The play, whose actress Anna Ilczuk – was awarded for a daring portrayal of the spectrum of emotions of a woman facing her own demons and contemporary oppression as part of the Divine Comedy Festival – could not be missing from the programme of the Malta Festival in a female version, especially since The Melodrama is a performance by Anna Smolar who clearly shows what teamwork is like in the theater in the process of creation.

„The Melodrama” is not a show about addiction, emptied bottles, or the drama of a hangover, nor is it about the person who has been drinking. This is not a show about the romantic myth of a self-destructive sensitive genius who can do everything whenever he/she wants to. We ask: who is the person in the background? Who is the eternally supporting character, the co-addicted person?  

„The Melodrama” is a story about Kuba and Krystyna, a couple entangled in a co-dependent cycle of ups and downs. The show takes its characters from „Pętla” („The Loop”) by Marek Hłasko, however, it redirects its attention to Krystyna and the relations beyond the male-female stereotype. 

After 60 years contact with Hłasko’s prose and the famous film adaptation of „The Loop” directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has strikes with the archaic stereotypes and the theatrical play of the film lover and heroine (Gustaw Holoubek and Aleksandra Śląska as Kuba and Krystyna). Nowadays we live in a completely different world which we peel like an onion from the successive layers of patriarchal power. 

Can only the standard melodrama tell the story about love and can the fire of passion be fueled only by a melodramatic love triangle, burdened with suffering and remaining in hiding? Women grow up in the tradition of the cult of romantic relationships – it is supposed to be our goal and the fulfillment of our humanity. In the upbringing of boys and young men the topic of emotional competencies, necessary for creating a mature relationship, is often omitted. This pattern results in one side (often unaware) taking the entire burden of responsibility for the relationship and supporting the family. However, the figure of the saviour, the rescuer, the loving family member sacrificing their wants and needs for the good of the other person, knows neither gender nor norms. It requires rephrasing – so that we can fully see the mechanisms behind the „saviour role”.

In the show we will follow the path of thoughts, beliefs and the impulses of the Good Wife who does not necessarily have to be played by a woman. Hłasko starts his short story with a motto: “Life doesn’t hurt next to a good woman”. Will the Good Wife be able to find a new definition of goodness and care for herself, will she be able to become independent – not spectacularly, politically, or on the  streets, but privately and intimately?