“I have three children: Zosia 18, Hela 16, Franek 13… and there is one more. Unplanned. Unexpected. And completely unwanted. Her name is Elżbieta, or actually, she is Ela. She steps uneasily and wears a diaper. She is 74 years old. She is my mother.” This is how Marta Rebzda starts her very personal radio play “Let me tell you” directed by Waldemar Modestowicz which won the first prize in the radio drama category at this year’s UK International Audio Drama Festival in Canterbury.

The author presents the next stages of her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease: the disappearance of the ability to find herself in time and space, to recognize faces, to understand the situation. About the progressive atrophy of entire areas of the brain. About self-awareness that is getting foggier and foggier. When her mother cannot remember how she met her husband, the author decides to tell her mother her own story. Hoping that this story would bring her mother back to herself, for a moment… for the duration of the story.

“My story is about what can save us, what has a therapeutic effect on us. If this story is preserved, despite the fact that someone, in this case, my mother loses her memory as a result of her illness, the story I wrote will survive”, said Marta Information Agency Rebzda.

She emphasized that the jurors appreciated the work of all the authors of the radio play: the director Waldemar Modestowicz and the actors, including the lead actors Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak and Ewa Konstancja Bułhak.

Adrian Andrzejewski