Czech Theatre 17

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Contents
Marie Reslov
Where the Slow Moving Water of Czech Theatre is Flowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Jitka Sloupov
Hamletomania in Bohemia (and Moravia) at the Watershed of the Centuries . . . . .5

Jana Patokov
A Director and an Opera for the Happy Few . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Ivan Vojtch
Dmitri Shostakovitch/David RadokLady Macbeth of Mtsensk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Jitka Sloupov
Theatre without Respite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Kamila Patkov
How I Lost Myself on Dlouh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Martin J. vejda
A Czech Season at the inohern (Drama) Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

David Drozd
New Drama? From Brno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Jan Dehner
Opera Here and Now? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 Notebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
CZECH THEATRE 17
Issued by Theatre Institute Prague Director / Ondej ern Responsible editor / Marie Reslov Editors / Kamila Patkov, Jana Patokov, Jitka Sloupov Translation / Barbara Day, Katherine Kastner Cover and graphical layout / Egon L. Tobi Technical realization / DTP Studio Hamlet Printed by / Tiskrna FLORA, slavsk 15, Praha 3
Au g u s t 2 0 01 Editors e-mail: editio@divadlo. cz Subscription: Divadeln stav, Celetn 17, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic fax: 00420 2232 6100, e-mail: pavla. kucharova@divadlo. cz 2001 Divadeln stav Praha ISSN 0862-9380 Egon L. Tobi, Smokie / inohern studio, st nad Labem 2000 / Directed by Miroslav Bambuek Set design Tom Bambuek / Costumes Andrea Krlov >Photo Martin pelda
Where the Slow Moving Water
WHERE THE SLOW MOVING WATER OF CZECH THEATRE IS FLOWING
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of Czech Theatre is Flowing

Marie Reslov
Czech theatre rediscovers opera

In the spring of 2001, the Czech theatre critics bestowed their highest award (the Alfrd Radok Award for the Best Production of the Year) on an opera production, for already the second time in the past decade. Does this mean that Czech drama is running out of breath, or does this in fact signal the unprecedented ascent of the art of opera production in the Czech Republic? The paradox is, that directors of drama theatre have been playing an important role in the opera world development. Quite frequently, their operatic debuts have even initiated serious discussion and the interest of theatre critics, who before, more often than not, only wandered into opera productions by mistake. Thus, for example, Jan Antonn Pitnsk won the prestigious A. Radok Award two years ago for his first opera production, Purcells Dido and Aeneas (J. K. Tyl Theatre, Pilsen). Ji Pokorn conceived the staging of Fibichs rka (ibid. ), whose story moved from the mythic times in Czech history to the totalitarian atmosphere of the fifties, initiating discussion not only in the press, but also debate about the meaning and future of the Pilsen opera scene at the citys municipal offices. Vladimr Morvek was belittled by part of the professional public for his daring interpretation of Puccinis Tosca (National Theatre, Prague), while by others, for the same, unreservedly commended. To those in addition to the above mentioned - who have made the move from drama to opera production, have also gradually joined: Hana Bureov, Petr Lbl, Jan Schmid, Nina Vangeli, and finally Michal Doekal, the future drama director of the National Theatre. That this year, David Radok, who specializes in opera production, received the A. Radok Award for his production of Shostakovichs Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, is the exception, rather than the rule. Also connected with the emancipation of opera in the
Giacomo Puccini, Tosca / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by Vladimr Morvek / Set design Ale Votava / Costumes Alexandra Gruskov
>Photo Hana Smejkalov
context of Czech theatre, is the increasing number of singers recognized for their dramatic performances and the increasingly expressive and metaphorical scenographic conception of opera productions. It appears that just at the time when contemporary Czech theatre and drama are increasingly losing their forms foothold, drama producers are being drawn to the opera scores resolutely prescribed form: a high degree of stylisation and abstraction is possible even required within the framework of its strict order. Next to the somewhat dormant drama, where clearly none of last years productions as is incidentally obvious from the various annual surveys and awards have moved the stagnant surface of current theatre repertory, opera work appears as an anomaly, clearly needless to emphasize, that this criteria, notwithstanding, is only relative.
The sweet sixties phenomenon

In the field of drama last year, the most embracing acceptance and highest recognition from the critics went, paradoxically, to what is known as family productions (defined as for children with adult accompaniment). The sixties in the Czech Republic have, already for the second time, provided inspiration for theatre and an appealing background for de facto musical stories. A few years ago, it was the highly successful Stars on the Willow (Hvzdy na vrb) at the HaDivadlo in Brno, and last year, the public no less enthusiastically welcomed the dramatization of the tale by Ludvk Akenazy in Pragues Theatre on Dlouh (Divadlo v Dlouh), called How I Got Lost. Even though the phenomenon of the sweet sixties by itself, can almost always be counted on to excite the Czech emotional memory (earning points in contemporary film as well), it is important to acknowledge the excellent quality of Jan Bornas production. The dramatic accomplishment of Pavel Tesa in the role of the principal hero of the story a small boy, who loses his father in the preChristmas Prague is convincing due to its unsentimental childs view, the improvised bravado of the chorus numbers and the playful scenographic invention.
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WHERE THE SLOW MOVING WATER OF CZECH THEATRE IS FLOWING
Contemporary performances and expressive interpretations of the classics

Several Czech theatres have attempted to usher in original dramatic texts as part of their programs. Among them one, however the Drama Studio (inohern Studio) in st nad Labem has had the daring to build more than a year of its existence on this risky repertoire. If this theatre was declared the Theatre of the Year 2000, it was perhaps because the Czech critics were awarding their own self-confident (a portion of the authors came directly from the groups fold) uncompromising opinion and belief that these persistent attempts at contemporary plays will eventually lead to a revival of theatrical form and direct communication between the stage and the audience. Among the directors whose stagings strongly scored in the annual reviews, two names were repeated several times: Vladimr Morvek and Ji Pokorn. Both debuted in the previous year as opera directors with truly expressive interpretative performances of classic opera. Both were systematically devoted to contemporary drama Pokorns direction of Ravenhills Faust was the most highly recognized, but high praise was also given to Morvek for his improvised interpretation of the performances of Rijnders Fanda and Steigerwalds The Actresses (Hereky). Mor-
veks staging of Shakespeares Hamlet - among the three nominated productions for the Alfrd Radok Award was controversially received. Its scenically opulently reinterpreted story, rough-hewn to the core, was both surprising and provoking, with its unexpectedly connected motives and unambiguous interpretation of the characters psychology. . .
Money, first and foremost

The financing and administration of theatres continues to provoke serious discussion even ten years after the November revolution. This is certainly also caused by the funding problems in the state and municipal governments budgets. The issues are numerous, and the artistic future of Czech theatre depends upon their judicious resolution: Should all the stages have equal access to financial grant aid, or should some theatres also continue in the future as subsidized organizations of the local magistrates, with regular and de facto indisputable donations? What role will the newly developing administrative authorities - the regional district offices play in the financing of the regional stages? What authority, and what extent of autonomy should the directors of the National Theatres individual companies have, and who should name them to their function? The answers to these and similar questions are arduously sought and, unfortunately (albeit for various reasons), often enough without the participation of those, whose fate is most affected the people who make theatre.
Where the Slow Moving Water of Czech Theatre is Flowing
Hamletomania
in Bohemia
(and Moravia) at the Watershed of the Centuries Jitka Sloupov
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HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES
This time the Czech theatre anticipated Peter Brook by a whole year: at the turn of the millennium a total of eight professional theatres in Bohemia and Moravia decided to stage Hamlet. Shakespeares major work was handled by such varied directors as, from the older generation, Zdenk Kalo, known for his Brno productions of the classics, and the enfant terrible of Czech theatre Vladimr Morvek. The Prague and Brno theatre academies each mounted their own production. A puppet production was revived, and a bombastically advertised original musical version presented to the Czech public. But not even the theatre critics could decide whether this wave of hamleticity was a mere coincidence or whether at the other extreme it was a sign of the change of the age. Probably the truth lies in the fact that (the only important exception being Jan Nebesks production at the Comedy Theatre in 1994) Hamlet has been so long absent from the Czech stage that both theatre-makers and theatre-goers were really missing it. One of the possible impulses for this Hamletomania was the appearance of two new translations. The National Theatre in Brno commissioned a modern version of Hamlet from Ji Josek (in 2000 the translation won the prestigious Josef Jungmann Award), whilst the production of the National Theatre in Prague was based on Martin Hilsks translation. Hilsk tends more towards Shakespeares Baroque Mannerism, but his hand was less sure with this than with his previous translations of Shakespeare. Joseks version is more original and betrays greater theatrical experience, it is clearer and at the same time more full of imagery, lexically more up-to-date, whilst the levels of language are richer and more consistently held. Two companies (by an interesting coincidence, both the student groups) opted for the 20-year-old translations by Milan Luke (the pirate quarto and the folio).
a theme on Hamlet, to productions which focused on the text and its interpretation by means of dramatic situations, the actions of the characters, and their relationships.
Hamlet as a large-screen film by puppets
A Czech critic would not normally pay attention to the revived premire of an hour-long montage of scenes from Hamlet in the curious puppet/scenographic concept of the Julie a spol. (Julie & Co. ) company. The combination of bizarre qualities and pathos is peculiar to the puppet theatre thus twice over to this puppet Hamlet in a version by Marie Tekov and directed, designed and acted by Frantiek Wazel. Whilst the set is dominated by large-screen vertical lines inspired by designs by the Czech art-nouveau stage designer Karel tapfer, the puppets and their actions are governed by Ubu grotesque: clumsy, stumpy actors with arms like matchsticks react to each other with puppet-like churlishness (culminating in the killing of Polonius inside a chiffonier). A puppet Hamlet cannot suffer too much indecision, and so most of the monologues we go through in the first half accompanied by a rainbow and other heavenly phenomena. Subsequently we simply experience spectacular displays such as the march of Fortinbrass army under the windows of Elsinore (bristling with lances, moving in monumental tempo from pounding on paper and other percussion) and the sea chase of Hamlets ship by the pirates. One delicacy is the scene with the characters in dwindling perspective with actors the size of a human thumb, another the scene of execution of the Siamese twins Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by a wonderful guillotine (sic!), another the duel in which in a completely darkened theatre only the swords glow with an electrical charge It ends in grand style in homage to the stage designer Josef Svoboda: four captains bear Hamlet up a flight of steps to the heavens (high above the proscenium arch of the theatre), a pocket replica of the famous flight of steps in the production of Hamlet directed by Miroslav Machek in the Smetana Vladimr Morveks postmodern Hamlet does not try to Theatre (now the State Opera) in the 1970s. reproduce in its entirety the dramatic structure of Shakespeares tragedy, preferring rather to reconstruct and present its fable or story. The Hamlet directed by Ivo Krobot at the National Theatre in Prague and to a lesser extent both the student productions also add scenes from the pre-history of the play and expand the text with interpolations. We can trace an indirect proportion in relation to the translations used: the more poetic and literary and less theatrical the translation, the more intense is the tendency to theatricalise the text, to ""William Shakespeare, Hamlet / Nrodn divadlo Brno, 1999 dynamise it by external stage effects. Directed by Zdenk Kalo / Set design and costumes Marta Roszkopfov I have set the eight new Hamlets to be seen during the Czech >Photo Tom Galle theatre season 1999/2000 side by side: from the Urhamlets #William Shakespeare, Hamlet / Klicperovo divadlo Hradec Krlov, (more exactly Posthamlets) through attempts at more or less 2000 Directed by Vladimr Morvek / Set design Martin Chocholouek subjective, epically open, synthetic theatrical responses to Costumes Eva Morvkov >Photo Zdenk Merta
Urhamlet, or Posthamlet, and Hamlet
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Hamlet as a funereal melodrama

