Licking Your Heart is not your typical happy-go-lucky musical. It doesn’t make you wanna dance in your seat or sing along with the crowd. With the plot taking place in a 1945 war torn Breslau, which during the play officially changes the name from Breslau (German) to Wrocław (Polish), this musical does transform you to a city not too many know about.

Germans have been beaten, Russians are looting local factories as their spoils of war, and the citizens of Wrocław are trying to survive in a smoldering city. The play brilliantly shows the array of nationalities and religions in Wrocław at that time. Main character is a Gypsy girl looking for her lost lover. She finds a Polish girl to help her with her quest and meets Poles, Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, Gypsies, Catholics and Jews along the way. Living in Wrocław, we see how international and interfaith it is now. But we completely forget that Wrocław was always a great city open to anyone willing to get along.

At one point the scene takes place at the Wrocław ZOO, which is the oldest ZOO in Poland dating back to 1865. But during, and in the play right after the war, the ZOO is a dangerous place. Starving citizens are killing animals looking for meat, and soldiers are dispatched to kill panthers and other predators that could be a threat to local residents had they escaped from their heavily bombed out and bullet riddled compounds. It’s part of this city’s history that no one really ever talks about.

The musical is all in Polish, though with heavy Russian and German accents, and I highly recommend it to anyone in town wanting to get a singing history lesson of this beautiful city.

Official link to the play: https://www.teatr-capitol.pl/serce

 

Here’s the official trailer for this musical: