OFF: The Mourning Pres

Chłostki

producers: Magdalena Drab, Albert Pyśk, Martyna Rak

cast: Magdalena Kolska, Magdalena Drab

PPA production: Jagoda Bielawska

It’s SIMPLE.
You walk through the door.
Then you pass the nurses’ station and KEEP GOING until you reach the lifts. The ones on the right, not on the left. Remember.
On the ground floor, you will walk through a lobby full of people in their dressing gowns and slippers. If anyone starts chasing you, speed up.
When you’re behind the automatic doors – run!
If someone asks you about the black bag you’re carrying, change the subject.
If they look at you, reply in the same way.
Then you’ll be at traffic lights a dozen times, giving way, apologising, getting past barriers, bans, orders, anti-theft locks and padlocks, and surveillance, but you’ll get through. You are MOURNING! You have the right to PAIN, to WEEP!
Because you can’t hide the fact that she’s not here or pretend she never existed!

“The Mourning Pres” is the story of three sisters – one of them dead – who want to hold a wake in a gated community in the middle of the city. Woven with the sounds of folk mourning songs, this musical performance draws on the grotesque to confront the audience with questions such as: is there a place for death in our world? Can our society – that regulates, controls and sterilises every aspect of reality – afford to experience loss and weep together in public?

Photo: Karol Budrewicz
OFF: The Mourning Pres