The expressive and consistent funereal stylisation of Vladimr Morveks Hamlet in Hradec Krlov reminded me of film adaptations of English gothic horror novels. The added prologue already puts this among the Urhamlets: a state funeral for King Hamlet takes place in front of the theatre with the (authentic) hearse of a Hradec Krlov undertakers firm. We meet the undertaker theme again with Shakespeares gravediggers. The first two acts are condensed into the single scene of the wedding banquet. The basic funereal tone is combined with satire on todays allembracing media banality. The continual presence of all the
characters on stage strengthens the feeling of the unbearable public nature of every action of the royal family. Vladimr Franzs music plays an outstanding role in the compactness of Morveks vision. This Hamlet can be identified very precisely as melodrama. The unity of stylisation is not upset even by Eva Morvkovs costumes, a happy fusion of Napoleonic Empire and the fashions of the crazy 1920s. The funereal stylisation was apparent in the deformation of the stage language: the voices of the female moderator and most of the male characters were with their unnatural depth reminiscent of a gramophone record at slow speed. In the same style as this gothic horror novel is the extremely curtailed scene of the Murder of King Gonzago. The adaptation shortens the text into some sort of basic Hamlet , the story of the Danish prince urged by his fathers ghost to revenge on his uncle the murderer, who
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spurns the loving Ophelia and in error kills her father, then perishes by a base trick. This prince achieves his revenge only by chance and so one can scarcely speak of catharsis (it may be no accident that Morvek substitutes the term tragedy in the subtitle by sorrowful play). The twists of the story are differently motivated; for example, the scene when Ophelia returns Hamlets gifts and is told by Hamlet get thee to a nunnery is placed after the death of Polonius. The girls madness is not evoked till then. It seems as though Hamlets main reason for rejecting Ophelias love is the guilt he feels towards her. It can therefore only be conjecture the characters as interpreted by the Hradec actors are generally horror monsters whose psychology does not seem too essential. Franzs partitura in the second half nevertheless becomes a safe emotional
guide. The romantic string motif which accompanies Ophelia and Gertrude who sees the light bit by bit reminded me of the theme tune of an English detective series. Unfortunately, in places the romanticism crosses over into tear-jerking sentiment. The Hamlet of Vclav Vesel does not go beyond horror deformation. He is in fact the perfect figure from a gothic novel (sunken face, jutting chin, deeply sunk eyes gazing wildly). In time, however, this mask irritates. The prince remains a hero of horror without a more complicated psychology. The Ophelia of Kateina Holnov and the Gertrude of Martina Novkov, on the other hand, turn into threedimensional characters in the course of the play. Is this inbalance the directors intention? Is it supposed to be a response to the unsupportable degeneration of the patriarchal world to which even the half-mad Hamlet belongs? Or is it the result of
William Shakespeare, Hamlet / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 1999 / Directed by Ivo Krobot / Set design Jan Konen / Costumes Michaela Klimanov-Trizuljakov
>Photo Oldich Pernica
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a lack of balance in the Hradec company? The visual and sensual urgency of the production cannot be denied, nor, as far as some scenes are concerned, a direct unmediated force. It is however difficult to come to terms with the non-existence of Hamlet as the main figure.
Hamlet as a deformed poem

The drama company of the National Theatre in Prague offers its audiences a literally deformed production. It is heavily influenced by Martin Hilsks too literary translation, by problematic intentions in dramaturgy and direction and by the low standard of the acting company of the Czech premier stage. The aim of the adaptations in dramaturgy and directing was again some kind of epic expansion of the Hamlet material this time reaching still further back into the prehistory of the story. The whole production is interwoven with the motif of the fool Yorick to the audience however its urgency remains a mystery. Sometimes Yorick (Ji Reidinger) appears as one of the members of the acting troupe, at other times (repeatedly) in the company of the child-Hamlet, clearly as a symbol of Hamlets onetime innocence. Incomprehensible in the context of the whole production is a prologue and epilogue in the shape of Jan Skcels poem Tears for Hecuba recited in chorus by the whole company in street clothes (prologue) and in costume (epilogue). These lyrical extensions (their echo is the very untraditional staging of to be or not to be) in essence disturb the dramatic quality of the exposition and catharsis. The set by Jan Konen brings other problems, fatal for perception of the production. The greatest of these is the placing of the main acting area at the back of the stage beyond two ditches, of which that nearest to the audience contains water. The audience is cut off from the actors not only by the National Theatres notoriously noisy air conditioning, but by a deliberate distancing. And also the musical accompaniment which (on the renaissance model) underlines the court rituals. Very often it prevents the audience from understanding the text, but it almost always envelops important entrances in a deadening undistinguished banality and in most cases diffuses the tempo of the production. The performances of key members of the ensemble are marked by an inability to come to terms with either the space or the verse. But even those actors who fulfil the basic requirements of the large stage (Miroslav Donutil as Polonius, Eva Salzmannov as Gertrude) do not in the end get further than inexpressive clich. The director has not prepared a dramatic situation for the actors in which they can operate as live and original beings. In place of that he has forced them to participate in strangely embarrassing mise-en-scenes. Kateina Winterov as Ophelia is in the first scenes innocent to the point of infantile, the result of which is that the Hamlet of Vladimr Javorsk (in spite of being one of the most advanced in years) is maybe the most chaste Danish prince on
the contemporary Czech stage. The director has even prescribed a retrospective for him in which the pubertally confused Hamlet gives Ophelia his love letter and at the same time reveals a chest on which is scrawled the girls name. After killing Polonius the director allows Hamlet to throw himself into a shallow ditch of water, which regularly evokes suppressed laughter in the audience. Javorsks prince is a fragile, acrobatically agile but at the same time pale and drawn young man always appearing to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He falls into a deep depression as early as his first monologues. His madness is spasmodic and without wit, and his character lacks dynamism. Even the Claudius of Ondej Pavelka is monotonously neurotic: a political clown, a man who has not grown into his position, who is aware of this and in the course of time ever more apparently loses his balance and nerves from thinking that everyone realises this. The production builds its uninspiring qualities of semipassion and pseudo-appeal to an extent which is unbearable. The monologue to be or not to be is spoken by Hamlet and Ophelia hand in hand (the monologue is intercut by the melodramatic meeting of the lovers which precedes it in the text), before the gathered ensemble and into the illuminated auditorium. Maybe we are supposed to understand that its all about us.
Hamlet in the Balkans

The graduation year from the Drama Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, directed by Ksenija Krar from Croatia, chose Milan Lukes translation of the quarto version of Hamlet, the shortened and mutilated Hamlet which was the basis for Evald Schorms production at the Theatre in the Balustrades in the 1980s. Predominantly in prose and with an uncompromising progression of scenes, this sees through Hamlets behaviour (especially in relationship to Ophelia). The production aimed at being a Hamlet for its own generation, with some bizarre dramaturgical consequences. The ghost of Hamlets father, or its appearance, is part of a conspiracy between Horatio and Hamlet, who play the role of the ghost themselves, and alternate in the relevant scenes on the battlements. Unfortunately, its difficult to see the point of this staging since the results concern only those who are playing in it. This alternation of the role of the ghost is only made possible because the actors are in gas masks. Another characteristic feature of this production is the external topicality: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern invite the prince to share their joint, the troupe of actors all women speak their monologues stylised as rap music. The duel between Hamlet and Laertes, rather than being the encounter of two brilliant fencers, is more reminiscent of Sicily or skirmishes between the Jets and the Sharks. And when the gravediggers appear in
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William Shakespeare, Hamlet / Nrodn divadlo Brno, 1999 / Directed by

Zdenk Kalo / Set design and costumes Marta Roszkopfov >Photo Tom Galle
costume (green shrouds!) looking like the exhumers of mass graves we finally realise we are in the directors native Balkans. Alongside the superficial topicalisation, emphasising the straightforwardness and brutality, what is most evident in the Prague student Hamlet is its inability to reconcile two tendencies to stylisation: one, derived from the concept modern dress which determines the movements and gestures of the actors (including the already mentioned elements of dance and duel) and the other, intensifying archaic quality of some motifs and decoration of renaissance literary language. The young actors did not succeed in finding possibilities how to show in their characters and their behaviour the not-sosimple truth. (Nevertheless, the production was awarded a prize at the Brno festival of theatre schools Setkn/ Encounter. )
Hamlet which hurts

