YOU CAN FAIL! A FAILURE SHOW

Description

⏳Duration: 130 min. (no intermission)

YOU CAN FAIL! A Failure Show is a comedy for everyone with a talent for messing up. It’s a story about a group of underachievers trying to turn their defeats into victories and change the course of their history. It’s a theatre show for young audiences and adults who feel like their life took a different path than they planned. Or for those who came in fourth more often than they stood on the podium. Failures can be spectacular, they can take over us, filling us with sadness, anger, bitterness or shame. They’re powerful! So why not put them on stage and make a big show out of it?
Our talent show will have hosts, contestants, guest stars and a jury but with one difference- everyone has failed, is failing, or will fail at some point (the audience gets an active role too, because laughing together breaks down embarrassment). That’s why on the Komedia stage you won’t see Lady Gaga, but you’ll see Anna Łuczak. You won’t see Zendaya, but you’ll see Martyna Peszkaya — you don’t know her, but at least it rhymes. No Billie Eilish, no Dawid Podsiadło, but Dudek Kasia and Drózd Ania. No Iga Świątek, but Marta Stańczyk, who has never played tennis. No Dr. Quinn, but Drag Queen aka Maciej “Gąsiu” Gośniowski. Maciej Musiał won’t be here but Aleksander Orliński and Maciej Pesta will, they’re also actors. No James Bond, but Grzegorz Brandt. As you see, lots of stars won’t be here because they didn’t accept our invitation. But the most important star will be YOU!
Why join us? Because if TV only cares about a tiny group of the talented ones, we want to give space to everyone who was eliminated and for those who secretly watch the winners from their homes. In our show, we’ll flip the usual way of thinking and (by sharing our failure stories) shout together: YOU CAN FAIL! We’ll stop that heavy stream of thoughts dragging us down: Yes! You can fail and nothing bad will happen! YOU CAN FAIL! A Failure Show is for people who:
-never got (and never will get) into You Can Dance, Idol, or The Voice of Poland
-once got stuck somewhere or put their head in something and couldn’t pull it out
-felt like a disappointment to someone
-dropped their ice cream before the first lick
-were too scared of failing to take a risk
-didn’t climb their favorite tree after falling once
-have messy handwriting and hate spelling rules
-are still looking for their place anywhere
-quit something because they knew they’d lose
-believed at least once that they weren’t enough.
Fear of failure, always seen as negative, blocks us from taking risks. From school to family to peer pressure, we’re trained to succeed and stay in line. Those who don’t fit the model feel like losers, outsiders, underachievers. In alternative models of education, attention has long been drawn to the importance of our mindset. By accepting failures, we don’t get discouraged, we don’t abandon a plan, an idea, a dream. This is only one perspective – the ability to notice in failure the seeds of future success. There are also other perspectives: failure as refusal, as a conscious gesture of stepping away from the race, from competition, from the propaganda of success. Failure as an act of rebellion, in extreme cases a need to “disappear,” a refusal to enter the game on terms set by the stronger. And finally, failure as a recurring comedic motif: many narrative patterns revolve around the adventures of underachievers, while slapstick humor often relies on the constant, cascade repetition of mistakes. So we invite you to YOU CAN FAIL! A Failure Show, a theatrical celebration of failure, laughing at it, getting used to it. Why? Because we believe art can change society and comedy is the best vehicle. The show is a co-production of Teatr Komedia and Teatr 21, a theatre group of actors with Down Syndrome and on the autism spectrum. For 19 years, Teatr 21 has created dozens of performances in Poland and abroad. With its unique mission, it not only changes how we think about disability but also expands diversity and inclusivity in Polish theatre. Teatr 21’s plays are deeply authentic, telling personal stories, often with irony and a wink. The group has performed at festivals across Poland and abroad. In 2021 they won the POLITYKA’s Passport Award in the Theatre category. Today they are building Centrum Sztuki Włączającej [The Inclusive Art Center], the first social cultural institution in Warsaw fully dedicated to the creativity of artists with disabilities.

The performance was made possible thanks to the support of the City of Warsaw as part of the Social Institution of Culture project.

Cast

Creators