The series was, and remains, a global success. In 26 episodes, the animated series Once Upon a Time … Life, first broadcast in 1986, tells of the processes in the human body and shaped an entire generation. The cell was at the beginning, followed by birth, the immune system, bone marrow, blood, until the last episode, the cycle of life. Beginning and end, formation and decay – and life in between. The captivating thing about the series is the clarity with which the biological processes are told. The body, organized like a society. Conflicts and crises at the moment of illness. The invasion of viruses and bacteria that can only be stopped with the cooperation of all the body’s defenses. Pure drama. But how does it become theater?

The series Once upon a time … life becomes the starting point for a theatrical investigation by Polish theater maker Łukasz Twarkowski into the processes in our bodies and the difference between the understanding of the body in the 1980s and today. After all, as the recent case of the two Chinese babies whose genetic make-up was altered using the CRISPR method shows, the possibilities for intervening in life and modifying it are far greater today.

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premiere: 23.02.2019, last performance: 28.05.2019