The Brno students also chose Milan Lukes translation for their musical production which began as part of their exercises and ended as a regular production in the Little Theatre of the Mahen drama company. This time, however, the folio version. Not even this rejoices in Baroque embellishments, although it is in a metaphor more complicated, more intellectual than that of Josek. But nor do we meet in it lexical and metrically contingent subordinated anachronisms as
sometimes in Hilsk. An interesting tension developed between the special concreteness of the translation and the almost painful passion of the acting. This too is a Hamlet for its generation, whose one would want to say only protagonist is the whole third year of the department for musicals at the Janek Academy of Performing Arts. The programme indicates that the production is a collective work. However, modestly described as the head of the studio is the mother of the whole project, the actress Jana Jankov, Getrude in Zdenk Kalos production of Hamlet in the National Theatre in Brno. All it has in common with the commercial musical for which the members of the company are schooled is that it contains singing selected sonnets by Shakespeare (this time in Hilsks excellent translation) and that movement and gesture are dominant, more or less successfully replacing whole passages of text. Fencing and games with daggers appear in a number of scenes, whilst the trade mark of the Wittenberg student fraternity is some sort of variant of karate. The focus of attention is quite naturally a story of love and treachery. This love is extremely passionate and physical, on Hamlets side much more mature; Ophelias fatal allegiance to her father gives the production from the point of view of the contemporary psychology of teenagers very comprehensible. It refers to her immature, rather negative relationship with her parents. Ophelia listens to Polonius and renounces the unwritten love contract with Hamlet paradoxically from some sort of pubertal defiance: very well, father, I will do what you want, but you will find out you were wrong! The slender, lissom, temperamental and yet a little melancholy Ivana Vakov with her dark suffering eyes and body torn by inner pain is for me the best Ophelia of the season. Her madness moves along a winding path, determined by the diabolical styles of Shakespeares monologues, but does not lose its inner continuity and measure in the scene when the unhappy girl gives birth to a childs doll. In this Hamlet of its generation the world of the politicians is identical with the world of the adults who are lightly parodied: Polonius, puffing away, gives his cynical advice to Ophelia in an off-hand way, as a very modern preoccupied parent; Gertrude and Claudius are so absorbed in their sexual insatiability that for a long time they dont really notice what Hamlet is doing. By contrast, the Hamlet of Jn Slezk is torn by enormous physical and mental extremes. It is a Hamlet completely committed to his revenge, a Hamlet out to destroy and to inflict pain. The production is played at an enormous pace. The actors often remain on stage, their comings and goings and the scene divisions indicated only by their turning away from the public, their absence by standing with their back to the audience. The qualities of the musical belonging to the company also appear in their language. Their speech in its aesthetic and intellectual maturity has a very compact effect and one is almost sorry that after they graduate they will be scattered to various engagements in our not very inspiring repertoire of musical comedies.
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seems older and more mature than the other Czech Hamlets, his character has already been shaped by events of which we can only guess, and not even the killing of Polonius is a shock for him which would somehow essentially change his Hamlet staged by the National Theatre in Brno is Hamlet in personality. the grand style, where the careful arrangements of the scenes of action, using by Czech standards plenty of extras, is married with topicalisation of costume and gesture (modern dress alternates with quasi-Victorian, the King and Queen dress in renaissance costume for state occasions, whilst the audience William Shakespeare, Hamlet / 3rd year of the musical comedy takes place in the style of a Baroque or Rococo leve). The set department of the Janek Academy of Performing Arts, Brno 2000 by Marta Roszkopfov combines the functionalist construction Directed by Jana Jankov / Set design and costumes Renata Slmkov >Photo Jana Jankov of suspended bridge/ramparts with pieces of heavy furniture from the 19th century. Two open staircases end in glass revolving doors, in whose mirrored embrace the excited characters often find themselves. The speeches are delivered in a highly cultured diction (what a contrast with the jerkiness of their National colleagues in Prague). Half of the success of Zdenk Kalos production is due to Joseks translation, hardly shortened at all (four hours with interval). It is clearly ahead when it comes to rounded and convincing characters. The plump little Claudius of Zdenk Dvok is a somewhat unassuming dictator with childishly squishy features but intelligent eyes. His character is based on ritual powers and with the anticipation of a spoiled child savours the services of his subordinates (his death too is like that of a betrayed child). Frantiek Derfler, the actor known in Brno for his performances of heroic men of great character, is surprisingly cast as Polonius. The director uses this image to create a character whose outward appearance evokes the semblance of a serious and loyal servant of the state, but behind this mask is hidden a very average, uninteresting and inane man with soul of a slave. Jana Jankovs Gertrude presents a woman until now beautiful, but extremely chilly and a little mysterious, somehow suffering from premature motherhood and the egoism of late emancipation. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern (Bedich Vtisk and Petr Halberstadt) are flexible yuppies, prepared to take their place in the service of the state. Hamlet behaves towards them with the fastidiousness of an intellectual; he is always able to cut their sneaking down to size, to which they react with irritated impotence. Kalo places Shakespeares characters very precisely into the social structure of the Danish state. From this of course the imposing figure of Igor Bares Hamlet is sharply set apart. An actor with undeniable charisma, he is capable both in voice and movement simply to be on stage. His tall athletic figure in black trousers and coat, his long sensitive hands and the feverish gaze of his eyes are enough in themselves to hold the attention of the audience. In the mad scenes and scenes with the actors Hamlet becomes a sovereign intellectual clown, capable of killing through pure sarcasm. The problem with this Hamlet is his emotional abstruseness, thanks to which his hysteria and aggressiveness in the scenes with Ophelia and Gertrude appear to be the consequence of a frustration whose cause remains a mystery. Bares Hamlet
Hamlet which thinks
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Hamlet as a hero
Marta Roszkopfov also designed Hamlet for the Petr Bezru Theatre in Ostrava. However, the decisive share in the production is held by Ji Josek as translator and producer. If we count Joseks translation the accomplishment of a translator, his direction is a heroic effort to transfer the vision of the original which the inspired translator always has in his head to a visible presence on stage. The main feature of his directorial style is the thoroughness of the mise-en-scene. If every line the actors speak is underpinned by a consistent interpretation (we return to the experience of the translator), and if they are willing to commit to the interpretation their fundamental skills of knowledge and their hearts, a convincing image is created in the awareness of the audience, capable to some measure of carrying the performance independent of the standard of acting.
In two superb performances the Claudius of Norbert Lich and the Hamlet of Richard Krajo Joseks consistent approach to the actors has reliable support. In Ostrava Lich has the potential of being an outstanding character actor, his chubby physique strongly reminiscent of the Czech Gabin, the legendary Rudolf Hrunsk in his middle years. Lichs Claudius is thus reminiscent of the character of that famous actor: he is a cynic and hedonist with an arrogant, chilly gaze and a condescending and sarcastic voice. The student of the Ostrava conservatoire, twenty-two-yearold Richard Krajo is, like Andrius Mamontovas, a Nekroius Hamlet, and like the legendary Wladimir Vysotski before him, a musician, in this case a rock musician. He too introduces a strong element of authenticity, self-awareness and musical drive into his role. Only thus can the young hero traverse the whole arc of development of the character from a pure, holy indignation over the strange events in the state and in his own
William Shakespeare, Hamlet / Divadeln spolenost Petra Bezrue, Ostrava 1999 / Directed by Ji Josek / Set design and costumes Marta Roszkopfov
>Photo Lucie Gurkov
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William Shakespeare, Hamlet / Klicperovo divadlo Hradec Krlov, 2000, Directed by Vladimr Morvek / Set design Martin Chocholouek
Costumes Eva Morvkov >Photo Zdenk Merta
family and over the treachery of his mother and beloved girlfriend, literally to grow into a doubting but still unresigned warrior. Krajo gives additionally him his own personal magic and almost boyish ability at acting improvisation His Hamlet in his craziness is secretly royally enjoying himself, indulging in ideas and not allowing himself (like Bares Hamlet) to take or spoil a single point. But neither does he even for a moment allow the audience to doubt that his intellect notes and reflects every situation (Krajos prince even suspiciously investigates Laertes sword). Even at the age of twenty-two this Hamlet has to be the darling of the nation, and it can be said with Fortinbras that he could have been a splendid king. (It was mainly this Hamlet which brought Krajo the Alfrd Radok Prize for the Talent of the Year 2000. ) Joseks production has gained a tremendous following amongst the Ostrava public, especially young people. It deserves it, all the more in that it has not allowed itself to be seduced to a superficial image or even grimace, but with complete fidelity to Shakespeares text uncovers possibilities, offers paths, and searches for a complicated truth.
P. S. Hamlet as a conceptual disc

The last of the Hamlet projects has followed a completely different route to reach a young audience. If I am to be true to my chosen principle, then I would have begun this Hamlet overview with the musical version by the composer, writer and star of Czech pop music Janek Ledeck. In this version we sit through half an hour of action a good quarter of the evening before we even get to the point at which Shakespeares play starts. No wonder: Hamlet is here spelt out on the level of a silent film for an illiterate immigrant. Ledecks Hamlet, in which Ophelia is not only Hamlets mistress but the future mother of his child, is on one level impudent and on another simpleminded. The staging concept by Zdenk Troka, film specialist at somewhat coarse comedy, is cynicism of the coarsest quality. Two moments as an illustration: when Hamlet (Josef Vojtek)
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stabs Polonius (Josef Laufter), hidden behind a hanging, this man (father of Hamlets beloved!) does not die immediately. He is still alive when Hamlet mocks him and dances with his dying body to the rhythm of the fling by which earlier Polonius had diagnosed Hamlet: Hes a nutter, nutter The only scene I enjoyed in the production, the duel and Hamlets death I was glad only that Shakespeare had it his own way was immediately followed by a curtain call in the rhythm of a graveyard charleston, during which the hilarious participants clapped along with the similarly callous public. So the only good thing to be got out of this production was that it opened another reconstructed theatre in the centre of Prague, the Kalich (Chalice).
Hamlet (A Sorrowful Play by William Shakespeare), translated by Martin Hilsk, directed by Vladimr Morvek, adaptation Ren von Ludowitz and Dr. Karel Kladivo Effatha, set Martin Chocholouek, costumes Eva Morvkov, music Vladimr Franz with the use of the song by J. Bulis Guests in the Land, dramaturgy Karel Tomnek, Klicpera Theatre in Hradec Krlov, premired 25 and 29. 3. 2000. William Shakespeare: Hamlet, tragedy in five acts, translated by Martin Hilsk, adaptation Ivo Krobot, set Jan Konen (guest), costumes Michaela Klimanov-Trizuljakov (guest), music Zdenk Kluka, dramaturgy Josef Kovaluk and Jan Hanil, movement Nina Vangeli (guest) and Ji Reidinger. National Theatre in Prague, premire 20. 12. 1999.
William Shakespeare: Hamlet, translated by Milan Luke, set and costumes Renata Slmkov, music Dada Klementov, text of the songs William Shakespeare: Sonets (translated by Martin Hilsk), studio head Jana Jankov, 3rd year of the musical comedy department of the Janek Academy of Performing Arts in the Little Theatre of the Mahen drama company of the National Theatre in Brno, premire 30. 1. 2000. William Shakespeare: Hamlet, translated by Ji Josek, directed by Zdenk Kalo, dramaturgy Miroslav Plek, set and costumes Marta Roszkopfov (guest), music Zdenk Pololnk, movement Hana Charvtov (guest), National Theatre in Brno on the stage of the Mahen drama company, premire 18. 6. 1999. William Shakespeare: Hamlet, translated, adapted and directed by Ji Josek, dramaturgy Jana Pithartov, set and costumes Marta Roszkopfov, music Milan Svoboda, movement Igor Vejsada (guest), Petr Bezru Theatre in Ostrava, premire 15. 10. 1999. William Shakespeare: Hamlet , translated by E. A. Saudek, adaptation Marie Tekov, direction and sets Frantiek Wazl, Julie (spol. in the Little Theatre in a Caf at the Panks in Prague, revived) premire 22 and 23. 3. 2000. William Shakespeare: Hamlet, translated by Milan Luke, directed by Ksenija Krar, dramaturgy Hana Koov, set Kristina Kov, DISK Praha, premire 20. 1. 2000. Shakespeare Ledeck: Hamlet, arranged by Milan Kumk, directed by Zdenk Troka, set imon Caban, costumes Josef Jelnek, choreography Zuzana Kritofov, Kalich Theatre Praha, premires 1 and 2. 11. 1999.
Hamletomania in Bohemia
(and Moravia) at the Watershed of the Centuries
A Director and an Opera

