The Text of the Body

Text of the Body by playwright Anja Novak is a powerful and contemporary drama that explores how the body carries the marks of personal and social history.

Awarded the Grum Prize for Best Dramatic Text at the 2023 Slovenian Drama Week, the play places the body itself at the centre of the story. Through illness, symptoms and physical experience, the body becomes a medium that reveals the world around it and the relationships that shape it.

The work traces three generations of women: a grandmother confronting questions of female pleasure and social expectations, a mother dealing with sexual abuse, and a daughter struggling with anorexia. Their stories reveal how the pressures of society, gender roles and power structures leave deep traces on the body.

Blending narrative and theatrical experimentation, Text of the Body explores the idea that illness can be the body’s response to a damaged environment. The play invites audiences to listen closely, reminding us that when silence prevails, the body eventually speaks for itself.