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Czech Theatre 23
Czech
THEATRE
23
Czech
THEATRE
cover23.indd 1
23
1.6.2007 11:59:44
Marie Reslová
Contents
Stage Pictures – Guides on the Path to Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Věra Velemanová
The Czech Stage Costume from One Prague Quadrennial to the Next
– or, a Not Quite Exhaustive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Marie Zdeňková, Kamila Černá
Persecution.cz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Lenka Šaldová
A Lesson in Modern Theatre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Jana Machalická
Scootering through the Labyrinth of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Karel Král
A Teacher of Humility – Hana Voříšková’s Little Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Pavel Vašíček, Kamila Černá
Dvořák’s Puppet Transposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Kaleidoscope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Notebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
CZECH THEATRE 23
Issued by Theatre Institute Prague
Acting director / Eva Žáková
Editor / Barbara Topolová
Assistant editors / Kamila Černá, Zbyněk Černík
Translation / Robin Cassling, Andrea Miltner, Cóilín O‘Connor
Cover and graphical layout / Egon L. Tobiáš
Printed by / Tiskárna TOBOLA, Jinonická 329, Praha 5
June 2007
Editors’ e-mail: [email protected]
Subscription: Divadelní ústav, Celetná 17, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic
fax: 00420 2232 6100, e-mail: [email protected]
©2007 Divadelní ústav Praha
ISSN 0862-9380
◊W. A. Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Ursel
and Karl-Ernst Herrmann / Set design and costumes Karl-Ernst Herrmann > Photo Hana Smejkalová
001-002_cmyk.indd 1
1.6.2007 12:02:00
2/
EDITORIAL
Editorial
I
n June 2007 the eleventh year of the Prague Quadrennial
will take place, and for this reason the 23rd edition of
Czech Theatre focuses on everything that is in some way
connected with the space of the stage and in the broader sense
with the artistic conception of a stage production.
This volume opens with a special section on scenography, in
which Marie Reslová and Věra Velemanová take an analytical
approach to identifying the principal aspects of the work of
Czech scenic artists in recent years. The study by Marie Reslová,
called Stage Pictures – Guides on the Path to Meaning, is devoted
to the work of two top Czech stage designers from the younger
generation, Martin Chocholoušek and Jan Štěpánek. Discussing
their cooperation with various directors, Reslová notes the ways
in which their designs have fundamentally contributed to
shaping the theme and the form of different productions. In
The Czech Stage Costume from One Prague Quadrennial to the
Next – or, a Not Quite Exhaustive Summary, Věra Velemanová
examines the artistic and the character-forming properties of
clothing and how costume pieces interact with each other, and
she identifies those productions, out of a spectrum of staged
works, in which costumes became an integral part of the
structure of the production.
Other articles in this year’s volume also look at productions,
projects, and phenomena that in very diverse ways emphasised
artistic components.
The text by Marie Zdeňková and Kamila Černá, Persecution.cz,
describes a four-part project that draws on historical factors
to explore forms of discrimination in the central European
space. The project was staged at the end of last year’s season in
the unrenovated space of a former aluminium foundry in the
Prague district Holešovice. Czech audiences were introduced
to the dramaturgy–direction team of two young theatre artists,
Lukáš Trpišovský and Martin Kukučka, – who operate under
the “punchy” name of Skutr (Scooter) – through their new
conception of the performance space, which the pair shape and
define using stage-art techniques that include the use of media
installations, such as video art and computer graphics. Jana
Machalická writes about this in her article Scootering through
the Labyrinth of the World. Hana Voříšková, originally a visual
artist, is the author behind a unique form of theatre that invites
people to take part in unique productions, which she manages
to carry off on her own. She performs them literally everywhere,
on her coat, in your home, or even in the forest, and together
with the spectators she discovers the possibilities offered by
various forms of material, or light, or proportions of size. Her
gentle creations are described in a text by Karel Král, A Teacher
of Humility. Lenka Šaldová writes about the production of
Mozart’s The Clemency of Titus, which won a number of
awards, including the Alfréd Radok Prize for the best stage
design for 2006. Finally, the puppet performances of Tomáš
Dvořák are, as always, filled with striking puppet creations
based on national tradition.
This edition also contains a new section of Kaleidoscope and
the traditional Notebook.
Barbara Topolová
⁄Maurice Maeterlinck, The Very Blue Bird / Divadlo Husa na provázku, Brno 2007 / Directed by Vladimír Morávek
Set design Martin Chocholoušek / Costumes Eva Morávková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
001-002_cmyk.indd 2
1.6.2007 12:02:01
Marie Reslová
Contents
Stage Pictures – Guides on the Path to Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Věra Velemanová
The Czech Stage Costume from One Prague Quadrennial to the Next
– or, a Not Quite Exhaustive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Marie Zdeňková, Kamila Černá
Persecution.cz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Lenka Šaldová
A Lesson in Modern Theatre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Jana Machalická
Scootering through the Labyrinth of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Karel Král
A Teacher of Humility – Hana Voříšková’s Little Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Pavel Vašíček, Kamila Černá
Dvořák’s Puppet Transposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Kaleidoscope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Notebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
CZECH THEATRE 23
Issued by Theatre Institute Prague
Acting director / Eva Žáková
Editor / Barbara Topolová
Assistant editors / Kamila Černá, Zbyněk Černík
Translation / Robin Cassling, Andrea Miltner, Cóilín O‘Connor
Cover and graphical layout / Egon L. Tobiáš
Printed by / Tiskárna TOBOLA, Jinonická 329, Praha 5
June 2007
Editors’ e-mail: [email protected]
Subscription: Divadelní ústav, Celetná 17, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic
fax: 00420 2232 6100, e-mail: [email protected]
©2007 Divadelní ústav Praha
ISSN 0862-9380
◊W. A. Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Ursel
and Karl-Ernst Herrmann / Set design and costumes Karl-Ernst Herrmann > Photo Hana Smejkalová
001-002_cmyk.indd 1
4.6.2007 10:21:20
2/
EDITORIAL
Editorial
I
n June 2007 the eleventh year of the Prague Quadrennial
will take place, and for this reason the 23rd edition of
Czech Theatre focuses on everything that is in some way
connected with the space of the stage and in the broader sense
with the artistic conception of a stage production.
This volume opens with a special section on scenography, in
which Marie Reslová and Věra Velemanová take an analytical
approach to identifying the principal aspects of the work of
Czech scenic artists in recent years. The study by Marie Reslová,
called Stage Pictures – Guides on the Path to Meaning, is devoted
to the work of two top Czech stage designers from the younger
generation, Martin Chocholoušek and Jan Štěpánek. Discussing
their cooperation with various directors, Reslová notes the ways
in which their designs have fundamentally contributed to
shaping the theme and the form of different productions. In
The Czech Stage Costume from One Prague Quadrennial to the
Next – or, a Not Quite Exhaustive Summary, Věra Velemanová
examines the artistic and the character-forming properties of
clothing and how costume pieces interact with each other, and
she identifies those productions, out of a spectrum of staged
works, in which costumes became an integral part of the
structure of the production.
Other articles in this year’s volume also look at productions,
projects, and phenomena that in very diverse ways emphasised
artistic components.
The text by Marie Zdeňková and Kamila Černá, Persecution.cz,
describes a four-part project that draws on historical factors
to explore forms of discrimination in the central European
space. The project was staged at the end of last year’s season in
the unrenovated space of a former aluminium foundry in the
Prague district Holešovice. Czech audiences were introduced
to the dramaturgy–direction team of two young theatre artists,
Lukáš Trpišovský and Martin Kukučka, – who operate under
the “punchy” name of Skutr (Scooter) – through their new
conception of the performance space, which the pair shape and
define using stage-art techniques that include the use of media
installations, such as video art and computer graphics. Jana
Machalická writes about this in her article Scootering through
the Labyrinth of the World. Hana Voříšková, originally a visual
artist, is the author behind a unique form of theatre that invites
people to take part in unique productions, which she manages
to carry off on her own. She performs them literally everywhere,
on her coat, in your home, or even in the forest, and together
with the spectators she discovers the possibilities offered by
various forms of material, or light, or proportions of size. Her
gentle creations are described in a text by Karel Král, A Teacher
of Humility. Lenka Šaldová writes about the production of
Mozart’s The Clemency of Titus, which won a number of
awards, including the Alfréd Radok Prize for the best stage
design for 2006. Finally, the puppet performances of Tomáš
Dvořák are, as always, filled with striking puppet creations
based on national tradition.
This edition also contains a new section of Kaleidoscope and
the traditional Notebook.
Barbara Topolová
⁄Maurice Maeterlinck, The Very Blue Bird / Divadlo Husa na provázku, Brno 2007 / Directed by Vladimír Morávek
Set design Martin Chocholoušek / Costumes Eva Morávková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
001-002_cmyk.indd 2
4.6.2007 10:21:21
Stage
Pictures
– Guides
on the Path
to Meaning
(Martin Chocholoušek
and Jan Štěpánek)
Marie Reslová
William Shakespeare, Othello / Klicperovo divadlo, Hradec Králové 2003
Directed by Vladimír Morávek / Set design Martin Chocholoušek / Costumes Petra
Goldflamová – Štětinová > Photo Pavel Nesvadba
003-016_cmyk_bez podtisk.indd 3
1.6.2007 12:03:50
4/
STAGE PICTURES – GUIDES ON THE PATH TO MEANING
Like elsewhere in Europe, the face of Czech theatre has long been shaped by its most distinctive directors,
who are able to realise their unique personal vision on the stage – their concept of theatre and their
view of the world – and everything else yields to their natural authority. The way in which they interpret
material reveals legible traces of consistent personal themes (sometimes even obsessions). The strong
authorial dimension to the talent of these directors is even affirmed by the fact that they often write their
own plays and scripts and create radically different adaptations and interpretations of classic works. It
is in cooperation with such figures (e.g. Jan Nebeský, Vladimír Morávek, Jiří Pokorný, J. A. Pitínský, or
Miroslav Krobot) that the most remarkable works of contemporary stage design are born.
Martin Chocholoušek and Jan Štěpánek are from the younger generation of contemporary Czech stage
designers (both emerged on the professional scene around the year 2000), and they have already come
to be partners to directors who are a half or a whole generation older. It almost seems as though the
directors are raising them in their own image. Both have adopted the method of picture theatre as
natural. While Štěpánek relies on spontaneous inspirations and is more expressive, raw, and perhaps
even slapdash in his articulation of space, Chocholoušek does not shy from respecting craftsmanship,
his work is less sharp, but expresses its meanings more precisely.
I
n the production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at Dejvice
Theatre, Chocholoušek’s stage design forms an indelible
part of Krobot’s directorial concept. The meaning of the
powerful images that emerge out of the tension between objects
on the stage becomes clear with the actors’ performance or
the accompanying music. It reveals itself through analogies
and associations, appealing to the viewers’ own subconscious
experiences.
A wall of narrow, bashed metal cabinets, the kind usually
founded in a workers’ change-room, a simple wooden table,
ordinary chairs, a chandelier made out of a jarring combination
of horns, crystal hangings and brass features, wooden ledges
on the side portals, and the space flooded with the penetrating
sound of Balkan band music. If we were to guess what play
from the canon of world theatre was being performed on this
set, Shakespeare’s Hamlet would not come to mind. The male
characters, in slightly worn-out dark suits and white shirts, the
female characters in tight dark dresses. The Balkans? Sicily?
A palpable sense of strong family tradition, the voice of blood.
The private world of each character has been tucked away in each
cabinet (Ophelia has her letters and stuffed toys there, Hamlet
a bottle and maybe some books). The door of one is a “secrete
entranceway”. At the start it looks as though the family is about
to sit down together to dine. King Claudius, the “padrone”,
dishes out to everyone with a benevolent smile, but he is on
his guard: his fixed gaze seems to penetrate the thoughts of the
others, like the authoritative pack leader constantly reappraising
his position in the group to check whether he is at risk.
This Hamlet has the features of a tragic grotesque. It’s cool.
Not much emotion on the outside. A shot is fired and then…
the dead body is tidied away “underground” through a floor
hatch. Death passes by with a kind of cool confirmation seen
in a gangster film. The characters’ behaviour is a mixture of
shrewdness and a will to power, with an element of sexual
attraction.
In the second half of the production we find ourselves on the
beach. Sand, sea, and sky, the bright emptiness against which
the contours of a wicker beach chair are reflected. Claudius
and Gertrude, wrapped in soft blankets and protected against
the blowing wind and sand, warm themselves, like two content
cats after a meal. The pathetic little picnic of the others is off to
the side. Visible in the background are thorny spikes of grass
growing on a dustbowl like a forest of spears. The rational
Ophelia’s madness does not arise from her wounded emotions.
It is much more about the desperation of reason that cannot
endure falsehood and the manipulation of reality. The fact that
guilt, though publicly known, goes unsaid and – seemingly
forever – unpunished. The traditional closing “massacre” does
not occur in this rendering of Hamlet, which instead closes
on a background seascape, signifying the unchanging and
inexorable order of the world and nature, and with the expressed
faith that “things happen as they are supposed to”. It does not
matter when, or how.
When Chocholoušek describes how he came up with this
stage design, it is evident that, in addition to having some specific
ideas about a place called Elsinor (the special quaintness of the
environment, a closed community – a town once comprised of
small wooden buildings), a big role was played by intuition,
a kind of “logical” fortuity. He discovered an analogical image
and inspiration in an issue of National Geographic containing
photographs of the Amish community, who originally emigrated
from Europe to the United States, and today still have a strong
patriarchal system and maintain the same traditions and habits
from the past unchanged. In the simply furnished community
building of the Amish, which also serves as a dining place
and a kind of parliament, he saw useful objects of a strange
but ordinary beauty. He felt for the culture of a community
that “lives for itself, interferes little in other things, has its own
principles and rules...” For the second half of the production
Chocholoušek was inspired by the “specific bleakness of the
Baltic Sea”, its sandy beaches and the local vegetation.
The images that emerge on stage out of the tension between
the set’s design and the text, between the plot and the characters’
behaviour, suggest and show the way to “read” the meaning and
purpose of individual situations. Although they work with specific
signs, each “reading” is individual, because it derives from the
1.6.2007 12:03:59
/5
ŸWilliam Shakespeare, Hamlet / Dejvické divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Miroslav Krobot / Set design and costumes Martin Chocholoušek
> Photo Hynek Glos
⁄Petr Zelenka, Tales of Common Insanity / Dejvické divadlo, Praha 2001 / Directed by Petr Zelenka / Set design Martin Dejwitz (= Martin Chocholoušek)
Costumes Jaroslava Pecharová > Photo archive
1.6.2007 12:04:01
6/
ŸPetr Zelenka, Theremin / Dejvické divadlo, Praha 2005 / Directed by Petr Zelenka / Set design Martin Chocholoušek / Costumes Renáta Weidlichová
> Photo Viktor Kronbauer
experiences and background of each viewer and the mood they
are in at the time. The description provided at the opening of
this article is just one of many possible descriptions.
The openness of the scenographic concept, which developed
out of the spontaneous affinity of associational ideas, is typical
for the youngest generation of Czech stage designers. It does
not recognise style in the strict sense of artistic trends or
a uniform set of artistic devices. All the scenographers share
is that hard to describe method of origin, which those involved
(the stage designer and the director) experience personally
and in a sense as more significant than the outcome itself. The
set’s final appearance (the colour, the nature of the pictures)
paradoxically often has more of an influence on the director
than the designer’s distinctive handprint. If we were able to
place side by side the sets Chocholoušek has designed for the
three directors he works with most – Miroslav Krobot, Vladimír
Morávek, and Petr Zelenka – we would be able to see three
distinctive tendencies in his work, which at first glance seem
little related.
“I enjoy preparing for a production most”, says
Chocholoušek. “I’ve tried working with other directors, it is
possible, but I discovered in that how terribly important it is,
if something worthwhile is to emerge out of it, that the director
and I understand one another.”
Chocholoušek’s “Krobotian” stage designs are modest in the
best sense of the word. Their pictures do not draw attention
to themselves, for their exceptional or innovative character.
Instead they serve a precise articulation of content, the actions
of the performers. There is nothing on stage that is there just
for decorative and illustrative purposes. Chocholoušek himself
comments on working with Krobot: “His theatre is modest,
without personal ambitions, about the actors, about who has
what kind of relationship to the material. Dejvice Theatre
has a small stage, the space is very limited, but everything
is prepared at length, the ideas just fly. The director gives me
a text. Over a considerable period of time we get together and
talk about what it’s about. What the characters mean.” For
Krobot’s production of Three Sisters, nature and the rhythm and
time of nature are the central motifs of Chocholoušek’s stage
design, subtly ironic, but nonetheless unmistakeable – and
even framed. Initially framed in black, three saplings stand
upstage and grow larger in subsequent acts; later the naïvist
silhouette of the building under falling snow; during the closing
“monologue” the three sisters in the frame blow abstract shapes
of bubbles into the water. Everything seems to allude to some
secret code of nature, inexorably regular and at the same time
interminably changeable. The same function may be served by
Chekhov’s lyrically sweeping dialogue, which evokes motifs of
nature and the passage of time – but in the production these
tend to vanish from the text.
Petr Zelenka, who before he began working at the Dejvice
Theatre as a writer and director, had a wealth of filmmaking
experience behind him, and thus for him Chocholoušek has
become a kind of “initiator” into the world of theatrical work.
1.6.2007 12:04:11
Zelenka is an author-engineer, his directorial and authorial
preparation is very thorough and informed by literature.
Chocholoušek describes his work with Petr Zelenka: “An
excellent scriptwriter, a very intellectual person. Because he’s
a film director, he sees things in finished form, in the editing
room, and he’s used to working on them further afterwards. He
doesn’t have much of an idea in advance about the pictures. But
when he sees what I bring in, he knows how to identify them
exactly and use them.” Conversely, with Zelenka, Chocholoušek
is discovering the world of film (in the summer he will be
working on his second film project). While Chocholoušek’s
stage design for Zelenka’s first play Tales of Common Insanity,
which the author directed at the Dejvice Theatre, was actually
quite conventional – glass “partitions”, “screens” of a sort, giving
rise to various, quickly alternating environments for particular
dialogues, or his stage design for Theremin – the second work
Zelenka wrote for the Dejvice Theatre, was recognisably
more metaphorical. While the objects on the stage respect
the principle of a realistically characterised interior, which is
typical for Zelenka as a filmmaker, in the more exalted scenes
this characterisation is transformed into an abstract image that
is more expressive of the situation’s emotional significance. The
first phenomenal concert given by the inventor Theremin on
his hands-free musical instrument, the Thereminvox, in a giant
stadium, is created on stage with streams of light, which capture
perfectly the “intangible” origin and ungraspable essence of the
“music of spheres” and even Theremin’s blinding success “in
the footlights”.
The most remarkable and also the most highly praised set
designs by Chocholoušek emerge out of his collaboration with
Vladimír Morávek, a director with a singular artistic vision
and a fondness for spectacular scenic designs and synthetic
production techniques. “He gives me the text and says: I think
this about that thing. I bring pictures, various materials, scraps;
I suggest the way I might design it as an installation or a picture.
And he’s able to very cleanly extract things that other directors
ŸMaurice Maeterlinck, The Very Blue Bird / Divadlo Husa na provázku,
Brno 2007 / Directed by Vladimír Morávek / Set design Martin Chocholoušek
Costumes Eva Morávková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
/7
wouldn’t know what to do with and use them and introduce
them naturally into the production. There’s a danger, after all,
that the artistic concept can be too strong or pronounced and
can kill everything on stage. Then there’s no room for the actors
because they’re already determined by the stage design. When
Vladimír chooses something, I can be sure that it will never be
just left unused on stage”, says Chocholoušek.
ŸWilliam Shakespeare, Othello / Klicperovo divadlo, Hradec Králové 2003
Directed by Vladimír Morávek / Set design Martin Chocholoušek
Costumes Petra Goldflamová – Štětinová > Photo Pavel Nesvadba
His monumentally impressive stage design for Morávek’s
production of David Drábek’s Aquabelles consists of the tiled
space of a pool, with an oversized sculpture of a man poised to
jump off the diving board, but into an empty pool. Drábek’s bittersweet heroes – three men experiencing a mid-life crisis – try out
their “synchronised swimming” on the pool bottom, surrounded
by a repeating patterns of facing and plastic, and cool chromeand-glass furniture, but in the second half of the production there
is a vertical surface behind them. The space vividly expresses the
unnaturalness of their situation in life, and the sense of dislocation
they are trying to change and deal with.
Chocholoušek’s scenographic design also accompanied
Morávek’s cycle Chekhov for Czechs (Čechov Čechům)– three
Chekhov plays staged in quick succession: Three Sisters, The
Seagull and Uncle Solyony (a modified Uncle Vanya). The plays
were situated in the fictitious home of the Prozorovs, a place that
is the crossroads of individual fates and the history of Russia.
Chocholoušek created the genius loci of this space out of the
characteristic attributes of this eastern country. The individual
stage designs played with variations of scale, the juxtaposition
of vast space and small detail (an empty space and a pool table
in the corner, a giant picture screen and below it a tiny chair),
or by contrasting the ostentation of the nouveau riche with
1.6.2007 12:04:19
8/
ŸWilliam Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet / Národní divadlo, Praha
2003 / Directed by Vladimír Morávek / Set design Martin Chocholoušek
Costumes Zuzana Krejzková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
primitive poverty and squalor (sheds juxtaposed with a grand
home). Also used repeatedly were the motifs of decorated eggs,
associated with the Orthodox Church, as symbols of hope and
resurrection. Chocholoušek also worked with a symbolically
coloured backdrop in the individual scenes.
Conversely, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Verdi’s Macbeth,
Chocholoušek used colourful mobile walls to divide up the
stage. Using them, he created “micro-worlds”, spaces defined by
meanings and sensations against the overall design of the stage
space. The system of inter-curtains in Morávek’s production
of Romeo and Juliet at the National Theatre draws on the
changing meanings created by the backdrops in contrast with
the arrangement of the stage. The transparent striped pattern
of one of them (light and shade) ushered Romeo and Mercutio
into a clairvoyant world of dream and presentiments of death.
The contrasting background of black and white in the form
of an enlarged barcode characterised the world of Morávek’s
production of Othello at the Klicpera Theatre as a space where
black and white are hallmarks, evaluations fixed in advance.
This pattern was also a kind of optical effect, where alternations
of black and white become a rhythmic fusion that paradoxically
creates the impression of unity.
It is clear from the above descriptions that some of the
scenographic principles applied in the Morávek-Chocholoušek
tandem migrate from one production to the next, and their
effect and potential meanings are tested in different contexts. An
example is one production where an exceptionally impressive
and effective synthesis of several tested techniques was achieved
– Morávek’s production of Puccini’s Turandot at the Gothenburg
Opera.
The world of mythical China reaches deep into the space of the
⁄Puccini, Turandot / Gothenburg Opera, Gothenburg 2006 / Directed by Vladimír Morávek / Set design Martin Chocholoušek
Costumes Sylva Zimula Hanáková > Photo archives
1.6.2007 12:04:26
dying composer’s room. A Chinese court is arranged on a giant
moving platform, an overwhelming mass of bodies (in addition
to 150 choir members, there are another hundred sculptures
of “stone” Chinese soldiers). This two-hundred-headed mass
slowly moves forward as the wall of the room rises and then
vanishes again behind it. The multiplied Chinese soldiers make
reference to one of the scenographic principles applied under
Morávek’s direction – in the production of Maryša, for example,
a mug with poisoned coffee is similarly “reproduced” to become
ten identical mugs; in The Seagull, the gulls’ eggs multiply and
are repeatedly deposited in paper carriers. The scenography
found an effective image for the diminishing time left for the
dying composer by making a play on scale: In the first act, as part
of the interior, there is an eight-metre Rococo sofa on the stage,
on which the composer sits along with several other characters.
At the start of the third act the sofa has shrunk to “normal” size,
located in the middle of an absolutely empty, claustrophobically
white space, and on it is the composer, huddled in the position
of a human embryo.
In addition to pieces we are already familiar with from other
stage designs Chocholoušek has done for Morávek, such as the
glass catafalque filled with flowers (in this case, white amaryllis,
while in Romeo and Juliet they were red roses), or the shining
wheel of a full moon appearing in perspective (Morávek used it
in the production of Three Sisters and Undine Cabaret [Kabaret
Undine]), a completely original stage design was created for
the second act of Turandot. The atmosphere of Chinese royal
gardens is captured with a centrally placed tree in the perfectly
stylised shape of a bonsai, with the “naturally” modified
surface of the lawn around its root, the sense heightened by the
absolutely authentic changes in light mimicking the “setting
and rising sun”. All this is underscored by “the flight” of a crane
against a night sky – a woven black curtain.
/9
it. What can be expressed in an image, subliminally." And he
agrees with Chocholoušek: “Theatre as such is not something
I enjoy at all. I find it hard to go to the theatre, to sit through it.
But I really enjoy inventing it and following how it evolves.”
From virtually the very start of his professional career Štěpánek
has worked with one of the most remarkable contemporary Czech
directors – J. A. Pitínský. Their first collaboration (and Štěpánek’s
second stage set), on a production inspired by the Fellini film
Eight and a Half, was a fascinating spectacle, played out on the
stage of the Municipal Theatre Zlín in Southern Moravia – the
largest stage in the Czech Republic. In the production famous
scenes from the film were materialised onstage and recast as
theatrical images. Here the Italian spa is naturally transformed
into the nearby local spa of Luhačovice (where Leoš Janáček
I
n interviews on the particular sources of inspiration in
their work, both scenographers describe an intuitive
journey through all kinds of personal experiences, from
images evoked by the text, inspiration drawn from visual art,
photographs, and film, to analogies with real events they have
witnessed or references to constellations of everyday objects
witnessed somewhere by chance. The route the artists take to
their final outcome involves a roundabout journey, passing
through a maze of associations and emotions and subconscious
intuitions and experiences lodged deep in memory. Through the
image they seek a path to a truth that is deeper than any – they
believe – that can be reached through intellectual reflection or
that can be expressed in words.
For example, when Jan Štěpánek tries to generalise the
principles of his work, he says it is “a purely emotive search
for analogical structures between nature and visual art
– scenography”. And he goes on: “It isn’t so much the theatre
itself that I enjoy about the theatre as it is the search for hidden
natural systems and the unidentifiable laws of their existence,
their internal order, where science meets religion and philosophy.
What I enjoy discovering in the world of stage drama are the
contexts and patterns, not the rational, but the emotional in
ŸFederico Fellini – Markéta Bláhová, Eight and a Half / Městské
divadlo Zlín, 1995 / Directed by J. A. Pitínský / Set design Jan Štěpánek
Costumes Jana Preková > Photo Jan Regal
once spent time). References to the religiosity of the Italian
environment are reproduced well by the locally strong sense
of religious awareness (the area of Southern Moravia is home
to the most Catholics in the Czech Republic). The striking
figure of Boleslav Polívka, the popular actor and comic (in
the role of the film director), intermittently casts an oversized
shadow against a transparent white curtain, reminiscent of film
screen. The costume of Pierot, with its characteristic high cap,
recalls a character from another Fellini film, while also making
reference to Polívka’s brilliant pantomime roles.