for the Happy Few
Jana Patokov
A Director and
audiences. By taking on this piece, David Radok, has by no means chosen an easy way to reach the audience. David Radok was born in 1954 during the period of political thaw that followed Stalins death; in Eastern Europe, it then seemed that the worst of the persecution had passed. His father had received his fair share, both during the German occupation when he was restricted under the race laws, and following the February 1948 communist putsch when he was dismissed among other things from the National Theatre and likewise banned from work in film. (His film, A Long Way (Dalek cesta), was immediately banned in Czechoslovakia, while at the same time it was successfully presented in New York. ) In 1954, Alfrd Radok was able to return from his banishment with the touring Village Theatre (Vesnick divadlo) to the Prague National Theatre Drama Company, where his productions inaugurated and co-formed the richest period of its post-war development: the Kreja era. In the following years he worked with other Prague stages, but almost always was turned away from his work just at the time when it began to bear fruit (as we can read in his obituary written by Vclav Havel, at that time, circulated in carbon copies). Alfrd Radok, working together with his brother Emil Radok and the architect Josef Svoboda, developed the Laterna Magika (the Magic Lantern) for the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the EXPO 58 in Brussels; their second program was, however, immediately banned, Radok was dismissed, and his authorship was suppressed following his emigration. The peripetia characteristic of the local cultural political situation, as well as of the life-long careers of uncompromising artistic individuals, awaited him also in the later years and not only at home, but also later in exile in Sweden. He did produce, however, a range of productions which are remembered up until today, and which have influenced a range of theatre directors and filmmakers from the sixties (Grossman, Havel, Kaer, the new film wave). He always was an experimenter; in each field of his activity he was a discoverer, whether it be directing opera, drama or television, work with film, or the possibility to connect live theatre expression with film. The year 1968 brought with it the shock of the Soviet occupation and emigration, heavily affecting the whole family. Alfrd Radoks work did not find adequate use in the setting of the strongly left-wing Folkteater in Gteborg, where he didnt feel adequately used. His adolescent son, David, also had difficulties in adapting to the new environment. Following high school in Gteborg, David went to England to study language. He hadnt given much thought to his future career plans, when his father suddenly died. He ended up in theatre, because, as David Radok himself said, he had to work; at first as an extra in an opera production of his fathers in the Gteborg Opera.
David Radok >Photo Viktor Kronbauer
he Annual Czech Theatre Critics Awards are tied to the name of one of the most inspirational personalities of the Czech post-war culture: the theatre and film director Alfrd Radok (1914-1976). This years ninth annual award ceremony had an exceptional air. On April 20th 2001 almost a quarter of a century to the day of the artists death, who died in exile on April 22, 1976 on the stage of the National Theatre, his son, David Radok received the Award for the Best Production of the Year 2000: Shostakovichs Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The vast majority of both opera and theatre critics agreed: the production is recognized as an excellent integrated theatre work, which simultaneously manages to meet the difficult musical and choral demands in Shostakovichs score. Klaudia Dernerov even received the Award for the Best Female Actress for her principal role in the production. David Radok accepted the award in recognition of the collective work of everyone who took part in the production, both on and behind the stage, and in recognition of the opera works composer: I am happy for Shostakovichs sake, he is not so often played. This is true, although we are talking about an exceptional artistic achievement: even this highly regarded production is not often played, and certainly is not considered a hit by the
A DIRECTOR AND AN OPERA FOR THE HAPPY FEW
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an Opera for the Happy Few

The theatre took in, and came to look after, the professionally untrained beginner, and David began to work his way, as we say, from the bottom up. He got to know the theatre by degrees, from the inside out, trying out each one of its trades: electrician, technician, and orchestra custodian. This proved to be a huge advantage for Radoks later work, although this, in and by itself, would hardly have been sufficient for the complex discipline of opera stage production if it hadnt been for selfstudy and extremely careful preparation, which are features of his work. By 1978, he was already Assistant Director at the Stora Theatre in Gteborg, where two years later he made his debut production (Menotti, The Medium, 1980). His dramatic productions were, as yet, sporadic (Bulgakov, Molire; EuripidesSartre, Trojan Women), and over time he concentrated mainly on opera mostly on Scandinavian stages: in addition to Gteborg, he also worked in Copenhagen, Malm, Umea, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki (and Drottingholm, specializing in early operatic works). David Radok reminds us of his father, with his distinctive sensibility and synthetic theatre talent, to which belongs, in addition to an exceptional sense for music, design and space, a professional determination, tenacity and persistence in the effort to arrive at the complexity of the production. In 1991 David Radok returned to Prague to stage Mozarts dramma giocoso, Don Giovanni, at the Theatre of the Estates (Stavovsk divadlo), newly opened after reconstruction. This successful Prague debut revealed Radok as a director for whom opera is, first and foremost, theatre, and who consequently stressed all the demands of acting performance on the singers. The strong, theatrically composed form was framed as an honour to genius loci: through a small door in the baroque backdrop decorated with a picture of the Estates Theatre, the main character-hero enters onto the centre stage, as if returning to the place of his conception. It was a provocative picture of a forever-rebellious libertine, whose principal attribute was sovereignty and reckless youth, tasting his apple of knowledge and hazardously challenging Death, evoked by the character of Commander. In the closing scene,
W. A. Mozart, Don Giovanni / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 1991 / Directed by David Radok / Set design and costumes Tazeena Firth >Photo Oldich Pernica
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A DIRECTOR AND AN OPERA FOR THE HAPPY FEW
Giovanni emerges from a trapdoor, eternally young only the costume has changed, and he departs through the door in the backdrop in a jogging suit, as if back to the Prague Fruit Market (Ovocn trh) from where he entered the stage at the beginning. Thus, at the beginning of the nineties, David Radok returned home to Prague, but in terms of a steady engagement, he remained loyally with the Gteborg opera as its head director with the responsibility of one production each year. He is a regular guest at a range of opera houses in Northern Europe, from Copenhagen to Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki. His scarce Prague productions have been among the most distinctive events in contemporary Czech theatre. David Radok certainly is not the kind of director who calculates with certainties. Few of the eye-catching, successguaranteed, repertoire romantic operas have been represented on the list of his works up to now; of these he has staged, for example, Bizets Carmen and repeatedly Verdis Rigoletto. About forty of his productions up until this point have been mainly by pre-classic and classic composers (Purcell, Gluck, Mozart, Rossini), or those from the 20th century (Britten, Stravinsky, Bartk, Shostakovich, Janek, Berg). As he himself says: I have tried not to do things which do not interest me. But, even so, sometimes they happened, from necessity or from stupidity; and understandably, with bad results. For instance Gounod Romeo and Juliet, now that was a catastrophe! Some productions, perhaps, had some meaning; succeeded in accomplishing something. Which? I would say Katerina Izmailova, The Rakes Progress, the first Rigoletto, From the House of the Dead. . . . Each time, however, it is difficult, even when you start with the resolution that this work will be the best. That you will go somewhere further. I always begin with a conception of optimal possibilities. I believe that it will succeed in being what it can never be: completely perfect in each and every way. In opera, this is perhaps not even possible. . . (Marie Bokov, David Radoks Journeys (Cesty Davida Radoka), SAD 1993, No. 4, pg. 17). The axis of his current work is 20th century opera, where the hero, by his nature or actions, goes beyond the socially accepted norms, beating against barriers of intolerance and the brutal force of society and who, in return, responds back with violence, and even crime. For Radok, however, this is without dispute a tragic hero. His strongest productions Lady Macbeth, Peter Grimes, and Wozzeck achieve a tragic monumentality, whose austerity by no means implies simplicity. The staged rendition does justice to the essence of the musical expression, not through the narration, but through the means of imagery. Radok has a strong sense for extreme dramatic situations: tragic, grotesque and comic. Not even those situations in which the grotesque elements predominate bring the audience relief from a suspense that gradually grows beyond endurance, as if the final catastrophe had all along been latently present. In the productions of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Wozzek, the tragic and the grotesque mix together with absolute ease, a sense of harmony, highly stylised precision and attention to the choice of details.
The productions that we have seen in Prague up till now, have always had a specially composed form, where the orchestral interludes are integrated into the action; they are a part of it, not mere illustrations, and help raise the dramatic suspense. The director works mainly with actors whose actions and gestures, composed for large spaces, are very austere and are connected by sense to one another. The dynamic relations of the actor with the space are accentuated by the detailed and elaborate stage design (he worked in collaboration with the artist, Tazeena Firth and most recently with Lars-Ake Thessman) and the nuanced light design. The stage props are restricted to a minimum, but the director works with an enormous chorus body, which for him holds the same value for dramatic meaning, as do the dynamics of the mise-en-scene and lighting; the actions of the chorus are rhythmised by the play between the individualized gestures and the unified movement of the mass. In Rossinis Il Viaggio a Riems, which the Gteborg opera presented in Prague, Radok demonstrated a similar distinctive sense for comedy, which again had a strongly accented grotesque aspect. This bizarre coronation opera contains a certain European idea which in fact made its resurrection possible today. Characters representing individual European nations come together at the end (concert of nations) to give common tribute: in 1825, this was of course a tribute to Charles X, today, to a Common Europe. It is also a meeting of various theatrical types and stylised devices, today, a sort of ironical tribute to postmodernism. Above all, it is an exuberant, saturated with Rossini brio, to the extreme escalatingly crazy, absurd comedy which, up until almost the very end, also contains a pervasive, faint shadow of melancholy. Ultimately, the energy continues to predominate, driven by the famous Rossini musical-vocal delirium, which compellingly leads up to the high-spirited closing collapse and self-destruction of the performance, to the audiences enthusiastic gaudio. (The director works masterfully here with large stage equipment and a large exclusively dancing chorus body. This whole bizarre hotel tale is merely an interweaving of the individual travellers brief encounters, which fade in and out with the choreographic action of the servants and maids, who change and animate the scenes). David Radok goes about the conception of his operatic production in a difficult way, without exterior effects and without the routine pandering to the public taste. His persevering belief in the value of large operatic works of the 20th century, which he brings with such theatrical efficiency closer to us, deserves to break through the apathy of operatic monomaniacs, in order that such works do not remain limited only to the happy few, those to whom, as we know, Stendhal addressed his novels.
Alban Berg, Wozzeck / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2001

