Search for an Authentic Self

As an actress, Maryna represents the epitome of mutability: her success on the stage depends directly upon her ability to assume different personas. Although she seems to have some genuine affection for her husband Bogdan, even he is not exempt from her tendency to use other people as minor characters in the drama of her own life. She flirts with and eventually sleeps with the writer Ryszard but it appears that she is merely playing another scene, and that her affections for him do not run deeper than the surface. Likewise, her relationships with other people, such as her friend Henryk, are primarily centered on herself. Maryna appears to have no relationship with her son Piotr at all; he is essentially an irritation who gets in the way of her career. With Maryna, paradoxically, the search for an authentic self becomes both a means...