. Tokarczuk’s novel takes on the perspectives of Jacob’s followers and others who witnessed his establishment of a transformative religious movement against the kaleidoscopic backdrop of Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, and Greece. Despite its power in 18th Century Europe, Jacob’s movement has largely been forgotten by European history. Struck by Jacob’s ideas and their relevance to today, Garbaczewski is motivated to explore the work as a multiplayer virtual reality experience.

The source material lends itself to the project, which is dependent on collaboration across fields, aesthetic disciplines, languages, and geographic locations. The Books of Jacob provides a fascinating panorama of many cultures inhabiting and mixing through centuries. The characters transcend their traditions to collaborate on a new system of thought. The text mirrors the project’s mission to combine CultureHub and Dream Adoption Society’s resources to create new systems of making and experiencing art.

Krzysztof Garbaczewski (b. 1983 in Białysk, Poland) Theatre director, author of adaptations serving as the basis of his so-called theatre installations, which combine performance, visual arts and music. His trademark collage/syncretic style, the use of video projections and live transmissions are related to our contemporary cyber-sensibility. Garbaczewski’s spectacles address the most important existential matters and search for liminal experiences. The director stages unobvious juxtapositions, for instance by situating the Romantic protagonists of Juliusz Słowacki’s Balladyna a genetics laboratory. He also confronts the question of contemporary Polish identity. A graduate of the Faculty of Theatre Directing and Dramaturgy at the Ludwik Solski State Theatre School in Cracow. Honoured with numerous awards, such as the “Passport” award of Polityka weekly. Krystian Lupa’s assistant in Factory 2 at the Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Cracow (2008). He debuted with Elfriede Jelinek’s A Sport Play in Opole (2008). His adaptations include The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Polski Theatre in Wrocław, 2009) and Kronos by Witold Gombrowicz (Polski Theatre in Wrocław, 2013). Director of the spectacles Odyssey (Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole, 2009), The Sexual Life of Savages (Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, 2011), The Death Star (Jerzy Szaniawski Dramatic Theatre in Wałbrzych, 2010), Balladyna (Polish Theatre in Poznań, 2013) and The Sky of Stone Instead of Stars (Nowy Teatr in Warsaw, 2013). Often collaborates with Aleksandra Wasilkowska on stage design. Garbaczewski also staged Victory Over the Sun (Grand Theatre – National Opera, 2014), The Tempest (Polski Theatre in Wrocław, 2015) and Hamlet (Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Cracow, 2015). In June 2016 Garbaczewski directed Robert Robur based on an unfinished novel by Mirosław Nahacz Robert Robur’s Incredible Adventures / Niezwykłe przygody Roberta Robura, published two years after the author’s death. Garbaczewski transfers dystopian reality, created by the writer to the world of media and virtual reality.  

This year, Garbaczewski staged Feast (Nowy Teatr in Warsaw). In 2017 he directed Plato’s “Symposium” at Nowy Theatre in Warsaw, Reymont’s “The Peasants” at Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, and Wyspański’s “Liberation” at Studio Theatre in Warsaw. In 2018 he directed “Nietota” and “New Territory” at Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw. He also directed “Miron Białoszewski/ Allen Ginsberg VR” in New York at The Performing Garage. In 2018 he also initiated an artistic collective Dream Adoption Society, an artistic collective based in Warsaw, focused on virtual and augmented reality in the context of theater, performance and contemporary art exploring new technologies to create immersive, performative experiences.

“The Books of Jacob” is presented by La MaMa in partnership with The Polish Cultural Institute New York and CultureHub. The Books of Jacob was developed in La MaMa and CultureHub’s Experiments in Digital Storytelling Program, which is generously funded by the NEA and Radio Drama Network. This performance has been made possible through generous support from Trust for Mutual Understanding.