Directed by David Radok / Set design Lars-Ake Thessman Costumes Ann-Mari Anttila >Photo Viktor Kronbauer
A Director and an Opera for the Happy Few
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DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH/DAVID RADOKLADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK
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Dmitri Shostakovitch/David Radok
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Ivan Vojtch
ogether with the Russian operas of Leo Janek and Alban Bergs two operas, Dmitri Shostakovichs Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is one of the last important instances in which music theatre thinking of the first half of the twentieth century comes to terms in a decisive way with deep and searching concepts of the tragic. In these it crosses the boundaries of drama in the more general sense of the word, turning back to tragedy as an archetypal system, and locating the new understanding of it existentially. Nor do models pertinent to earlier literary naturalism deny the expressiveness of this step. A compositional reading shifts them to deeper positions, through which the variously designated tragic sense of life in the modern age, experience both direct and historical, forces its way into the dramaturgy. Thanks to it, stories clash with timeless myth and experience the break-up of traditional dramatic teleology. The obligatory horizon is now compacted and austere, inexorable in the upswing of damage and destruction, made taut by the simultaneous extreme two-foldedness of the cosmic and human order, with the accent on the topicality of temporality and loneliness. The tragic catastrophe means sinking down to first origins; its gesture is the gesture of a closed circle, in a highly concentrated and absolute unconditionality. From the beginning, Shostakovichs thinking in drama thanks to the diabolically fantastic capability of the self-evident contact of ear and eye with actually-happening reality was shaped as a polyphonic mode. It passed through the school of Meyerhold. Modern Russian theatre developed processes of stage counterpoint from the principles of musical phrases, at the same time investigating the other face of the grotesque, in which nothingness is directed into mutual positions with the tragic. Whatever the origin of the mediating elements, there is no doubt that the original strength of Radoks reading of Shostakovich relies on this awareness; it is, at the end of the century, a phenomenon characteristic of European dramatic culture. If we trace the nature of directorial sensibility, we can see that it always involves newly composing the fundamental shaping of the work, not simply from roots which can be indicated rationally, but more from a persons attraction to
quite specific malleable phenomena capable of handling the weight of the consolidating focal point. From this point of view, the key to Radoks reading is KATORGA (forced labour): prisoners in exile, isolation from the world in endless hopelessness with the additional burden of journeys without paths, homelessness as part of the human sojourn, homelessness both in ones innermost self and in society, a synonym for a bleak world as bleak as existence itself. KATORGA also means watching and being watched, surveillance and spying, the power of those above the law and of malice, of humiliating bullying and of wounding force. That word (katorga) is touched on in the opening aria of Shostakovichs opera and the first scene adds to it for the first time a cruel subjectivity, remaining stable as the steady cantus firmus of every conflict open and hidden, lyrical, grotesque, horrific, sadistic, intimate and orgiastic: KATORGA assesses the individual and the crowd, the master and the slave; it is the crucial bond between man and woman, family, community and, later, human destiny as such. The finale gives it the subjectivity of the Last Things. Radok emblematises it as a space demarcated by three walls, rising to an endless height. The space is as bare, dark and chill as a prison courtyard. Its original character remains present through all the changes brought about by the division of the action into different spaces (by more walls), regardless of whether they are close and intimate or open to width, breadth and depth. The dark spectrum of grey-blue, with shadowy sectors and chiaroscuro moments, gives relevant human dimensions to the individual and the chorus. Filling the space consolidates the herd instinct of the crowd, emptying it isolates a person at the centre as the only adversary, itself left naked to the framework of a tragic vault. The almost total absence of concrete phenomena consigns the few chosen to the sphere of the symbol. TABLE and BED are transformed from their primitive meaning into support of lecherous aggression and violence, into a foundation of subjugating brutality. Both of them are an attribute of erotic ecstasy, of marriage celebration, but also of murder, burial, grotesque blasphemy in judgment of human and divine matters. At the end there is no room for
Dmitri Shostakovitch, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by David Radok / Set design Charles Catt
Costumes Katarna Holl >Photo Viktor Kronbauer
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Dmitri Shostakovitch, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by David Radok / Set design Charles Catt
Costumes Katarna Holl >Photo Viktor Kronbauer
either. There remains the unutterability of the broad earth. Piranesis CARCERI have a supra-dimensional height, swallowing the insignificance of the human figure in light, hiding in luminosity staircases partitioned by bars. Radoks space reaches up into the darkness and is clamped down in darkness. It sinks into darkness and where it all opens up, darkness shapes its contours. Its light is sharp and wounding. Merciful is the darkness of night, into which the clear rectangle of the window gently breaks; the side door opens a little, bringing another slight shift in the level of blueness. Costume is its antithesis, in a scale of shades of white. Apart from a few specific moments the body of the central figure is in white, revealed through the everyday shift, through naked shoulders and arms, through bare feet. The bed is white, white only; white is the nightdress, white are the supreme glowing ecstasies of lovemaking. The heroine enters the catastrophe in the layered degrees of whiteness of a wedding dress. However, even this domain is split in a particular way. At key moments, Radok has a young girl in a white costume quietly cross the stage, as Katerinas most secret ide fixe. He
does this until the last moment. The dress is, maybe, a miniature wedding dress; the little figure itself does not undergo any change. It is always just as serious, just as much from another world. It is this figure which opens Radoks production, leading us into the stillness of the darkened stage even before the first note is heard. Tiny little steps provide a visible but unheard measure of inner time, time which is in itself still entire, and therefore capable of protecting the amorous encroachments of the finite. This is something known to modern culture from Surrealist collages, something which attaches importance to this power of a dream. A path opens from silence, darkness and rhythm to the wheel of fortune of betrothal which EROS and THANATOS govern through the fascination of the senses and carnality, through ravishing flashes of the deepest meaning of life in the freedom of the request and its fulfillment, whereby, in the unending interweaving of love and death, of eternal beginning, eternal end, man creates himself. In this connection the quality of timing of musical configurations marks both the rhythmatisation of the stage
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dynamics and statics, and the type of acting, focused towards the dominant expression of the body. Mimicry is completely austere, gesture is reduced, situations are cast from the essence of the monologue of musical time with its spans. The music carries the very particular expressive concrete quality of the dramatic action, it gives the scheme a broad outline, its rhythmatisation in the dynamics and sequence of reversals, gradations and summits. The acting, coming from the essence of fysis, complements the unfilled space, for it is in this that the dominant quality of weight, volume, robustness and lightness, flexibility and nobility, firmness and fragility, on which the expression of movement is based, is put into effect. Registers come directly into Shostakovichs musical architecture primarily through statically formed and stabilising centres. The proportions of mutual distances between the characters give intensity and character to the supporting distance, authentic otherwise everywhere the sung word comes into play. We have indicated what sort of an organic connection the space, its colourfulness and costume, ties to itself. The acting enters it as the most essential power of the execution on stage
by thematised complexes which Radoks imagination charges by a method music knows from variational forming. A certain set of movements belongs to costume as the visual code of a character, to which the character or the space subjects itself, or in which it looks for the hidden. The peaked cap, jodhpurs and high boots, the square-built, heavy figure of Boris, has in the monotonously stamping walk with which he measures the space of the action, more suspected dismay than is betrayed by the evil speech with which he enters. However, only from this distance can the horrible objective embodiment of violence, of physical bullying and humiliating exploitation, be expressed. The inflexibility in the straddled stance in the middle of the footlights, back to the auditorium, has its dual execution in the nocturnal sequence, governed by the relaxed flexibility of waiting wild creatures, in a scene of flagellating sadism. However, the theme of violence has been demonstrated even earlier in the orgiastic crowd collectively watching a rape. And in the finale it has the outline of a force which shoots. The director has thus slightly changed the composers version of the catastrophic solution, but this change has powerful reasoning in the objective, about which there can be no doubt.
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A precise understanding of Radoks directorial style can rest on the focal point in which the production solves the most complicated points of intersection knotted into development both visible and hidden, expressed both verbally and in acting without words. The composer invested this line in symphonic interludes whose visual caesuras gave him the opportunity for the application of musical imagination. For the man of the theatre, a scene played in silence is a return to a basic mode of speech, to action before the word, to acts which perceive, sample and preserve. Thus the first interlude captures the previously mentioned code of inflexible stance, the second and fourth prolong and anticipate the reverse of the action, the fifth on the contrary drives the action by the rapid tempo of the police crowd ahead. However, the third interlude, set at the central point of the work as a passacaglia with twelve variations, is in its darkness overlaid with an extended memorial ceremony. The burial identifies itself in simultaneous sequences, combines the grave and the bed, and at the same time reflects the funeral procession demarcating the tragic conflict. The movement and the articulation of the space, the chiaroscuro shadows and play of darkness, excessively slowed down, and the unendingly augmented rocking movement of the chorus, encompasses the transformation to a newly created burial mound. Katerina Izmailova crosses its elevation as a simplified turning point, returning again to the rigidly statuesque initial anti-position of tragic actors. It is the only phase which deliberately
monumentalises the pathos by heaping up, by a strictly guided assemblage, and still marked by the direction of chaos which is all the more apparent the sharper the economy with which Shostakovich varies the theme. Even this imagery responds to the rules of silence. There is yet another move by which Radok develops Shostakovichs impulse towards the silenced sphere of groups and choruses which create the milieu of the opera. Their costume changes imperceptibly, as is appropriate for a gray crowd of ordinary people. They are from the start something like animated household goods: the motionless groups hold the isolated, so to speak imperceptible, movements in an inflexibility which defies time. They create the wall, mirror and shield of the first touch of the tragic couple; then, the orgiastic arena. I have already mentioned their positioning in the final phase. It is a society in which humanity shows its inscrutable unreliability. It intervenes in everything: those, who only pass through it, those who perhaps look for shelter in it, and those who have power over it and who it now lays in the grave. The silently acting throngs are the mark of a fate from which the tragic cannot flee. The Prague production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is David Radoks third, following Gteburg and Copenhagen. In Klaudia Dernerov (Katerina). Serge Kunaiev (Serge) and Yevhen Shokalo (Boris) he has soloists whose outstanding acting intuition and splendid ability with the conductor Frantiek Preisler bring his staging to the peak of perfection.
Dmitri Shostakovitch/David RadokLady Macbeth of Mtsensk
without
Respite
Jitka Sloupov
Theatre
