Train operating on the Prasno-Żyrostaw line. In one compartment - Elder Woman, Disney's Princess, Slim Man and the Obnoxious Creep. The first scene is like a look through a camera lens: objective, cool, invaluable. Passengers exchange a casual politeness. But the camera reaches deeper and deeper, penetrates, explores the inner world of characters. The train, which may never reach the planned station, becomes a limbo, suspended between life and death, the journey and the station. What awaits these people, not living, not dead, at the final station - remains unknown...
Initially strongly stereotypical, not very sophisticated friendly characters quickly plunge into their inner monologues. Gradually each of them reveals the hidden side of their personality. Passengers become increasingly obsessed with thinking about their phobias, fears and a difficult past: the air becomes heavy, and the dog, the leitmotiv of art invoked by the train manager's voice, is sinking its fangs into its body, finally drawing blood:
In the culminating scene the Elder Woman hangs herself on the belt unfastened from the elegant bag of the Disney Princess. Passengers sit squeezed together in the company of a dead body. On a train to nowhere chaos reigns. Gradually, however, the titular "tenderness" appears. The characters get names, find connections between themselves - even if distant. A moment of closeness, even the temporary and epidermal one, allows to forget about the pain of existence. The train moves on, the dog is tamed, a sentimental scout song can be heard.
Malina Prześluga wrote her play with the Television Theatre in mind - in fact, in the way the narration is conducted, one can see the way cinematic tricks inspired it, but it is nevertheless a drama that can be equally well represented in the theatre in the hands of a director who allows the two narratives to coexist: the spoken and the silent. Ultimately, these two perspectives intertwine to create a poignant tale of human loneliness and loss. The author treats her story with a characteristic astringent humour and irony, which does not take away any seriousness from the play, but instead brings the audience even more emotionally close to the characters: mundane, funny, but in their own way sublime. In the text, the author uses different types of narration and ways of conducting monologues and dialogues, a varied language, confessing that "during the writing of this play, language was a very important point of reference: it reflected the level of immersion in the personality of the characters, the colloquial dialogue was transformed into poetry, a free stream of consciousness into a descriptive and external narrative...
- The play has been translated into Croatian, so far it has had three stage readings - one at the Warsaw Dramatic Theatre directed by Magdalena Miklasz, the second at the Opole Puppet and Actor Theatre directed by Adam Nalepa and the third at the @TD Theatre in Zagreb, directed by Rajna Racz.