Zola on the stage

"Sex, highs and hunger” based on Emil Zola, directed by Luk Perceval at the Helena Modrzejewska National Old Theater in Krakow. Michal Centkowski writes in the “Review”.

Luk Perceval is staging “Sex, Hajs and Głód”, a chronicle of the Rougon-Macquart story, on the stage of the Old Theater. The rather free collage of characters and plots taken from Emil Zola's novel cycle, though intriguing at times, ultimately falls short of expectations. Mainly due to excessive condensation of plots, leading to dramatic chaos. Although there is no shortage of bravura acting performances in this mental and stylistic mess.

Divided into three parts, the play is an attempt to capture the totality of human experience. In each there are parallel plots of characters from different rungs of the social ladder, experiencing the same sieves and drives. In the first part, Perceval, juxtaposing the fate of the poor washerwoman Gerwazyna - the heroine of “In the Matin” (played by the excellent Ewa Kaim) - with the story of the affection linking Doctor Pascal (Krzysztof Zawadzki) and Clotilda, shows the destructive effects of love and sexuality subjected to the rigors of social conventions. In the second, by far the best part, the life of Parisian star Nana, daughter of Gervais, is intertwined with that of Saccard, a virtuoso speculator - money, that driving force of capitalist reality, seemingly allows both of them to reinvent themselves.

.And it is in the story of Nana's desperate desire to break out of the social lowlands - evocatively played by the Nowosadko-Kaim duo - ultimately repeating her mother's path, that Perceval manages to show the grim truth about the socially determined heredity of fates (primarily female).The third part of the play, inspired by “The Human Beast” and “Germinal,” although it deals with rebellion, anger and crime, is essentially lukewarm.