1.6.2007 12:04:35
10/
ŸJaroslav Durych – Josef Kovalčuk – J. A. Pitínský – Petr Štindl – Pavel Švanda, Bloudění / Národní divadlo, Praha 1998 / Directed by J. A. Pitínský
Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Jana Preková > Photo archives
After the success of this production Štěpánek and Pitínský
again joined forces on the same stage for a production of Gabriela
Preissová’s Her Stepdaughter (on which Leoš Janáček’s opera
Jenufa is based). In cooperation with the composer Vladimír
Franz, they approached this rural drama as a “theatre of rite”.
They relieved the story of its folkloric environs and highlighted
its almost pagan carnality. The plot, which is almost a textbook
example of rural realism, takes on a mythical aura. The stage
design employs metal barrels, which serve as giant drums, and
elements of a rural home environment (floorboards, netting,
beams), without indicators of a particular architecture or age.
“We were trying to achieve a kind of theatre of archetypes. We
were convinced absolutely everything was contained in that soil,
that earthiness.”
Štěpánek created a similar, “earthily abstract” space for
Pitínský in several other productions. In the production of
Wandering (National Theatre, Prague) based on the historical
novel by Jaroslav Durych, situated amidst the Thirty Years War,
he created an enormous, oversized gate mounted with rusting
iron plates, a direct and tangible reflection of the insignificance of
human fates as they are ground in the wheels of historical events.
And the inspiration for this? “A book of photographs of China in
the 20th century. There was one of a huge lock gate. I didn’t want
the production to have that kind of Czech ‘backdrop’ kind of style.”
Real agricultural equipment and tools also fill the space: “If the
grim reaper can carry a scythe, why can’t he carry a pitchfork?”
This monument character of Štěpánek’s designs was present
again in his design for the production of Markéta Lazarová,
based on the novel by Vladislav Vančura. The girl, Markéta,
has been promised to the convent by her father, but falls in
love with the villainous abductor who has carried her off, and
she suddenly finds herself in the midst of the bloody battles of
nomadic mediaeval hordes. Pregnant, she later watches on as
the father of her child is hanged.
“I thought for a long time about how to depict Markéta’s
feeling. Then I was on a visit and I was cooking, and they had
a skinned rabbit and I started to prepare it. I didn’t want to cut
it into pieces, so I laid it out in an old baking dish. And I made
it a cross out of parsley.” – This is how Štěpánek describes the
source of inspiration for the main motif – the body of skinned
rabbit bent into the shape of an embryo alternating with tiny
crosses – in the stage design for the production, which like a kind
1.6.2007 12:04:39
of “wallpaper” is used to cover one object – the mobile screen
located on an otherwise bare stage, bordered with wooden walls
and flickering streams of light.
A notably more complex design was created for another of
Pitínský’s productions at the National Theatre, Maryša, written
by the Mrštík brothers. This, the best-known work (and also the
most frequently played) of the Czech so-called rural dramas,
follows a classic dramatic structure and is divided into five acts.
Štěpánek starts by using a naturalistically descriptive design,
which is almost idyllic in character (the water in which Maryša
washes her vegetables flows from a well in a courtyard). In
subsequent acts the space gradually loses its realistic elements
and becomes desolate and increasingly more abstract and
alienated. The second half of the production opens on a scene
in a pub, where a young woman, who has been forced by her
parents to marry a tyrannical widower, comes to buy meat. The
pub regulars emerge out of trap door into a foggy dusk, seated
behind the pub tables. A familiar world here takes on an eerie,
dreamy, mad character, which seems to parallel the mental state
of the title character. Maryša’s love is returning from the army,
and he wants their relationship to continue. In the final act an
empty space points to the upstage horizon: a tract of field covered
with a hoarfrost. Downstage is the point on which Maryša
fixes her attention: the stove where she is making breakfast
– poisoned coffee – for the husband she detests. “I like it when
/11
ŸVladislav Vančura – Marek Horoščák, Markéta Lazarová / Národní
divadlo, Praha 2002 / Directed by J. A. Pitínský / Set design Jan Štěpánek
Costumes Jana Preková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
⁄Vilém Mrštík – Alois Mrštík, Maryša / Národní divadlo, Praha 1999
Directed by J. A. Pitínský / Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Jana
Preková > Photo Oldřich Pernica
1.6.2007 12:04:48
12/
◊J. W. Goethe – K. F. Tománek, Elective Affinities / Dejvické divadlo,
Praha 2006 / Directed by J. A. Pitínský / Set design Jan Štěpánek
Costumes Jana Preková > Photo Hynek Glos
some reality is established, so that it can pass into a completely
different reality. For things to be oddly open, for questions to be
asked. I don’t like messages.”
After an interval of some time Štěpánek met with Pitínský at
the end of last year to work on a production based on Goethe’s
novel Elective Affinities at the Dejvice Theatre. In this he created
an unexpectedly fragile but also a scenographic framework with
semiotic depth for a story about the strange and fateful attractions
between two men and two women. “I began reading the text,
and I could see images to accompany it, an almost Sino-pastel
and classic theatre with painted backdrops – the atmosphere of
the play always provides the foundation. A painted backdrop,
seen through a kind of transparent fog, sort of shabby backdrops,
something like a watercolour. Pitínský needed some things
⁄Zdeněk Fibich, Šárka / Divadlo J.K. Tyla, Plzeň 2000 / Directed by Jiří Pokorný / Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Andrea Králová
> Photo Marta Kolafová
1.6.2007 12:04:54
in the interior. I was fascinated with the practice of collecting,
saving things, during that period, from stuffed animals, to
models of molecules, books, and rocks. Everyone wanted
crystal collections.” Pitínský’s productions, and particularly his
characters, have a very typical, aesthetic mannerism in gesture
and costume, which belies their open self-centredness and
predilection for endless self-reflection and exactitude. Everyone
thus comes across as comical and touching at the same time,
as it is apparent that they long for love while at the same time
do everything to thwart attaining it. On top of everything else
the cruelty of their own fates brings them – so it seems – a kind
of delight as observers. The stage holds everything that relates
at a deep level to the attitudes of this foursome, to the way in
which they experience the world. Nonetheless, it is very hard to
describe the fragile connections between individual objects and
images. There are flowers everywhere (clearly artificial), both
cultivated, and in the shelves along the sides of the stage a row
of samples of nature. There is a painted Romantic landscape
in the background – the destination of the group’s excursion.
The grassy hillock (the grass is clearly artificial) ascended by
the group, carefully re-arranging its ranks, reveals a cave when
pulled back. Precious stones can be seen glimmering in this
“underground”, alongside cheap Christmas-tree balls. There
is also a nativity scene here, where Ottilie poses like Mary,
with the child of the aunt whose husband she is in love with.
Everything hovers on the fragile edge of empathy, enchantment
and irony. “I didn’t give much thought to how the person coming
to the theatre is going to read things. I enjoy the landscapes of
these stories and the atmosphere.”
An important role in both set designs is played by
communication, an affinity with the director, and the mutual
shaping of ideas. Štěpánek and Chocholoušek describe the
relationship between the stage designer and the director during
the creation of the production (in cases where it is not just about
routine work, which is not discussed in this article) as a close
personal relationship. The director’s interpretation draws
inspiration from the sphere of personal experiences. The stage
designer then brings in his own images, which intertwine with
the director’s vision. There often emerge all kinds of references
to the personal background of both, which draw unorthodoxly
on the text and loosely interpret its content. There even emerge
all sorts of stage designs in which the designer and the director
together pursue a motif almost obsessively until they both have
the feeling that they have exhausted it.
Though it may sound like unfavourable comment about
the personality of Czech stage designers, they tend to be
chameleons. Štěpánek claims that the influence of the director’s
energy is so powerful that usually the directors are able by
invisible means to lead the designer towards realising the
directors’ ideas. The fact is – however paradoxically it may
sound – that the stage designs that Štěpánek and Chocholoušek
have created, for example, for Vladimír Morávek have more in
common than the different stage designs Štěpánek has made
for two or three different directors. “Each one is different. Jiří
Pokorný has very specific ideas and brings in his own conceptual
view. With Nebeský we talk about it a bit, discuss things, and
/13
ŸGabriela Preissová, The Farmer´s Woman / Divadlo Na zábradlí,
Praha 2004 / Directed by Jiří Pokorný / Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes
Kateřina Štefková > Photo Kateřina Štefková
then he’ll say to me that he wants something in particular, and
then I’ll bring him something completely different. And he’ll take
it. But he’s a wonderful manipulator.”
The stage designs that Jan Štěpánek prepared for Jiří
Pokorný typically contain some powerful aspect rendering
them contemporary. In Zdeněk Fibich’s opera Šárka, the libretto
for which is based on an old Czech legend about an uprising
of women against the male population, the scenography
transports the audience to the totalitarian period of the 1950s.
On the stage of the Plzeň Opera House the designer has placed
a factory smokestack (a phallic symbol of a world in the grasp
of men) and rows of chairs on which the rebelling women, as
a uniformed corps, are seated, as though in a conference hall.
Gabriela Preissová’s drama The Farmer’s Woman is situated in
1.6.2007 12:05:04
14/
ŸS. Ansky (Solomon Rappoport), Dybbuk / Set design by Jan Štěpánek, diploma work / Academy of Performing Arts, Prague 1998 > Photo archives
a Moravian village at the turn of the 20th century. But in the pub
scene at the start of Pokorný’s production at the Theatre on the
Balustrade (Divadlo Na Zábradlí) we are presented with a stage
space that bears the obvious traces of socialist reconstruction.
In the second half of the play, when the lovers, Eva and Mánek,
depart for Austria, where supposedly as husband and wife and
as farmers they have been hired to run a local farm, a pool
appears on stage, built by day labourers from the Czech Lands.
Thanks to the use of these anachronistic references we find
ourselves in the midst of a kind of mythical present.
Similarly conceived is the production at the National Theatre
of Josef Kajetán Tyl’s “national” Czech play dating from the
second half of the 19th century – The Bloody Christening, or
Drahomíra and Her Sons. The play’s plot, drawn from early
Czech history, is situated in a space similar to a parliamentary
hall.
In recent years Štěpánek has very frequently worked with one
of the most interesting Czech directors today – Jan Nebeský. On
the outside, Nebeský’s subtle production methods centre on the
figures of the actors and how they vitally embrace the text and
the play’s theme. The scenography in his productions tends to
be “discreet” and can often be described as a space that has been
thematically defined for the play, where all its turns and “rules”
are laid out. Since 2003 Štěpánek has worked with Nebeský on
seven productions. In several cases a space has been created
on stage that astonished for its distinctly “above-standard”
artistic concept. In Tabori’s The Cannibals, in addition to the
table and benches demanded by the play’s theme (the play’s
culinary scenes take place in a concentration camp), there is
also an enormous boiler on the stage. The connotative potential
of this bizarre-looking object, in which a blissfully looking coprisoner is cooked, is enormous. We are reminded of the images
of hell in traditional Czech fairytales, the facilities of a socialist
school dining room, or a factory hall where workers break for
lunch. All these environments have a powerful subconscious
(and even humorous) connection with the story of Tabori’s
play. “In Tabori’s case I don’t even think about the text but about
the atmosphere of ‘self-rage’, twistedness, that it contains. The
way fun is made of the Germans and of Jewish sentimentality,
with this kind of warped picturesqueness.“
For Jandl’s Aus der Fremde Štěpánek created a little room
on stage, a bachelor’s household, similar to a kind of badger’s
hole. The walls linked with insulation, a narrow entrance, like
the opening into an Inuit igloo. If the man of the house is of
1.6.2007 12:05:10
the mood or is expecting a lady visitor he wishes to surprise,
the walls of the abode are transformed with glittering gold foil
into a room of mirrors, to host the best tones of conversation.
For the abode’s inhabitant sleep is a sweet unconsciousness,
but the outside world insidiously intrudes on the privacy of his
bedroom: a giant pigeon coos with the intensity of a jet motor.
Štěpánek took Schiller’s Intrigue and Love at the Estates
Theatre onto the deck of an ocean liner. The powerful in tie and
tails on the upper deck, the underlings below deck. “It’s a kind
of family-type puppet theatre, nothing exalted. In a bookstore
I found a book from 1939 about the renewal of German whaling
ships. On this ship, kitsch is a portent of tragedy. We even added
a map of the route of the whaling ship to the production, but
without the swastikas. I have a problem with symbols. To me they
seem overused.” Štěpánek’s vision was enhanced by Nebeský’s
addition of a rear projection screen, where ocean waves can
be seen rising and falling throughout the production, and in
front of which a group of young people dances. The young men
and women sit and rest and then begin to dance again. The
/15
unstoppable course of life, is this story just an episode in it?
Štěpánek created a unique stage design for Nebeský’s production
of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck at the Theatre on Dlouhá Street (Divadlo
v Dlouhé). The play’s characters look out like degenerated human
beings living in a fictitious, idealised world, incapable of any
awareness of the pathetic reality that surrounds them. He drew
inspiration from the real, neglected interiors of a Prague railway
station. “I took photographs of some specific things, and I translated
them onto the stage. It’s a space where there is still some kind of
tradition present, but it keeps on moving farther and farther back.
These twisted creatures... That terrible self-irony. It always starts
from the creatures that are living in the system. There’s a biology to
it. Looking for the order behind their lives.”
In Czech theatre today the stage designer is the co-creator
of the production, essentially a dramaturg. In the exactness
of its ideas and the openness of the images those ideas give
rise to contemporary Czech theatre almost seems to resist any
definitive intellectual assessment or any merely rational labels.
ŸFriedrich Schiller, Intrigue and Love / Národní divadlo, Praha 2005 / Directed by Jan Nebeský / Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Jana Preková
1.6.2007 12:05:11
16/
Jan Štěpánek (*1970, Prague) comes from a theatre family.
During secondary school he studied in a sculpture workshop
and painted. In 1998 he graduated from the Theatre Faculty of
the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he studied
stage design under Prof. Jan Dušek. While still a student he
worked as a stage designer on some notable productions by the
directors J. A. Pitínský (8 and ½ [and ½], Her Stepdaughter
[Její pastorkyňa], Wandering [Bloudění]) and Dušan Pařízek
(The Chair Women [Die Präsidentinnen], Baal). With J. A.
Pitínský he later worked on the productions of Maryša, The
Farmer’s Woman (Gazdina roba), Markéta Lazarová, Elective
Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften). He works regularly
with, for example, the directors Jiří Pokorný (Spring Awakening
[Frühlings Erwachen], Šárka, Kunála’s Eyes [Kunálovy oči],
Herr Kolpert, Push Up 1-3, The Farmer’s Woman, The Bloody
Christening, or Drahomíra and Her Sons [Drahomíra a její
synové aneb Krvavé křtiny] and Jan Nebeský (The Cannibals,
Tempest 2 [Bouře 2], Solingen, Aus der Fremde, Intrigue and
Love [Kabale und Liebe], The Wild Duck, Etty Hillesum).
He exhibited work at the Prague Quadrennial 2003. He is
a recipient of an award from the Hlávka Foundation Nadání.
Since 2002 he has been teaching in the Department of Stage
Design at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts
in Brno.
Martin Chocholoušek (*1975, Prague) graduated from
a secondary school of the arts, and in 2000 he completed
his studies in stage design at the Department of Alternative
and Puppet Theatre in the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of
Performing Arts in Prague. While still a student he worked
as the stage designer on high-profile productions of Dejvice
Theatre (Dejvické divadlo), where he continues to work
regularly (Oblomov, Three Sisters, The Magic Flute, KFT Reality Sandwiches [KFT – Sendviče reality], Hamlet, Tales
of Common Insanity [Příběhy obyčejného šílenství], Theremin
[Teremin]), and he has also cooperated on productions
and projects by Vladimír Morávek at the Klicpera Theatre
(Klicperovo divadlo) in Hradec Králové (Hamlet, Three Sisters,
The Seagull, Uncle Solyony [Strýček Solený], Othello, The Visit
[Der Besuch der Alten Dame], Aquabelles [Akvabely]) and at
the National Theatre (Národní divadlo) in Prague (Macbeth,
Romeo and Juliet). He is currently working as a stage designer
on productions by Petr Zelenka for Scena kameralna Krakow
and Divadlo Ta Fantastika (Actors [Herci]), and there he also
created the set for a production by Jiří Pokorný (Product). For
the Goose on a String Theatre (Divadlo Husa na provázku)
he created the artistic design for a production by Vladimír
Morávek (The Very Blue Bird). Since 2003 he has been one of the
design architects involved in the creation of the International
Film Festival Karlovy Vary. He took part as a representative
of the Czech Republic in the Prague Quadrennial 2003. For
his scenographic work he has won an award from the Hlávka
Foundation Nadání and the Alfréd Radok Prize.
Stage
Pictures
– Guides on the Path to Meaning
1.6.2007 12:05:14
The Czech
Stage
Costume
from One Prague Quadrennial
to the Next – or, a Not Quite Exhaustive Summary
Věra Velemanová
ŸRudolf Těsnohlídek, The Cunning little Vixen, Bloody Tales
Slovácké divadlo Uherské Hradiště 2004
Directed by J. A. Pitínský / Set design and costumes Michaela Hořejší
>Photo Viktor Kronbauer
017-030_cmyk_bezPodtisk.indd 17
1.6.2007 12:06:52
18/
THE CZECH STAGE COSTUME FROM ONE PRAGUE QUADRENNIAL TO THE NEXT – OR, A NOT QUITE EXHAUSTIVE SUMMARY
ŸMolière, The Miser / Národní divadlo, Praha 2004 / Directed by Michal Dočekal / Set design David Marek / Costumes Zuzana Krejzková
> Photo Pavel Nesvadba
Stereotypes and conventions may paradoxically impose
themselves more on life the more hectic life becomes, evidently
as some kind of lame defence and substitute for values, while
the latter vanish into a void. Convention goes hand in hand
with fashion, and I can think of no other area where these two
qualities more obviously unite than in clothing, costumes, and
maybe theatrical costumes. What makes a theatre costume
inherently “theatrical” is hard to determine. After having
viewed numerous theatrical performances a viewer may find
it a relief to be confronted with an empty stage space, briefly
at rest after its past ordeals, and at that moment it may even
seem more dramatic than in all its previous toils. It was with
a similar sense of cleansing that I viewed the performance
of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by the Düsseldorf company Schauspielhaus, in which the costumes “merged” with the human
body, and the human body became the costume. In a different
case and context, this approach might have come across as
improper, and paradoxically even unnatural.
Annual polls on the performances, dramas, music, and
artistic events (and whatever else) of the year bear witness to
the many stereotypes that audiences tend to share. Dramatic
work today is under assault from stereotypes, clichés, and
hypocrisy, and destructively so. And here I am not even
referring to the wave of musicals and essentially just touring
productions that have been popping up in the ever multiplying
private stages. What I have more in mind are phenomena like
the increasing dependence on different kinds of fashionable
trends (for example, much of what is seen at the annual Prague
Theatre Festival of German Language is often just automatically
adopted by Czech directors, even those of the more eminent
“leading” theatres), and the inorganic, automatic, and forced
production of, say, modern German-language drama in some
of our theatres, without these performances offering even
a modicum of evidence of a natural and sincere need to stage
these plays.
Other maladies of recent times are the exchange of bad
“satire” for “political theatre” and the succumbing to clichés
and stereotypes in production techniques. Much of this even
affects the visual artistry of the production, though this side
of the theatre still exhibits greater emancipation and artistic
freedom than the directorial side of productions.
While it is difficult to generalise, there are certainly some
discernible tendencies, as though several particular trends or
styles (some of which are combined in particular scenographic
1.6.2007 12:07:03
/19
work) have appeared: While, for example, the distinctive “Lébl Theatre, and F. Preissová’s The Farmer’s Woman [Gazdina roba]
era” (and with it some of the productions at the Theatre on at the Theatre on the Balustrade [Divadlo Na zábradlí]).
Other trends are also appearing, characterised by a successful
Dlouhá Street [Divadlo v Dlouhé], work such as Crommelynck’s
The Magnificent Cuckold [Le Cocu Magnifique] and some effort to blend all the components of a performance (e.g. [Liška
productions directed by Pitínský and Morávek, etc.) was Bystrouška, příběhy Krve] (The Cunning Little Vixen, Bloody
characterised by highly stylised work, and reminiscences of Tales]) directed by J. A. Pitínský at the Moravian-Slovak Theatre
earlier periods led to the rediscovery of the magic of 20th- [Slovácké divadlo] in Uherské Hradiště, or Wagner’s The Flying
century artistic expression (Art Nouveau, silent grotesques, the Dutchman [Der Fliegende Holländer] directed by Jiří Heřman at
interwar avant-garde, etc.), today we are witnessing the return the J. K. Tyl Theatre [Divadlo J. K. Tyla] in Pilsen).
of a modified but oftentimes far more penetrating form of the
Below I will try to elucidate these somewhat sketchy
aesthetics of plainness and poor theatre, as conceived by artists
of the 1960s. This is being accompanied by a considerable and, unfortunately, audacious theories with some specific
amount of expressiveness, for example, in the performer’s observations.
In Dočekal’s production of Molière’s The Miser the costume
stage make-up, while the legacy of the aesthetics of the
1990s, described above,
is evolving at the same
time (see, for example,
Nebeský’s production
of Ibsen’s The Wild
Duck [Vildanden] at
the Theatre on Dlouhá
Street, some aspects
of the costumes in
the
production
of
Molière’s The Miser
[L’Avare] directed by
Michal Dočekal at
the National Theatre
[Národní
divadlo],
and so on). A very
fashionable trend in
the costume component
of productions is the
combination of older
styles with modern
elements, and the
costume is also making
a strong comeback as
a character element.
Conversely, at times
it is possible to observe
an aesthetic trend that is
moving in the direction
of a cool sense of “beau- ŸMolière, The Miser / Národní divadlo, Praha 2004 / Directed by Michal Dočekal / Set design David Marek / Costumes
ty” (see some of the Zuzana Krejzková > Photo Pavel Nesvadba
costumes in Morávek’s
production of Dürrenmatt’s The Visit [Der Besuch der Alten component is remarkably well conceived and inventive, the
Dame] in Hradec Králové, Goldflam’s production of Bernhard’s outcome of the frequent engagement of Zuzana Krejzková at
play Arrived [Am Ziel] at Comedy Theatre [Divadlo Komedie], the National Theatre. The costumes seem to emanate naturally
out of the text and its interpretation, and they are conceived to
and so on).
Another characteristic feature of this period is the use of blend with the set, which was designed by David Marek. The
ironic hyperbole and a certain measure of parody, but this in “aesthetics of plainness” that are so manifest in the conception
no way prevents there being an amount of – often classical of some of the characters exhibit parallels with Nebeský’s
– humility toward the theme (e.g. Pokorný’s production of staging of The Wild Duck (see below).
Harpagon’s (Boris Rösner) costume differs markedly from
Tyl’s play The Bloody Christening, or Drahomíra and Her Sons
[Krvavé křtiny aneb Drahomíra a její synové] at the National those of the other members of his family (which is more or less
1.6.2007 12:07:11
20/
also the case in previous productions of Molière’s play). The
only sign of wealth is the enormous ring Harpagon wears on
his finger. Otherwise he comes across as dull and shoddy, at
first glance a kind of solitary and half-mad unfortunate, who
amasses useless junk in his abode: he is thin and unkempt,
dressed in a shabby, dirty little jacket, large ill-fitting trousers,
and worn-out moccasins, and wearing a greasy hair-piece
held in place on his balding skull with standard hairpins. His
distinctive head seems gradually to take on the appearance
of a rotting head of cabbage (a symbol, along with potatoes,
of the last source of food of the hungry during times of crisis
and want), a crop that this Harpagon also keenly cultivates.
contrast, the luxurious clothing worn by Harpagon’s family
members and other people close to him (especially women)
suggests where most of the proverbial golden coins are going.
Élise (Hana Ševčíková), with her meticulously groomed hair
and make-up, moves about the stage constantly, at one point
in a luxurious golden cocktail dress, in the style of the late 40s
or early 50s, at another in an elegant black gown, a somehow
artificial and pulseless figure. It is not so much her father
who is the tragic and menacing product of a predatory era,
his unnaturalness being at least still in some way pungent,
distinctive, and “peculiar”, but rather Élise, who is tasteless
and odourless, the typically interchangeable “company face” of
ŸHenrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck / Divadlo v Dlouhé, Praha 2005 / Directed by Jan Nebeský / Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Jana Preková
> Photo Bohdan Holomíček
Harpagon has a similar “personal affinity” with the ancient
red rug on the floor: the characters respectfully jump over
and circumnavigate its remains with the same strange mix of
respect and ridicule that Harpagon is himself shown by those
close to him (incidentally, no less abnormal themselves). By
our times. There is something genuinely horrifying about her.
Her more immature variant is Marianne (Jana Janěková Jr.),
in a short skirt and sharp collar and her hair done up into the
doltish flapjack hat of the war years, while the representation
of what Élise perhaps later evolves into visually is the chic
1.6.2007 12:07:20
ŸHenrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck / Divadlo v Dlouhé, Praha 2005 / Directed by Jan Nebeský / Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Jana Preková
Marek Daniel as Gregers Werle > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
Frosine (Eva Salzmannová), always luxuriously dolled-up, in
an elegant black leather coat and a red suit with a pelerine,
each time with a different natty headdress, seemingly fit for the
Ascot races.
Alternating in the role of Harpagon’s son in Dočekal’s production were Richard Krajčo, who wore his infantile costume
well, consisting of a while shirt, short pants and suspenders,
knee-socks, and a tie, and Saša Rašilov, who makes a convincing rich toff in a costume ablaze with shiny leather and
glittering rings. While Harpagon’s costume makes him seem
like a freakish eccentric, but one who still has some human (or
at least animal) dimensions to him, his children are already
entirely trapped in material preoccupations, and despite their
cultivated appearance it is they who are the real monsters.
A concomitant feature of this depravity is the absolute bad taste
of their glamorous “style”.
Such hyperbole, the aesthetics of plainness, dominates the
production of The Wild Duck (directed by Jan Nebeský, set by
Jan Štěpánek, costumes by Jana Preková, Theatre on Dlouhá
Street), even in the expressive make-up on the male characters.
Here again there is something in common with The Miser in
the reflection of “petrified capitalism“, but with the difference
that this time it is done through a surprising, paradoxical, but
exact recollection of the trashy clothing “culture” – especially
the home-grown version – of the years of real socialism (1970s
and 1980s). Like in Dočekal’s production of The Miser, the
characters in Nebeský’s staging of The Wild Duck also seem
slightly retarded. Misshapen blue track pants are the symbol
of that era and in Nebeský’s production an exact external
statement about the character of old Ekdal (Vlastimil Zavřel)
and of his son Hjalmar (Jan Vondráček). The shapelessness
and lameness of the amorphous tyrant Hjalmar are underscored
by the padding around his rear and tummy, giving him the
grotesque appearance of a disgustingly overripe pear. His track
pants are pulled up to his chest, and between the hems of his
pants and his socks two bands of lardy flesh on his knock-kneed
legs peak through. The daughter, Hedvig (Jaroslava Pokorná),
wears a track jacket, in the same blue shade, and an ugly brown
skirt, along with a pair of misshapen, thick, ochre-coloured wool
tights, and she wears hairpins in her hair (like Harpagon’s). She
is somehow touching in her chubby vulnerability, authenticity,
and purity. By selecting a more mature actor to play this
role, Nebeský has added an element of tragic timelessness
to these qualities, and the character’s costume underscores
this. Through her elegance Gina (Lucie Trmíková) defends
herself from that characterisation, wearing a simple sweater
to accompany her knee-length skirt and apron. Outwardly the
most attractive creature in the entire cast, she is also a character
1.6.2007 12:07:29
22/
little fur on the inside, and it has permanently upturned tails.
