SESTRY DUŠEHOJIVÉ / SOUL-HEALING SISTERS

Iveta Horváthová

Genre: contemporary drama with elements of black comedy
Cast: 4 women, mother, two sisters, dead sister Ema/ Dumb, Clever, Satine, 2 men, father, one sister’ s husband

Every family and society have their  own secrets  reflecting  the world we live in. The play deals with contemporary society’s  taboo – homophobia. It is a story of an average family consisting of mother, father, two living sisters and one dead sister  – the one who was the nicest, the most beautiful and the most gifted of all.  Her life had a secret almost nobody knew about. The story starts on the first anniversary of  sister´s death when  all her relatives meet.

Evidently  unexpectedly, a dead sister’ s  girlfriend/partner appears. She is asking for keeping the promise given by both  sisters who then have to solve dilemma of bringing lesbian love and past of the beloved sister into the open, or defending honour according to the  norms of a heterosexual world.  

In the play, taking place in a flat with a balcony within a few days, we watch a small dark drama; from a certain point of view it is a black comedy about family relationships, about male-female relations, about  women-sisters relations – when all of them want to get on with everybody. That explains the title  The Soul-Healing Sisters.

It is the play in which the dead sister’ s  recipe  how to tell the  painful truth is revived.  It is the play about traditional thinking and  upbringing with prejudices. With  ironic  overview,  the play deals with so called woman’ s  self-sacrificing and soul-healing under any circumstances. To what extent  is the woman’ s  soul-healing and  tolerant  hiding the truth  her  real mission and to what extent  is  it  just simple  hypocrisy and  a cowardly gesture?  The play considers  how difficult it is to bring secrets into the open and when they are revealed  – what is it  for?

The play won its place in the all-Slovak drama finals Drama 06.

“Plays dealing with gay and lesbian issues are still rare in Slovakia and that’ s why it is necessary to welcome the author´s  intention to write about this world in the way it has been done in other countries for several years. We are aware of an impulse  the  topic of sexual minorities has brought into the  world drama;   I’ d like to  mention just Kushner´s  Angels in America. I like that relations and prejudices in this play are murmuring in „a small town” (Klimáček, Viliam: Dáma menom slovenská dráma. [A Lady Called Slovak Drama] In: Dráma 06, 2008)

  The play is available in Slovak original.