The Crazy Locomotive, which Witkacy wrote in 1923, is one of his shortest and most powerful plays. Two master criminals, Prince Tréfaldi and his associate Travaillac, who have been masquerading as a railroad engineer and his fireman, seize control of a locomotive and resolve to smash it into another train at high speed in order to bring about “God’s Judgement,” a cataclysm on a cosmic scale, and experience the Mystery of Existence. When Sophia, the engineer’s wife, and Julia, the fireman’s fiancée, join their men aboard the fast-moving train, unforeseen sexual complications arise, and the demonic Sophia is thrown bodily out of the locomotive. Then the appearance of the conductor, passengers, and the banal reality which Tréfaldi and Travaillac had hoped to flee totally destroys the purity of their metaphysical journey through space. The tracks cannot take them out of this world into another dimension, but only along a predictable route to known human disaster and into the hands of the authorities. In its handling of dynamic tensions and accelerating tempos, The Crazy Locomotive is one of Witkacy’s masterpieces, showing the playright’s ability to find a telling theatrical image and develop its multiple associations for maximum effect.
(D. Gerould)

International festival