His face is luminously masked in white, a sandy beard painted
onto his face, crowned with dark glasses and a thinning tuft
of hair on his head. Here I am unwittingly reminded of Lébl’s
production of The Seagull, unlocking its interpretation by
drawing on elements of silent-film grotesques. Parallels with
this can also be found in The Wild Duck.
In many ways Jana Preková’s costumes for The Wild Duck
are similar in concept to the costume elements in other older
production by J. Nebeský – in Jandl’s Aus der Fremde. Again,
there is that slightly bogus grotesqueness, the liberal use
of hyperbole, and the ability
to amplify the playwright’s
words and the director’s
interpretation through a purely
visual language. In the “spoken
opera”, subject to the proper
dramatic stylisation, the
visual artists (Jan Štěpánek
– the set, and Jana Preková
– costumes, Theatre on the
Balustrade) understandably
also create a highly stylised set.
Especially in the second half
of the performance, when the
three protagonists have dinner
together (Him – Alois Švehlík,
Him2 – David Švehlík, Her
– Marie Málková), the set and
costumes acquire a comically,
ironically “festive” character:
the background of the author’s
dark den is veiled in gold foil.
But the den remains a den, and
the characters enter clothed in
odd-looking furs. The men, the
similarity of whose appearance
is a significant visual symbol in
the performance, are dressed
in identical dark velour suits,
with vests underneath, the
top button undone, and light
wigs on their heads, styled
ŸErnst Jandl, Aus der Fremde / Divadlo Na zábradlí, Praha 2004 / Directed by Jan Nebeský
into “wavy” peaks, fastened
Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Jana Preková > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
in place with headbands. The
alternately by a white jacket, gloves, and a knit bowler hat, or lady (whose short velour pinafore skirt in the previous scene
an ill-fitting brown-velvet jacket, or a flashy, black-and-white, already showed signs of this “festiveness”) is completely
shiny, checker jacket. All this somehow combines grotesquely shrouded in a long, lighter-coloured, hooded fur coat. There
and absurdly into an incredible outfit that Werle is obviously is much that is touching, humorous, dark, and plaintive in
this animalistic scrum: the fusion of an incessant longing for
quite proud of.
Even the artistic conception of the costumes worn by the fulfilment through some kind of reciprocity, to be pleasing and
other characters underscores the aura of fantasy with a sense tender, with the need to constantly shield and defend oneself by
for the grotesque and the pregnant meanings in Nebeský’s some means. Once again cliché; the stupidity of patterns strung
interpretation. Thus Werle (Jiří Wohanka), the industrialist, infinitely together, classified, adapted, and copied, wins out
forms a strange figure in his comical dress suit, which looks like over the longing to say something, facile peaceableness wins
it has been turned inside out, the seams concealing a strange out over truth.
with a secret; she manages to hold on to the final traces of grace
and charm even amidst such plain surroundings, against which
she has cultivated a protective barrier of indifference. Even the
costume of her former occasional lover, Gregers Werle (Marek
Daniel), has been conceived in a way that says much about
her defensive, pragmatic indifference and about the profound
lack of a decent man in her world. Werle, who over the years
has moulded himself into a similarly pear-shaped silhouette
as the young Ekdal, conceals his weaknesses behind comical
“sportswear” and clothing that just aspires towards elegance:
in white pants and cross-country ski-shoes accompanied
1.6.2007 12:07:35
/23
In the above productions
I can also find some points in
common (perhaps surprisingly
to some) on the artistic side
with two Czech classics
that, at least among critics,
were not warmly received
– The Farmer’s Woman and
Drahomíra. Because in both of
these works, or more precisely
in the visual components of
these productions, a great
deal of hyperbole and irony
are combined with a highly
serious approach to the theme
(which in my opinion it shares
with the direction). Both
productions were prepared
by a team of artists, made up
of Jiří Pokorný (direction),
Jan Štěpánek (set), and
Kateřina Štefková (costumes).
The staging of The Farmer’s
Woman at the Theatre on the
Balustrade is visually very
clean; its simple stylisation
is “disturbed” by only several
little “cherries on the cake”. On
stage, at the centre of which is
an empty pool (a symbol of
the foolish longings of post- ŸGabriela Preissová, The Farmer's Woman / Divadlo Na zábradlí, Praha 2004 / Directed by Jiří Pokorný
totalitarian gold-diggers?), Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Kateřina Štefková > Photo Kateřina Štefková
dressed in the standard village
clothing of the second half of the 20th century (in the opening Drahomíra’s suit). In the second part, however, the characters
dances the young girls are not dressed in traditional costumes seem as though they are preparing for their final commemorative
but in 1950s-style dresses), the characters move about with reification; suddenly, the space is teeming with voluminations
a disarming display of freedom. If we yield to the impression wigs, exaggerated, simplified, but, I'd say, it is also teeming
that what we are seeing lacks any (at least external) attribute with fond reminiscences of the Aleš–Mánes depiction of Czech
of folklore (which I doubt), then the reference to folklore here myths and generally just the Romantic image of these events
arises mainly as an ironic reminder of its profanation under the that has survived into modern times. Not just the secondary
effects of misuse. Only the folklorist Notáriuska (Doubravka characters give off a panoptical effect – e.g. the pagan conjurer
Svobodová) is dressed in a traditional costume, along with Česta (Bronislav Poloczek) in a long wig, a German helmet,
Notárius (Jaroslav Fišar), who here seems like a guest from and a fur coat on a naked body – as the main characters do,
a distant land. During the frenzy of dancing Notáriuska raves too, especially Václav (Vladimír Javorský), dressed almost
so enthusiastically about the customs of the Southern Moravian identically to the well-known sculpture in St. Vitas of his
people that she seems more like a member of some expatriate namesake, the national saint, and given the long, delicate
physiognomy of the actor, he comes across as somehow out of
patriots association.
Conversely, the production of Tyl’s Bloody Christening, or place here and more touching than one would expect. However,
Drahomíra and Her Sons is just teeming with these “cherries that awkwardness and impropriety speaks with greater intensity
on the cake”, and the key to its interpretation may even lie and insistence than what would be conveyed by the cool dignity
largely in the costume component. In the first part of the and perfection of “playing the saint”. Perhaps it was even
production we are presented with the subdued, more everyday because of the natural and sometimes even life-giving effect of
costumes (Drahomíra’s distinctive hairstyle somewhat recalls myth, as it lives eternally within us, that the production evoked
that of Margaret Thatcher) of some of the characters, who are so much indignation and discussion.
This imaginary, artificially constructed group of productions
wearing men’s and women’s suits, which combine elements
from a more remote past and modern-day features (especially that ambivalently emphasise different myths could also
1.6.2007 12:07:42
24/
steins), and in a subtler form the
costume designer also indulges
in some exaggerations connected
with tradition (especially the folk
costumes worn by the mothers).
Nagano, a new work, manages
to cleverly and sensitively hit the
sacred bull’s eye of a myth today
(the victory of the Czech hockey
heroes at the Olympics in 1998).
In the costume component Šípek
has managed to balance on the
edge of festive ceremony and the
mindlessness and shallowness of
“puck obsession”. The costumes of
the goalies especially are stylised
so that they recall the figures of
ancient (Agamemnon’s?) armies
or, equally, evoke the image of
Japanese samurai warriors, and
there is even a suggestive and
supernatural quality to their
white goalie masks.
If the costume components
of the productions discussed
above are noteworthy for their
ability to blend elements of
parody and irony with pious
references to older fashions
and styles, thus creating a new
visual reality, then the following
(again, artificially constructed)
group can be characterised
by the approach to the visual
artistry without that humorous
premise, where consequently the
tone is more spectacular, and
the style is central. This makes
it neither better nor worse, just
the originality of the artistic
expression emerges out of
different creative impulses. The
style of these productions – as
ŸJ. K. Tyl, Bloody Christening, or Drahomíra and Her Sons / Národní divadlo, Praha 2005
I see it in, for example, Goldflam’s
Directed by Jiří Pokorný / Set design Jan Štěpánek / Costumes Kateřina Štefková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
production of Bernhard’s Arrived
encompass two other works that were staged during the same (Comedy Theatre, set by Tomáš Rusín) or Morávek’s production
period – both were operas, and both were staged in Prague at of Dürrenmatt’s The Visit (Klicpera Theatre [Klicperovo divadlo]
the National Theatre: The Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta, in Hradec Králové, set by Martin Chocholoušek), and perhaps
directed by Jiří Nekvasil, set by Daniel Dvořák, costumes by even Pitínský’s production of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm (National
Zuzana Krejzková) and Nagano (music by Martin Smolka, Theatre in Brno) – is refined to the level of a kind of sharp,
libretto by Jaroslav Dušek and M. Smolka, directed by Ondřej emphatic, steely cold tone.
As the costume designer for Arrived, Kateřina Bláhová makes
Havelka, set design by Bořek Šípek). In The Bartered Bride the
visual artists attempted to break down myths by magnifying eloquent and sensitive distinctions between characters through
“typically Czech” attributes (the omnipresence of the beer their costumes, at the same time evoking the impression that
motif all over the set, including the “altar” of massive beer the characters (who, like in any play, “are living their own
1.6.2007 12:07:49
lives”) have, by their choice of clothing, assigned themselves
narrowly defined positions. The character of the Mother (Daniela
Kolářová), always perfect and elegant, exudes a domineering
energy, which she almost seems to draw from her airy pastelcoloured costumes. She dominates the entire space; her
carapace does not suffocate her
but gives her wings, enabling
her all the more to usurp her
wider
surroundings.
The
Daughter (Vanda Hybnerová),
on the outside the exact opposite,
spends most of the time moving
about the stage in a manner that
conversely suggests her desire
to disappear, to be swallowed
up, and her clothing reflects
this – a classic simple white
blouse, fastened fastidiously
up to the neck, tucked into an
unflattering pair slacks made
of some disagreeable material,
fastened unattractively at the
waist. Unlike her mother, who
has at her disposal an entire
arsenal of clothing, the daughter
changes only once, during
a stay somewhere by the sea,
where the two women meet the
young writer. But even then she
remains tightly fettered, and the
change of costume into a twopiece dress, reminiscent more of
sailor’s uniform, is no help.
Eva Morávková’s costumes for
the production of Dürrenmatt’s
The Visit, directed by Vladimír
Morávek, are designed with
same kind of meticulousness.
She
clearly
distinguishes
the entourage around Claire
Zachanassian (Soňa Červená
or Pavla Tomicová) and the
central character herself from
the greyness of the inhabitants
of Güllen. The latter are dressed
/25
deplorably in sagging, colourless, 1970s-style trench coats,
until they succumb to the enticement of Claire’s terrible
promise, and gradually begin to enhance their wardrobes with
colourful accessories, like yellow patent pumps. Conversely,
Claire and her entourage wear suits that reflect their fat bank
ŸBedřich Smetana, The Bartered
Bride / Národní divadlo, Praha 2004
Directed by Jiří Nekvasil / Set design
Daniel Dvořák / Costumes Zuzana
Krejzková > Photo František Ortman
ÿMartin Smolka, Nagano / Národní
divadlo, Praha 2004/ Directed by
Ondřej Havelka / Set design and
costumes Bořek Šípek > Photo Viktor
Kronbauer
1.6.2007 12:08:09
26/
ŸThomas Bernhard, Arrived / Divadlo Komedie, Praha 2004 / Directed
by Arnošt Goldflam / Set design Tomáš Rusín / Costumes Kateřina Bláhová
> Photo Bauer Power
⁄◊Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit / Klicperovo divadlo, Hradec Králové
2004 / Directed by Vladimír Morávek / Set design Martin Chocholoušek
Costumes Eva Morávková > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
⁄ÿHenrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm / Národní divadlo v Brně, Brno 2005
Directed by J. A. Pitínský / Set design Tomáš Rusín
Costumes Zuzana Štefunková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
1.6.2007 12:08:22
accounts, attired in the colours of black, white, and gold. The
silhouettes of their extremely fashionable outfits are simple to
the point of aberration, lifelessly elegant, and they resonate with
Chocholoušek’s soft stage design, which draws substantially on
the effects of colour and light (especially the bright red light that
floods the set) and the only more pronounced scenic element is
the statue of Claire Zachanassian's notorious tigress, poised
here on infinitely long thin legs, casting menacing shadows
across the length of the stage.
/27
is a purpose to all this, but also a poetry.
And then there is Shakespeare’s Richard III, in a production
directed by Michal Dočekal at the National Theatre, the
visual image of which was created for him by David Marek
– with his inventive, or perhaps more aptly, his meticulously
conceived set (its layout follows the shape of an ellipse, and
the basic material used is metal, so the entire space creates the
impression of perhaps the lowest underground level in some
kind of prison, at the centre of which is “the lift to the gallows”
ŸWilliam Shakespeare, Richard III. / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Michal Dočekal / Set design David Marek / Costumes Zuzana
Krejzková > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
Pitínskýs’s staging of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm contains visual
features (set by Tomáš Rusín, costumes by Zuzana Štefunková)
that are also worth mentioning. For example, the sky-high
book shelves in the second scene, standing on an otherwise
naked set, and the constant, purposeless arrangement and rearrangement of books from place to place, automatically, just to
keep the talk going and to dispel uneasiness. Dramatically and
rhythmically it is certainly a very effective “trick”. Similar are
the lace-up calf-length boots in which the emotionally charged
Rebecca (Kateřina Holánová) at regular intervals stomps out
a kind of dangerously temperamental dance rhythm, or the
over-length, capacious sleeves on one of Rebecca’s suits, which
when she moves them about are like seductive tentacles. There
with the sign “Welcome to Tower”) – and Zuzana Krejzková,
with her costumes. These at first glance could with equal
superficiality have fulfilled the function of the “aesthetics
of beauty”, like the costumes in the productions described
above, but at second glance the designer seems as though she
has yielded to contemporary fashion and cliché, filling the
stage with leather coats in various colours and the same cut
and with classic men’s suits, in short, with an unexciting but
nonetheless relatively ostentatious and attractive elegance,
which the actors just wrap themselves in, but do not live in
or merge with.
The last group of productions I would like to focus on
are Aquabelles (Akvabely) in Hradec Králové (written by
1.6.2007 12:08:46
and it is these artistic works
that harbour the potential that
suggests a certain hope for the
future…
Aquabelles is able to boast an
inventive and stylistically pure
set design (we look at the surface
of the backdrop as though we
are staring into the depths of
a pool, complete with a figure
ready to jump into the water),
and the production’s costumes fit
perfectly into that context (and
not just because the characters
spend most of the time in shorts
and bathing suits). The designer
cast the women’s costumes in
various shades of the same one
colour; for example, Edita (Pavla
Tomicová), in a black Cleopatralike wig, wears a navy-blue dress
with a light-blue shawl across
her shoulders, along with a blue
necklace. The entire production
is dominated by a prevailing
overall blue tone (in conformity
with the theme of the play, in
which one of the aquabelles
gradually turns into a otter),
disrupted only by the dresses of
First and Second (P. Tomicová
and Eva Leinweberová), which
are designed in warm tones,
mostly dark ochre (and both of
them are eating pistachio icecream, whose green colour goes
with their costumes).
The Cunning Little Vixen,
Bloody Tales is a production
that shows the truly happy
fusion of all the components of
a production, and although the
visual facets are very elaborately
conceived it does not come across
ŸDavid Drábek, Aquabelles / Klicperovo divadlo, Hradec Králové 2005 / Directed by Vladimír Morávek
as a concoction, the ensemble of
Set design Martin Chocholoušek / Costumes Tomáš Kypta > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
elements corresponds to the text,
David Drábek, directed by Vladimír Morávek, set by Martin as though naturally emanating from its content, surfacing out
Chocholoušek, and costumes by Tomáš Kypta), The Cunning of the undercurrents.
During the scenes that take place in the forest the stage is
Little Vixen, Bloody Tales at the Moravian-Slovak Theatre in
Uherské Hradiště (written by Rudolf Těsnohlídek, adapted and virtually empty, with just the hints of a forest atmosphere and
directed by Jan Antonín Pitínský, set by Michaela Hořejší), forest light (with the aid of a projector), while for the scenes
and The Flying Dutchman at J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen in the warden’s lodge the designer created bizarre furniture
(by Richard Wagner, directed by Jiří Heřman, set by Pavel that looks as though it has been unprofessionally wrought out
Svoboda, and costumes by Lenka Poláčková). To me, out of all of branches and wooden trunks. The costumes are designed
the productions discussed here, these exhibit most markedly in a similar manner: a distinction is made between the wild
that rare integration of all of the components of a production, animals that man has not yet tamed, domestic animals that
1.6.2007 12:08:55
/29
are gradually acquiring human features, and people. Michaela of the creations of Appiov and Craig long ago. Svoboda,
Hořejší has dressed the forest game, still living the life of Heřman, and Poláčková have allowed themselves to be led by
freedom, in simple black leotards, supported by the fact that in Wagner’s music, from whose tones they were able to divine
the direction and choreography (Igor Dostálek) they have been the visual image of the work: “If you listen to the overture of
assigned to perform movements based on Japanese kyogen. The The Flying Dutchman all the musical motifs can be semiotically
leotard of the Cunning Little Vixen (Jitka Josková) has been linked to spatial motifs”, writes J. Heřman (“Aktuální téma:
given a particularly seductive cut – it looks like a skimpy dress prostor!” (Today’s Topic: Space!), Disk no. 15, 2006, p. 53),
with an uneven, slashed skirt, more or less revealing the supple and he continues: “You can perceive the very first tones of the
charms of the passionate Vixen, alluring not only for the dashing overture as ominous trumpets heralding the final judgement on
fox (Tomáš Šulaj), but also fatally for the warden (Kamil Pulec). a stormy sea, the motifs of waves evoke the motion of an entire
This costume design, devoid of unnecessary attributes, such space – i.e. the rise and fall on the surface of the sea. The motif
as ears, tail, and the like, which have usually decorated the of redemption peaks with the motif of an infinite middle path.”
costumes of actors in older productions of Těsnohlídek’s (and The director himself in the same paper also admits drawing
Janáček’s) work, gives the actors extraordinary freedom, which inspiration from the 1431 painting The Last Judgement by the
they require to execute the demanding choreography, and it Italian early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico, in which we can
also find the key to the costumes in this production.
also leaves the audience room to engage their own fantasy…
The empty stage, covered in light material, was divided by
The dog Lapák (Zdeněk Trčálek) represents something in
between a freethinking animal and a domestic slave, and his a central path filled with sand. The artists created an overture
costume is conceived to reflect this. Across the back of his half- of light by optically manipulating the surfaces, seemingly
undressed body he wears the remains of a fur, on his head a cap making them rise and fall. Maximum use was made of the
of the same material, but from the waist down he is wearing revolving stage, its motion imitated the movement of the
a pair of short “human” pants; he has vague memories of spinning wheel in the second act, and later suggested the
freedom, and his envy and admiration for the Vixen are precisely navigation of a ship or a compass, and finally it even came
motivated by this conflicting feeling of recollection. And finally to symbolise eternal wanderings. The only realistic elements
there is the domestic
foul, which no longer
even has a clue what
freedom means: the hens
(Alexandra Vronská,
Monika Horká) are
spruced up in what look
like visual paraphrases
of folk costumes, with
white ruffled-feather
caps on their heads, and
the cock (Pavel Majkus)
is adorned in a gay
parade uniform (a white
coat with red details,
and black slacks) and
a military cap with long
feathers, like in the age
of Franz Josef.
Pavel Svoboda won
the Alfréd Radok award
for 2004 for the set
design he created for
Wagner’s The Flying
Dutchman. There are
more such prize-winners
in
this
summary,
but this was a case of
a truly extraordinary
artistic achievement,
ŸRudolf Těsnohlídek, The Cunning little Vixen, Bloody Tales / Slovácké divadlo Uherské Hradiště 2004
thoroughly original and Directed by J. A. Pitínský / Set design and costumes Michaela Hořejší > Photo Viktor Kronbauer
suggestive, reminiscent
1.6.2007 12:09:12
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ŸRichard Wagner, The Flying Dutchman / Divadlo J. K. Tyla, Plzeň 2004 / Directed by Jiří Heřman / Set design Pavel Svoboda
Costumes Lenka Polášková > Photo Marta Kolafová
on the stage are the diffusion sails, hung on pulleys over the
sandy path, which at that point has become the deck of a ship,
and beach (or garden) chairs, which acquire various functions
through the actors’ manipulations (the sails in motion or
spinning wheel, etc.).
The minimalistic restraint of the magical dream scenes,
which succeeds in drawing us back into ourselves so that we
forget where the line between visual and sound perceptions
lies, required the use of the appropriate, unobtrusive costumes
that would in no way inhibit the characters in their on-stage
dream transformation from human into eternal elements
and back again, and so that the magic would be able to flow
continuously and undisturbed. For this reason, the costumes
mainly use natural materials in white or sand-coloured, and
for some of the men’s costumes even a dark-grey shade. The
only unusual features on the women’s long gowns, which are
otherwise simple and smooth silhouettes, are the extended
and pointed rear parts of their sleeves. This detail made the
look evocative of women’s fashion in the late Gothic and early
Renaissance periods, from the times of Fra Angelico.
The Czech Stage Costume
from One Prague Quadrennial to the Next
1.6.2007 12:09:22
á
k ov
ň
e
Zd
á
rie
a
ern
Č
M
a
il
Ka m
031-046_Perzekuce.indd 31
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Between May and June 2006, Persecution.cz (Perzekuce.cz), a project founded and developed by
Miroslav Bambušek, culminated with the staging of four productions in Prague, three of which involved
Bambušek himself as writer or director (Porta Apostolorum, The Serenity of the Field Path [Útěcha polní
cesty], The Zone [Zóna]), and one the playwright Karel Steigerwald (Horáková vs. Gottwald). All four
productions focused on historical and future injustices as their themes. Events connected with the postwar ‘settling of scores’ with the German population in the Czech lands was the topic in two instances,
while Steigerwald’s play looked at the judicial murder of Milada Horáková, executed after a Communist
show trial in the 1950s, and The Zone presented audiences with a vision of an unpleasant future. The
different themes, concepts, and artistic tools characterizing these four productions were united by the
shared topics of violence against defenceless (though not necessarily always innocent) victims and
the preservation of historical memory. The four productions were staged in a series of performances
held in the raw industrial environment of La Fabrika in the district of Holešovice in Prague. As part
of the project other events preceded these performances, with drama readings held at locations where
tragic events have occurred in the past and the organization of other accompanying events, such
as lectures and discussion fora. Using a unique artistic format Perzekuce.cz opened up a thus far
painful and controversial side of Czech history and became a high point in Prague’s theatre scene.
La Fabrica > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
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Bambušek’s Solace
F
or those of us who grew up in the totalitarian era and
had to study using Communist textbooks, the idea of
art as a medium of social engagement may have an
unpleasant ring to it. But the time has now come for socially
engaged drama to make its way back onto the stage, as has
the need again arisen to take action for or against some end.
It is not really a matter of a movement. Individuals and local
projects are what lie behind the focus of these plays and
productions. This article will look at Miroslav Bambušek’s
Persecution.cz, a project that draws on the not-too-distant
past and as an exploratory afterward also takes a look at the
future.
Miroslav Bambušek, a playwright, director, and producer
(born in 1975 in Louny, trained as a fitter, he studied
philosophy, French, and ancient Greek at the Institute for
Basic Humanities Education at Charles University) is an
activist with the Civic Association Mezery, which through
various activities (lectures, exhibitions, theatre, etc.) focuses
on events and realities at the fringe of public interest. The
association organized, for example, the Balkan Season (the
war in former Yugoslavia), in which Bambušek’s play The
Sand (Písek) was performed at the Drama Studio (Činoherní
studio) in Ústí nad Labem. Persecution.cz is the name of
a project he launched as a drama reading at his ‘home’ stage
in Multispace (Multiprostor) Louny. From the autumn of
2005 to the spring of 2006 the project found refuge in the
spaces of the former aluminium foundry in Holešovice, renamed La Fabrika (The Factory) for this occasion. With the
exception of the staging of Karel Steigerwald’s play Horáková
vs. Gottwald, Bambušek was involved in these productions
as either director or author of the play. Two segments of
the project put on in La Fabrika relate to violence against
Germans at the end of the Second World War (in northern
Bohemia and in Brno), and the last part of Bambušek’s
stage trilogy looks at persecution in an uncertain future, in
ŸMiroslav Bambušek, Porta Apostolorum / Project Perzekuce.cz, Praha
a world after the Apocalypse.
2006 / Directed by David Czesany / Set design Petr Matásek
Costumes Zuzana Krejzková > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
Porta Apostolorum
T
he drama plays like an inside-out fairytale. One
evening, in a certain home in a certain town in
a certain country, a certain family is having a dinner
party ... and later, a couple of people are murdered. For this
play, the author studied documents about the historical
period it is based on, and he knows what he’s writing
about. But he doesn’t provide any clear leads as to what
exactly happened or as to how viewers should perceive
the action. Neither the play nor the production, directed
by David Czesany, is intended to be a kind of informative
documentary (the play has only several characters, but
naturally there were hundreds of victims). Instead, this
theatrical ‘deposition’ is driven by an inner search to
understand how far a person can burden their conscience
and still claim a right to a ‘normal’ life. The topic of
Bambušek’s play, which won second place last year at the
Alfréd Radok Awards, is the genocide of Sudeten Germans
at the end of the Second World War. Events are situated in
the town of Postoloprty, named after the local Benedictine
monastery, Porta Apostolorum.
The play’s lofty title transports the guests of this predeath party to the apostle’s gate, a place marked by an
aura of sanctity (though none present could be said to be
particularly virtuous), but also by the stench of involuntary
martyrdom. There is an element of destiny in all this. The
Second World War is over, and today, in 2006, in Holešovice,
everyone is dressed in formal black attire and dress shirts.
Like the characters in the play, some of them do not yet
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◊Miroslav Bambušek, Porta Apostolorum / Project Perzekuce.cz, Praha
2006 / Directed by David Czesany / Set design Petr Matásek
know that they are also in mourning dress.
Fritz (Michal Slaný), is the son of a German industrialist
family. He is celebrating his birthday, and he invites over
some friends and his girlfriend, who is not really his just
yet. During the evening, all of them are murdered, and by
mysterious circumstances only Fritz and the murderous
Mayor remain at the end. These are state-endorsed
murderers, neighbours and friends, each character feels
ashamed, or not, in their own way, but it is easier to kill
than not to. They are in the grip of rage and a sense of duty.
One of the murders even occurs out of jealousy, which as an
expression of violence fits in with the rest of the genocide.
In a darkened space, lit only by candles at the front of the
stage (Petr Matásek is the light-handed author of the very
subtle set design), the performers stand in a formation
reminiscent of the position of the chorus in ancient Greek
theatre. They address their words and actions to one
another, but physically they face the audience, their gazes
fixed, not on some blank spot in the distance, but straight at
the dense body of viewers, from whom they seek a response
and understanding.
Initially the hosts and the guests (the murderers) are
situated on the same spatial level. Fritz’s father, a factory
owner named Otto, played by Rudolf Stärz, warms to the
booze-up, but confronted with despotism he comes back
down to earth and accepts the stigma of victim. Fritz’s
mother (played by Marie Spurná) sustains an image of
polite hospitality; pleased with the horsemeat she serves
to her guests, and proud of her husband and her son.
