A year before the centennial of Stefan Żeromski’s death the team of creators are drawing from a Polish modernist classic, taking on one of the most controversial novels of the period.

Working with and deconstructing the convention of the melodrama, the artists will be looking at the travails of the main protagonist, Ewa, treating her in a more general and metaphorical way, and juxtaposing her on stage with the novel’s male protagonists. The creators of the play have adopted a queer-feminist reading of Ewa’s story, trying to move past the male gaze inscribed in Żeromski’s novel, later confirmed in the film adaptation by Walerian Borowczyk. Their focus is the protagonist’s entanglement in the patriarchy and how the narrative around women has changed over the past century.

The creators of the performance would like to look at female body and sexuality in a subjective way, seeking to be liberate them from convention. Now that she is expelled from paradise for the original sin, will Ewa forever be sentenced to hell?