Café Luna

„Café Luna” is a spoken-word and musical, comic-lyrical story about the search for love. This timeless, almost clichéd theme is presented here in an unconventional way — in a queer, camp atmosphere inspired by the early work of the renowned Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar. All the songs woven into the plot come from his films, with new Polish lyrics written to the original melodies (rather than translations of the original texts).

The plot may seem simple, but it is full of twists. Four single women — Carmela, Rosita, Bianca and Emma — meet every evening at the same time in the titular bar, Café Luna, owned by Lola. This seedy dive in an equally seedy part of town initially appears ordinary and painfully realistic, yet it soon becomes something else entirely: a space of memories, longing, rapture and despair, and even magic. Much like in Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot (of course, toutes proportions gardées), the characters come here simply to wait. Their loneliness is unbearable, and they keep watch for “the one,” hoping that by some miraculous twist of fate he will one day cross the threshold of this gloomy place.

The patriarchal pattern in which men gather to talk about women over a bottle of vodka and mock stereotypes of femininity is turned upside down. Here, it is the women who sit in the bar, drinking and indulging in irreverent jokes about stereotypes of masculinity. Yet they do more than just mock men — each of them shares her most beautiful memory of a great love that happened once in her life and that she herself destroyed through immaturity, foolishness or carelessness.

Although they all dream of a man (something that orthodox feminists might find hard to forgive), it does not mean they long for male dominance. What they seek is simply a normal, healthy relationship with a partner — something many feminist thinkers today acknowledge. Unlike in Beckett’s play, the longed-for, even prayed-for “Godot” finally arrives at Café Luna — but in a very surprising form. The mysterious guest grants the women’s wishes and then disappears in a magical way. They decide to keep returning to the bar every evening, patiently waiting for love that may, perhaps, one day arrive.

The play’s message may seem controversial, yet in today’s world — marked by discrimination, especially in the sphere of human feelings, where some are considered “worse” and others “better” — it is not without meaning. Even if it may sound banal: when love is real, it does not choose gender and it dissolves all divisions.

Co-financed by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

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