The paper provides an overview of the role of objects in the rehearsals for the play "The Towianists, Kings of the Clouds" by Jolanta Janiczak and Wiktor Rubin. It analyzes the way substitute props were used while working on the play, and the confrontation between actors/the director and the materials, which give resistance and cannot easily be subordinated. It calls attention to the dynamic shift in relationship between the actor and the object, pondering the role of the prop in the process of creating the play, whose visual/sensual effect is ultimately hidden behind a network of semiotic links.