Agnieszka Holland’s 1981 film A Woman Alone may be viewed as an indictment of communist Poland for its story of an impoverished single mother who is comprehensively failed by the state – and was banned in the country for many years as a result. The Polish-born film-maker, though, has maintained that it was not just a political critique but a universal portrait of lone, dispossessed motherhood.
This stage adaptation, written by Natalia Fiedorczuk and directed by Anna Smolar, tests that thesis – and in some was proves it – by lifting the story out of its original sociopolitical context and transposing it to a modern-day Poland of online abuses, zero hours contracts and today’s lone parenting culture.
