Pustostan

While reading Malina Prześluga's “Pustostan” it is easy to forget that this play was written in 2014. The world is changing, our lifestyles are evolving, but the phrase “Family is most important” will always sound familiar in Polish ears, even if not on a daily basis, then certainly - on holidays, especially if that holiday is Christmas, with a Christmas tree, carp and (since the 1990s) a „Home alone” movie. It is to a Christmas Eve, attended by Mom, Dad, Daughter, Son, Grandma, Dog and a mysterious Guest, that Przezśluga invites us to one of the houses in the “universal country”. There is a conversation going on at the family table, during which everyone talks, but no one listens, everyone asks, but no one wants to know the answer. “It's terrible to live in a house that isn't there,” confesses Son, making us realize that home is not an apartment and the objects gathered in it, but relationships. The author talks about the problems we all know, turning up the potentiometer of their intensity and saturating the language of the characters with predatory humor, which by no means dulls the dramas they experience. The more we settle in to the situations we recognize on stage, the more surprising the ending of the play becomes. Who was the Guest? Did he fulfill the wishes of the characters? We invite you to the table, you will find out for yourself. 

Reading performed as part of the UCK 2023 Theater Residency Program co-led by the UwB Foundation

The event will be streamed live online. Link below:

https://youtube.com/live/2OOrpSHiU7U