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The importance of being Polish, by Kev
KEVIN Hayes discovered his mission in life in at an early age, and that mission was to pitch for Poland.
With a name like Kevin Hayes he doesn't sound like your average bloke from Warsaw and the Westcliff born and bred actor-director is as British as Southend Pier.
But Southend Pier doesn't chatter fluently in Polish or hold a diploma from the Polish Association of Theatrical Artists.
After 20 years of living, working and talking in Poland, Kevin is now back home in Westcliff to spread the word about Polish theatre. "There is a world of culture and history that is largely unknown in Britain, and I want to introduce it over here," he says. "There is more to Poland than plumbers."
Kevin's campaign, backed by the Polish Cultural Institute, kicks off with a workshop for theatre professionals held at London's Riverside Studios.
Anyone buying into the course will be introduced to the things which make Polish theatre unique, such as its distinctive streak of absurd comedy, and the emphasis on jaw-dropping visual settings.
They will also get the chance to watch clips of productions from well-known directors like, er, Kantor, Szajna, Jarocki, and Grzegorzewski. OK, their work may not be familiar over here, even to pub-quiz geeks, and they may have names that sound like really bad typing errors, but if Kevin is to be believed these multisyllabic names will soon be tripping off English tongues.
After the workshops, Kevin - a qualified drama teacher who marks GCSE Polish exams - will bring his Polish programme into schools. As a member of the Directors' Guild, he is quietly working to persuade fellow directors to stage some of the more popular Polish pieces.
"One or two of the comedies would work very well in the West End," he says. He also wants the BBC to undertake a Polish theatrical season. "It will all start to come together in 1909," he says, with the calm confidence of the true believer.
There was nothing in Kevin's background to signpost the passion that was to become the driving force in his life - no Polish ancestry, no borscht-brewing mum or teenage romance with a busty Baltic bunny.
He discovered Polish culture in his teens as an extension of a general interest in European, and particularly Slavic, literature. He first went to Poland at the age of 30, in 1986, three years before the collapse of Communism, so he has been a direct witness of one of the most memorable episodes even in Poland's turbulent history.
Kevin has never paused to analyse the reason why Polish culture came to grip him so comprehensively. "It's a consuming force," he says. "When you get a sense that you've discovered your calling, you don't stop to ask why. You just know you've come home. You follow it where it takes you."
This calling has given him a good living and a privileged position in theatre. In Poland, Kevin's sheer Englishness, as well as his bilingualism, means that he is often first choice when Polish TV requires an English character part.
Few who have watched his mock weather forecast dressed as Sherlock Holmes (on his showreel) are likely to forget the experience in a hurry.
His fluency in the Polish language and his readiness to act as an English ambassador for Polish culture also gave him access to some of the most famous names in Polish stage and film.
He worked, for instance, with the great Andrzej Wajda, a man at the top of many people's lists of the world's greatest directors.
"I think they appreciated the speed with which I had mastered the language, and my grasp of the complexities of their theatre," he says.
The Anglo-Polish mission isn't all one way. While spreading the message about Polish culture, the Westcliff missionary has also set out to inject a little British theatrical culture into Poland. "They don't have our tradition of light banter on stage, no equivalent of Shaw or Wilde or Coward," he says.
So by way of an introduction, Kevin staged the most famous example of English stage wit, The Importance of Being Earnest, at the celebrated Stary theatre in Krakow. The production produced packed houses and torrents of laughter from the audience. But it also highlighted some of the differences in the two cultures and their sense of humour.
"There's a line in the first act that nobody notices in English productions, but it got a huge laugh over there. There's no cucumbers in the market, sir.' Vegetable markets are huge objects of mirth in Poland, and cucumbers are, or were, important to their economy."
But if Kevin has his way in spreading Polish culture, we too will soon be laughing at cucumbers.
3:52pm Friday 11th April 2008
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CommentPosted by: Mrs Jean Hayman on 8:24pm Sun 27 Apr 08
I teach at The FitzWimarc School in Rayleigh Essex.We are a Language College,and would be most interested in taking part in your Polish activities.
We are planning a Year 8 International week in June,with the theme of Eastern European countries, and are trying to find an activity to which we can take some of our pupils.
I would very much like to hear from you, as your schools programme sounds as if it would be ideal for our purposes.
Thank you,
Jean Hayman
I teach at The FitzWimarc School in Rayleigh Essex.We are a Language College,and would be most interested in taking part in your Polish activities.
We are planning a Year 8 International week in June,with the theme of Eastern European countries, and are trying to find an activity to which we can take some of our pupils.
I would very much like to hear from you, as your schools programme sounds as if it would be ideal for our purposes.
Thank you,
Jean Hayman
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