Padamme, Padamme

Based on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s novel, Cancer Ward, Padamme, Padamme is a chaotic drama about the lives of cancer patients in post-Stalin communist Russia. The action takes place solely in a hospital ward, a microcosm of the Russian government, where the boundaries between doctor and patient are blurred, sexual antics and violence abound, and death always lies around the next corner.

That the play is spoken entirely in Polish and is essentially plot-less doesn’t work in its favour. Throughout, the action centres on specific conversations or speeches ranging from literature, to physiology, morality and love, which emerge at random and with no apparent continuity. The fact that the subtitles, which are projected onto the back wall of the stage, are occassionally out of sync or are blocked by the shadow of an actor’s head, only adds to the general confusion.

The eight-man cast—four women, four men—dressed all in white, are energetic enough and make the most of the restricted space on stage, but the acting remains overly melodramatic.

This all-Polish production is rather too successful in conveying the anarchic nature of a communist society. You’re likely to leave feeling more dazed than satisfied.