She attends to the house and the kitchen, and she is
consistently charming and elegant, sporting a carefully
slicked back hairdo and a dazzling pair of earrings. On
the other hand, Fritz is a fragile introvert, meditating on
more immediate horizons, and his heart set on just one
love. The lead murderer – the Mayor (Miloslav Mejzlík)
– is somewhat preoccupied with the murderous assignment
he has received. He makes apparent his well-meaning
gratitude for the hosts’ hospitality, but that will not deter
him from faithfully fulfilling his task. Jakop (Jan Dvořák)
and Gloss (Tomáš Bambušek) have so embraced their roles
as close school friends that when the time comes they
find it painful to shake off those personalities to become
murderers. A latecomer named Marek (Jan Lepšík) arrives.
He speaks an eastern Slovak dialect and looks dodgy at
first site, wearing a strangely balding wig and the remains
of a uniform, suggesting his professional qualifications for
taking control (his official function is unclear in proportion
to the obscurity of the current circumstances). Looking as
ragamuffins (as opposed to ‘society’) are Pavel and Káťa
(Stanislav Majer and Jindřiška Křivánková), ill-fated lovers.
Káťa’s intended is Fritz, but he never manages to take his
beloved away from the hell of retribution. Some very heavy
/35
drinking goes on. But those with a task to perform never
lose sight of it. The piteous melody of ‘O Sole Mio’ resonates
through the action, illuminated by soothing Christmas
candles. The characters jostle with one another before the
audience in an effort to be heard. Other related dramas
unfold at the rear of the stage on elevated platforms (Káťa
rejecting Pavel).
The harshness of the play’s theme is tempered by the
poetic text and the light-handed stage design. Scenes of love
and ruination are played out in a suspended factory cage,
and there an act of love also modestly unfolds. The lovers
(Káťa and Fritz) direct their speech toward the public, and
when they reach the moment of physical intimacy, they
withdraw from one another into separate corners. The
mother, upstage on an elevated surface, erotically succumbs
to the murderer (the Mayor), who sincerely assures her of
her beauty (she is later tortured to death at his command).
The martyrs do not acquire the aureole of martyrdom
through their own doing; they are martyrs only because
they were executed. Otto encourages everyone to drink
more, but when he realizes what is going on, he wants to
send the degenerates to be gassed, throws the blame on
his own family, and in the end has no choice but to accept
his death like a good martyr. In the suspended cage the
Mayor and Fritz ultimately drift off into nothingness and
a difficult ‘new’ life. ‘Write!’, the Mayor urges Fritz, as the
boy is meant to write his own indictment. But that may
also be a source of testimony. The murderers take refuge
in the dubious safety of ‘the truth’: the Mayor received his
instructions from the capital; Pavel is fortified by the rage of
a starved outsider and a spurned lover. These are the stories
no one wants to hear, even though they are analogous to the
heart-rending melodramas offered to us on the television
screen in a palatable coating. But in the mind they cannot
be turned off.
The Serenity of the Field Path
T
his production is one of the most unusual to emerge
in the Czech Republic in recent years. It is based on
a text (according to the note under the script’s title)
that was inspired by The Holy War, a play by the German
playwright Rainald Goetz (murderous mantras and poetic
reveries), and by Martin Heidegger’s essay titled ‘The Field
Path’, which draws on the German philosopher’s childhood
and youth, when he perceived the world, its events and
dramas, through the eyes of a wanderer along a field path.
The philosopher, for whom ‘thought itself is a path’, derived
a sense of serenity from the field path: ‘whenever the riddles
pressed upon each other and no way out was in sight, the
field path helped’.
The play’s central theme is again the post-war persecution
of displaced Germans, this time on a death march from
Brno to the Austrian border. Again it is not a documentary,
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however much the facts about the march from Brno, which
took place on 30 May 1945, are the subject of the debates
at the ‘conference’ that opens the play. Bambušek is
acknowledged only as the author of the ‘connective material’
(and as the director). The text is not a patchwork piece but
a heterogeneous whole that is hard to pin down and tends
to dodge interpretation. It is amazing that the severe, drastic
documents it is based on could be the source of a work that
is both frightening and tender at once: the poetic lines of the
text, purged of sentiment; the onomatopoeic, lilting sounds
of German; the artistically bizarre and poetic stage images.
The set (by Jan Sorel) is relatively bare, with a more
‘scenographic’ concept than in the other productions in the
project. From the opening the action is concentrated in the
forestage, where a conference on the topic of the expulsion
of the Germans from Brno is taking place. The space of
the action is delineated by a suspended curtain, with what
looks like a military batik (or perhaps just plain dirt) on
the surface, and illuminated with a vaudevillian string of
small lamps at the front of the stage. When the past that the
conference is theoretically addressing suddenly materializes,
the protective curtain surrounding the discussion lair is torn
down, and the spirits of the victims of silenced crimes begin
to emerge. The curtain remains lying on the floor in an
ugly heap, like another piece of junk in the factory space.
There are old wooden boards stored on the forestage floor,
cast-off, crumbling, shabby pieces of material that form an
unstable, creaky, and dangerous surface to walk on. The
‘action’ created by the floor serves to naturally enhance the
dialogues and the characters’ hazardous attempts to assert
an intransigent truth. The space on the floor where a board
is missing becomes a grave, where an Old Man (Jan Lepšík)
dreams the dreams of the dead. His body forms an obstacle
and another piece of junk in the space. A speaker’s podium
and microphone are also naturally on hand.
The opening of the conference resembles a kind of media
event (the moderator, as a figure more important than the
truth, only participates for the fee) or kitschy variety show
(flying confetti), but it is not the conference as such that
is parodied, just some of its aspects. But even then it is
not so much a parody as it is a matter of peeling back the
surface layers of individual positions to find an absurd or
ridiculous dimension inadequate to the truth in question.
The conference on the whole is conceived as something
questionable, but something nonetheless motivated by good
intentions (it is necessary to inspect old wounds, even if
they cannot be healed now and the truth is beyond scholarly
influence).
This strange conference on one event has one lecturer,
one opponent (defending past suffering) and one chair. The
event’s agile organizer, Hana (Monika Krejčí), speaks on
behalf of the persecuted Germans. The lecturer (essentially
the antagonistic partner in the discussion) is the historian
Libor Vykoupil (Martin Finger), who forces his ‘objectively
scientific’ view of the event, demonstrably devoid of emotion,
and trivializes persecution as a relatively insignificant
ŸRainald Goetz – Martin Heidegger – documents on the Brno death
march on 30 May 1945, The Serenity of the Field Path
Project Perzekuce.cz, Praha 2006 / Directed by Miroslav Bambušek
Set design and costumes Tom Sorel and Jana Preková
Light design Jan Beneš > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
historical fact. With her dogged revelation of the dreadful
but sober facts about what went on in the persecution, Hana
wins over the natural sympathies of her listeners, but these
sympathies are soon after lost. The youthful ardour of her
railings, the knowledge with which she supports her cause,
her matter-of-fact manner and lack of sentimentality, are all
attributes that resonate sincerely. But despite that, she is
not a positive figure. Her girlish second-hand attire (a grey
polyester dress material, striped knit vest, pink jacket,
and artificial snakeskin boots) belies a clumsy naivité and
a shabby approach to the past. She directs her energy at the
less ingratiating point of view (she regards the only witness
of events, the Old Man, as just a dead statue). By making
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/37
ŸRainald Goetz – Martin Heidegger – documents on the Brno death march on 30 May 1945, The Serenity of the Field Path / Project Perzekuce.cz,
Praha 2006 / Directed by Miroslav Bambušek / Set design and costumes Tom Sorel and Jana Preková / Light design Jan Beneš > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
light of suffering, Libor ought to come across as a monster,
but he doesn’t. At first glance he is a likeable outsider, with
the bitter scepticism typical of outcasts he defines a space
of public isolation for himself, free from the fuss of trivial
disputes. He’s a tough guy who’s been through quite a bit,
with the look of an anarchist or street thug, attired in a wellworn leather jacket, slacks patched together out of rags, and
– to cap off all this flashy bad taste – a mangy blond wig of
copious curls that loosens and moves about his head. His
arrogance and innate edginess are expressed through the
cigarettes he smokes, in the absence of an ashtray flicking
ash, with perfunctory apologies, into the grave of the Old
Man, a mute symbol of the buried past. His reaction to the
events uncovered indicates that it is he, the outsider from
the street (and the historians’ representative!), who years
ago could equally have been one of the murderers – the selfappointed ‘executors of justice’. These characters, which
are lacking in empathy and capable of justifying anything,
enable us to look into the eyes of a person (not a monster)
who could have been capable of committing these acts or at
the very least justifying them.
Through all this a hired moderator (Phillip Shenker)
dances the jig of a media professional between the extremes
of the problems tabled, his impartiality seemingly assured
as neutral paid labour, with no interest in the conference
topic. However, this cosmopolitan eccentric, who speaks
with a foreign accent, is virtually beaten down by the
gradual disclosure of facts (he writhes grotesquely at the
every mention of the murdering of children). His histrionic,
affected commitment draws him into the conference, to the
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flowery dress (Tomáš Jeřábek), and a twenty-month-old
little girl named Edltraud, with a monstrously bulging
diaper on her rear (Stanislav Majer). These over-sized
children incarnated by bizarrely done-up male performers
are intended more as spectres of awareness and conscience
than they are meant to evoke pity. They play at dancing,
but their lines, although simple, are not childish, and
in the end they all lie serenely under an imaginary tree
(a reference to the essay by Martin Heidegger). The march
of death is directed in a rhythmic dance by the young
girl with a bandaged face (played by the equally young
Jindřiška Křivánková), who is playing at revolution and
sowing death. With a childish, tender little voice she
enthuses over all these creatures, and with the smile of
a porcelain doll she sends one after the other to death,
like in some child’s game. In the end she whips the naked
and defenceless victims of persecution literally into a pile.
This infantile revolutionary girl offers this sad pyramid of
degradation to Hana as material for ‘historical’ play-acting.
But Hana turns away, not up to this confrontation. Her
action is not pretence, but her ability to accept the ‘naked’
truth is limited. The conference participants are paralysed,
they utter their inert lines more and more slowly – like
drowsy zombies. The revolution-Girl looks for more fodder
to play at death, and when she can no longer find anything,
she shoots herself with a carrot.
The serenity of the field path is not kind, but it gives
those who have survived the opportunity to pull themselves
together, take a look around, and go on.
The Zone
I
ŸRainald Goetz – Martin Heidegger – documents on the Brno death
march on 30 May 1945, The Serenity of the Field Path
Project Perzekuce.cz, Praha 2006 / Directed by Miroslav Bambušek
Set design and costumes Tom Sorel and Jana Preková
Light design Jan Beneš > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
point where he (trapped in a ‘virtual reality’) is the one
who becomes most deeply submerged in the world of the
victims.
The conference is intoxicated with itself; it urges itself
on, stumbling past candid outpourings and shenanigans.
Ultimately all three actors end up in one bed – in the
grave, following the Old Man, who was unable to listen to
any more and spoke out himself. Even a conference with
theorists involves playing with fire. Once the curtain to
the past is torn down, the spirits of victims or their proxies
begin to appear in the dimly lit space. In addition to the
Old Man, they include a relatively civil-looking Rom named
Roman (Richard Němec), a five-year-old Girl in a worn-out
n The Zone, advertised as an ‘excursion into the
Apocalypse’, we find ourselves in a catastrophic future,
as envisioned by the playwright Miroslav Bambušek and
the director Thomas Zielinski. After a devastating explosion
in the centre of Europe (evidently the Czech Republic)
an area of space is marked out, known as ‘the Zone’,
where all that remains of life is condemned to extinction,
but where, despite the wishes of the ‘cleansers’, perhaps
someone will yet be able to start from nothing; a space in
the middle of the ocean – to drown in, or from where it
may still be possible to reach some shore. Water is the main
scenographic motif. Plastic water bottles hang from the
ceiling of the hall, and almost throughout the performance
water drips from them into other plastic bottles, cut in half,
or directly onto the floor covered with coiled hoses, the
leftover entrails of civilization. There is a constant sound
of water dripping, as though the end of the world were
ÿMiroslav Bambušek, The Zone / Project Perzekuce.cz, Praha 2006
Directed by Thomas Zielinski / Set design Jaroslav Bönisch / Costumes Jana
Preková > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
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trickling away. After the violinist (Igor Lecian) announces
the Zone’s existence, the entire screen of water is released
from the suspended platform. The sound of the violins is
grating and contrapuntally striking against the space of the
factory hall, which serves perfectly as an apocalyptic space.
The production opens and closes with this expression of
/41
the body, including his head, is wrapped in a stocking,
so as to conceal but not deny his humanity (costumes
by Jana Preková). Other figures are at first represented
only by voices, which form another spatial dimension in
this production. Through their voices characters are again
recalled and can intervene in events without being present.
La Fabrica inside > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
◊Miroslav Bambušek, The Zone / Project Perzekuce.cz, Praha 2006 / Directed by Thomas Zielinski / Set design Jaroslav Bönisch / Costumes Jana
Preková > Photo Bohdan Holomíček
the human spirit (at the close the violinist has a longer solo
performance).
There are only four ‘dramatic’ characters. They are not the
last four people on earth, but their proxies – lost in the sealed
Zone. Immediately upon entering the hall the audience sees
one of the them hanging on a harness from a hook, limbs
splayed, body motionless, like a dead or sleeping spider. He
is even insect-like in appearance: yellow leggings tucked
tightly into sand-coloured knee socks, the upper half of
There is a remote sound even to the voice of Jan, the hanging
figure (played by Jan Lepšík), as he and all the actors speak
through portable microphones, which adds an element of
solitary cautiousness to their communication and creates
the impression of a great spatial distance between them. The
lines first seem unintelligible, like fragments of conversations
picked up by chance on a radar (another typical attribute of
Bambušek’s texts), like remnants of babble passing through
the universe. Someone somewhere is discussing something
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suspicious, in which money and entertainment play a role
(this is exactly what gets the character referred to just as ‘M’
into the Zone); someone else, more enigmatically, wants to
start something (probably life) one more time; a very young
woman’s voice is searching amidst the ruins for her child,
but she can only find his shadow. The figures appear and
wander through the space of the Zone, where they meet up
with one another. In a red protective uniform and armed
with a light pistol, M (Marek Matějka) looks for his guide
to the Zone. The guide appears, but then vanishes again.
This is Solider (Jan Plouhar), a creature in black-and-yellow
clothing, who is related to Jan. They may once have been
people. A woman named Anna (Ela Lehotská) emerges on
an elevated platform upstage left. Possessed with an urge
to kill herself after the death of her child, she summons up
her guardian angel. Jan (named after her dead husband)
thus has a life-giving mission. M is a ritual hunter of people,
he represents the survival and continuous renewal of
persecution. Matějka endows him with a particular tone of
voice and physical posture that are altogether distinct from
the other figures – he is good-natured and a regular kind of
guy, an example of solidly prospering riffraff. But even he
is capable of surprising self-reflection: ‘...don’t be proud of
me’. In the end this brutal hunter of people escapes from
the Zone, but beyond its gates he finds only a wasteland. He
lies down on the ground and prepares to die, as though he
suddenly understands what the end actually means.
There is an optimistic almost happy-ending tone to the
conclusion of the play, which finds the pregnant Anna
remaining, referring to herself as Marie and to the water as
the Virgin’s Spring. But there is too much that is desolate,
harsh, and abrasive here for hope to be able to convey any
sense of warmth and happiness.
There is little that is pleasing in this unorthodox scifi, but it is nonetheless in its own way tantalizing and
inviting. There is always an adventure to travelling into
the future, when we observe man’s final affairs from a safe
distance. So we sheepishly find ourselves somewhat in
the position of M, who has paid for his ‘tour’ in the Zone
beforehand. Persecution from the past pervades the future.
It must be noted that it is less of a blow and less ‘personal’
to uncover the horrors that might be than those that have
already occurred and ‘cannot be undone’. The protagonists’
feelings of powerlessness and solitude are not alien to us.
Persecution led to the destruction of the heart of Europe
(the world as a whole is not discussed), but has it really
been destroyed if life still remains?
Miroslav Bambušek’s plays tend to turn on themes of social
urgency with a sense for history and for the individualism
of not very specific characters. Yet in extreme ‘historical’
circumstances a flicker of an intimate relationship, not
unlike love, prevails as an intense but by no means final and
redeeming refuge, not in the sentimental sense, but rather as
an expression that breaks through the surface and reaches
out from the grave (this love need not necessarily be between
a man and a woman). The individual lines in the play’s
dialogue rise to the surface like luminescent heavenly bodies.
They are uttered by specific figures, but these people seem to
conceal their real secrets in the barrenness of infinite space.
They find themselves on the edge of dangerous situations
– on the edge of life and death. Their lines are not long, but
nor are they telegraphically blunt, and words of poetry are
even able to emerge out of murky depths.
Despite their literary qualities, these plays belong on stage
and are not meant for armchair reading. (It is only when
staged that they tell the whole tale and endow the lightly
sketched story with solid contours.) Productions of these
play-scripts are not entertainment, but they are appealing.
They elicit a sense of curiosity and expectation, and they
leave in their wake a feeling of joy, not pain. We may feel
slightly ashamed that we are not so entirely unlike the ardent
participants of the conference (The Serenity of the Field Path)
or the war tourists (The Zone). But it is good to be there
and to take part at least as a spectator of viscerally poetic
discussions. It is a relief to witness these delayed exposures,
even if their impact is obviously limited. The Sisyphean
pathos of fruitless and resigned testimony has the capacity to
generate a cathartic effect, achieving purification through fear
and compassion – in this case through realization, as it is too
late for compassion and the fear has petered out somewhere.
Marie Zdeňková
The text has been taken and edited from the World and Theatre (Svět a divadlo) magazine.
Horáková vs. Gottwald
K
arel Steigerwald’s play, Horáková vs. Gottwald,
subtitled We Kill a Woman, They’re Scared, They’ll
Get Used to It (Zabijeme ženskou, leknou se,
zvyknout si), is part of a project called Persecution.cz
(Perzekuce.cz), developed by the playwright and director
Miroslav Bambušek. In four acts (‘The Arrest’ [Zatčení],
‘The Interrogation’ [Výslech], ‘The Trial’ [Proces], ‘The
Execution’ [Poprava]) we follow the fate of Milada Horáková
and witness the course of one of the first and most ruthless
crimes of justice ever committed by the Communists in
Czechoslovakia. Milada Horáková (1901–1950) was a Czech
politician and a lawyer. After the Communist coup in 1948,
she gave up her parliamentary mandate and left politics.
In 1949 the Communists arrested her and accused her of
high treason and espionage. In 1950 she was sentenced to
death in a show trial and was subsequently hanged. The
ÿŸKarel Steigerwald, Horáková vs. Gottwald / Project Perzekuce.cz,
Praha 2006 / Directed by Viktorie Čermáková / Set design Tomáš Bambušek
Costumes Zuzana Krejzková / Eva Salzmannová as Milada Horáková >
Photo Bohdan Holomíček
ÿKarel Steigerwald, Horáková vs. Gottwald / Project Perzekuce.cz,
1.6.2007 12:14:36
PERSECUTION.CZ
/43
1.6.2007 12:14:37
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PERSECUTION.CZ
ÿKarel Steigerwald, Horáková vs. Gottwald / Project Perzekuce.cz,
ŸKarel Steigerwald, Horáková vs. Gottwald / Project Perzekuce.cz,
sentence elicited a response of public outrage and protests
throughout the democratic world. Klement Gottwald, the
first Communist President of Czechoslovakia, in office from
1948 to 1953, was the man who signed her death warrant
and was also primarily responsible for the police and
judicial terror, despotic practices, and general lawless that
reigned during this period.
The manner in which Karel Steigerwald has sketched
the figures of Horáková, Gottwald, and others in this play
is not meant to correspond to reality. The play is not
a dramatized documentary. While it contains a number of
authentic scenes, real people, and situations that actually
occurred (for example, Milada Horáková being arrested first
by the Nazis and later by the Communists, her husband’s
escape over the border, Gottwald’s role in this judicial
murder, the futile petitions for clemency on her behalf made
by prominent figures around the world, including Albert
Einstein, and, conversely, the thousands of governmenturged resolutions in Czechoslovakia calling for her death), it
also includes scenes that have no basis in historical fact and
that through the use of dramatic hyperbole and metaphor
are designed to capture the real essence and central features
of Communist despotism during this period. On this level
of the production, some characters (for example, that of
E. F. Burian, a leading Czech avant-garde director from the
inter-war period, who became a staunch Communist after
the Second World war) function as particular symbols of
that period, and the depiction of their fates in Steigerwald’s
dramatic abridgement in many ways is a divergence from real
events. In the play Horáková speaks with people with whom
in reality she could never have spoken; Gottwald is flanked by
a band of ‘comrades’, who (intentionally) say things that no
prudent politician would ever have dared utter. Steigerwald
thus exposes the monstrous mechanism of totalitarian power
and the ignoble and depraved natures of those who were
suddenly in command.
In Viktorie Čermáková’s production, Milada Horáková
is played by Eva Salzmannová, an actor with the National
Theatre in Prague. While she manages to retain Horáková’s
feminine qualities, her sensitivity, and her grace, she
also succeeds at bringing out her extraordinary inner
strength, a strength that enabled Horáková to confront
her Communist persecutors. The figure of Horáková and
Salzmannová’s portrayal of her form the backbone of this
production and contrast sharply in tone not just with the
decrepitude of Gottwald’s character (played by Jiří Štrébl)
but also with the portrayal of E. F. Burian, played by Luboš
Veselý, who moves about on a small podium upstage,
setting off the entire production with his peculiar cabaret
and musical performances, and re-creating for the audience
the inglorious demise of a great artist.
Even Gottwald is not a real historical portrait, but (as the
drama critic Vladimír Just wrote) is ‘more of a composite
of a Bolshevik and a populist – he’s affable, jovial, and
primitive, and above all a spineless coward’. It is he who at
the close turns to the audience to deliver an ironic message
targeting contemporary events (the production premiered
not long before the most recent elections to the Parliament
of the Czech Republic): ‘We really crushed you, didn’t we?
But it never occurred to me that you’d be back forty years
later to help us into power once again…’ The play closes
on that warning note about the continued support that the
Communist Party has maintained in the Czech Republic. As
Just notes: that percentage of support is a measure of the
persistent malaise of our society.
Kamila Černá
1.6.2007 12:14:39
PERSECUTION.CZ
/45
1.6.2007 12:14:43
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PERSECUTION.CZ
Miroslav Bambušek: Porta Apostolorum. Director David
Czesany, set design Petr Matásek, costumes Zuzana
Krejzková, music Vladimír Franz. Project Persecution.cz,
premiere 25/9/2005.
Rainald Goetz – Martin Heidegger – documents on the Brno
death march on 30 May 1945: The Serenity of the Field
Path. Director Miroslav Bambušek, set design Tom Sorel,
costumes Jana Preková, music Petr Kofroň, light design Jan
Beneš. Project Persecution.cz, premiere 15/1/2006.
Karel Steigerwald: Horáková vs. Gottwald (We´ll Kill
a Woman, They´re Scared, They´ll Get Used to It.).
Director Viktorie Čermáková, set design Tomáš Bambušek,
costumes Zuzana Krejzková, music Vratislav Šrámek. Project
Persecution.cz, Prague, premiere 19/3/2006.
Miroslav Bambušek: The Zone. Director Tomáš Zielinski, set
design Jaroslav Bönisch, costumes Jana Preková, music Igor
Lecian. Project Persecution.cz, Prague, premiere 29/4/2006.
1.6.2007 12:14:46
A Lesson
in Modern
Theatre
Lenka Šaldová
W. A. Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Ursel
and Karl-Ernst Herrmann / Set design and costumes Karl-Ernst Herrmann
> Photo Hana Smejkalová
047-052_Tito.indd 47
1.6.2007 12:16:48
48/
A LESSON IN MODERN THEATRE
A Lesson
in Modern
Theatre
T
he staging of the opera La clemenza di Tito (namely
the Clemency of Titus) is one of the best to have
taken place on the Czech opera scene over the past
fifteen years. And in many aspects it towers especially high
above the majority of National Theatre (Národní divadlo)
projects from the Daniel Dvořák-Jiří Nekvasil era. Not only
did true invention invade the National Theatre with the
husband and wife team of Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann
(the whole series of productions that they have created at
the Salzburg Festival is testimony to their prestige), but first
and foremost an absolutely professional approach to the
preparation of the production, without which there can be
no creative masterpieces.
The choice of a suitable cast, both vocally and typewise
is the first step and the knowledge that modern opera
begins with meticulous musical preparation and is not
possible without expressive singing. In this respect meeting
performers such as Johannes Chum, Sarah Castle, Elzbieta
Szmytka, Atala Schöck and above all Kate Aldrich is most
enlightening. Nonetheless, under the baton of conductor
Alessandro de Marchi, even the Czech performers, who
had undergone a stringent selection process (Kateřina
Jalovcová, Jaroslav Březina, Pavla Vykopalová, Adam
Plachetka and Petra Nôtová) understood only too well that
a technically perfectly sung score is a necessary foundation
for a true interpretation of a role: the voice above all actually
expresses the inner state and feelings of its heroes. Under
the guidance of the Herrmanns they then composed the
acts honestly from eloquent poses and gestures – nothing
was left to chance: relationships and situations were
precisely constructed. In comparison to the perfection of
the first cast’s performance, that of the Czech cast lacked
⁄ÿW. A. Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann / Set design and costumes
Karl-Ernst Herrmann > Photo Hana Smejkalová
1.6.2007 12:16:53
/49
1.6.2007 12:17:01
50/
ŸW. A. Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann / Set design and costumes
an obvious internalisation of stylisation, the radiation of the
learnt movement design through their own personality. At
any rate in the case of the second cast it was extraordinary
to follow how an already precise (never merely implied)
and comprehensible interpretation of the work develops
naturally out of clear actions on stage. How in a white
enclosed space, sharply narrowing towards upstage, the
desires, dreams and emotions of the personally drawn
characters clash with one another. Characters contemporary
through and through – and not simply because the men
were dressed in today’s suits and the ladies in elegant ball
gowns or summer dresses. They are contemporary in their
psychology which is revealed by their actions.
Titus (Chum/Březina) returning from battle strides
forward with bravado from the depths of the stage, kicks
off his boots, throws off his gloves and strews jewels over
the stage – war spoils stuffed into the pockets of his coat.
Almost ceremonially he inspects the laurel wreath crown
which he is to don. Nevertheless the ceremonial homage
(from the choir who stands in the side boxes, for the white
space is only an arena for the relationships between the
characters) receives him in near trepidation. For he is in fact
1.6.2007 12:17:06
/51
ŸW. A. Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann / Set design and costumes
an ordinary guy, still agitated by the memory of his bride,
who he relinquished (and whose photograph he still always
carries with him) and most tender towards his friend Sixtus.
The schemer Vitellia (Szmytka/Vykopalová) dexterously
holds sway over him – in a titillating scene she changes in
front of him into an ostentatious crimson dress, ties him to a
chair with a scarf, dances provocatively around him and that
while simultaneously flirting with Anni. Another time she
allows him to embrace her, so that she can push the excited
Sixtus fiercely away – all in order to induce him to kill Titus.