Per Olof Enquist, Picture-makers
Divadlo Komedie, Praha 1999 Directed by Michal Doekal Set design Maria Illum Ciccia Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov
>Photo Bohdan Holomek
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THEATRE WITHOUT RESPITE
Theatre
without
William Shakespeare, Midsummer Nights Dream / Divadlo Komedie, Praha 2000 / Directed by Michal Doekal / Set design David Marek
Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Martin pelda
At the beginning of 2001 Michal Doekal (1965) was the successful candidate chosen to head the drama company at the National Theatre in Prague. Thus ended a long period of uncertainty about how the long-term crisis of the First Stage of the Czech theatre was to be solved, uncertainty not only on the part of the Board of the National Theatre, responsible for the choice of the artistic head, but of the critical public in general. It is a paradox that the choice of Doekal unravelled the increasingly complicated situation of another Prague theatre company. After the proverbial
seven years which generations of experience consider the optimal viability of an inspired and inspiring theatre ensemble, the Doekal era at the Comedy Theatre one of the most interesting Prague companies of the 1990s comes to an end. Back in 1994 we witnessed the divorce of two of the most distinctive personalities of the theatre of the revolutionary students of 1989 directors of the Kapar company Jakub palek and Michal Doekal, who graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts at the turn of 1989/90 leading to the founding of two theatre companies with new features.
paleks group was entrusted with the Theatre in Celetn Street, Doekals with the Comedy Theatre, founded on the remnants of the dissolved Theatre K. This was where another alliance of two strong director personalities came into being. Doekals partner in creating the inimitable profile of this theatre was Jan Nebesk (1952), whose acting ensemble obtained its most permanent engagement at the Comedy (cf. Portrait of a Director by Marie Reslov in Czech Theatre no. 14). When I searched for the most economical way to describe the repertoire of the Comedy Theatre, what occurred to me was theatre without respite. You
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Respite
William Shakespeare, King Lear / Divadlo Komedie, Praha 1998 / Directed by Michal Doekal / Set design David Marek / Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov
>Photo Vanda Hybnerov
wont find at the Comedy the kind of titles other Prague theatres proudly hang on their banner, obligingly witty titles, pieces which stroke the audience the right way. To quote the theatre critic Vtzslava rmkov, the Comedys staging practice is a successful antithesis of the name of this former boulevard stage . At the Comedy you wont even sigh with relief at a conversation piece: the most accessible titles in its almost seven-year history are the brainstorming of Tom Stoppards Arcadia, and a psychoanalytical excursion into the history of cinematography in the form of
Enquists Picture-makers. And the bestattended (a majority audience is a majority audience) are Shakespeares comedies but in a postmodern interpretation and given the bitter taste of Doekals direction. Michal Doekal with the more striking Vladimr Morvek is one of the Czech postmodernists who devotes himself to Shakespeare. This could have been a reason leading to his engagement at the National Theatre, that the decision to invest its hopes in the younger generation maybe for the last time might help to break the vicious circle in which our premier drama company has
been turning during the last few years. Paradoxically however, Doekal has never directed Shakespeare or any other classic for the National Theatre; he has worked there as a guest director, but on the studio stage of the Kolowrat Theatre. In spite of this his intimate productions of James Joyces Exiles and Samuel Becketts Happy Days, founded on the maturity of the actors performances, analytically precise and yet still youthful and temperamental, belonged to the National Theatres best productions of the 1990s. Doekals adaptations of Shakespeare for the domestic stage are, if we overlook their obligatory alienating framework,
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relatively tame. He shows himself to be more daring in the design, learnt from contemporary Anglo-Saxon and German theatre, in which classical material in modern dress is not an exception but the norm. In Doekals interpretations a strong impulse of moral criticism breaks through not always dramaturgically
organic and consistent. The Shakespeare series was inaugurated by the plastic material design for The Merchant of Venice with the irritatingly ambivalent Portia of David Pracha. Doekal and his actors found in the wonderful words of Shakespeares characters a very pedestrian motif
love, friendship, rights were all thrown into doubt. He indicated that the Shakespearean love story is in fact a latent amorous triangle, in which, in the duel over the well-built Bassanio, the more pragmatic and above all richer heiress to Belmont eventually triumphs over the sentimental Antonio. Even the
William Shakespeare, Tanning of the Shrew / Divadlo Komedie, Praha 2000 / Directed by Michal Doekal / Set design David Marek
Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Martin pelda
conflict between the authentic hatred of Shylock and the civilised ignorance of the Venetians had here a very strong and topical note. But criticisms were already being heard, which came to a head with Doekals King Lear; the director sacrifices too much to the attempt to make the drama more topical. A production of another comedy A Midsummer Nights Dream relates to what is today the most famous of Doe-
kals works, Chekhovs Three Sisters, and the nostalgia with which its three aging heroines play over an incident from the time when they still lived. A story about the blindness of sexual desire, treated with postmodern splendour, appears in the Dream in the interaction with the routine of the aging theatrical stars rehearsing Shakespeares comedy at the time of the Battle of Britain. In the most recent Taming of the Shrew
or, Christopher Sly the Tinker, the drama of taming a bad-tempered woman, the director similarly used the framework of the prologue of a theatrical company and of a dream. His starting point here was authentic, taken from a lesser-known version of the play, but somewhat overcomplicating the impact of the wellknown comedy. Shakespeares story in all its paradoxical quality at a time when feminism, especially sensed, slowly per-
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meates through to Bohemia was unable to develop. At the end of the play the pointlessly tamed, enlightened Katherine, praises her yoke and Sly-Petruchio is intoxicated at the success of his taming. A triumph of conformity which should make everyone tremble rather than give way to emotion about a lovely pair.
The original view of human relationships in the real world with which Doekals production surprises us does not always transform itself from an interesting idea into an effective and daring concept. It failed to happen in the case of his most ambitious production King Lear. In this country one still has to
be a pioneer to set the play into the topical events at the end of the millennium and Doekal in the middle of symbols of our contemporary life succeeded in creating the illusion of timelessness or supra-time. The problem was on the one hand a too crystallised concept of the roles, and on the other too feeble. It was the first time in
Pedro Caldern de la Barca, Daughter of the Gale / Divadlo Komedie, Praha 1998 / Directed by Jan Nebesk / Set design and costumes Jana Prekov
the theatre that I saw in all its beauty the repulsiveness of the scene where Lear divides his kingdom. When the powerdrunk Lear (Miloslav Mejzlk) under threat of disinheritance forces his daughters Goneril and Regan (Dana Batulkov and Alena trblov) to a test of loyalty they overcome their nausea only with the uttermost effort. And later only by one step after another do they dare to intervene against Lears pillaging
horde of flatterers. They are however the daughters of their father, and so unable to stop halfway along the path to power The problem is in fitting someone like Cordelia (Viktorie ermkov) into such a family situation. To find a credibly loyal relationship to such a Lear (and to play it) would be more than human, and the director doesnt even ask the actress to try. The tragedy thus loses its most tragic motif (not even all the efforts of the
touching Fool of Viola Zinkov can save it), and the result is that it swerves into the banality of mere statement. Shakespeare featured even in the Nebesk era at the Comedy Theatre. Hamlet with David Pracha in the lead still in the repertoire and still maturing is the loneliest of Hamlets you could imagine, a youth whose tragedy is not shared even by the ghost of his father, only by some voice from his inner being.
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The route led logically to Nebesk and Fajts Hamlet Part II an undefined musical and dramatic work on the border of monodrama and expressive dance, which in the essence of the role of Hamlet confirmed the sovereign position of David Pracha as a technical and intellectual virtuoso of the contemporary Czech stage (cf Czech Theatre 15). Jan Nebesk is incontestably the most subjective of our directors. Alongside Vladimr Morvek he is also the most irreplaceable. If however Morveks direction is characteristic of an undying expansiveness both of genre and thematic and comedial demonstration, Nebesks path leads to closure, to asceticism. More recently he feels best in his Chamber, an improvised space built for every performance on the stage of the theatre, in which his actors can carry on
undisturbed conversations about fragile secret existences with its audience. In spite of this Nebesk continues to interpret the classics on the large stage. Of these productions his black on black vision of todays rat race, resembling Doekals poetics, Calderns Daughter of the Gale was the least successful The production, which in the first part succeeded in holding the patience of an audience unaccustomed to the almost orientally theatrical arrest of dramatic time by its consistent stylisation and tension, in the second half degenerated into black grotesque, with the banalisation of modern dress. On the other hand Nebesks encounter with his beloved Ibsen was unusually happy. The grotesqueness of the figures in The Master Builder operated this time with almost transparent purity; in such a masterly
fashion the actors and director combining human insolence and fragility in one body. More than one critic has already confessed how difficult and in fact ever more difficult it is to describe Nebesks productions. How to understand what is deliberately incomprehensible? That captivating flow of inner music, which the audience perceives in the best moments of his chamber trilogy Endgame Terezka Marta (Mal dor)? If Marie Reslov saw in Terezka evidence of the encouraging spiritualisation of contemporary theatre, for me Marta (Mal dor) returned to the Czech theatre the concept of festivity. Nebesks end games seemed to me almost like the most optimistic of his productions. By sheer chance I saw the first of these last, Becketts Endgame, for many critics a gloomy vision, and not until its revival
Henrik Ibsen, The Master Builder / Divadlo Komedie, Praha 1999 / Directed by Jan Nebesk / Set design and costumes Jana Prekov
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last October. Maybe that was because of the experience from the not-long-ago premire of Marta, in which the MejzlkPracha duo also excelled. But it was much more the continually developing reading of Becketts text itself. These four people at the end of a journey (alongside Hamm and Clov, Emma ern as Nell and Ji Klem as Nagg), whether revolting in their egoism, were played with such understanding (almost love) that it was hard to say good bye to them. Similarly as the clasping of three walls in Nebesks Chamber paradoxically opened by the flight of ungraspable Beckett lines. The common imaginative powers of the actors and the almost enchantingly per-
ceptive audience were still able to put together an ideal whole from the wretched fragments of four lives. The feted Terezka by the young Catholic author Lenka Lagronov introduced into Nebesks Games the miraculous simplicity of the acting of Lucie Trmkov and this ray shines through (sophisticatedly from the darkest corner of the stage) even in his Marta (Mal dor), a production originating on the basis of a collective scenario. After the Beckett thesis and the Terezka antithesis, came a synthesis: a trio of actors, developing their themes from the preceding works of the trilogy (Mejzlk, Pracha, Trmkov), the quartet completed by Saa
Railov as the prodigal son Jacques Fesche, irresistible in his sin and reversal, the embodied life of one condemned to sudden dissolution in the moment of fulfilment. And still the music by Martin Dohnal and the magical enchantment of lines and contours Two and a quarter hours (without interval) passes in no time. The era when Doekal led the Comedy theatre ends in the first year of the new millennium: what will be the fate of the theatre and its company we still dont know but there is no doubt that in the second half of the 1990s the Comedy Theatre became a much-needed stage in the growing flood of commercial theatre in Prague.
Theatre without Respite

