Research project by Janusz Cichocki

Open rehearsals for audience

Following the rehearsals, a discussion with the audience takes place.


Since 2021, numerous refugees from Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and Afghanistan have been arriving in Poland via the Polish-Belarusian border. The government in Warsaw has declared a state of emergency along the approximately 420 km-long border and passed a law allowing for so-called "push-backs" of refugees. In the exclusion zone along the border, refugees wander through the Polish wilderness, desperate, trembling with wetness, cold, and exhaustion, which has become a symbol of suffering and struggle for survival.

Some residents of the exclusion zone place green lights in their windows to indicate to refugees that they can find help there without notifying the authorities. These are people who put themselves in danger for others, for strangers. People whose efforts are often in vain but who never give up.

The scandalous situation in the exclusion zone raises questions for us. How far are refugees willing to go when their human rights are violated and the struggle against cold and hunger threatens their own survival? How are the residents of the border area whose humanity is criminalized faring? Where is the line between solidarity and security? How can one not lose hope in this seemingly hopeless situation?

The Grünes Licht research project is therefore about finding a language and a form that will enable the artistic team and actors to stage a far more complicated, contradictory, and delicate subject matter.

Director and Research: Janusz Cichocki
Text, Dramaturgy: George Jamburia
Actors: Sabine Roßberg, Robert Mika, Bożena Baranowska, Ali Ahmad,Matthäus Zaborszyk
Set Design: Andre Putzmann
Costumes, Props: Hanna Sibilski
Music: Tornike Margvelashvili
Video: Barbara Weigel
Light Design: Klaus Dust
Photodocumentation: Robert Berghoff
Videodocumentation: Eduardo Mattos
Production: MIFRUSH Production
Production Assistance: Tamera Vinhas da Silva

Open rehearsals for audience
May 28, 2023
May 29, 2023

Europäisches Theaterinstitut e.V
Rungestraße 20, 10179 Berlin

Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR
 with kind support from the Götz George Stiftung.