How do we deal with peer pressure and the accompanying social judgement about how we should express private emotions? In Pieces of a Woman we follow Maja who, after a traumatic event, feels the consequences and the pressure of her environment as to how she should express and process this event. Is serenity a sin? Can we resist guilt feelings? Kata Wéber has written a trenchant, instinctive text. Together with theatre-maker Kornél Mundruczó, she welcomes us into a family home inhabited by an exceptional group of Polish actors who perform this text with naturalistic precision. The Hungarian artists use their fi lm expertise to create a two-part show. The live film in the first part is contrasted with a second part which, despite the classical theatrical narrative and greater physical distance, gets uncomfortably close. Pieces of a Woman resonates most relevantly with contemporary Polish and Hungarian society. It is a liberation story: an emancipation from the imposed norms on how to process a traumatic experience; a gradual liberation from compulsory and predefined women’s roles. Little by little we explore Maja’s story and that of her mother’s house, where the story is set. Together they discover freedom.

Confronted with the SARS-CoV-2 crisis, we had to cancel this project