Marta (Mal dOr) / Divadlo Komedie, Praha 2000 / Directed by Jan Nebesk / Set design and costumes Jana Prekov >Photo Bohdan Holomek
How
Cabaret Vian - Cami / Divadlo v Dlouh, Praha 1999 / Directed by Jan Borna / Set design and costumes Petra ttinov >Photo Jaroslav Prokop
HOW I LOST MYSELF ON DLOUH
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I Lost Myself
on Dlouh
The Theatre on Dlouh Street began to play five years ago in 1996, in the space of the former Ji Wolker Theatre (the stage specializing in productions for children and young audiences). Two theatrical groups came together to make the new theatres ensemble: one came with the director Hana Bureov and the dramaturge tpn Otenek from the Labyrinth Theatre, and the second, formed by graduates from the Puppet and Alternative Theatre Department at the Prague DAMU (Academy of Performing Arts), had played at the Dejvice Theatre. In addition to Bureov, Jan Borna, who had been with both the Labyrinth Theatre ensemble and the Dejvice Theatre, became a director of the Theatre on Dlouh. Both groups had a pronounced success behind them and brought their key productions with them to Dlouh: Bureov with her productions of Grabbes Don Juan and Faust, which received the critics Award for the Best Production of the Year in 1992, and Beaumarchais The Barber of Seville (which was in second place in the same year), and the actors from the Dejvice Theatre transferred over the visual scenic text montage by Jakub Deml and Jan ep: Sister Anxiety (Sestra zkost) directed by J. A. Pitnsk, for which he received the Best Production of the Year Award for 1995. The Theatre on Dlouh is mainly profiled as a theatre for young audiences, although its repertoire also has productions for adults (the
Kamila Patkov
Theatre on Dlouh is also the organizer of the Children on Dlouh Festival a review of Czech theatre works for children). The selection of performances for the young ranges from fairytales for children of the youngest age group - Sing Clown (Zpvej, klaune) or , If a Pig Had Wings (Kdyby prase mlo kdla) - where Borna utilizes puppettheatre grounding and the innovative musicality of the actors from the Dejvice group, up to performances that bring a contemporary dispassionate point of view and humour to classic works that are compulsory school reading material - Mr. Broueks Journey to the XV Century (Vlet pana Brouka do XV. stolet) directed by Borna or, attempts at vivid excursions into history Pictures from the French Revolution (Obrazy z francouzsk revoluce) directed by Bureov. Two of Bornas stagings belong to the most successful productions of Dlouhs most recent period. The first of these , Vian - Cami Cabaret (Kabaret Vian Cami), (1999), is an evening of grotesque, black mini-comedies by Pierre Henri Cami, interspersed with Vians chansons played on a range of musical instruments (from goose quills to glockenspiels). The boundless fantasy of both French authors is fuelled by impulses of wondrous imagination. The Dlouh ensemble plays the black humour of the originals with ease, the actors mastering the whole gamut of stylised situations with unobtrusive virtuosity.
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In Akenazys staging of A Small Christmas Tale (Mal vnon povdka) , written in the mid-sixties, five-year old Jakub gets lost in the centre of Prague on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. His Christmas Eve wandering through the city is perceived through the unsentimental objectivity of the view of a child. This lost son eventually is drawn back to the tree, and tears only begin to flow when he realizes that his adventure is over. His unconscious toughness surpasses everything; compared to him the adults are softies.
An enthralling Christmas spirit permeates the whole tale and the everyday present reality, which, thanks to Jakub, breaks through to reinforce the timeless rituals of family and Christmas. Akenazys modern fairy tale, in essence, did not stray from the safe ground of the Christmas genre. The director Jan Borna, with his own dramatization of Akenazys fair y tale, ventured further. He made the time when the tale was created, the theme of the performance and connected Pavels in the production the chosen hero is named after his
Ludvk Akenazy, Jan Borna, How I Lost Myself / Divadlo v Dlouh, Praha 2000 / Directed by Jan Borna / Set design Marek Zkosteleck
Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Jaroslav Prokop
theatre actor wandering through Prague with mainly non-Christmas musical numbers, selected from the most played (and most loved) popular songs from these years. And this, at first glance, incongruous combination has succeeded in replacing the nostalgia found in Akenazys Christmas story with a nostalgia for the long ago, bygone golden sixties. Remembrance
of the sixties, in the Czech setting, has specific implications it was the short period of relative freedom and, following the Stalin years of the fifties, was also a period of spiritual and artistic regeneration. For the next twenty years thereafter, this short section of Czechoslovak history has been remembered as a time of large hopes, which ended with the soviet
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Ludvk Akenazy, Jan Borna, How I Lost Myself / Divadlo v Dlouh, Praha 2000 / Directed by Jan Borna / Set design Marek Zkosteleck
Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Jaroslav Prokop
invasion. Even for the generation of non-witnesses, the sixties, with its literature, film, and most of all, music, has also become something mythical, something whereby to compare the grey presence. Bornas production, of course, relies on the witness nostalgia that affects even those who, at that time, were not yet in the world. And, even more, the spontaneous atmosphere (and perhaps also naivety) of these years holds a certain clarity akin to a childs view. With the productions return to the sixties, we feel a parallel to the classic Christmas theme a return to childhood. Bornas Christmas musical is, however, not solely built upon on this two-fold attack on the audiences feelings strong emotional charge is also conveyed through the careful attention to details and
well thought out direction and acting work. The professionalism is demonstrated by the fact that the tale unfolds so ethereally, as if it were being conjured up by Christmas Eve before our eyes for the very first time. The consistent stylised performances of the main characters, in particular deserves admiration. An adult actor plays small Pavel; his partners loom above him, in part, because they move on stilts (looking like large, ghostly puppets) and often due to the skilful arrangement of the characters on the stage. Pavel Tesa adopts the gestures of a child, the lopping boyish gait. With clumsy courage he jumps down with his feet together onto the surface of the street lift and makes a trip into hell. He looks on the world from the viewpoint, and from the height, of a five year old. At
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times, an out of character gesture or movement purposely survives, perhaps to let it be known that he is not completely absorbed in the role, that he can also play with it from a distance. And whats more, he is not only a small boy, but he is a small boy from the sixties. The chosen intonation, clothing details, and speech, all bring back the period, evoked as well by the other characters. The individual scenes of Akenazys (and Bornas) tale have a distinct atmosphere and artistic arrangement: the lively hurly-burly of a large modern city, with its self-activating street lights and transport signs, is silenced in the Mal Strana scene by a nostalgic homesickness for the bygone old Prague; the magical scenery, where gas lamps are lit to the single tones of Christmas carols, is alternated with a scene full of humour and gags when Pavel is interrogated by two policemen (one good and one bad). On the stage, actors walk on stilts, they ride on scooters, shadow theatre appears, as well as classic puppets. Everything is organically incorporated into the framework of the production up until, perhaps, one scene: as Pavel rides in a mail delivery truck, the background is projected with a mosaic of film shots of Prague streets, ending with shots from the August invasion. This black blot at the end of the golden period of the Czech sixties will not erase itself from our memories, and Borna has clearly registered it here with the knowledge that without this black blot, the picture would not be complete. The viewer in this moment however, cannot bear any further emotions and is deeply shaken: just a little while before we were close to shedding tears over old familiar songs, and now, carelessly follow the ceremonious arrival of tanks. The production in no way emphasizes these film shots, but these few seconds seem, all the same, to be out of place; as if the Christmas carp spoke on the table, breaking the Christmas Eve idyll. Otherwise, Borna has accomplished a happy union of playful detachment and pathos, not only by leading
the small Pavel to the final happy ending under the lit up Christmas tree, but also by bringing us close to the time of the long ago past even if it is not so distant without sermonizing or unnecessary words, and by making us aware of all that which time takes away, and that in which we remain the same.
Ludvk Akenazy, Jan Borna, How I Lost Myself / Divadlo v Dlouh, Praha 2000 / Directed by Jan Borna / Set design Marek Zkosteleck Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Jaroslav Prokop
How I Lost Myself on Dlouh
ACzech
Season
at the inohern (Drama) Studio

