Lupa is renowned for his specific methods of working with the text and actors in a very organic way also known as "laboratory rehearsals".[4] He is known to translate and adapt the texts which he stages, at the same time designing the scenery and directing these productions. Occasionally, he appears on stage himself as the narrator.[5]
In June 2023, his play The Emigrants, based on the novel by W.G. Sebald, was cancelled by the Comédie de Genève and Festival d'Avignon as the director faced allegations of verbally abusing a number of team members involved in the project. The reason behind the cancellation was cited as "differences over the work philosophy". Lupa later apologized for his behaviour but at the same time noted the lack of efforts to discuss the matter and reach a compromise.[15][16]
The awarding of the 13th Europe Theatre Prize to Krystian Lupa, confirms Poland’s pivotal role on the European theatre scene. A pupil of Tadeusz Kantor, and himself a teacher of many artists – among whom we should mention Krzysztof Warlikowski, 10th Europe Prize Theatrical Realities – Krystian Lupa combines an academic training with an inexhaustible creative vein that has always been present in and distinguished his work, and has enabled him in the course of his career to take on and ingeniously adapt for the theatre the works of classic literary authors such as Robert Musil, Feyodor Dostoevsky, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Bernhardt, Anton Cechov, Werner Schwab, Mikhail Bulgakov, Friedrich Nietzsche.[17]
Personal life
In 2008, he publicly came out as gay in an interview for Film magazine. His life partner is actor Piotr Skiba.[18] In the 1960s, he was a member of the hippie movement and was in a relationship with painter Zbysław Marek Maciejewski (1946–1999).[19]
