After the success of ‘Melodrama’, Anna Smolar returns to the stage of the Teatr Powszechny - this time in co-production with the Malta Festival.
She once again takes on the paradoxes of our collective psyche and social order, starting from a well-known Polish film. This time she looks into Agnieszka Holland's ‘A Lonely Woman’ and asks what care, solidarity and solitude mean today. She invites Ryfa Ri, a rapper and dance freestyler making her theatrical debut, to join the project.
Shot in 1981, the film is the story of a single mother, Irena, struggling to keep herself and her son Bogus afloat. In a supposedly socialist state, during the Solidarity carnival, the “no-back” woman is unable to make ends meet. She sinks into illusions and takes increasingly desperate steps.
Who would Irena AD 2025 be? In the fourth decade after the political transformation, in the era of digital capitalism and privatisation of public services, she is no longer a “lonely” but an “independent” mother. A person who has been instilled with the idea that she can only hold a grudge against herself.
There is a constant feed of well-wishing choir in her consciousness, ready to support her with good advice, charity fundraising, coaching in time and money management. And above all, constant concern for Bogus, who, after all, it is not enough to provide clothes and a roof over his head - he needs to be given space to express his emotions safely and develop his interests. After all, what would he say at a therapy that he won't be able to afford?
Trapped in the ruthless architecture of social perceptions, in the gruelling choreography of the game of survival, laced with the sweet smear of charitable compassion, Irene falls into a spiral of desperation, resentment, powerless projections. Where can these lead her in a world that supposedly celebrates “female power” and demands revolutionary change?
And where is Boguś in all this?