ZHOOREK

Named after the Polish word for borscht, this thick soup of drama involves a youngish widow, Halina, her impaired 15-year-old daughter, Iwona, and Iwona?s newborn baby. It?s right before Christmas, and Halina desperately wants the baby to be baptized, and so drags her daughter through the snow, looking for the baby?s father, whose name Iwona either won?t or can?t divulge. Iwona eventually points a shaky finger at several men, including her mother?s sometime lover and a local soldier. Complicating matters is the suicide of Halina?s husband, on the rail-line where he once worked.