NO TRACES – a rite of passage

NO TRACES

Bluboks Theater presents: WITHOUT A TRACE (a rite of passage)

Scriptwriter and director: Katarzyna Wińska
Actors: Jakub Kamieński
Weronika Nockowska
Helena Radzikowska
Photos: Wojciech Druszcz
Diary of Ania K.: Weronika Nockowska
Montage: Ryszard Gajewski
Music: Agata Wińska Trio, Jan Małkowski, Dominik Mokrzewski
Production: Tomasz Wiński 2009

Two fifteen-year-old girls are talking on Skype. We spy on them, our screens receiving the image shown by the cameras in their computers. The teenagers have the illusory conviction of their private world being off limits. They think the Internet is a space beyond the control of their family and school. Breaking into the sphere of their intimate relations, we effectively sever their path to becoming independent. Our opinions of them fall like verdicts. We use psychological and emotional violence to support our badly conceived roles as child-rearers. Only recently we disbelieved children who were sexually molested, now we pay no attention to the consequences of psychological abuse. The crisis of coming of age has always been painful for a family, but rites of passage in “primitive” societies helped the child turn into an adult gracefully. Participants in these rituals had more rights, but also duties. They were also indoctrinated into higher spiritual matters. In Western civilization teenagers are left to their own devices in their dramatic search for their identities. Terrified by the infinite possibilities, they lose their sense of self, their feelings, and their place in the world, like madmen who are comical in their helplessness. Like madmen, they are caricatures of “normal” adults. The author dedicates Without a Trace to all the victims of adult disappointment; to everyone and no one, as every time of lost innocence is as foggy as these few days in the life of these two characters.