Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta

A bridge between reality and fiction, Edith Alibec’s award-winning adaptation of Aglaja Veteranyi’s autobiographical book, Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta, will be heading on a UK tour this September 2021. A fascinating and endlessly imaginative show, it follows a family of circus artists who flee the Communist regime in Romania during the 1960s in search of fame, glory and a better life in the West.

Among the circus caravans, a family are caught between two worlds: the colorful high-top where the mother performs her death-defying stunts and the harsher reality of a nomadic life where home is only to be found in your mother’s cooking. This is a lyrical darkly comic tale of a family always on the road, who are always the foreigners.

Performed and adapted by Edith Alibec, it is inspired by the refugee crisis in Germany where Alibec met with refugees and visited their social camps. Her adaptation seeks to highlight the vulnerability in being forced to leave home and trying to find a new place in the world. It explores what it is to feel like the place you live does not allow you to feel like you belong.