Opening Night: 12 November 2022
Author: Olga Tokarczuk
Title: The Books of Jacob
Original Title: Księgi Jakubowe
Director: Michał Zadara

Auditorium: Boguslawski Hall
Running time: 2 hours 50 min inculding one interval


Ticket prices:

full-price tickets:
zone I: 120 PLN
zone II: 110 PLN
zone III: 100 PLN

concession tickets:
zone I: 85 PLN
zone II: 75 PLN
zone III: 65 PLN

rush ticket:
40 PLN  more info →

students of state theatre and art schools: 
15 PLN more info →

The Books of Jacob

This is a staging of the most important novel by Polish Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk.

In the middle of the 18th century, in Podolia, Jacob Lejbowicz Frank proclaimed the new principles of the Jewish faith. For some, he was the Messiah. Others saw him as a heretic and sectarian. The story of Frank, abounding with extraordinary adventures, reveals the true image of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth – a country of many cultures and nationalities on the cusp of a new era. In the story, we can also see a reflection of today's reality, with its threats and hopes for a better design for the world.

direction, light design, video: Michał Zadara
stage adaptation: Barbara WysockaMichał Zadara
set design: Robert Rumas
costume design: Julia Kornacka
music: Justyna Skoczek, Michał Zadara

The performance uses excerpts from the following musical works: Queen of the Night aria from the The Magic Flute and 2 quintet in C Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 7 in A Major by Ludwig van Beethoven, Passacaglia in C Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, Mazurka Op. 50, No. 1 by Karol Szymanowski.

Cast

And children

Maja Amsterdamska – Pesel, Haskiel, Agata
Felicja Nizińska – Cyvka, Eva/Avacha
Antoni Bluszcz / Tymoteusz Czajka – Little Jacob Frank


Production team

  • director's assistants: Anna Grycewicz, Michał Świechowski
    set design's assistant: Anna Maria Macugowska
    costume designer's assistant: Martyna Cierpisz 
    stunt effects: Andrzej Słomiński
  • light technicians: Zbigniew Szulim, Bartłomiej Kaczalski, Krzysztof Łukasz Stefan
    • sound technicians: Marek Szymański, Hubert Majewski, Mariusz Maszewski
  • video projection: Mariusz Chałubek, Paweł Woźniak
  • stage manager: Katarzyna Kłosowska-Kobiałka
    prompter: Magdalena Markowska
  •  


Gallery


  • HEAVEN AND HELL

    Although Maria Wojtyszko's play touches upon the painful subject of losing loved ones, Jakub Krofta's deft staging provides light entertainment for the whole family. Premiere: 22 February 2025

  • OTHER DELIGHTS

    This adaptation of the novel Other Delights is the second staging of one of Jerzy Pilch's works at the National Theatre, following The Holy Father's Skis.  

  • FAUST

    Faust is a story based on an ancient legend of a scholar who yearns so much for just a moment of happiness that he makes a pact with the devil. 

  • FEBLIK

    Małgorzata Maciejewska's surprising drama received the Tadeusz Różewicz Drama Award in 2022, the competition's first year. The show is directed by Lena Frankiewicz. 

  • A DREAM PLAY

    After the well-received Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Sławomir Narloch returned to the National Theatre with another premiere – A Dream Play by Strindberg.

     

  • KING LEAR

    King Lear may be Shakespeare's boldest examination of human nature. Jan Englert will play the title role in the National Theatre's production.

  • WAITING FOR GODOT

    "What do we do now? Wait. [...] We're waiting for Godot". Piotr Cieplak directs Waiting for Godot by Beckett. Is this a classic yet? Does it still have its avant-garde power?

  • FREDRO: THE JUBILEE YEAR

    To celebrate 230 years since Aleksander Fredro's birth, the National Theatre invites you to an evening dedicated to the life and works of Poland’s greatest comedy writer. 

  • TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS

    Małgorzata Bogajewska directs for the second time at the National Theatre. This time she draws on Ödön von Horváth's 1931 drama.

  • THE THEATRE MAKER

    The play by Thomas Bernhard, one of the most outstanding playwrights of the second half of the 20th century. In the title role – Jerzy Radziwiłowicz. 

  • ALICE'S WONDERLAND

    Have you ever quarreled with the Time or visited a forest where things have no names? Alice’s Wonderland is a musical performance based on the famous novel by Lewis Carroll. 

  • THE MISANTHROPE

    Jan Englert stages a classic play by Molière. What is Alcest's misanthropy: an uncompromising commitment to the truth or a doomed uprising against social conventions?

  • THE BOOKS OF JACOB

    In the middle of the 18th century Jacob Frank proclaimed the new principles of the Jewish faith. This is a staging of the most important novel by Polish Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. 

  • THE DECALOGUE

    A meditation upon the moral foundations of the present – an iconic work of Polish cinema, rethought thirty-five years after its creation by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. 

  • MARY STUART

    Grzegorz Wiśniewski returns to the classic drama about human passions interwoven in a ruthless machinery of history and intrigue.

  • MÜNCHHAUSEN FOR ADULTS

    Baron von Münchhausen lived in the 18th century and told incredible stories about himself. Maciej Wojtyszko directs his own play about the famous adventurer and mystifier.

  • Solidarity with Ukraine | Солідарні з Україною

    The ensemble of the National Theatre stands in solidarity with the Ukrainians who are fighting for the independence of their homeland.

  • PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

    1900. On a hot, stormy day, Mrs Appleyard's boarding school residents go on a picnic near Hanging Rock. The new theatrical version of the Australian prose classics. 

  • SNAKE SKIN

    Artur Urbański directs his own play which main character is Ruth Berlau, one of Bertolt Brecht's closest associates and life companions.

  • AUTUMN SONATA

    A story about the need for love and acceptance, about an inherited emotional coldness, about the psychological costs of creativity. A theatrical version of a film script by Ingmar Bergman. 

  • MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS

    A performance about the need to experience something that surpasses us. In the title role of the prioress – Małgorzata Kożuchowska. 

  • HEDDA GABLER

    Hedda Gabler – work by Henrik Ibsen, a master of psychological realism – in stage interpretation of director Kuba Kowalski is a poetic performance.


  • HOW TO BE LOVED

    This is the performance about love and moral responsibility for another person as well as the mechanisms controlling human memory. The dramatisation of the story by Kazimierz Brandys.


  • LUNGS

    Briliant, full of humour and touching love story of a young couple. Breakups and comebacks, passion and sex, the first important decisions and the search for meaning in a complex, modern world.


  • UHLANS

    The Museum of All-Time Polish Uhlans. Exhibits of the national exacerbation. A serious comedy in three acts about the entanglement in myths of Polishness. 


  • THE IMAGE MAKERS

    The truth about the essence of creation and responsibility in art. Director Viktor Sjöström is working on the film The Phantom Carriage, based on the novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. 

  • FOREFATHER'S EVE

    Mickiewicz's poetic drama interpreted by Lithuanian Master Eimuntas Nekrošius — theatre visionary known for his unique theatrical language.


  • KORDIAN

    The Polish nation's tragic choice: to die heroically in the name of a noble idea or live a life "making shoes for dogs"? — the alternative presented to Kordian in two parables.

  • FLEA THE SWINDLER

    Tremendous fun and great laughs – not just for kids. The antics of the Flea are directed by Anna Seniuk with the music composed by Maciej Małecki.


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