White Marriage

Growing up is never innocent.

Written in 1973, Białe małżeństwo [White Marriage] is one of the most provocative and forward-looking plays by Tadeusz Różewicz – a major figure of post-war Central European literature and one of the most important writers associated with Wrocław’s cultural and literary landscape. Known primarily as a poet who radically reshaped literary language after World War II, Różewicz brought the same precision, irony and ethical urgency to the stage, challenging theatrical form as well as social convention.

At the time of its creation, White Marriage was a scandalous and groundbreaking text. By exposing the violence hidden within morality, family structures and sexual norms, Różewicz anticipated debates that would only fully emerge decades later – around gender performativity, bodily autonomy, repression and the politics of intimacy. Today, the play resonates with renewed force, revealing its strikingly contemporary – and queer – potential.

The play centres on two young women – Bianka and Paulina – at the threshold of adulthood, where body and self-image collide with social expectations. Growing up unfolds here within a world shaped by shame, contradiction and invisible forms of violence embedded in family life and custom.

The adult world offers no support: parents and figures of “normality” reproduce control rather than care, preserving taboos instead of questioning them.

This production foregrounds the queer dimension of Różewicz’s text, treating gender as performative rather than essential. Casting women in male roles exposes femininity and masculinity as social scripts and reveals the theatricality of power relations.

Bianka’s rebellion and Paulina’s pragmatism function as boundary gestures – attempts to escape an inherited order. White Marriage rejects moral closure, asking urgent questions about identity, normativity and consent.

Radical in form and intensely physical, the performance moves between grotesque humour and tragedy. Addressed also to younger audiences, it creates a space of confrontation and resistance, where theatre becomes a tool for questioning inherited norms.