Vatzlav is a Polish play produced by the Department of Dramatic Arts,
Chulalongkorn University. In Asia, it was first performed in Japan and this was the second time. Bogdan Goralczyk, the ambassador of the Republic of Poland in Bangkok, mentions that "Mrozek mixed satirical appoarch and a real sense of drama-and absurd. Soon his name, like those of Franz Kafka, Eugene Ionesco or Samuel Beckett has become well-known in West Berlin, Paris or New York, not saying about his native Poland where his plays - current political whereabouts notwithstanding - were constantly on the agenda of all main stages."
Synopsis
A ship-wrecked slave named Vatzlav sees in misfortune a chance to make good. The country in which he cames ashore is ruled by the blood-sucking, Mr. and Mr. Bat. The Bats are vampires who feed on the blood of the people. Bat and his lady are deposed by rebles purporting to act on behalf of the somewhat bewildered masses. The opportunist ex-slave tries to succeed at any price by fawning on the representatives of the different social classes and forces, even offering to become a bear and be hunted, if necessary. At on point Vatzlav becomes the proprietor of an itinerant theatre that offers its spectators a peek at naked Justice in the form of the strip-tease artist, the daughter of a famous philosopher known as The Genius. The rebels are commanded by Barbaro who orders the castration of all camels, without its being clearly defined who is a camel. Vatzlav also meets the blind Oedipus, guardian of an obsolate moral law and also an informer working for Bat. In the long run, all Vatzlav's efforts come to nothing. Back where started as an outcast, Vatzlav manges to escape from the executioner (ordered by the rebels to kill him) and makes for another shore. But will he succeed? We don't know. His uneasy hope is Justice's baby, whom he has just saved from drowning. He decides to carry the infant in his arms into the unknown future as he runs out into the sea. Drawing upon the eighteenth-century French philophical tales of Voltaire, Diderot, and de Sade, Vatzlav is a parable of a man caught between worlds as he embarks on a perilous emigration.