Sixtus (Aldrich/Schöck) is so tossed about by an internal
storm – first he is full of resolution, then he props himself
against a wall lifeless. How powerful is his desparation,
when he (head in his hands) huddles in a chair, kneels
before Titus, flees from him, staggers from wall to wall in
broken movements. One gripping moment simply follows
another in this production fired by emotion.
In their stylishly limpidly clean production the Herrmanns
have confered on the Czech opera scene a lesson in the
language of modern theatre – from dramatic art to the
fascinating lighting of the space. Their vision of the theatre
of opera is just one of many to be sure – at any rate however
1.6.2007 12:17:19
52/
it is part of one of the truly significant contemporary
European trends. It is creatively discerning theatre, which
is effective in its clear and highly emotive communication.
And also because it derives (never from the outside and thus
all the more intensive) from a contemporary sensibility.
Which, apart from other things, manifested itself in the
scepticism towards an unambiguously joyful end – and so,
like for example Claus Guth in the Viennese production of
Lucio Silla, the Herrmanns finish their stage story likewise
rather bitterly: Titus may utter his forgiveness to all those
who wished to injure him, but a breakdown in relations
seems irreversible, when before Vitellia’s very eyes the
emperor hangs the wreath-crown, destined for her as his
bride, back above the stage as a sign that the throne beside
him is once again empty. And Vitellia contritely departs
from the stage – she has lost both, Sixtus and Titus. Just
before the lights go down for the last time, Titus stands
alone on the apron of the stage and Sixtus deep deep
upstage – former friends who are too remote after all this.
Does Titus’ extended hand nevertheless mean hope for
true peace? Or just sorrow at the loss of a friendship? At all
events a stirring picture: thanks to Titus’ clemency no one
has lost their life – but it is impossible to think that man’s
actions can have no consequences.
W. A. Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito. Libretto Caterino
Mazzolà, conductor Alessandro De Marchi, directed by Ursel
and Karl-Ernst Hermann, set design and costumes Karl-Ernst
Herrmann. National Theatre, Prague, premiere 14/10/2006.
A Lesson
in Modern
Theatre
1.6.2007 12:17:26
Scootering
through the Labyrinth of the World
Jana Machalická
053-062_Skutr.indd 53
1.6.2007 12:20:51
54/
SCOOTERING THROUGH THE LABYRINTH OF THE WORLD
I
n Czech theatre a directorial tandem is a relatively
unusual creative phenomenon, more common is the
partnership of director and dramaturg. Lukáš Trpišovský
and Martin Kukučka, who form the directorial duo by the
name of Skutr (Scooter), have managed in just a few years
to push through into the stream of the emerging generation
of directors (both were born in 1979) and the name Skutr
has become a guarantee of poetic originality. Both of
course permit the premise that they are in fact a traditional
director-dramaturg duo, Martin Kukučka dedicating himself
more to choreography and staging and Lukáš Trpišovský
to the adaptation of texts, details and light design. They
do agree however that their individual ‘abilities’ are more
closely connected than is the case with other creators. The
reasons why they broke away fairly quickly from the current
of young, budding graduates are manifold and certainly
their somewhat unusual approach to teamwork lies amongst
them. In particular however, Trpišovský and Kukučka, both
graduates of direction at the Department of Alternative and
Puppet Theatre at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of
Performing Arts in Prague, consistently perceive theatre
as a multi-genre art form. Features of theatrical practices
mingle with those of the visual arts and also with the
possibilities offered by so-called new media from video art
and video installations to computer graphics, giving birth to
a poetry, which in a contemporary theatrical context does
⁄Enda Walsh, Disco pigs / Disk, DAMU, Praha 2002 / Directed by
SKUTR / Set design and costumes Jakub Kopecký > Photo Adéla Havelková
ŸThe Little Mermaid / Loutkové divadlo Radost, Brno 2003 / Directed by
SKUTR / Set design and puppets Lukáš Kuchinka > Photo Lukáš Kuchinka
not resemble anything.
The collaboration of both
directors basically dates
from their second year
at the Theatre Faculty of
Performing Arts. Besides
diploma and other work
at their home faculty, they
also completed a course
of study at the Theatre
Faculty of Performing Arts
in Bratislava, where they
created their own version
of Shakespeare’s Macbeth
(presenting it under the
title of MacBeth). They also
worked at the Wroclaw
Drama School in Poland,
where they created their
own original performance
Massacre (Masakra). One of
their first collaborations on
the professional stage was
The Little Mermaid (Malá
mořská víla) at the Radost
1.6.2007 12:20:53
/55
music as a starting point in
its search for a paced and
rhythmic staging. Despite
this an entirely contrasting
performance
evolved,
owing in particular to the
use of visual resources. The
directors engaged a series
of elements not entirely common to the theatre, with whose help they
were able to combine the
reality of the stage with
the artificial – the internet, computer games, television, mobile telephones
and sophisticated light design. With relative maturity
they worked with contrasts
and combined violent almost spontaneously reverberating physical actions
with short soothing, almost
tender moments. The aggression of the surrounding
world which both heroes
attempted to come to terms
with at all costs, contrasted
ŸNicname / Archa, Praha 2004 / Directed by SKUTR / Set design and costumes Jakub Kopecký
sharply with their gauche
> Photo Tomáš Vodňanský
insecurity and sentimentality, which was not lost,
Puppet Theatre in Brno. They had bewitched the director even in the midst of programmed cynicism. The production
Vlastimil Pešek with their stage fantasy on the theme of by its nature almost had the effect of a generational maniIvan Olbracht’s novel Brigand Nikola Šuhaj (Nikola Šuhaj festo, but that is not to say that such practices had not been
loupežník), which had evolved at the Disk Theatre and used in the theatre before - it was the complexity of their use
which Skutr toured extensively to many student festivals that proved fascinating.
Disco Pigs had great audience appeal and so the director
both at home and abroad (the International Puppet Theatre
Festival in the Netherlands for example), even receiving the of the Archa Theatre Ondřej Hrab invited Skutr to prepare
a project about on-line chatting and the internet within the
Evald Schorm Prize for production.
They first emerged from their student environment framework of the emerging residence programme Archa.lab.
drawing considerable attention to themselves with their Thus evolved the performance Nickname, premiered on the
graduation production at the Disk Theatre, premiered on 14th October 2004. Through it Skutr definitively achieved
the 15th December 2002, for which they chose Enda Walsh’s authentic theatre and treated the theme of internet chatting
play Disco Pigs. This play by the Irish dramatist, now in as an eloquent metaphor for the condition of contemporary
his forties, is from the year 1996, three years afterwards it society, which brings about loneliness and the deformation
was presented at the German Theatre Festival in Prague in of human relationships. The performance also resolved in
a production by the provocative director Thomas Ostermeier. a most interesting way transformations in man’s identity, to
Evidently the poetry of the remarkable story of two young which today’s life style leads, for it allows the true essence of
people – Piggy and Piglet (Vepřík and Čuňka) appealed to phenomena and relationships to be concealed. The quartet
Skutr. Although living in one of the world’s contemporary of chatting individuals, which Skutr brought on to the stage,
housing estates with not altogether encouraging prospects, entered into their new ‘roles’ as required and as if continually
they lead a life of unbelievable fantasy and imagination. postponing the moment of truth about themselves and the
Stylistically Disco Pigs could obviously be classified as others. Here the poetry of Skutr blossomed to the full, its
‘cool’ drama, but its formal sincerity offers directors great attitude towards its actors likewise – a group had convened
freedom. The German staging had already employed noisy that would henceforth appear in future productions. They
disco music to structure the piece and Skutr also took the are primarily schoolmates: Rostislav Novák, Dora Kršková
1.6.2007 12:20:59
56/
ŸA Child´s Soul / Archa, Praha 2005 / Directed by SKUTR / Light design Adam Uzelac, Adam Wolf / Costumes Daniela Klimešová > Photo Hynek Glos
Terrazas and choreographer and dancer Adéla Stodolová. Its
choice of kindred colleagues is related to its way of working:
Skutr almost never proposes a set scenario in its original
creations, drawing richly on group improvisation. Nor has
it renounced its puppet training, on the contrary it has
adopted its sense for the visual, for playfulness and for an
almost lyrically poetic development of a theme – even in the
reckless tempo of Disco Pigs such moments were not absent.
A certain ‘susceptibility’ was also demonstrated in its quest
for sources of inspiration in new media (video art).
Skutr’s collaboration with the Archa Theatre continued
and it formed part of the programme ‘Year of Hans Christian
Andersen’. Wholly unique and wholly authentic was also
the production A Child’s Soul (Duší dítěte), premiered on
the 23rd April 2005, which again hovered on the boundaries
between dance theatre, music, visual performance and
drama. Here Kukučka and Trpišovský decided to portray
a genuinely woman’s theme: their extraordinary dramatic
miniature encapsulated the euphoria and confusion which
women experience both before and after giving birth. On
stage it was represented by two dancers – mother to be
Adéla Stodolová-Laštovková in a well advanced state of
pregnancy and her alter ego, ‘one step ahead’, mother of one
year old Jašek, a dancer likewise, Pole Paulina Dymalská.
The simplicity and tender, tranquil amazement at her
condition which Stodolová communicated to the public was
disarming, and the mellifluous Polish of her colleague had
a similarly charming effect, lending the parallel monologues
and dialogues a soft accent and a growing impression of
a fragile inability to grasp things relating to motherhood.
Essentially the performance did not drown in needless
sentiment over ‘the lot of women‘, but uncovered a whole
palette of humorous situations, for example when Stodolová
literally drifted proudly across the stage like a ship searching
for harbour. The style of A Child‘s Soul was simpler than
previous productions, here Skutr turned to elementary
1.6.2007 12:21:03
theatricality and some techniques were surprising precisely
because of their simplicity – for example live drawing on
black paper, which was projected on to the stage with the
help of an epidiascope. However in spite of the ‘dramatic’
passages, dance with elements of mime and acrobatics
remained the basic means of expression.
In the season in which they created A Child’s Soul,
Kukučka and Trpišovský once again entered repertory
/57
This above all provided scope for Skutr – here it expressed
the alienation of the world by a dynamic projection of
computer graphics on to white panels, literally attacking
the audience and by placing emphasis on deliberately
depsychologised acting. Manifestly the intention was to
underline the manipulative character of relationships, but
the result was a form of mechanical stylisation, which
in itself had no testimonial value. By and large Skutr
ŸMichal Hvorecký, Plusch / Divadlo Na zábradlí, Praha 2005 / Directed by SKUTR / Set design and costumes Jakub Kopecký > Photo archives
theatre, participating in the second year of the cycle of
contemporary plays Czechoslovak Spring (Československé
jaro), which had evolved at the Theatre on the Balustrade
(Divadlo Na zábradlí). It demonstrated however that they
have already become too firmly rooted in authentic theatre
and the staging of a set script by another author to a certain
extent restricts them. Although the text Plush (Plyš) of
the Slovak playwright Michal Hvorecký lacks deeper
significance, it is preoccupied with subjects dear to this
directorial duo: the virtual reality of our lives, determined
by artificially generated magazines, the sexual advice of
a media created editor and escape to the world of the internet.
understandably has problems with the development of
character, psychologically layered acting. An interestingly
visually resolved scene however was that in a dark room
of a strange club, which turned into either the surreal
space of dreams or the concrete world of internet chat.
After directing Plush both artists unanimously announced
that they were in a period where they could not perceive
a reason for staging a set text: “We enjoy creating authentic
work and don’t have a need to ‘enter’ into the work of other
authors. We’re not even capable of doing so. If I have a text
in front of me which prompts me to say, it’s all there, what
is there to add? I can quite simply just read it. Why make
1.6.2007 12:21:08
58/
theatre out of it? And simply to colour the text with lights,
actors or scenery, strikes me as being entirely in opposition
to the purpose of the theatrical process, in opposition to the
huge challenge of combining all the elements of theatre,
of attempting their synthesis.” They became convinced
of the difficulty of always remaining loyal to their vision,
particularly when not concerning truly original work,
family did not understand him and he never married. In this
interpretation his sorrow, quest and suffering, searching
for a means to transform them into fables, were divided
amongst four characters. There was a self-confident dancer,
constantly flaunting exacting moves; a slip of a girl, looking
for her family, allowing herself without resistance to be
carried away in a cloth bag like an abandoned package.
ŸUnderstand / Archa, Praha 2005 / Directed by SKUTR / Set design Jakub Kopecký / Costumes Daniela Klimešová > Photo Tomáš Vodňanský
when they were asked to direct Iva Klestilová’s play Heroes
(Hrdinové) in the Shed (Bouda) on the piazza of the historic
National Theatre building. Eventually they persuaded the
playwright to work further on the text in collaboration with
them and the final version was a result of their traditional
methods of improvisation with script in hand.
The young directors had already made the acquaintance of
Hans Christian Andersen at the Puppet Theatre Radost, but
in their new performance in Archa, where they once again
joined forces with their team of actors, they viewed this great
storyteller from a completely different angle. Understand,
as Skutr named their chamber work, is based on a loosely
linked stream of associations, symbols and metaphors. In
Archa attention was focused on the fairytale author himself:
an unhappy man, who possessed an amazing gift for fantasy
and yet spent most of his life suffering in solitude, his own
A young lad mourned his grandfather and would love
to fly, but fell to the hard ground at every attempt. The
performance thus comprised dreamy mini stories, which
remained unarticulated, but which had a charming and
playful theatricality, offering an almost crazy dadaist world
connected by an underlying tenderness without words.
Lightly sketched images, scenes were projected on to
diminutive situations – a white curtain was cut into the
shape of an old-fashioned children’s game, a luminous skirt
was similarly produced, a weeping blue mask suddenly
revealed itself, paper flakes flew around, a candle floated
here and there to the sound of music ... After seeing this
‘Andersen’ performance it became abundantly clear, that
Skutr inclines more and more towards a form which bears
the mark of a stage poem, lending a new content to the
required amalgamation of genres. This lyricism is the
1.6.2007 12:21:14
great maxim of their direction, all the more so since the
contemporaries of Skutr seldom penetrate such areas.
The young directors ventured into other waters in the
production Eight Kisses for Blackbirds’ Bums (Osm polib
prdel kosům), premiered on the 19th April 2006. It was
in fact a homage to the theatre and its forefathers, in this
case the puppet dynasty of Kopecký. The puppeteer, actor
/59
expressed the complicated condition of the actor’s soul
using inexhaustible means from classical puppetry to acting
and acrobatics, they created an atmosphere of nostalgic
reminiscence in the form of old film clips and faded
photographs from the itinerant past of the Kopecký family.
To date Skutr’s ‘biggest project’ has been its participation
in the third summer Shed of the National Theatre, where
it created Iva Klestilová’s aforementioned play Heroes,
premiered on the 17th June 2006. This architectonically
skilfully conceived building, successfully combining
scaffolding and grey panels, which traditionally appears on
the piazza of the historic building of the National Theatre,
was used by the directors to great effect. Even though the
play unearthed no revelationary findings about ‘people of
the 21st century losing themselves in the hubbub of the big
city’, the solution to the stage design, for which the building
of the ‘Shed’ itself was adapted, was truly unique and brought
to light the fascination arising from the fusion of reality and
fiction. On this occasion the theatrical reality with all its
conventions found itself in the authentic environment of
a frequented big city thoroughfare – between the piazza and
the tram stop by the Slávie Coffee House – and the audience
watched through the glass or completely open wall on to
National Street how the two worlds intermingled. The wall
ŸÿRosťa Novák and SKUTR, Eight Kisses for Blackbird´s Bums
Archa, Praha 2006 / Directed by SKUTR / Set design Lukáš Kuchinka
Costumes Daniela Klimešová > Photo Tomáš Vodňanský
and performer Rostislav Novák took up the cause, one of
the last shoots of this famous family and an hour long oneman show evolved, which in its choice of tools proceeded
from the former production, but digressed thematically
– dealing above all with the enchantment of the theatre and
the joy it provides. Nor however did it avoid other divisive
tones - the weight of obligation, emanating from the fame
of one’s forefathers which can stimulate, but can also be
felt as a burden on the shoulders of the split offspring. In
this production Skutr adopted even more Magic Lantern
(Laterna Magika) techniques, wittily combining acting
episodes with film sequences – for example a danced
dialogue with a partner on the screen. Together with
the multifaceted acting skills of Rostislav Novák, who
1.6.2007 12:21:18
60/
served as both a mirror and
a stage backdrop and when
the white material was
drawn across, a demarcated
area was established for the
actors, further dimensions
of which were formed by
rapidly flickering geometric
images and other film
sequences. Of particular
interest was the unexpected
ingress of street incidents
into the artificial reality
of the theatre, taking root
naturally and enriching the
theme of the play. Actors
both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’
mixed with the passersby, who ran quickly away,
or on the contrary peeped
inside, the most insolent
of whom made comments,
effecting an element of
randomness. The idea of
blending the authentic
world of the street with the
theatre created a wholly
original experience from
each performance.
In the autumn of last year Trpišovský and Kukučka
returned to their ‘home’ Archa, where they presented their
international project Paradise of the Heart, Labyrinth of the
World (Ráj srdce, labyrint světa), premiered on the 19th
October 2006, which had partly evolved at the Prague Faculty
of Performing Arts and drew together students from three
other central European drama schools: Poland, Slovakia and
Slovenia. The performance was inspired by Comenius’s famous
work Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart and
comprises loosely arranged enacted, movement, acrobatic and
visual studies, linked by live music. The whole developed out
of the fairly unsophisticated idea that everyone is an individual
and individuality is based on colourfulness and originality.
Particularly effective was the theatrical moulding of certain
rules governing the relationship between the individual and
the crowd – conflicts, confusion or on the contrary concord
and harmony. To a certain extent the performance smacked
of diploma work and certain practices repeated themselves,
notably in the last third. Before the audience’s eyes amusing
micro worlds emerged, mini slapstick sketches, poetic gags
– most striking was the rythmic light show with table lamps
like a meticulously detailed composition, which visually and
acoustically used the absolutely banal trick of switching on
and off. Nevertheless this performance after Comenius did
to a certain extent demonstrate the limits of Skutr’s unique
poetry and perhaps the time has come for Skutr to look for new
impulses. Even though its successful domain unequivocally
Ÿ⁄Iva Klestilová, Heroes / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by
SKUTR / Set design Jakub Kopecký / Costumes Daniela Klimešová
> Photo Hana Smejkalová
1.6.2007 12:21:24
/61
ŸIva Klestilová, Heroes / Národní divadlo, Praha 2006 / Directed by SKUTR / Set design Jakub Kopecký / Costumes Daniela Klimešová > Photo Hana Smejkalová
⁄Partadise of the Heart, Labyrinth of the World / Archa, Praha 2006 / Directed by SKUTR / Set design Jan Polívka / Costumes Daniela Klimešová > Photo Tomáš Vodňanský
1.6.2007 12:21:29
62/
remains authentic theatre, it would be interesting to see how
it would combine its visual hallmark with a multi media form
perhaps in the staging of a classical text. For the duo is able to
recognise the possibilities of the various means of expression,
pass naturally from one to the other and by so doing strengthen
the emotional and metaphysical effectiveness of the situation.
This principle in itself opens up unsuspected possibilities and
leads to an imaginative theatrical form.
Enda Walsh: Disco Pigs. Direction SKUTR, set design and
costumes Jakub Kopecký, music DJ I´m Cyber, DJ 2 K. Disk,
DAMU, Prague, premiere 15 and 16/12/ 2002.
Michal Hvorecký: Plush. Direction SKUTR, set design and
costumes Jakub Kopecký, music Petr Kaláb. Theatre on the
Balustrade, Prague, premiere 22/5/2005.
Understand. Direction SKUTR, set design Jakub Kopecký,
costumes Daniela Klimešová, music Petr Kaláb. Archa, Prague,
premiere 25/10/2005.
SKUTR and Rosťa Novák: Eight Kisses for Blackbirds´Bums.
Direction SKUTR, set design Lukáš Kuchinka, costumes Daniela Klimešová, music Petr Kaláb, light design Adam Uzelac,
Lukáš Kuchinka. Archa, Prague, premiere 19/4/2006.
Nicname. Direction SKUTR, set design and costumes Jakub Kopecký, music Petr Kaláb. Archa, Prague, premiere 14/10/ 2004.
Iva Klestilová: Heroes. Direction SKUTR, set design Jakub Kopecký, costumes Daniela Klimešová, music Petr Kaláb. National
Theatre, Prague, premiere 17/6/2006.
A Child´s Soul. Direction SKUTR, costumes Daniela Klimešová, music Petr Kaláb, light design Adam Uzelac, Adam Wolf.
Archa, Prague, premiere 23/4/2005.
Paradise of the Heart, Labyrinth of the World. Direction
SKUTR, set design Jan Polívka, costumes Daniela Klimešová,
music Petr Kaláb. Archa, Prague, premiere 19/10/2006.
Scootering through
the Labyrinth of the World
1.6.2007 12:21:35
A Teacher
of Humility
Karel Král
Hana Voříšková’s Little Things
063-068_voriskova.indd 63
1.6.2007 12:23:21
64/
A TEACHER OF HUMILITY
A Teacher
of Humility
ŸWhere Love, Where Were You, 2002 > Photo Michal Drtina
S
mall nations want to be great. That is a fact. As
Czechs we are a small nation. A certain paradox
exists in the fact that it is a lot easier for us to be
great at small things. I would say that this is natural
except that the desire for greatness is rooted in our
ethnographic and psychological small-mindedness. Take
the following examples to illustrate this point: We pride
ourselves on having the biggest equestrian statue in
the world (which – also perhaps quite naturally – is in
danger of collapsing under its own massiveness) and the
second-biggest stadium in the world (which – once again
quite naturally – is so big that it is decaying through lack
of use). Therefore, in order for us to lose our delusions
of grandeur, we constantly need someone who will be
great at small things. If I think about where to look for
this “someone” I think of Václav Havel – the politician:
a person who on the face of it is not sufficiently august
for a mission of such worldwide historical importance
and who is no great “direttore”, but a minor, common
buffoon, as his perennial, but sheepish grin and clumsy
nature suggest. When “someone” like this speaks slightly
faltering, roughly hewn words with an uncertain voice
in places where grand phrases normally reign, it is
refreshing to say the least. The corollary of this is that it is
not only ordinary people like us, but even great ones who
need someone to teach them humility.
In art, which is of course a lot less significant than
politics, we have a relatively large number of such teachers
in the Czech Republic (unlike in politics). Hana Voříšková
is probably the most humble of them. Her occupation really
is that of a teacher, and indeed she looks like one with her
strict, bespectacled face, which encourages children to
take up visual art. She works away from the centre in the
little town of Choceň. Her location and status is made both
for humility and the nature of her work, which is kind
of childlike. She is primarily an artist, but a playful one.
The manner in which she plays always borders on theatre.
Now and then what she does is complete theatre. But the
1.6.2007 12:23:47
/65
simplicity and the unpretentious nature of
her forms and devices also have a childlike
quality. As an artist, for example, she likes
paper, pencil and scissors the best. She
draws things on paper or she cuts things
out of and into this material. The figures of
her drawings are often so simple that they
remind one of characters from prehistoric
cave paintings. Created using outlines,
they look like a character or a foretaste of
lettering. They appear in Voříšková’s comic
books (a copy of which is an original work
of art) and they shine just as brightly from
her paper Chinese lanterns.
It is typical for the works of Hana
Voříšková that they take one away from
the hustle and bustle of everyday living
and introduce viewers to a world where
the pace of life is slower than normal.
Despite this, the Chinese lanterns are a little
bit of an exception. They capture most
of the figure in motion, but in a static
manner. It is as though it concerns motion
in immobility, which is emphasised even further by the
(familiar meditative) fluttering of candle flames.
Conversely, the rest of Voříšková’s works are kinetic. This
also applies to her comic books, which mostly “only” show
⁄About the Golden Fisch, 1996 > Photo Magdalena Ondrová
ŸRegarding Volcanoes, Little Sheep, Heather, Etc., 2000 > Photo archives
movement (as in comic strips). Nevertheless, at other times
Voříšková more often than not uses the viewer as a partner
who puts the “picture” in motion. Some of her books are
of this nature, but it primarily concerns her kaleidoscopes.
These are paper boxes depicting scenes. In some cases it is
a landscape or an undulating sea, while at other times it is
a town courtyard, for example, which is surrounded by the
walls of buildings with windows. We look at these scenes
as though we were looking either at a proscenium arch or
peering into a tunnel. The paper picture is then enlivened
by small figures, which are also cut out of paper. They are
placed on tracks and hang on threads. If we gently pull on
the thread, a bird flies over the landscape, a fish rises up
out of the sea, an angel appears behind a window, etc. It is
certainly no accident but rather an expression of personal
conviction that these angels usually increase to almost
“life-size” proportions. They are then placed in extensive
1.6.2007 12:24:21
66/
ŸPeace for You, 2002 > Photo Jiří Vedral
spaces on complex pulley blocks equipped with connecting
rods. These rods are again operated by the viewers, and the
angels fly.
Hana Voříšková has given the small kaleidoscopes as well
as her large mechanisms the genre subtitle of “self-service
theatre automats”. It is only a small step from these devices
to her “song automats”, which comprise one of Voříšková’s
forms of real theatre, i.e. theatre that is traditional to the
extent that it counts on the viewer being on one side of the
stage and the player being on the other. In this instance, this
concept is applied in a literal manner – in total intimacy one
player performs here for one viewer. And it is an automat to
the extent that it is the viewer himself who sets the theatre
in motion by inserting a small coin.
This type of theatre from Hana Voříšková is very similar
to her kaleidoscopes. It actually concerns some sort of
theatre clip. Take, for example, her particularly famous
Greenland Song (Grónská písnička). While a recording of
the title song by Jaromír Nohavica is playing, a curtain
opens in the paper box and we see small paper puppets in
a paper polar landscape acting out what the song is about.
Eskimos come out of igloos; they hunt a polar bear and
catch fish. Snowflakes fall to the ground on threads and
a small seal juggles circus-style with a completely miniature
ball... The curtain closes again when the song ends. In total,
this simple production barely lasts four minutes. This is
an extremely short time for theatre that is used to featurelength productions. Moreover, the action is sparse and nondramatic or even anti-dramatic. And, despite this, the viewer
has the feeling that he has experienced a kind of miracle.
This is due to the tenderness of the “piece” and the absolute
fragility and intimacy of a theatre shared with the player.
This theatre looks so simple that we don’t even realise what
the player, i.e. Hana Voříšková, has been able to do. Like
all the best puppeteers, she guides her marionettes with the
sensibility of a surgeon.
Voříšková has already toured successfully in every
possible way with Greenland Song at puppeteering festivals
and other events. Similarly, she has also toured the festival
circuit with other pieces, e.g. with a creative musical
mosaic of songs called Where Love, Where Were You (Kde
lásko, kdes byla – together with Helena Vedralová) or with
her solo Mini-Circus (Mini-cirkus), where (I’m just adding
this as an aside, because its her latest production) the
“big top” comprises Voříšková’s coat and the (human and
animal) paper participants come out of all manner of very
unexpected pockets when guided by threads. Nevertheless,
even though Hana Voříšková gets plenty out of festivals,
it is not her typical existence. She is known as a “drawing
room puppeteer”, which is a way of saying with some
exaggeration that she performs in flats and houses, i.e. for
families that have invited her. She does this with a peculiar,
suspicious1) delight.
And she offers quite a varied repertoire of intimate
productions, which last a matter of minutes. For example,
she originally performed the clay-model drama About the
Golden Fish (O zlaté rybce) in a forest. She’ll also perform
it in a bath for anyone who has a bathroom, clay and
enough time for the preparation and clean-up afterwards.
