Prosecutors probe play simulating oral sex on statue of late pope

Warsaw: Polish prosecutors on Wednesday began investigating a theatre play that drops hints about murdering a top politician and has a scene simulating oral sex on a statue of the late pope, Saint John Paul II.

Poland's powerful Roman Catholic church has slammed "The Curse", a play directed by Croat Oliver Frljic, as being "blasphemous" for this and other sex scenes involving crosses.

Warsaw prosecutor Lukasz Lapczynski said in a Wednesday statement that the probe would focus on whether the play "incites the murder" of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the governing rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party and de facto Poland's most powerful politician.

Investigators will also examine whether the play, which opened to the public on Saturday at Warsaw's Teatr Powszechny theatre offends religious feeling.

Anyone convicted of inciting a murder is subject up to three year behind bars, while those found guilty of offending religious feeling are liable to a maximum two years in prison.

One scene shows an actress performing oral sex on a life-size statue of the late Polish-born John Paul II, perhaps the most popular historic figure in the strongly Catholic country.

In another scene, an actress said she had considered including a sequence in the play during which she would collect money from the audience to pay for a hit on Kaczynski, but that director Frljic cut it from the script.

"The Curse" is an adaptation of Polish playwright Stanislaw Wyspianski's 1899 play of the same name.