Monika Balińska

Krakow premiere: 21 September 2024 on the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre's Grand Stage
Warsaw premiere: 19 April 2024 on the Józef Szajna Grand Stage at STUDIO

'Heart of Glass. A Zen Musical' based on Hans Christian Andersen's “The Snow Queen” and Maria Peszek's ‘Naku*wiam zen’[I’m F***ing Chill] is a musical performance in which Andersen's fairy-tale reality clashes with the concreteness of the real-life biographies of two acclaimed artists, father and daughter – Jan Peszek and Maria Peszek. Am I even capable of love? – this question, posed by Jan a few months after his heart attack, becomes a trigger point for a musical anatomy of the heart, of loving and of love. 'Heart of Glass. A Zen Musical' is an irreverent, promiscuous and tender meditation on emptiness, body, love, Poland past and present, saints, farts, hopelessness and death in a musical arrangement by Andrzej Smolik. It is an expedition of the STUDIO and Słowacki Theatre companies as well as Jan and Maria Peszek's through the frosty nights of the ‘winter of the century’, remote swamps, empty churches, ecstasies, life and creative crises, the darkness of the Zbójniczka castle and the Teofilów estate, and through other wicked places.

The standard reading of H. Ch. Andersen's 'Snow Queen' is based on recreating an ethical system deeply rooted in Christian morality. In the musical staged by STUDIO and Słowacki Theatre, the fairy tale's critique of intellect, demonisation of carnality and sexuality, and censorship of desire, disintegrate when faced with the life stories of Maria and Jan, who draw their strength from a chronic need for understanding through a process of constant questioning and contestation. In ‘Heart of Glass’ – together with the ensembles of both theatres, they ask questions to which we have ready answers by now; they venture into the worst territories, confronting us with the uncomfortable, the unwanted and the repugnant; they search anew for a relationship with each other and with other people, beyond the usual patterns of the ‘good family’; and, above all, they remain in a state of constant non-knowledge and affirmation of life ‘in spite of everything’.

LISTEN! LET'S START!
WHEN WE REACH THE END OF THIS TALE,
WE WILL KNOW MORE THAN WE DO NOW,
SINCE THIS STORY IS TRULY WICKED.