For the “documentary puppet play” Regarding Volcanoes,
Little Sheep, Heather, Etc. (O sopkách, ovečkách, vřesu
atd.), darkness is needed along with a black background,
space for props, a bucket of water and an electric socket.
Her “song automats” require only a small room, a table,
two chairs as well as darkness and a power socket. The
1)The
adjective “suspicious” can be understood as a synonym for the pretentious
adjective “humble” as her delight is humble and to call oneself humble is
conversely seen as very immodest.
1.6.2007 12:25:44
Nutty Fairytale, 1996 > Photo Michal Drtina
puppet shadow play Peace for You (Pokoj vám) has similar
requirements. The absolute apex in terms of technical
requirements is of course her first work, the twenty-minute
Nutty Fairytale (Oříšková pohádka), which she has been
performing since 1996. The only thing this production
needs is a table.
Before I come back to Nutty Fairytale in my conclusion,
I should once again mention one more educational aspect
of Voříšková’s activities, which is seemingly typical of
her work. Performances are not enough for her and so
she also occasionally organises all kinds of workshops,
primarily for friends and the children of friends, which she
/67
herself describes as being intended
for “lovers of paper, books, moving
pictures and puppet theatre”. This
looks like proof of her pedagogical
leanings, but I think that teaching
is not her primary objective.
Instead, I would say she likes
playing and doesn’t like to do it
alone. Consequently, she teaches.
Moreover, she enjoys giving gifts.
And this finally brings me to her
Nutty Fairytale.
This play is a version of Hansel
and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm.
You are undoubtedly familiar
with the plot: Two children get
lost in the woods. They come
across a gingerbread cottage, and
when they break off a bit of it to
assuage their hunger, the witchowner of the house catches them.
She imprisons them and fattens
them up because she wants to
roast them in her oven. But the
children manage to hoodwink the
witch and she is the one who ends
up in the oven. In her version,
Hana Voříšková performs the play
with two teaspoons “dressed up”
as children. The scenery comprises
a hillock, shrouded with a green
napkin first of all and furnished
with small paper trees. It is then
shrouded with a black napkin when
night falls. At nighttime, the thing
the hillock is concealing is finally
revealed to us. It’s a special Czech
confection known as bábovka
(marble cake). The spoon-children
cut off slices from it, etc. When the
production ends, the remainder of
the bábovka is divided up among
the audience. And how does it work
as a collaborative venture? When
somebody is interested in ordering a production in their
home, they must bake a babovka beforehand, precisely in
accordance with Hana Voříšková’s grandmother’s recipe2).
And this recipe is as follows: You need 150 g of butter,
250-300 g of sugar, 4 egg yolks, 4 whipped egg whites,
250 g of medium-ground flour, one 1/2 a packet of baking
powder, 100 g of nuts, cocoa, and 1/2 a cup of milk. Make
this into a dough and bake it in a suitable baking mould for
three quarters of an hour. Bon appétit!
2)The
name Voříšková is an informal version of the word “oříšková” meaning
“nutty”. (Nuts are one of the ingredients in the bábovka marble cake.)
1.6.2007 12:26:40
68/
Hana Voříšková, fine artist, occasional puppet artist,
operator of song-and-theatre automats, and a teacher in
the art department at the Primary School for the Arts
in Choceň. On weekends and holidays Voříšková travels
throughout the country with her small and miniature
puppet theatres. She performs both at prestigious theatre
festivals and for families, where she appears at birthday
and Christmas parties and on other special occasions. Her
speciality in the field of puppetry is the song-and-theatre
automat. The technical inspiration for this genre is the
automat or vending machine typically used to sell transit
tickets or coffee. Her equipment therefore includes a place
for inserting coins, which when inserted automatically
activate the ‘machine’. These ‘theatres’ are intended for
just one or two spectators. Each performance lasts for just
several minutes, though her bigger performances can be
up to half an hour in length. Her art-drama works also
include genres described as books-in-motion and selfservice puppet theatre.
The author of the article is editor-in-chief of Svět a divadlo
(The World and the Theatre) magazine.
A Teacher
of Humility
1.6.2007 12:27:35
Dvořák's Puppet
Transposition
ŸAlexander Dumas – Tomáš Dvořák – Ivan Nesveda – Pavel Vašíček: The Three Musketeers / Alfa Theatre, Pilsen 2006
Directed by Tomáš Dvořák / Set design Ivan Nesveda > Photo Jan Rauner
069-074_Dvorak.indd 69
1.6.2007 12:30:02
70/
DVOŘÁK’S PUPPET TRANSPOSITION
We have already written about the productions of Tomáš Dvořák, one of the most distinctive
contemporary Czech puppet directors and the artistic director of the Pilsen ALFA Theatre (Divadlo
ALFA), in our magazine (nos. 8 and 22). On this occasion we bring you his artistic profile and a review
of his successful production of The Three Musketeers, which has received many awards.
Faust, Ali Baba
and Handsome Fireman
Pavel Vašíček
T
OMÁŠ
DVOŘÁK
(1950) is a graduate
of the Secondary
School of Stonecutting and
Sculpture in Hořice, after
which he studied puppetry
at the Theatre Faculty
of the Prague School of
Performing Arts. In 1979
he became a member of
the Alfa Puppet Theatre
in Pilsen, to whom (with
the exception of a one year
engagement at the Naive
Theatre in Liberec [Naivní
divadlo, Liberec] in 1989/
Tomáš Dvořák > Photo Jan Rauner
90) he has remained
faithful to this day. At first
he worked as a puppeteer, but as early as 1985 he directed
his first own production – the musical We Are Not Afraid
of the Wolf (My se vlka nebojíme). During the ensuing five
years two further noteworthy productions were added:
Mowgli (Mauglí) in 1986 and Oberon in 1988, using
marionettes carved by the sculptor Petr Kavan. From 1990
Tomáš Dvořák worked exclusively as a director and from
April 1991 as artistic director of the company. Within no
time he was ranked amongst the puppet director elite.
Up to the end of the 2005/6 season he had created twentyeight productions on home turf, of which many received
festival awards and some were nominated for the Alfréd
Radok Prize for production of the year. Over half were
created in collaboration with the designer Ivan Nesveda,
whose artistic taste and vision is akin to his own. He worked
with Irena Marečková, Dana Raunerová and Pavel Kalfus on
the remainder. For the staging of his ‘minimalist’ version
of the folk puppeteer plays Don Sanche (Don Šajn) in 2001
and Johannes Doktor Faust in 2005 he even designed and
made his own extraordinary ‘collage’ puppets – marionettes,
created out of all kinds of objects or parts of objects (a spade,
handles, forks, coat stands, pliers, a coal scuttle, a plane,
a shovel and so on). These almost ‘surrealistic’ assemblages
on stage enter into excitable dialogue, using archaic text and
staging and function in themselves as a fundamental and
meaningful component of the production.
Dvořák’s direction places emphasis on an extremely
thorough preparation of the technical and technological
aspects of the production – from the solution of the space to
the subtle technological ‘tricks’ of the individual puppets. In
his productions he is able to utilise a whole series of – often
already forgotten – traditional puppet theatre techniques,
which he of course puts into new contexts.
A typical example of Dvořák’s directive style was his
staging of Iva Peřinová’s play: Egad, the Dogheads (Jeminkote,
Psohlavci) in 1999 (viz the article in Czech Theatre no.
22). The brilliant work with the puppet-marionette, the
tragicomedy and in places satirical treatment of a serious
theme, prompting reflection on the Czech character, the
effective changes in mood, the perfect interplay of the
live and puppet worlds, which certainly does not result in
the demise of the puppet, and even Kašpárek (not unlike
Punch), a typical Czech puppet from the folk puppeteer
plays of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which
however the author of the play Iva Peřinová together with
the director interpreted as a contemporary personification
of all the shortcomings of ‘the little Czech person’.
The inventory of Dvořák’s Pilsen productions is extremely
varied, due to the stylistic diversity of the repertoire of the
Alfa Theatre and the breadth of its target audience ranging
from nursery school children to adults. Let us name at
least the most important of the Dvořák productions: the
Christmas pastiche A Star Appeared Over Bethlehem (Vyšla
hvězda nad Betlémem) from 1990, using carved puppets,
which remained in the repertoire for fourteen years, Saint’s
Day in Hudlice and Prague (Posvícení v Hudlicích a v Praze)
from 1991, based on the texts of the folk puppeteers and
performed with traditional marionettes on wires, the play
set in a circus environment Heart in the Palm of your Hand
(Srdce na dlani) from 1992, using a whole series of music
hall puppets, a powerful pastiche of the puppet wordplay
and verse of Federico Garcia Lorca’s The Tragicomedy
of Don Cristobal and Doña Rosita (Tragikomedie o donu
Kryštofousovi a panince Rositě) from 1994, the grotesque
leporelo of the tale of the Pilsen ‘dissection wave’ The Walls
of the Pilsen Torture Chamber or the Shoed Dog (Stěny
plzeňské mučírny aneb Obutý pes), which used a variety of
puppet techniques, the collection of three fairy tales by Josef
1.6.2007 12:30:07
Štefan Kubín When Devils Congregated (Když se čerti rojili)
from 1995, using rag puppets, two American horror stories
Tiny Tot Tom and Beanpole Tom (Prcek Tom a Dlouhán
Tom) from 1996, in which the director and sculptor used the
long forgotten type of cabaret puppet with a live head, the
classic detective story by Arthur Conan Doyle The Hound of
the Baskervilles (Pes baskervillský) from 1997, courageously
alternating marionettes and javaj, the satirical farce of J.
N. Nestroy The Chieftain Evening Breeze or The Feast of the
Crazy Men (Náčelník Večerní Vánek aneb Hody divých mužů)
from 1997, in which the giant figures of the two protagonists
– the chieftains dominated, plus one of the most successful
and most ‘human’ of Dvořák’s productions Rikki-tikkitavi (2001) based on Rudyard Kipling’s work of the same
name, in which the almost illusive image of the mutual
coexistence and struggle of man and beast was successfully
created, and finally the courageous attempt at using realistic
puppets of life-size proportions in the staging of Aškenazy’s
play The True Story of Antonie Pařízková, a loose girl with
a good heart (Pravdivý příběh Antonie Pařízkové, lehké holky
s dobrým srdcem) from 2003.
Some of Tomáš Dvořák’s (and the sculptor Ivan Nesveda’s)
most accomplished productions evolved at the Naive Theatre
in Liberec, where Dvořák is a regular guest. Out of the
/71
eight productions which he directed there, unforgettable
is above all the wholly virtuoso puppet and puppetry
‘pentology’ from the pen of Iva Peřinová. This comprises
the following performances: a paraphrasing of the texts of
the folk puppeteers The Headless Knight (Bezhlavý rytíř)
from 1993, in which carved marionettes on wires once
again found expression, the witty hand puppet version of
the well known oriental fairy tale Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves (Alibaba a čtyřicet loupežníků) from 1994, the
original transcription of the ‘national revivalist’ comedy of
J. N. Štěpánek Alína or Petřín in another Part of the World
(Alína aneb Petřín v jiném díle světa) from 1996, the satire
Animal Theatre (Zvířecí divadlo) (1999) and currently
the most famous Liberec production The Handsome Head
Fireman or The National Theatre Fire (Krásný nadhasič aneb
Požár Národního divadla) from 2005, in which the author
dispassionately deals with the tragic events surrounding
the construction of the Prague National Theatre (viz. Czech
Theatre no. 22). Together with Ivan Nesveda, Tomáš Dvořák
has given guest performances in Poland (F. Hrubín: Beauty
and the Beast [Kráska a zvíře]) and in Germany (P. Vašíček:
Alladin’s Magic Lamp [Alladínova kouzelná lampa]).
Pavel Vašíček
⁄Alexander Dumas – Tomáš Dvořák – Ivan Nesveda – Pavel Vašíček: The Three Musketeers / Alfa Theatre, Pilsen 2006
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Sacrebleu, mordye,
who is going to kill who?
O
ne of the most successful of Dvořák’s productions
is his hand puppet burlesque inspired by The Three
Musketeers, the novel by Alexander Dumas the Elder,
which premiered at the Alfa Theatre, Pilsen in 2006.
The plot of the Alfa’s Musketeers is simplified as much as
possible, as is the easily comprehensible language spoken
on stage – a sort of Esperanto-macaroni, featuring the
universal language of baby-talk, several notoriously familiar
English, French or better still ‘international’ expressions
and lots of interjections.
They perform with hand puppets above a wooden wall, in
which small windows can be opened. They conceal chamber
playing spaces, at one moment Buckingham and Queen
Anne (unusually represented by live actors) appear in them,
each with a teach yourself language textbook in their hand
with whose help they conduct a love dialogue. However
the majority of scenes and the frequent duels take place on
the ‘main’ stage, which is the width of the entire wooden
screen. At the beginning the scenery here represents the
decaying rural seat of the d’Artagnans in Gascony, whose
poverty is demonstrated by the huge number of mice
swarming on the stage. Another scene is supposedly the
arrival of d’Artagnan to Meung, but Alfa’s d’Artagnan
arrives in the town on foot, hauling his old yellow nag on
his back – a horse, whose strange colour causes him to enter
into his first duel. The director Tomáš Dvořák chose the
best known motifs and parts of Dumas’ novel, which with
tight editing, he arranged next to one another and retold
this shortened story with grotesque exaggeration evidently
drawing inspiration from the silent film burlesque of Max
Linder The Pedantic Musketeer (Malicherný mušketýr) from
1922. It relies on a knowledge of the original and he who
has read or seen The Three Musketeers will definitely savour
the individual gags more, but for the audience member
who is not familiar with Dumas’ novel, it offers a lending
hand in the form of songs which comment on and clarify
the story. For the most part it is not even necessary, the
language of the play (the fabricated one and that of the
theatre) is sufficiently communicative: when de Treville
upbraids the musketeers for taking part in outlawed duels,
he spits out French-sounding curses interlaced with juicy
interjections and the musketeers sink into the ground
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with shame such that only their hats are visible. Cardinal
Richelieu spies on the queen through a hole in the wall and
bestows two types of command on his servants – peek-a-boo
(shadow someone) or flick-flick (eliminate). Eventually
the musketeers set off to England and instead of heinous
scheming and bloody duels, the Cardinal’s men make do
in this case with the simple swiveling round of signposts.
It is only d’Artagnan they do not succeed in confusing and
he sails across the Channel in a little boat, his yellow mare
rowing. Buckingham is watching a miniature puppet show
of Punch and Judy in his palace and when d’Artagnan
disturbs him, he sullenly reproaches him: he wanted to do
“boppety-bop” and “peek-a-boo”, and not solve problems.
The musketeer’s journey to Buckingham ends well like
in the book, but in Dvořák’s staging fierce hand puppet
jousting still awaits the audience, during one of which
magnificent ‘real’ sparks fly from the ringing swords. They
stab the blackguard Rochefort here (out of keeping with
the original) and d’Artagnan has the honour of kissing the
queen’s hand to the music of the orchestra playing at her
ball ... This ‘staged cartoon’, in which emphasis is placed
◊⁄ÿAlexander Dumas – Tomáš Dvořák – Ivan Nesveda – Pavel
Vašíček: The Three Musketeers / Alfa Theatre, Pilsen 2006
1.6.2007 12:30:18
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DVOŘÁK’S PUPPET
T TRANSPOSITION
on the visual element and events, lasts just under an hour
and is communicative and entertaining for both children
and adults alike and owing to its scaled down language for
foreigners as well as Czechs.
In this new production of the Alfa Theatre we find
everything we could wish for in an adaptation of The
Three Musketeers and in a puppet performance: excitement,
humour, situation comedy, fierce duels – and professional
work with puppets, well sung songs, a directorial vision full of
life shifting the classic story into a position of entertainment,
but with an oversight of knowledge and love.
The production of The Three Musketeers won five out of
ten awards at the Skupa Festival in Pilsen, two out of three at
the Slovak Babkárská Bystrica Festival, the Erik Prize for the
best puppet production of the year and was voted production
of the year by Divadelní noviny (Theatre News).
Kamila Černá
Alexander Dumas – Tomáš Dvořák – Ivan Nesveda – Pavel
Vašíček: The Three Musketeers. Director Tomáš Dvořák,
set design Ivan Nesveda, music Michal Vaniš. Alfa Theatre,
Pilsen, premiere 28/4/2006.
Dvořák's Puppet
Transposition
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Kateřina Rathouská
The Mystery of Lazarská and Vodičkova
T
he members of the Prague Chamber Theatre (Pražské
komorní divadlo) have let themselves be inspired
by the place where they operate (the big crossroads
on the streets of Lazarská and Vodičkova in the centre
of Prague) and through joint efforts headed by director
David Jařab they have created the production of VodičkovaLazarská. As the programme states, it concerns “stories
found on the street”.
Immediately upon entering the theatre, the people
arriving can feel firsthand the show’s documentary quality
and humour at the same time. The various subjects that are
on display here remind one of the real locality on different
levels (e.g. the relatively fresh hamburger found somewhere
on the pavement). Historical events relating to the streets
are also mentioned. Short reportage-style video footage is
projected in the auditorium... The director attempted to
play with the entire space. Everybody, including the actors
and the audience are part of the street events. They also
collectively move to the stage, where the “stories” of several
outcasts take place. A liquid which is not specified in detail
comprises an important motif in the work. This is constantly
bubbling up or trickling down from somewhere – it flows for
almost the entire story. It doesn’t begin or end anywhere.
David Jařab’s script is an artful inter-textual game. The
documentary storyline blends with the apocryphal for
the entire duration of the show. (The prototype for one of
the characters is Jesus). A man unexpectedly materialises
and then disappears again. He changes beer into water
and people talk about miracles in connection with him.
Nobody knows his name. He actually spends the entire
time shrouded in mystery. This character was played very
convincingly by Stanislav Majer. In particular, he managed
to perform the central monologue inspired by the idea
that “the street is a body” in a subtly minimalist style with
a detached manner. The audience reflects on the fates of
the remaining (anti)heroes through short testimonies and
snippets of dialogue.
The stage design in itself comprised several different
devices (the audience was situated on the stage right beside
the actors for the entire duration of the play): there were old
theatre seats instead of a tramcar among other things, with
a table from a snack bar and a drain. The background was
covered by a white, strangely lit screen, on which images
were projected. Unlit actors moved around in front of it so
that only their silhouettes were visible. This was an effect
which reinforced the mystic element of the story.
Roman Zach’s music, which is performed live right on
the stage, is one of the show’s powerful and distinctive
features. The guitar breaks and songs lend an atmosphere
and structure to the entire production.
Vodičkova-Lazarská can be viewed as an outstanding
stage project, which only goes to prove that the Comedy
Theatre (Divadlo Komedie) is not afraid to experiment (at
least in terms of its dramaturgy).
David Jařab: Vodičkova – Lazarská. Director David Jařab,
costumes Kamila Polívková. Comedy Theatre, Prague,
premiere 1/12/2005
> Photo BauerPower
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Kamila Černá
Non-violent Education by Way of a Musical
S
ix years after the premiere of the Christmas family
musical A Small Christmas Tale or How I Got Lost (Malá
vánoční povídka aneb Jak jsem se ztratil), which became
one of the biggest audience hits for the Theatre on Dlouhá
Street (Divadlo v Dlouhé), director Jan Borna has staged
another production intended for children and their parents.
It is called The Mouse from the Belly (Myška z bříška) and
this is also a dramatisation. The script was created after the
story Is Miška a Mouse? (Je Miška myška?) by the Slovak
author Taťjana Lehenová. This story of a mother, who one day
discovers that she has a baby in her belly and begins talking
to it, won an award in Slovakia at the start of the 1990s as
the most beautiful children’s book of the year and its theatre
version was made famous by the PIKI puppet theatre. The
new production from the Theatre on Dlouhá Street has more
in common with the aforementioned musical than it would
appear to have at first glance. This common ground comprises
more than just its musical ambitions and target audience,
which is supposed to include the entire family ranging from
the smallest children to teenagers as well as grandparents. The
success of Borna and Ludvík Aškenazy’s A Small Christmas
Tale was based (among other things) on the fact that the
director gave his production a strong 1960s theme (which was
the period when the tale was written) within the Christmas
atmosphere of the story. Children were able to get carried
away by a story that was a mystery for them, parents could
remember the time when they were little, grandparents could
recall the period when they were young and their memories
and nostalgia practically became part of the production.
The Mouse from the Belly is a smaller scale and more
intimate story than A Small Christmas Tale but it has more
than enough of the same scope for similar reminiscences
for all parents. It begins at the moment when Mummy
(Lenka Veliká) discovers (with a little trepidation) that she
is pregnant. And because she doesn’t know if it will be a boy
or a girl and yet wants to talk to the child, she begins calling
it Mouse. The Mouse in Borna’s production has ears, a tail,
and short trousers with pockets. It lives in a “belly” – a round
space, which resembles a drum on its side and which can
rotate on its own axis. This is where the cheeky and headstrong
Mouse (Magdalena Zimová) blissfully stretches or even does
somersaults (such as when she and her Mummy are tossed
around by a bus). Mummy is a singer, while Daddy (Čeněk
Koliáš) is a trumpeter and the songs of their musical group
accompany the entire story of waiting for the child as well
as its birth. They successfully sweep away all the remaining
sentiment that could have sneaked into the story and they
add rhythm and style to the entire spectacle. For example,
they set the frenzied tempo of a bus drive, which is created
with movable, tilting and fully occupied seats with a standing
Mammy flying among them while she repeatedly mutters
the refrain “It would have been better if I hadn’t got up this
morning”, which is added to the singing of the passengers
and driver. For reminiscing parents, the production also offers
other typical scenes – the waiting room in a pregnancy clinic,
Daddy returning from a drinking spree, the hectic drive to
the maternity hospital, etc. For children it is both a modern
fairytale as well as a narrative about what happened before
they were born and how they came into the world. The
coloured animation projected onto the backdrop and the
scenes with the idiosyncratic mouse, who can subsequently
be persuaded to don a crash helmet and prepare for one last
“leap” into the world, are primarily for the children’s benefit.
The playful and poetic side of the production is
counterbalanced not only by the harder music, but also by
the fact that Lenka Veliká’s Mummy is a likeable “ruffian”
who does not sentimentalise her condition and that Čeněk
Koliáš’s Daddy is a resigned and uncomplaining parent rather
than a jubilant father. It is as though the reserved nature of
emotions in the play warns that expecting a child need not be
a purely joyful experience for parents and that it is sometimes
also a little bit of a shock for them and that there can be great
uncertainty regarding the unknown “alien” that is about to
hatch. Of course, even though it is possible to get a sense of
this from Borna’s production, it also goes hand in hand with
the idea that everything turns out well and that the little
“mouse” will become a beloved child.
Taťjana Lehenová – Jan Borna: The Mouse from the Belly.
Director Jan Borna, set design and costumes Jaroslav Milfajt.
Theatre on Dlouhá Street, Prague, premiere 21/1/2006
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Kamila Černá
In Search of Terra Firma
I
n a series of productions of dramatic works produced as
part of Czechoslovak Spring 2006, which took place at
the Theatre on the Balustrade (Divadlo Na zábradlí), Jan
Nebeský interpreted Lenka Lagronová’s play Etty Hillesum.
This was the third encounter between this original director and
the no less original playwright – the first was nine years ago
in a production of Thérèse (Terezka) at the Comedy Theatre
(Divadlo Komedie), on the life of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Her
character was played by Lucie Trmíková as a childishly goodnatured character, struggling with her own imperfections and
spontaneously communicating her convictions about love
and mercy to those close to her. Lucie Trmíková also plays
the title role in the production of Etty Hillesum and the fate
of her new character is again the fate of a martyr, headed
towards an early and painful death. The difference being that
in her suffering Thérèse turned to her faith for support, while
Etty views her lot with a sense akin to that of a non-swimmer
swept away in the ocean. As a Jewish woman in wartime
Amsterdam she suspects that she will not escape being taken
away in one of the transports to the east, and she is also trying
to understand herself, to overcome depression, to find ‘a piece
of solid ground’. For a time Jul (Alois Švehlík) becomes her
psychologist and persuades her to keep a diary and sort out
her ‘inner disorder’. Etty is at first his patient, then his friend,
his colleague, and his lover, maintaining another relationship,
while Jul has a wife in Germany and a lover in England. The
sense of impending ruin seems to justify overstepping the
usual boundaries, but it also seems to fixate all thoughts,
acts, and hopes on the future. This aspect is crucial to Jan
Nebeský’s production. Behind the window, at the rear left
of the stage, a continuous film is projected of rolling waves
shot just before they crash. A surfer rides the wave beneath
its foamy crest, and it is only a matter of time before he is
knocked down by the wave. The theme of waiting for a wave
of destruction underscores everything that is going on in
the play, but Etty’s tale is told with an animated directness
and without pathos or compassion. Lucie Trmíková’s Etty is
a young, jittery woman. We can see her paralysed by fear, at
times transformed into the ‘little girl who can’t swim’ and
at other times into a confident woman holding onto her last
remnants of courage and playfully glossing over the situation.
The stains of ink on her fingers are like the stigma of creative
and personal insecurity, and when her messy blue fingers
leave prints on the furniture, she is reminiscent of the clumsy
Thérèse, whose hands were reddened with blood from small
scratches and wounds. The director conveys the atmosphere
of the time and the story of Etty’s life using brief and quickly
alternating scenes. One of the strongest points in the entire
production is the scene that initially gives the impression of
the start of a hen party, a lively evening for two friends who
have gotten together to have a drink and talk, if of course one
of them wasn’t fencing with a knitting needle and the other
hadn’t sat down in a pail of hot water. Soon after, the scene
turns sharply with a drastic conclusion that ends the party
and Etty’s pregnancy. Alois Švehlík, Magdaléna Sidonová,
and Miloslav Mejzlík play Etty’s friends and their characters
seem to embody the various ways in which people come to
terms with their fate – Švehlík’s sad Jul maintains a resigned
sense of detachment, Magdaléna Sidonová’s Liesl tries to save
herself through a whirlwind of activity, sewing uniforms for
the Wehrmacht, and Mejzlík’s appallingly fat Jewish doctor
shouts in a hot-tempered rage at everyone and everything
that he’d ‘send them to the gas for that salami’, and his shouts
and his entire appearance remind us of today’s patchy and
simplified understanding of the holocaust.
Lenka Lagronová’s text, which in the second part contains
no marked plot turns and instead elaborates its central
themes, is more of a dramatic blueprint for the director and
actors with which to sensitively and carefully model the
characters and go deeper into their situations. These are often
viewed from a contemporary perspective, glossed over in
our language, created out of bizarre, gripping, comical, and
cynical instances. However, it is solid in terms of its style, and
with unusually emotive intensity it depicts key moments in
the life of an individual, which even today allow us to feel that
each one of us could one day become a non-swimmer with
a rolling wave closing over us.
Lenka Lagronová: Etty Hillesum. Director Jan Nebeský, set
design Jan Štěpánek, costumes Jana Preková. Theatre on the
Balustrade, Prague, premiere 12/3/2006
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Eva Stehlíková
The First Different Production
of Oresteia at the Thirteenth Time of Asking
O
ur country is a superpower when it comes to staging
productions of Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy. Without
counting Jiří Horčička’s excellent 1966 radio
production or the use of a substantial part of the tragedy in
the Kladno production of Electra’s Story (Příběh Élektry) in
2000, it has been performed here 12 times in total since 1907
when it was first staged by Jaroslav Kvapil. (As far as we
know, it has only been performed three times in its entirety
in neighbouring Austria in the same period while its first part
has been staged once. In Germany, which is a much bigger
country, fifteen productions of the trilogy have been recorded
as well as one staging of Agamemnon.) Throughout the world,
the first part is performed a lot more frequently than the entire
Oresteia. The reasons for this are obvious – the entire work is
too extensive, difficult and stylishly hard to grasp. Moreover,
if a theatre sets aside the same amount of time for learning the
play as it does for one repertoire item, the result is bound to be
half-hearted at the very least. Successful productions such as
Stein’s Oresteia or Mnouchkine‘s Atreidae (with a prominent
Iphigenia at Aulis) are projects of a completely different
nature and a lot more energy and resources were expended on
them than an ordinary Czech theatre could afford.
I always quietly ask myself why? And for the most part,
I can’t find any reason why it is Oresteia that is staged. Perhaps
the answer is simply the most uncomplicated one – after all
it is primarily the size of Mount Everest which gives people
the urge to climb it. In short it is a gauntlet that has been
thrown down. The situation is wholly different in the case
of the most recent production. The Rokoko Theatre (Divadlo
Rokoko) announced the grand project spread out over two
seasons while gradually putting on the individual parts. In
reality, it worked out differently and with a substantially
quicker sequence of events than the authors anticipated
because in the first year of its existence they ignominiously
lost the theatre that they had gained for four years on the basis
of a proper competition. This undoubtedly had a negative
impact on the production, but it did not in any way change
the original objective, which could actually already be seen
from the poster with its portrait of an exhortative sermonising
George Bush. In short, as the authors of the project admitted,
it had been approached in a back-to-front way – first they had
an idea and then they found the play to fit it. Consequently,
the audience for the first part was also quickly split into
supporters and opponents of the production according to their
own attitude to the Iraq war.
From the point of view of using Aeschylus’s trilogy as
a vehicle for admittedly political agitprop, it was interesting
to see whether all three plays could successfully stick to the
same concept, with the same creative stylisation and the same
exhortative appeal. The toughest nut to crack appeared to
be the second part of the trilogy, which is rarely performed
separately. This time, on the same stage, whose red covering
was interposed with a McDonaldsesque yellow, the chorus
burst on the scene. In Agamemnon it had primarily been
placed in a projection on side screens. Here (while still in the
same costumes with attributes of American society, which
were now supplemented with hamburgers and drinking
cups) the chorus becomes an active force intervening in the
story, which focuses on Orestes revenge while obligatory
French fries sizzle on the screens. In the first part Orestes
had been concealed in the chorus in a Harrelson hat. He now
emerges completely resolute. Hatred hides behind his dark
glasses along with a ruthlessness that also distinguishes his
sister Electra, who is decked out in a schoolgirl’s costume
with white knee-length stockings. As the introductory slogan
to the trilogy puts it: revenge will be avenged. As soon as
a rubbish bin with a typical Thank You sign transforms into
a rhetorical platform from which Orestes fulminates, it is clear
that he is no better than Clytemnestra and Aegisthus and that
he undoubtedly really is the son of Agamemnon, who also
showed no mercy towards his enemies.
From this middle-class world, in which the biggest adventure
is probably a trip to the supermarket (which is not troubled
by war but only banal family crimes) the third part heads in
the direction of high politics. On the whole, it is possible to
guess how the interpretation will develop and the authors
(who don’t share George Thomson’s optimistic reading of the
piece) do not disappoint: Athena plays into Apollo’s hands,
the trial is perfectly ridiculous and the Eumenides are quite
able to reconcile themselves to things when they are offered
a cushy life. It’s impossible to estimate the level of parody and
indeed it was already apparent in Agamenon in Clytemnestra
and Agamemnon’s dances. Here it perhaps even overrides
the simple message that everything is manipulated and that
it is about nothing other than their status and advantages.
The gods are perfectly masked. (Moreover Athena, whom
audiences identify as Kofi Annan is played by a man). The
group of Eumenides is divided among two representatives in
diplomatic black with the necessary dark glasses and women
in black, who once again only appear on projection screens.
The production is totally clear but instead of finishing with
an exclamation, it simply ends with a kind of ellipsis. The
audience at the premiere of all three parts approved of the
manner in which this ending unfolded. For myself, I can say
that Aeschylus’s text was actually handled with reverence
despite all the drastic cuts that were made. The quality of
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Matyáš Havrda and Petr Borkovec’s translation came to the
fore. The attempt at a non-traditional chorus and the use of
parallel spaces were worthy of respect. Apart from a few small
exceptions, the actors served their purpose, which did not
give them too much room for manoeuvre.
Thomas Zielinski and Tomáš Svoboda’s Oresteia is no
better or worse than Peter Sellars's Children of Heracles,
which successfully toured all of Europe. This is a unique kind
of political theatre, which is effective precisely because of its
provocative simplification and its black and white view of
a complex situation as well as its force of penetration, which
has not yet had any parallel in the Czech Republic. Despite
the fact that the drama of antiquity has had a political edge on
our stages (at least from the Second World War to 1989), we
have been more used to being given a certain message quietly
concealed beneath an ancient vestment and then being
encouraged to carefully decode the hidden meaning. Unless
we go back to Jiří Frejka’s version of Aristophanes’s The Birds
in 1934, the only real candidate for open political theatre
based on ancient drama was perhaps Eva Tálská’s production
of Antigone at the Theatre on a String (Divadlo na provázku)
in 1989, which demonstrated the correlation between the
play and contemporary events, not just in terms of the
interpretation of the characters but also in their costumes,
culminating in the guards being portrayed as policemen with
helmets and Plexiglas shields. Of course, something that is
a rarity here is completely normal in other parts of the world.
Oresteia at the Rokoko Theatre goes down this road. This
can be criticised for a lot of things but it can’t be denied that
Czech culture, which tends to be wrapped up in itself, is often
lacking in terms of work that concerns itself with the fate of
the world. Reviewers reproached the authors of the project
for the fact that it dealt with the distant land of America (as
though any place in this global village of ours can be far
away!) instead of courageously portraying domestic politics.
Their response was immediate – Iva Volánková’s My Country
(Má vlast – see Czech Theatre 22). Of course at the end of the
day Aeschylus was simply a better dramatist…
Aeschylus: Oresteia. Director Thomas Zielinski, set design
Jaroslav Böhnisch, costumes Tereza Šímová, music Karel
Albrecht. Rokoko Theatre, Prague, premieres 21/10/2005,
18/3/2006 and 13/5/2006
> Photo Pavel Svoboda
Josef Herman
The Bartered Bride during Shrovetide
O
ndřej Havelka directed The Bartered Bride (Prodaná
nevěsta) at the National Theatre (Národní divadlo)
in Brno primarily as a crazy story.
He doesn’t give a damn about the rules of opera direction
even if it causes considerable problems in terms of his
production. Nevertheless, these have a distinctive solution.
Havelka’s Jeník does not come on stage during the festival
at the end of summer, but during the cold winter, most
probably at Christmas. He passes through the entire
auditorium of the Janáček Theatre (Janáčkovo Divadlo)
in a shabby, frozen and hungry state. He devours a carrot
that he stole from a snowman, and he breaks into a pub
through an open window. He is then driven out of this
place by a dog’s bark. This is not something you can read in
Smetana’s score, but at a stretch it is something you can find
in Sabina’s libretto. After the prelude, the plot jumps to the
early spring carnival. The snowdrifts and the snowman have
almost melted already and masked Shrovetide processions
parade around the town. Jeník and Mařenka, who have
become close in the interim, present an equine masque by
themselves…
Of course, Havelka does not delight in post-modern
constructions. He tells the story faithfully, but in a slightly
different world, which we could otherwise describe as
comedically and realistically stylised in scenographic terms.
Judging by the clothing of the characters, he has transposed
the story to somewhere around the beginning of the 20th
century, when village customs were already disappearing
and accessories for predominantly ordinary clothes were all
that remained of the previously ornate festive folk costumes.
This is nothing new. Practically all productions premiered
after November 1989 have borne the embarrassments of
a folkloric concept of The Bartered Bride. The movement
sequences are precisely constructed, while the coordination
and facial gestures were part of the experiences of the
opening night. In particular, in the case of Aleš Briscein as
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the boyish Jeník (whom Havelka never gave a moment’s
peace), the director hounded him into well-honed gags,
dances, and fights. He also had him crawl through a window
and get thrown out of a pub. This was a distinctive acting
performance and the part was handled in a masterful way.
Of course, Briscein had two fitting collaborators – Eva
Dřízgová-Jirušová handled her part perfectly. She is always
admirable as a singer and above all she had a similarly
open attitude to all of Havelka’s “sacrilegious” ideas (e.g.
when Mařenka listens at the wall with a chamber pot in
her hand to what her parents argue about with Kecal in the
kitchen next door). On the opening night, Richard Novák
unexpectedly made some singing mistakes (I put it down to
tiredness due to rehearsals, particularly at such a venerable
age for a singer). Nevertheless, his interpretation and
acting of the part is unique, energetic and spontaneous.
The stuttering Vašek was performed and sung perfectly by
Zoltán Korda within the framework of Havelka’s intentions.
I would immediately have watched the performance again
thanks to the efforts of this foursome.
Havelka would like to bring The Bartered Bride
somewhere back to its original “operetta” form. He lets
the characters refer to the audience and to slip out of their
roles. This is necessarily at the expense of the structure of
the work, which matured into its definitive form over six
years and is not the singspiel the director would like it to be.
One can find several reservations regarding the show, e.g.
I could happily do without Martin Zbrožek in a comic scene
and I feel the same way about unnecessarily coarse and
contrived comicality in places. Havelka has no need to go in
for anything similar: he had an original and amusing take
on the hackneyed story, which has been performed so many
times. He found new motivations for the characters. This in
itself engendered genuine laughter in the auditorium, which
allowed us to finally be able to laugh at a comic opera!
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Nevertheless, the precarious comedic approach necessarily
complicated the lyrical scenes for Havelka. The difficult
acting operations also probably contributed significantly
to the extremely troublesome musical presentation of the
premiere. The tempo and rhythm were shabby. Entrances
were strikingly off cue and the frequent inaccuracies in
intonation essentially went beyond a tolerable level. It
would be great if the show could settle down in this regard.
In any case it is a striking production and it also provides
serious competition for the Moša theatre company, which is
something that Brno’s theatrical community really needs.
Bedřich Smetana: The Bartered Bride. Libretto Karel
Sabina, conductor Petr Vronský, director Ondřej Havelka,
set design and costumes Alexandra Grusková. National
Theatre in Brno, premiere 24/3/2006
> Photo Jana Hallová
Zdeněk Hořínek
Witches at the Opera or The Show Must Go On
T
he introductory line to Pratchett and Briggs’s
Maskerade – When Will We Two Meet Again?
(Maškaráda – Kdy my dvě sejdeme se zase?) makes
a connection with Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters at The Theatre on
Dlouhá Street (Divadlo v Dlouhé). The Macbeth associations
have been replaced with inspiration from the eerie Phantom
of the Opera. Nevertheless, the witches have survived, albeit
with their numbers reduced (for now). The creative method
has also survived.
This adaptation of the epic original operates with
a montage of attractions, which asserts itself in all aspects of
the production. From representative fragments, Karel Glogr
has created a complex horizontally and vertically structured
space in which it is possible to find absolutely everything
– the witches’ fireplace, a stagecoach, the theatre office,
a laboratory, a gallery, a basement and a gridiron, from
where sacks fall (and the famous chandelier nearly does as
well) while corpses also descend… The set therefore not only
serves the labyrinthine development of the plot, but also
suggests the spectrally chaotic atmosphere of the bizarre
phenomenon called opera. The music (Jan Vondráček,
Ivan Žáček) is similarly universal, as are the numerous
“reconstructions”, which are dramatic and expedient gapfillers but which also simulate a representative synthetic
opera work, which accommodates Mozart, Verdi, Wagner
and perhaps even our own Bartered Bride.
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The acting goes hand in hand with the costumes (Samiha
Malehová). Instead of continuous psychology, it operates
with sharp characterisations, styles, transformations and
contrasts, which in certain cases materialise right inside
the character. Tomáš Turek’s Valtr Plíža is a dual figure: as
a cleaner he falteringly plods along with an idiotic grin on his
face and acrobatically plays a tripping gag with a broom and
a case of bottles; as a secret composer he straightens himself
out and acquires human dignity. Similarly, Vlastimil Zavřel
reveals an omnivorous Czech Slimejš beneath the mask of
an Italian opera prima donna. No matter what happens, in
spite of an increasing number of accidents and corpses, the
action continues. As the director Štandlík’s favourite slogan
goes: the show must go on.
Some motifs and scenes could certainly be sacrificed
without damaging any meaningful contexts. There are
other scenes that are also dispensable but we wouldn’t want
them to be omitted, including, for example, the maliciously
parodic makeover of Esmeralda von Donnerwetter in
a beauty salon. It has to be admitted that the production is
constantly and wonderfully entertaining for the audience in
all its multiplicities and for its entire duration thanks to the
resourcefulness of the director, the actors and the creative
and musical directors. One of the peaks of the show is an
exquisite number by Jan Vondráček shortly before the end,
which involves a long drawn out death accompanied by
a spiteful critique of the operatic art. Opera, incidentally,
is long and resurrection is one of its basic theatrical rules.
Otherwise, the number of actors used would be too high.
Terry Pratchett – Stephen Briggs: Maskerade or Phantom
of the Opera. Director Hana Burešová, set design Karel
Glogr, costumes Samiha Malehová, music Jan Vondráček,
Ivan Žáček. Theatre on Dlouhá Street, Prague, premiere
12/4/2006
> Photo Bohdan Holomíček and Eva Hrubá
Jana Machalická
Hamlet as a Family Drama
M
iroslav Krobot offers an unusual take on Hamlet in
the production of the play put on by Dejvice Theatre
(Dejvické divadlo). Krobot’s interpretation uses
a substantially altered version of the author’s original text,
which introduces a number of interesting new dimensions,
especially in the relationships between the characters and in
their intentions. Krobot applies a refined hand to the work,
sifting through individual scenes, re-arranging their order,
breaking them up and inserting parts drawn from the previous
or subsequent action. In the second part he leaves out larger
tracts and plays similarly with the lines. Through all this
he brings an unexpected tone to already famous scenes and
monologues, which are often otherwise interpreted to conform
to established clichés. There is order to this deconstruction,
directed at making a strong statement. For example, when
Hamlet meets the ghost of his father, the latter first appears
in a suit and bowtie and later in a robe and smoking a pipe,
and the conversation between father and son takes place in
an intimate atmosphere of near domestic tranquillity. The
second half is considerably shortened, but what is missing,
for example, the appearance of Fortinbras, the Gravediggers,
and Osric, would have come across amidst this sustained level
of austerity as a kind of superfluous ornamentation or would
have disturbed the flow of this version of the drama, as though
new themes were suddenly being awkwardly introduced.
The new Hamlet is a real family drama, particularly for
its internal conflicts, initially left unspoken. The stylistic
techniques employed here include the voicing of the characters’
intentions, which usually would remain concealed, and
drawing those who are the subject of intrigues into the setup. From the outset there are no great passions in Krobot’s
production, the internal drama of each character long remains
hidden beneath the surface. But the Balkan music that blares
at key points signifies eloquently that in the end no one will
be able to escape the closing massacre, whether this means
murder or the total destruction of relationships.
The production features an outstanding cast. The guests that
Krobot invited to Dejvice Theatre were selected with a clear
idea of the role they were to play. Hana Seidlová as Gertrude
is almost infectiously destructive, passive, and decadent, her
passion for Claudius takes on the form of a strange game that
in the end she loses control over. Jiří Langmajer as Claudius is
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ironic, jovially showing off and touting his strength, and from
there he evolves into a state of total exhaustion and resignation,
which in the end actually destroys him. The character of
Ophelia (Vanda Hybnerová) is engagingly interpreted. Neither
a victim nor a pathetic figure, Hybnerová‘s Ophelia is aware,
and she loves and sides unfailingly with Hamlet. She is
emancipated, possessed of a mordant wit, and is able to
observe what goes on around her dispassionately. Rather than
madness, it is into a voluntary death that she withdraws. From
the start, Jaroslav Plesl‘s Hamlet is poised on the edge of an
extreme form of irony, which is another important dimension
of the production. His caustic humour, permanently bemused
expression, and his posturing have just one purpose – to make
the others uneasy. Naturally he knows exactly where he stands
and what he wants. He does not kill Polonius by mistake, but
coldly and deliberately. Only once does he appear to fall out of
the role he is playing – upon Ophelia’s death.
Krobot’s production introduces an array of new and
surprising elements. The set itself is expressive: initially stark,
with steel cabinets in which the characters hide their belongings
– Ophelia her squeaky toys and her letters from Hamlet,
Hamlet his poison, Gertrude her photograph and mirror...The
second part takes place on the Baltic coast; a typical beach
cabin hangs over the scene, providing protection against the
wind.
Among the productions of Hamlet in recent years this one is
in many ways exceptional, especially for its concentrated effort
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to convey something unique without destroying the original,
but nonetheless uncovering new dimensions and nuances in
the work.
William Shakespeare: Hamlet. Director Miroslav Krobot,
set designe Martin Chocholoušek, costumes Martin
Chocholoušek, Vladimíra Formínová. Dejvice Theatre, Prague,
premiere 12 and 18/4/2006
> Photo Hynek Glos
Eva Stehlíková
We Are All Jews
S
everal years ago, Farm in the Cave (Farma v jeskyni)
had the task of opening up a cultural centre in Slovakia
in the space of the former railway station at Žilina–
Zárečie, from where Slovak Jews were transported from
the Slovak State to concentration camps during the Second
World War. On the occasion of centre’s opening, the group
created a seven-minute miniature piece titled The Waiting
Room (Čekárna), which was part of a three-hour production
produced by sixty performers from thirteen countries. Now
they have returned to this theme in a production that clearly
but subtly articulates the subject of the holocaust. It is set
precisely in the times of the Slovak state (with a bittersweet
hit from that time among the contemporary features) and
situated in an imaginary station, but Hebrew is heard here
just once. At the end: as an elegy and a prayer.
The Waiting Room contains considerable brutal violence,
and violence runs through everything, regardless of whether
it occurs in the present in the waiting room, where you can be
robbed, raped, or even killed, or if it is something that occurred
in the past. The waiting room remembers: it remembers
the girls in their bright white dresses; it remembers their
happier days, promenading, when they could still swing their
handbags without a care in the world; it remembers them in
a station of humiliation, fear, anxiety, and pain. A woman from
the present, a woman alive, who comes into the waiting room
wanting to learn more, is confronted with the past, and with
the dead. And because their is no divide between the past and
the present, even she is in continued danger, even she may one
day go away into the unknown with her scuffed suitcase, even
she can be stuffed by someone into a case like a defenceless
object and transported away... They are all children of this one
Earth, and this is why they are drawn to her, descend on her,
hold her; they can survive only if they help each other – but
we never find out who is helping whom. The living the dead?
Or the dead the living? The closing conciliation, when the live
woman buries the dead, who are finally able to find peaceful
rest, reaches its logical conclusion when the live woman lies
down among the dead and is called back into the world of the
living by a dead woman, who comforts her. And it is at this
point in this brutal, painful production that some moments of
pure tenderness emerge, indicating that there is indeed some
way out of the vicious cycle of violence.
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The production is not just an aestheticized report on an
event that we are trying to forget. In this regard it should
be noted that the director is from a generation that was not
involved in the holocaust as their predecessors were. He
nonetheless also feels the need to come to terms with it,
because for a part of the ensemble it is a problem that affects
their national identity. The production bears the stamp of its
creators that we have become accustomed to, teaching us to
give in to its rhythm, to tune in on the same note without
rational philosophizing, to experience the emotions offered to
us. The production is never in its final form and following the
progress of each individual performance can therefore be very
exciting. The gradual move toward greater explicitness is in
places questionable, but it reveals something important: Farm
in the Cave is not an esoteric group, preoccupied with its own
poetics and uninterested in communicating with spectators; it
is something more.
The Waiting Room. Director Viliam Dočolomanský, set
design and costumes Markéta Sládečková, light design Pavel
Kotík, music Dan Kyzlik, Viliam Dočolomanský. Theatre Studio Farm in the Cave, premiere 10/2/2006
> Photo Tomáš Karas
Milan Uhde
Derfler Stages May
> Photo Jitka Taussik
W
ith its walls and arch of unplastered brick, the
basement stage of the Goose on a String Theatre
(Divadlo Husa na provázku) is almost the perfect
place for putting on Karel Hynek Mácha’s May (Máj);
a supreme work of Czech romantic (and other forms of)
poetry. In the background, a rough rope hangs from the
ceiling, weighted down at the bottom by a stone. Zdeněk
Kluka sits in the left-hand corner with a set of percussion
instruments, while a lightly outlined bed lies in the left
foreground. The set has been designed in this way by
Milivoj Husák and it remained fully reserved for the actors.
The director of the evening was František Derfler. He was
kitted out in a long black coat and also acted as a wizard
and civil narrator. He reserved the “descriptive” passages
for himself and assigned the monologues of the “frightening
forest lord” to Jiří M. Valůšek. Erika Stárková represented
Vilém’s lover Jarmila in a suggestive metaphorical dance.
Later, she also plays the mother earth, who takes him in her
arms in an artistic variation of the Pieta.
Derfler’s direction interprets the great poet as the first
and most prominent Czech interlocutor of our existential
relationship with the world. Nevertheless, he did not
succumb to the “philosophy” that an abstractly leaning
author could infer from such a formula. The passages
following the execution stylise the production in the spirit
of gruesome nineteenth century folk songs. The cemetery
scene, in which all the performers with cadaverous masks
embodying the dead occupants of the graves await the
executed Vilém, bears the hallmarks of a baroque vision
of life after death. Valůšek’s declarations provide strong
romantic pathos and Derfler’s recitation has a typically wise
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detachment, which naturally does not preclude heartfelt
involvement and dramatic feeling.
Zdeněk Kluka deserves a separate mention for the
musical score. On the one hand it consists of an acoustic
illustration, whose lucidity “populates” the stage area and
changes it into a landscape exterior, for example. On the
other hand, it jointly creates the mood of the scene and
emphasises its significance. Ultimately, it occasionally
dominates the entire theatrical composition as a metaphor.
In itself, the choice of percussive instruments as a musical
component of the evening was a fortunate one. With his
set of instruments, Kluka is able to produce a confluence
of sounds that are tenderly compassionate or almost
sentimental but which also establish the dramatic mood.
/85
It enhances this atmosphere many times over and perhaps
even quickly ironicises it in an unobtrusive manner. The
choice of Zdeněk Kluka is evidence of the careful and
flawless approach Derfler the director adopted towards his
task. He knew how to vividly bring Mácha’s May to life
– where to rely on recitation and where – conversely – to use
synthetic theatrical devices in order to amplify the required
effect. I am convinced that his variation of Mácha’s work
will go down in the annals of history as a great endeavour.
K. H. Mácha: May. Director František Derfler, set design and
costumes Milivoj Husák, music Zdeněk Kluka. Theatre at
the Table, Brno, premiere 15/5/2006
Ivan Žáček
Where does One Go with Bernstein’s Candide?
T
he history behind Bernstein’s Candide is a complicated
one. According to Walter Kerr, the premiere of the
first version for Broadway was a “really spectacular
disaster”. Fierce dissatisfaction with the form of the work
began in 1956 and this did not end with the death of its
composer in 1990. It’s possible to find reasons for the
problematic manner in which the piece was received in the
surfeit of political satire at the time, which was aimed at
the manifestations of McCarthyism that reigned during that
period. Nevertheless, Candide also confounded many with its
hybrid style, which irritatingly oscillates on the boundaries of
operetta, comic opera and the musical form. It’s too literary,
symphonic and European to be a musical, while at the same
time it has too much of a Broadway feel to be an opera.
Now the State Opera (Státní opera) has launched
a production of Candide and it is one of the organisations that
is able to produce a decent version of this piece. Moreover,
thanks to its dramaturgy in recent years, it has garnered a lot
of experience with non-operatic genres. The young French
conductor Guillaume Tourniaire maintains the unity and
fluency of the production and, under his vigorous gestures,
the orchestra definitely gave an above-standard performance
during the premiere. The success of Candide, however, can in
the first instance be attributed to Michal and Šimon Caban’s
imaginative directorial concept, which managed to find the right
key to the crazy bittersweet story of Pangloss’s uninhibitedly
optimistic student Candide, who traverses four continents and
undergoes corrective tribulations that are as difficult as it is
easy to doubt the fidelity of his beloved Cunegond. Voltaire
handles the story in a cynical manner while Bernstein’s version
is more cheerful. It inspired the Caban brothers to come up
with their most distinctive stage creation to date. They make
full use of the age-old interest in the theme. There are a lot of
well-chosen creative and punctuational devices, which resolve
the action’s various watersheds and shifts in space and time.
A flexible spiral metal structure does a good job of pulling off
rapid transformations into a palace, a shack, the sea, a desert,
poverty and affluence. This refreshing production by the Caban
brothers is a considerable boost to what has been a lacklustre
season. Nevertheless, even this version carries the stigma of
a Candidesque contradiction (and which production of this
show doesn’t?). The Caban brothers wanted to come up with
a media personality from the world of pop and the choice of
Jiří Korn for the role of Pangloss was a quite fortunate one
on the whole. Nevertheless, they needlessly decided to use
amplification for his performance. Wouldn’t Korn have been
able to hold his own in competition with opera professionals?
And was it such a terrible risk that they thought it necessary to
make him do something that was even worse? Aleš Briscein’s
vocals in the title role sounded quite American. This constantly
improving singer’s expressiveness is very pleasant despite
a certain languor in the lyrical “meditations”. Jiřina Marková
> Photo František Ortmann
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coped admirably with the role of the Old Lady, even in terms
of her movement.
Candide is performed at the State Opera in a manner that
commands respect and it is possible to recommend it as an
alternative that is decidedly better than commercial musical
productions.
Leonard Bernstein: Candide. Libretto Hugh Wheeler, conductor Guillaume Tourniaire, director Michal and Šimon
Caban, set design Šimon Caban, costumes Simona Rybáková,
light design Pavel Dautovský. Prague State Opera, premiere
25/5/2006
Zdeněk Hořínek
An Absurd Detective Story at the Comedy Theatre
C
ontemporary physicists look to find order in chaos.
In his latest play The Investigation Continues
(Vyšetřování pokračuje), Egon Tobiáš takes the
opposite approach: knowledge leads to chaos. Clues confuse
more than they provide guidance and the detectives’ abilities
are dubious. There are two sleuths in the play and they are
called Broch and Hermannová, which is an obvious allusion
to the celebrated Austrian writer Hermann Broch. Even this
clue is misleading – there is a whole range of indirect and
direct references to the novel The Sleepwalkers (in terms
of themes, motifs and characters), but we can only speak
in very general terms of any actual connection. Perhaps it
is most likely to be found in the significance of murder as
the sole act of “understanding” between estranged people,
as Rio Preisner put it. The director and his writer are a lot
closer to Samuel Beckett. Egon Tobiáš provided Jan Nebeský
with a rich opportunity for civil and artistic gags, gestures
and tumbles as well as for eccentric actions, aggressive
speeches and singing (whilst making use of a microphone
and its amplifying and distorting qualities). This is all done
with the huge support of sound and lighting effects, which
phrase and dramatise the action.
The blind detective and his helper (as played by Martin
Finger and Lucie Trmíková) remind one of the ambivalent
relationship between Hamm and Clov in Endgame. Broch
staggers unsteadily around the space. He repeatedly bumps
into a white table in the centre of the stage. He clumsily
inspects things with a long folding stick. Hermannová’s
help is primarily limited to handing the blind man the
telephone, which he can’t reach. Occasionally, she erupts
with hysterical emotion and passionately hugs her boss.
He combs her back out of gratitude. Naturally, this doesn’t
benefit their detective work and the duo happily abandon
an unsolved case concerning the disappearance of the bride
and groom from a wedding banquet at the Savoy hotel for
the more serious case of a murder, which has taken place in
room no. 6 of this establishment. Although a friend of the
murdered person tearfully confesses to the crime right from
the outset, the investigation is far from being concluded.
Things are complicated by the victim’s resurrection (this
part is played by Martin Pechlát, who gives a gently
refined performance) as well as by the repeated, amorous
adventures of the married couple from the first case. Jiří
Černý and Gabriela Míčová play the naively frolicking and
impressionably flustered Jon and Lori (in various bizarre
disguises), who bring a muddle of unfettered emotions into
the vicious circle of rational knowledge.
We also even get a fire at the Savoy hotel, which
gives Hugo the arsonist hope that he can benefit from an
insurance fraud whilst also providing the actor Jiří Štrébl
(in a fanciful fairytale mask) a chance to indulge in some
bewitching singing. Once again the story ends in chaos (and
how else could it end), which was not and could not be put
in order. The play ended; the investigation continues. On
the whole, it seems to me that Tobiáš’s play and Nebeský’s
production are a sophisticated form of mystification and
I am not going to try (for the amusement of the author and
director) to decipher its deeper meaning. Each should do so
in his own way, as Pirandello would say.
Egon Tobiáš: The Investigation Continues. Director
Jan Nebeský, set design Petr Štefek, costumes Kateřina
Štefková, music Ivan Acher. Comedy Theatre, Prague,
premiere 7/6/2006
> Photo Bohdan Holomíček and Eva Hrubá
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Zdeněk Hořínek
Rough Language at the National Theatre
A
t the beginning of the 1920s, Fráňa Šrámek who wrote
the impressionistically inclined The Moon over the
River (Měsíc nad řekou) also wrote the icily angry
grotesque The Bells (Zvony).
Today, after an interval of nearly one hundred years,
we can appreciate this work mentioned as an original
expressionistic visionary play, in which war only comprises
a general dramatic situation of model lawfulness and the
requisition of some bells becomes the impetus that sparks
off mass events and the impulse for the disintegration of
moral values. The sacrifice of the innocent “crazy Lojzíček” is
therefore a directly archetypal symbol.
The set designer Jan Hubínek does not use imitation
backdrops. As a starting point he proffers an empty and deep
sloping space, in which peasants climb out of lairs (bunkers
or trenches) and crowds emerge out of a dark background.
It evokes the front of the conflict, where soldiers march, as
well as the households where the disoriented villagers fumble
about. The interiors of the second and third act emerge in
the public area through the scattering of the necessary pieces
of furniture. The connection between both “fronts” is also
emphasised by the costumes (Kateřina Štefková), which are
similar in terms of both their colour and shape. At the critical
moment of the eruption of sensual fantasies and desires, the
women exchange their dark work clothes (reminiscent of
uniforms) for brilliant white wedding costumes, in which
they perform their wild ritualistic dances. To sum up, it does
not illustrate the setting but acts as a synthesis of the external
and internal as well as the real and metaphorical space.
J. A. Pitínský suppresses the remnants of the naturalistic
manuscript, as they present themselves in Šrámek’s stage
directions, and he established his own directorial concept
based on the semantic and expressive blending of visionary
and grotesque qualities. The grotesque element dominates
during the portrayal of the moral collapse connected with
the absence of the bells as a symbol of traditional values.
The personification of this moral failure is the character
with the strange name – Kuťápka, who is brought to life
by Vladimír Javorský in his characteristic unfailing way as
a sinister, tottering and ingratiating busybody as well as an
inveigling clown. With his precipitous agility, he is a contrast
to the passive impotence of the Mayor, who represents order,
as embodied by Oldřich Vlček beneath a caricatural mask.
The visionary element is richly distinguished and graded in
a number of characters and settings. Pitínský – instructed by
the example of August Strindberg and a Strindbergised Ibsen
– discovered an essential human ambivalence in personal
conflicts. Of course, in the first instance, this concerns the
character of Peterka the peasant. At first glance, Jiří Štěpnička
creates a solid, authoritative character, but with a certain
overstatement he betrays an inner ignorance beneath the
veneer of an implacable moralist. His neighbour, the crafty
ironist Charous, helps in undermining this character. His
role is simply that of a sparring partner and catalyst, but Igor
Bareš’s robust interpretation gives him an appropriate gravity.
The main characters relate to Peterka (whose angry defiance
results in a crime) like they do to the central theme of the piece:
these include the sick wife, who is portrayed with the sharp
contradictions of excruciating abjection, vengeful impotence
and anti-sensual fidelity by Taťjana Medvecká, the maid Rozára
(as played by Jaromíra Mílová), who is the object of temptation
and has an impudently self-confident sensuality, the daughter
(Martina Válková), who is energetic and domineering towards
the father and throws her weight around with an axe while
chopping wooden blocks in a manly manner, and Lojzíček the
fanciful simpleton. (With his accordion, Václav Koubek fits in
perfectly with the anatomy of the production, where he also
took on the role of a singing commentator).
Šrámek’s difficult text of rough language spiced with
dialect throws up a number of considerable impediments
for both interpreters and perceivers. There was no revised,
civilising language adaptation to make the director Pitínský’s
job any easier. Nevertheless, he did his utmost to expound
and elucidate the dramatic situations with every kind of
illustrative device, i.e. lighting changes, the demanding
arrangement and initiation of crowd scenes, sound, music of
various genres and styles, solo and choir singing, etc.
It is not possible to say that this forgotten play has been
fully rehabilitated. It remains an exceptional piece, which can
only be approached by the most courageous and inventive
stage directors. Nevertheless, without doubt the production
did manage to express the thematic urgency of the play and
to uncover its distinctive staging possibilities. Moreover,
this successful attempt has revealed some stimulating
connections between the expressionism of times past and
current theatrical trends, in which a kind of synthesis is
achieved between naturalistically material expression and
symbolic continuities.
Fráňa Šrámek: The Bells. Director J. A. Pitínský,
set design Jan Hubínek, costumes Kateřina Štefková,
music Petr Hromádka. National Theatre, Prague,
premiere 15/6/2006
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Josef Mlejnek
The World-Fixer
T
his low-key, intimate production of the play The WorldFixer (Der Weltverbesserer) is the third in a series of
productions of the work of Thomas Bernhard put on
by the Comedy Theatre in Prague under the direction of
Dušan D. Pařízek. In the production of this later work by the
famous Austrian playwright the performance takes place on
a shortened stage, and the director’s minimalist technique is
matched by the portrayal of the main character, the WorldFixer, convincingly incarnated or ‘de-incarnated’ by Martin
Finger. The stage has no ornamentation: just a red sofa, and
several dozen alarm clocks on the floor, not ticking, but
there as though to draw attention to the ‘passage’ of time
standing still. Voltaire’s words, ‘I’m ill. I’m suffering from
head to toe!’, the play’s motto, are uttered by the WorldFixer himself during the production. He enters the stage
almost naked, led there by a woman (Gabriela Míčová).
He is entirely dependent on her assistance. He must dress,
as the representatives of the university and the city are
coming to give him an honorary doctorate. He complains
that a mouse ran over his face in the night and that more
traps have to be bought. He overwhelms the woman
with constantly changing requests, with the thoughts he
expresses aloud that require immediate attention, and with
his occasional attempts at helpful gestures, from which all
strength has been lost.
Martin Finger convincingly shows the audience that
words produce no less of an effect when uttered with
indifference, with a dry matter-of-factness, and without
pathos, even if at times those words actually constitute
a cascade of misanthropic sarcasm and enraged, isolated
sentences hurled at the world’s face; at humanity, at
whomever. The visit from academic officials and the mayor
to award an honorary doctorate is a typical Bernhardian
nightmare. They all manage astonishingly to squeeze onto
the sofa together, a bit reminiscent of Gogol’s typical
windbags, but in an immeasurably more cultivated Austrian
manner. The ‘thinker’ becomes more firmly convinced
that his ideas, which were allegedly supposed to sweep
the world, have not been understood by anyone, if anyone
was every intent on understanding them anyway. How is it
possible not to experience this world in a state of permanent
philosophical nausea? When a mouse is finally caught in
one of the traps, as a sign of a good deed, the World-Fixer
releases the mouse, and with the words ‘Now I’d like some
noodles’ he falls asleep exhausted. Or has he departed from
this world? One way or the other, Bernhard’s drama need
not be viewed just in terms of sarcastic morality, as just
designed to mock the unbridled human ambition to ‘fix the
world’. Bernhard’s defenceless philosopher, the world-fixer,
evokes a more general sense of compassion in us. What do
the ancient philosophers say is the grandeur and hardship of
philosophy? That on the one hand it is a science of sublime
thoughts, but on the other a science of man.
Thomas Bernhard: The World-Fixer. Director and set design
Dušan David Pařízek, music U2. Comedy Theatre, Prague,
premiere 30/11/2006
KALEIDOSCOPE
1.6.2007 12:33:15
Notebook
Theatre Awards 2006
lThe Alfréd Radok Awards
The Alfréd Radok Awards, which are handed out annually
by the Alfréd Radok Foundation based on the results of
a survey conducted by The World and Theatre magazine,
were awarded for 2006 in the following categories:
⁄Martin Finger
Production of the Year
W. A. Mozart – The Clemency of Titus (La clemenza di
Tito), National Theatre (Národní divadlo), Prague, directed
by Karl-Ernst Herrmann and Ursel Herrmann
Best Actor
Martin Finger – for the lead role in the production of T.
Bernhard’s The World-Fixer (Der Weltverbesserer), Comedy
Theatre (Divadlo Komedie), Prague
Best Actress
Kate Aldrich - Sesto, in the production of W. A. Mozart’s
The Clemency of Titus (La clemenza di Tito), National
Theatre (Národní divadlo), Prague
ŸKarl-Ernst Herrmann
Theatre of the Year
Dejvice Theatre (Dejvické divadlo), Prague
⁄Iva Klestilová
Best Czech Play
Iva Klestilová – My Country (Má vlast)
Best Stage Design
Karl-Ernst Herrmann – stage design for the production The
Clemency of Titus (La clemenza di Tito), National Theatre
(Národní divadlo), Prague
Best Music
Vladimír Franz – music for the production of H. von Kleist‘s
Amphitryon, Brno City Theatre (Městské divadlo Brno)
Petr Kofroň – music for P. Kofroň, Z. Plachý, and J. Šimáček’s
version of The Magic Flute (Magická flétna), Brno City
Theatre (Městské divadlo Brno)
Talent of the Year
Ivana Uhlířová – Comedy Theatre (Divadlo Komedie),
Prague
089-096_Notebook.indd 89
ŸIvana Uhlířová
1.6.2007 12:34:50
90/
NOTEBOOK
Theatre Awards 2005
l2006 Thalia Awards
Each year the Actors Associations hands out the Thalia
Awards in recognition of exceptional performances in the
arts. The following artists received awards for 2006:
Drama
Vilma Cibulková - Miss Fischer, in the production of Jeffrey
Hatcher’s Picasso, Ungelt Theatre (Divadlo Ungelt), Prague
David Prachař – lead role, in the production of Alessandro
Baricco’s Novecento, Viola Theatre (Divadlo Viola), Prague
Opera
Kate Aldrich – Sesto, in the production of W. A. Mozart’s
opera La clemenza di Tito, National Theatre (Národní
divadlo), Prague
Johannes Chum - Tito, in the production of W. A. Mozart’s
opera La clemenza di Tito, National Theatre (Národní
divadlo), Prague
ŸMiloslava Fidlerová
Operetta, Musical, or Other Musical Drama
Radka Coufalová-Vidláková – The Narrator, in the musical
production by A. L. Weber and T. Rice, Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolour Raincoat, Brno City Theatre (Městské
divadlo Brno)
Tomáš Töpfer – Tevye, in the musical production by J. Stein,
J. Bock and S. Harnick, Fiddler on the Roof, Fidlovačka
Theatre (Divadlo Na Fidlovačce), Prague
Ballet, Pantomime and other Dramatic Dance Genres
Adéla Pollertová – Juliet, in the production of S. Prokofiev’s
Romeo and Juliet, National Theatre (Národní divadlo), Prague
Jan Fousek – Death, in the production of I. Stravinsky’s The
Rite of Spring, National Theatre in Brno (Národní divadlo
v Brně)
ŸVilma Cibulková
ŸJan Fousek
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Věra Kubánková (drama)
Miloslava Fidlerová (opera)
Jiřina Šlezingrová-Škodová (ballet)
Special Award from the Thalia Awards Committee
Jiří Kylián (dancer and choreographer)
Award of the Presidium of the Actors Association
For Young Artists under the Age of 33 in the Field of
Drama
Jan Hájek – Moravian-Silesian National Theatre in Ostrava
(Národní divadlo moravskoslezské Ostrava,) and the National
Theatre in Prague (Národní divadlo Praha)
ŸJiří Kilián
1.6.2007 12:34:53
NOTEBOOK
/91
New Books from the Theatre Institute
lJitka Ludvová et al.:
Musical Theatre in the Czech Lands
– Figures from the 19th Century
lAlena Jakubcová et al.:
Early Theatre in the Czech Lands to the End
of the 18th Century – People and Works
(Hudební divadlo v českých zemích
– Osobnosti 19. století)
(Starší divadlo v českých zemích do konce 18. století
– Osobnosti a díla)
Musical Theatre in the Czech Lands – Figures from the
19th Century emerged as part of a long-term research
and publication project called The Czech Encyclopaedia
of Theatre (Česká divadelní encyklopedie), which the
Theatre Institute is working on with the support of the
Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. The volume
presents 349 biographical entries on directors, composers,
conductors, singers, librettists, translators, stage designers,
theatre managers, music journalists, and other artists that
contributed to the development of musical theatre during
this period throughout the Czech Lands. It is the first work
of its kind to go beyond the established practice of looking
at the theatre exclusively in relation to Czech authors, as
the volume’s entries focus on figures of Czech, German and
other nationalities working in the Czech Lands. Many of the
biographies contained in the volume are addressed for the
first time in Czech literature in the pages of this work. The
extension of the scope of interest to include foreign-language
musical theatre brings theatre figures from the Czech scene
into a broader historical and geographic context and as such
the picture of Czech theatre culture in the 19th century
acquires a Central European dimension.
The encyclopaedia contains an outline of the history of
theatre in the Czech lands from the Middle Ages to the start
of the National Revival, and in 382 entries it presents both
people (playwrights, composers, librettists, actors, singers,
dancers, puppetry artists, visual artists, theatre managers,
organisers of productions, and sponsors) and anonymous
works in a volume that involved the participation of 35
domestic and foreign professionals. The content respects
the historical changeability of theatre and the variability
of its forms (the artistists, performers, and organisers of
theatrical events in various different genres and forms)
and focuses on dramatic art in the Czech language and
also in other languages (Latin, German, Italian, French). It
situates the theatre culture of the Czech Lands within the
wider European context that it was such an integral part
of during the period the book concentrates on, describing,
for example, the migration of artists, performers, and
plays between regions. The encylopaedia also contains
reproductions of period illustrations and historical theatre
documentation, and it has been published in cooperation
with Academia publishers.
Jitka Ludvová et al.: Česká divadelní encyklopedie: Hudební
divadlo v Českých zemích – Osobnosti 19. století. Edited
by Jitka Ludvová. Published by the Theatre Institute and
Academia Publishers, Prague 2006, 700 pp. ISBN 80-2001346-6 (Academia); 80-7008-188-0 (Theatre Institute)
Alena Jakubcová et al.: Starší divadlo v českých zemích
do konce 18. století. Osobnosti a díla. Edited by Alena
Jakubcová. Published by Theatre Institute and Academia
Publishers, Prague 2007, 759 pp. ISBN 978-80-200-1486-3
(Academia); 978-80-7008-201-02 (Theatre Institut)
1.6.2007 12:34:56
92/
NOTEBOOK
New Books from the Theatre Institute
lVěra Velemanová – Vojtěch Lahoda:
Libor Fára / Works (Libor Fára / Dílo)
In 2006 Gallery publishers and the Theatre Institute
published a monograph devoted to Libor Fára (1925-1988),
a scenographer, but also a painter, a sculptor, and a graphic
artist renowned for his design work on books and posters.
This all-round artist began his career as a member of a group
of Surrealists from Spořilov. From the mid-1950s he began
working intensively in the theatre, and he gained renown
for the stage designs, programmes, and posters he created
for the Theatre on the Ballustrade (Divadlo Na zábradlí)
and for the Drama Club (Činoherní klub). Some of this
best-known work includes the stage design for a production
of Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu (Ubu Roi (1964)), directed by J.
Grossman at the Theatre on the Ballustrade, where Fára
employed the principles of action scenography.
In 560 pages and with 614 illustrations, the book Libor
Fára / Works (Libor Fára / dílo) traces the full breadth
of Fára’s work. The book was edited by Anna Fárová, the
texts were written by Věra Velemanová (the chapters on
prehistory and on Fára’s work for the theatre) and Vojtěch
Lahoda (the chapters on independent artistic work and
book graphics), and the graphic design of the book was
created by Luboš Drtina. The author of the large inventory
of poster and book graphics is Polana Bregantová.
Věra Velemanová – Vojtěch Lahoda: Libor Fára / Dílo.
Published by Gallery, in cooperationt with Theatre Institute
(Divadelní ústav), Prague 2006, 559 pp. ISBN 80-86010-99-6
lJarmila Veltruská:
A Study on Czech Mediaeval Theatre
(Studie o českém středověkém divadle)
The author is one of the foremost experts on mediaeval
theatre and has had a major hand in the spread of knowledge
about Czech mediaeval theatre, especially in her book
A Sacred Farce from Medieval Bohemia: Mastičkář. This
latest publication represents a selection of texts originally
published in English and French that focus on Czech themes.
For Czech readers this work is all the more interesting in
that the author discusses Czech plays comparatively in
a European context.
Jarmila Veltruská: Studie o českém středověkém divadle.
Czech Theatre Series (Edice České divadlo), series editor
Jana Patočková. Theatre Institute, Prague 2006, 181 pp.
ISBN 80-7008-200-3
1.6.2007 12:34:59
NOTEBOOK
/93
Czech Theatres in Numbers
In 2006 a-total of 180 theatres and permanent groups of
artists regularly and consistently participated in theatre life in
the Czech Republic.
There are 51 repertoire theatres, each with its own company/
ies of various genres (13 of them have more than one company,
the usual model being based on three companies: opera, drama
and ballet). These theatres receive regular grants from local and
regional budgets (45 theatres) and from the national budget (3
theatres and 3 theatre schools). There are other 41 permanent
stages without their own company financed from public funds
(local budgets).
More than 2,6 milliard Czech crowns was provided from
public funds for the support of theatrical activity.
All the Czech theatres presented a total of 1 600 titles and 2 076
productions. 604 premieres were presented. A total of 24 888
performances took place in the Czech Republic which were seen
by more than 5 million theatre goers (average attendance 80 %).
The Czech companies gave 1 003 performances abroad.
New Czech Plays in Repertory
lPetr Kolečko:
Britney goes to Heaven
4 men, 2 women
Five dead people meet in the interim and inter-space.
They are bored and do not understand one another, they
do not know where they are or where they are going, and
every one of them copes with the interim in a different
way: Britney Spears practises the new steps in her dance
arrangement, for which she lacks an audience; the underage football fan Hool smokes, heils, beats everybody up,
and waits for ‘a hundred skinheads with saxophones’;
Marie, a drunk and a failed mother, tries to create a holy
family; the Mafioso Bruno uses automatic techniques from
psychological questionings and shoots helter shelter; and
a worker named Kolben satisfies his most secrete and
intimate dreams with impunity. However, all of them have
a goal: Heaven. During their ‘stay’ they all undergo group
and individual therapy run by the angel Gabriel, and
gradually they realise that they are taking part in a queer
reality show where they are playing for the chance to
advance into Heaven. The game begins. How far are these
‘people’ willing to go in order to win? What means are they
willing to use against each other? And how will the angel
Gabriel be able to face all this? Will he succumb to it and be
seduced by the ‘divine’ Britney? Will he let her organise an
apocalyptic concert for his ‘boss’? Can he endure Kolben’s
emotional blackmail? Will the holy family of Marie, Hool
and Bruno split up under the force of circumstances? Who
will drop out and who will remain? And who is entitled to
‘the most correct truth’?
lEgon Luděk Tobiáš:
Solingen (Merciful Blow)
Solingen (Rána z milosti)
5 men, 2 women
Tobiáš’s totentanz on suicide is a variation on a motif
from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It takes place in the time ‘after’;
Hamlet lies in a bath with bandaged wrists after a suicide
attempt. From the formal point of view, Tobiáš achieves
a rewind of the events of a play within a play. The actors
are beginning to rehearse a new play, Solingen, in the
theatre. The time of the play unwinds like a recollection, as
insights and evocations of events. The story itself cannot be
captured. Faced with logical expression, it shifts, emerges
and disappears again. Whenever it begins to come into
focus, the actors upset the scene and return to the rehearsal.
The impressions of living, played out in a refrain-like format
by the characters, are left as hints and suggestions. Inside
a hospital environment, the characters fall into baths and
drop into chairs for the sick. Those present are limited to
Hamlet’s nearest and dearest (his sinning mother Gertrude,
his ‘father’ Claudius, the nervous Ophelia, taking on the
Hamlet motif at the end of the play, and his friend Horatio).
Scenes from Solingen and from the rehearsals of the play
alternate and gradually intertwine. The boundary between
the play and playing the play is worn down. The refrain-like
obsession of the characters collapses into rehearsal scenes.
This way the awareness of the boundaries between the
actor and the character is dulled. Without explanations or
judgments, impressions of living in a sick world are captured
from the other shore. The characters have no firm ground
beneath their feet. They start to play out their anxiety, pain,
aggression, rage and hysteria. They fence around each other
and cut into and around themselves.
Notebook
1.6.2007 12:35:03
94/
NOTEBOOK
New Czech Plays in Repertory
lKateřina Rudčenková
Niekur (2006)
1 man, 1 women
Genre: A dramatic poem about a Czech–Lithuanian
friendship (for all eternity)
This dramatic poem about a Czech–Lithuanian friendship
(for all eternity) is a slightly ironic confession that deals with
a love affair between a young Czech writer Agnes and her
older Lithuanian colleague Kornelija during their research
fellowship in Germany. The author attempts to maintain
a distance from an almost Bergman-like self-analytic
confession, and the play is written in the third person. In the
text the author refers to the inspiration she drew from Ernst
Jandl’s From the Unknown, and with a dose of self-irony she
writes in the third person: ‘She truly thinks that if she writes
a play in the third person no one will see through it to realise
that in the first person the play would be banal?’ However,
with its authenticity and at times even a rough openness,
the play is far from banal. The story of the two lovers is
interrupted with excerpts from a new play Agnes is writing,
whose central characters are two Siamese sisters joined at
the head (performed by the same actors who play Agnes
and Kornelija). Their absurd and almost brutally grotesque
dialogues form a counterpoint to the intellectually erotic
relationship of the two writers.This intelligent, sincere, and
bitterly funny play for two intelligent actors won the second
prize in the drama category of the 2006 Alfréd Radok Awards
(no first prize was awarded).
lAnna Grusková
Schaulust
3 men, 2 women
Pleasure (Schaulust), a short work by Anna Grusková,
a Bratislava native writing in Czech, takes place at a party
following a premiere, where the Actor, the Actress, the
Viewer, the Director, and the Critic all come together. The
characters are not defined in detail; they operate more as
stereotypes. The play is a kind of dream sequence in which
ideas about what a post-premiere party is like and about
what kind of frustrations individual figures connected
with the theatre carry inside themselves. As a string of
intersecting images gives the work a film-like quality.
Finalist in the anonymous author category of the 2006
Alfréd Radok Awards.
lMilan Uhde – Miloš Štědroň: Nana
(an original musical)
15 men, 8 women, chorus
An original Czech musical was created by the well-known
artistic duo of Milan Uhde and Miloš Štědroň for the Brno
City Theatre. The new musical is based on the novel Nana by
Émile Zola, a leading representative of French naturalism.
His Nana was first published in 1880 and presented a harsh
portrait of Parisian society. Zola tells the story of a girl
who rises up from the lower depths of society through the
manipulation of rich and successful men. A variety star,
a Parisian prostitute, Nana guides us through Paris in its
legendary years, the Paris of glitter and misery, of enjoyment,
sin, and forgiveness. Milan Uhde was only loosely inspired
by the novel and put more emphasis on general features, as
though he felt that Nana is unquestionably a 19th-century
novel, in which we can still admire the skilfully elaborated
structure and literary quality of the work by the master of
French naturalism, but whose story itself no longer makes
the same terrifying powerful impact that horrified and
provoked the Parisian bourgeoisie a hundred and twenty
five years ago. The non-sequential scenes from Nana’s life
‘devoted to sin’ is built with great dramatic skill and reveals
an authorial point of view that slightly differs from Zola’s.
Uhde knows that today the prostitute is a symbol of evil
only for only a certain type of minority audience. For others
– and it is for those he is writing in the popular genre of
the musical – she is merely an everyday tourist attraction,
for some hard to accept, for others welcome. The Catholic
priest, who is throughout her mortal enemy, in the end gives
her some sort of absolution for saying that at least ‘she is
sorry not to be sorry about anything’. And because this is a
musical, the sinful Nana is able to rise from her dead body
– and join the chorus for the closing song.
Notebook
1.6.2007 12:35:05
EVERYTHING YOU WANT
TO KNOW ABOUT CZECH
THEATRE
www.theatre.cz
Czech puppet theatre has captured the hearts of many and one can often see influences
of Czech puppet theatre in stage productions and films from all over the world.
Czech Puppet Theatre – Yesterday and Today
Discover the phenomenon of Czech puppet theatre today!
Theatre Institute Prague has produced Czech Puppet Theatre
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documenting the history and trends of Czech puppet theatre
from its earliest beginnings to today. Follow the course of Czech
puppet theatre history - from the very first Czech puppeteer,
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1.6.2007 12:35:06
accompanying exhibition of the Prague Quadrennial
FRANTIŠEK TRÖSTER
Poet of the Stage Space
16. 5. – 2. 9. / Obecní dům / Municipal House
/ The name of world famous stage designer František Tröster (1904-1968) has been written into the
pages of art history primarily because of his work with avant-garde directors (ie. J. Frejka) and also
as the creator of an unconventional perspective of a newly created discipline that was apparent in
the field of scenography during the 1920‘s and 30‘s. He was the founder of the first Department of
Scenography that he ran until his death in 1968. He belongs to the most famous generation of
Czech scenographers who laid the foundations for Czech as well as world scenography.
Prepared by the Municipal House in cooperation
with the Department of Histor y of Theatre of the National Museum and the Theatre Institute.
1.6.2007 12:35:09

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