Martin J. vejda
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A CZECH SEASON AT THE INOHERN (DRAMA) STUDIO
A Czech Season at the inohern (Drama) Studio

In the 1989/2000 the Drama Studio of st nad Labem has presented only plays originally written in Czech. Plays presented include the collective improvisation Plechovka (Tin Can) by the pseudonymous Jarol Ostraval (directed by Ji Pokorn), Odpovej v pokoji (Rest in Peace) by Ji Pokorn (directed by David Czesany), Tristan a Isolda by Zdenk Jeceln (directed by Irena Perclov) and Krysa (Rat) by Lenka Havlkov (directed by Ji Pokorn). At the end of the season V oze ve strojku v New Yorku (In the Oasis In the Little Machine In New York) based on texts by Miroslav Bambuek and directed by Miroslav Bambuek and Ji Pokorn, was presented in the old waterworks in beginning of the 2000-2001 season. In the Czech repertoire nowadays there is a considerable discrepancy between the production of new plays (not only by Czech authors) and that of tried and trusted titles. In the present state of affairs, where original dramatic work is not a natural part of the theatre repertoire, it is in itself interesting (quite independently of the results of the staging) when a theatre decides to base a whole season on such work. Naturally, the Drama Studios decision to hold a Czech Season was not just some sudden unconsidered dramaturgical whim, but a logical step in the whole activity of the theatre. The roots of the current Drama Studio go back to 1993, when after the departure of the st company of that time to play in the Rokoko in Prague, the graduation year of the Drama Department at the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) was invited to perform in the empty theatre. The seven actors were joined by dramaturgy graduates Markta Ji Pokorn, Dad Scores / inohern studio, st nad Labem 1999 Directed by Ji Pokorn / Set design Petr B. Novk Blhov and Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Martin pelda Lenka Havlkov and direction Louny in cooperation with the amateur graduates Michal Lang and Ji Pokorn company D. I. Lebedung. However, it (who became the artistic director of the has to be said that this so-called Czech company). In subsequent years the season was de facto inaugurated in the acting company went through some first half of 1999 with Taka stl gly changes. In 1997 Michal Lang left the (Dad Scores) by Ji Pokorn (directed by company. Today the artistic head is Ji Pokorn) and Podzimn hra (Autumn David Czesany, whilst a large part of Play) by Markta Blhov (directed by leadership has remained the same. The David Czesany) and ended with the names mentioned above are critical for staging of Smokie by Egon Tobi (dire- the image of the Drama Studio and its cted by Miroslav Bambuek) at the Czech Season. The dramaturgy of the theatre has from the very beginning devoted itself alongside the occasional staging of the classics to untried, rarely seen, exceptional works and also to new (or relatively new) plays. Along with Spring Awakening (Wedekind), In the Small Courtyard (Witkiewicz) and Csav mim (The Emperors Mime, by Vclav Ren) the company has performed Matka (Mother) by J. A. Pitnsk, Jaurs by Egon Tobi and a script based on juvenilia by Ji Kubna, Grant v pohovce (Grenade in a Sofa). However, original texts were also developed in the circle of the Drama Studio itself. Another fact has to be taken into consideration: Ji Pokorn, Markta Blhov and Lenka Havlkov graduated from DAMU under Jaroslav Vostr (Zdenk Jeceln was another of his pupils). Vostr played an important role in educating, or at least initiating, the education of new playwrights. The most significant young playwrights today are all from circles around either Jaroslav Vostr in Prague or Boivoj Srba at the Janek Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (Lubo Balk, Marek Horok and Roman Sikora). The group working in st, authors of the five texts in the Czech Season, publicly presented their dramatic work whilst they were still students: Markta Blhov and Michal Lang turned Egon Erwin Kischs Tonka of the Gallows into a striking and provocative text of their generation, Kurva svat (The Holy Whore ); Lenka Havlkov and Ji Pokorn wrote the parody Valask tverylka (The Moravian Wallachian Quadrille) based on a graphomanic play by F. S. Tma. As members of the Drama Studio, Lenka Havlkov and Markta Blhov worked as dramaturgs who also wrote, and as adaptors of other peoples materials. Blhov wrote two fairy stories (Dd Vevd, Ti staeny Grandpa Knowall, Three Old Women) and dramatised the novel by Vladimr Pral Profesionln ena (Professional Woman) as well as, for the theatre in Zln, adapting Federico Fellinis film
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script Eight and a Half. Havlkov created a text based on Zdenk mdas prose motifs Cejch (Brand) under the title Les divokch svin ( The Forest of Wild Swine ). The independent work by Blhov (Autumn Play 1998; Pastika [Little Trap] 1995), Havlkov (Rat 1998) and Pokorn (Dad Scores 1997; Rest in Peace 1998) can thus be considered as the culmination of their previous work in drama. There is nothing unique in the Czech theatre about the genesis of such authors; the route from small texts and adaptation of foreign models to their own work is natural and usual; we can remember how Vclav Havel started at the Theatre on the Balustrades, or Arnot Goldflam at HaTheatre. If we allow that original drama ought to be a permanent part of the theatre repertoire, then the Drama Studios operational method seems to be ideal; the authors of most of the texts staged in the Czech Season are regular company members, they know the theatre and they write for it. The model of the present Drama Studio is reminiscent of the Theatre on the Balustrades and the Drama Club in Prague in the 1960s, even of the Drama Studio itself in the 1970s and 1980s, under the directorship
Zdenk Jeceln, Tristan and Isolde / inohern studio, st nad Labem 2000 / Directed by Irena
Perclov / Set design Petr B. Novk / Costumes Michaela Huffstetterov >Photo Martin pelda
of Ivan Rajmont, when Karel Steigerwalds plays were among the premires. An affinity exists amongst members of the company in everyday life as well as in the theatre. It should not be overlooked that today the Drama Studio is not only a theatre company but also fills a wider social and cultural role. It is actually an alternative youth club in st nad Labem (most of the audience are sec-
Markta Blhov, Autumn Play / inohern studio, st nad Labem 1999 / Directed by David Czesany / Set design Petr B. Novk / Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Martin pelda
ondary school and university students), a place where literary evenings (Drama Forges inohern kovrny) or musical productions (Radio Again He Didnt Come Rdio Zase nepijel) happen alongside theatre performances. All these things determine the present profile of the Drama Studio. However, the productions remain the most important. If we look at the seven pieces which make up the Czech Season we find that in spite of marked genre distinctions in the texts and the fact that they are directed by different people, they have features in common which indicate the style of the theatre. Ji Pokorns plays ride on the contemporary wave of coolness and capture above all an unadorned, very authentic sense of reality in the Czech theatre. Topical themes turn these texts into truly incandescent socially critical plays. In Dad a permanent social neurosis in inter-personal relationships issues into aggression and force; in Rest in Peace the irresolution of the contemporary world, co-steered by people who lack any kind of ethical inhibitions, is portrayed by means of a thriller. Tin Can by Jarol Ostraval creates a kind of counterpart to these plays. The scenario (in places left open for improvisation) is a serious portrait of the life of social outcasts, the homeless,
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the story of people to whom all that remains is to reconcile themselves with their status as outsiders with their social ostracism. The trio of heroes try in a dream to return to a more dignified life, but the attempt soon collapses. The work of Blhov and Havlkov is more intimate, and their view of the world from observation of a private, family environment. Autumn Play by Markta
Beauty by Sam Mendes). Tristan and Isolde by Zdenk Jeceln and Smokie by Egon Tobi stand at opposite ends of the spectrum of genres. Tristan and Isolde is an unusually traditional text in the context of contemporary Czech plays by young authors. It is a grand drama based on a medieval legend, modernised by the consistent psychologising of the characters to the
extent of an intellectually meditative reflection of the heroes over their own fate. By contrast, the dramatic poem Smokie is a kind of idiosyncratic fantastically flourishing record or vision of the intimate (sexual) hardships of a young man, which keeps only marginally to dramatic rules. A common feature of the productions of all seven plays is that they generally speaking nod in agreement with contemporary reality. They take note of the modern, topical features of the world and express them through unadorned and untraditional theatrical means; the productions often work with stage naturalism, the acting style is based on the typology of those performing, the work is non-illusive with a marked erotic openness. Taking this into consideration, the productions of Tristan and Isolde and Smokie represent a certain distilled form. Irena Perclov, director of Tristan and Isolde, relies on simple, raw ideas with a strong emotional charge. The actors, dressed in simple flowing robes, use speech free of psychology tending more towards the delivery of the text, towards stylisation in sculptural poses; the set is veiled in a mythic medieval chiaroscuro,
Jarol Ostraval, Tin Can / inohern studio, st nad Labem 1999 / Directed by Ji Pokorn Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov
>Photo Martin pelda
Blhov has clear signs of what is known as womens drama and preserves some features of the authors first play A Little Trap (imagery, poetic language, the environment of a forest as a sexual jungle). It is the portrait of a crisis in a couples married life, when they are confronted with the figures of a wordly, uninhibited society and an uncertain worldwide threat of war. Rat by Lenka Havlkov, composed as though from the foam of banal moments and situations, is again a picture of the spiritual collapse of the personality of the young girl Marie, in the environment of an insupportably hollow functioning ordinary family (the play, by coincidence, has much in common thematically with American
Ji Pokorn, Rest in Peace / inohern studio, st nad Labem 1999 / Directed by

David Czesany / Set design David ern / Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Martin pelda
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using burning torches and mist, whilst the ground is strewn with sand. . . The chosen approach is somewhat weighed down with the clichs of alternative theatre, and from time to time the erotic emotion of the scene becomes unintentionally ridiculous (the characters repeated passionate embraces, the mechanical repetitiveness of approaches in the love scenes). The direction subjugates the text rather than respects it, but one cannot deny the stylishness of the
Lenka Havlkov, Rat / inohern studio,
st nad Labem 2000 / Directed by Ji Pokorn / Set design Petr B. Novk / Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Martin pelda
production, the atmosphere, the originality and effectiveness. Smokie by Miroslav Bambuek is likewise set in a mythic, even legendary timelessness. The visual component of this concept plays an important role (set by Tom Bambuek and costumes by Andrea Krlov): the space bounded by stylised trees/creepers of twisted rubber; the characters are visually interesting and wittily played (the curious X of Roman Zach, the sleep-walking Heman of Jan Lepk). The stage artefacts (machine-
scissors) are fascinating. The hero of the serious nature of the text. play, Smokie (in a touchingly defenceless In Dad Scores Ji Pokorn struggled portrayal by Mat Bukovan) is actually with similar problems as Czesany in Rest a sexually awakened young man in the in Peace. He too takes into consideration hand of dark, instinctive powers which an exactly observed reality: the set is endow him with the attributes of both a copy of in every detail a snack bar on sexes, and tempt him. . . The director the ground floor of a shabby out-of-town often makes use of movement theatre, but the fundamental unifying vision which would draw the production together is missing. David Czesany, director of Autumn Play and Rest in Peace, is a less emphatic worker, more of an arranger where the text is concerned, focusing on work with the actor. The ability to evoke reality very exactly, Egon L. Tobi, Smokie / inohern studio, st nad Labem 2000 sub tly imbued Directed by Miroslav Bambuek / Set design Tom Bambuek with comedy, co- Costumes Andrea Krlov >Photo Martin pelda mes out in Autumn Play; the set is designed in a country and house, the action revolves slowly, from western spirit of domestic semi-kitsch. nothing, the production flows without The main characters, the hyperactive any theatrically dictated tempo-rhythm. mum Valli (Jitka Prosperi) and the The serious theme of the play (perdisatisfied Fanou, resentful of the family manent interpersonal tension) on the stereotype, (Leo Noha) are authentic surface only imperceptibly percolates performances in the spirit of Milo through the basic genre situation; key Formans first films. The eroticism of so- moments (the killing of Slvek, the final me scenes introduces into the production chaos with police and doctors) make a titillating sensuality it creates a muffled or again comic impact. The a contrast with the stereotypical life of the director intrudes on the theatrical married couple. In Rest in Peace, however, organisation of the action only as an Czesanys external approach to the text, exception (for example, the theft of lacking a more striking directorial Mireks wallet or Daddys closing concept, reaches its limits: the imitation symbolical kick of the ball). In Tin Can of reality is here inconsequential or Pokorn lifts this clinging to naturalism scarcely credible. The text essentially through a simple anti-illusionistic loses dramatic tension and the action quality. The theatrical space is operates indecorously sedately, almost in impoverished in the same way as the a conversational manner. It also shows environment portrayed (the world of the how treacherous it is to play with actors homeless in a hotel for the poor) forms types: from a neutral portraying of actual the entire concept of the work: the types (whether Leo destroyed by drugs audience, placed on the stage, sit on or the harsh madame Maruna) is very rickety junk-shop chairs, the design of close to their comic release, and the the production is limited to two production easily tips over into one- wiremesh beds (with one mattress), and dimensional grotesque, neglecting the since there was no money (as the
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programme tells us truthfully or in mystification) everything else is drawn in chalk on the wall (window, cupboard) or communicated by the actors (the ringing of a bell, the drinking of coffee). The directors chosen solution provides more than one good, comical moment. The production does not follow some sort of more basic, deeper aim it draws on
Rat in Pokorns work alongside Foreigner, Jaurs and Jelizaveta Bam. The production of Rat in its particular exclusivity brings this article to a close. What then is the general impression of the work of the Drama Studio, in concrete terms of the productions of the Czech Season? sts productions of nothing but domestic plays is interesting, but merely
Drama Studio than it would seem that theatre deserves.
Lenka Havlkov, Rat / inohern studio, st nad Labem 2000 / Directed by Ji Pokorn Set design Petr B. Novk / Costumes Zuzana Krejzkov >Photo Martin pelda
itself and becomes a delightful, roughly hour-long theatre session. Pokorns production of Rat exemplifies the route of distinctive theatre stylisation as a possibility to arrest contemporary reality. The set here remains verist (a fully equipped kitchen); however, this time the director gives the production the shape of a wide-screen (American) film and thus mendaciously Hollywood almost clinically follows the decline of the personality of the main heroine. The dramatic music of Bohuslav Martin, the horror-style tension, the horror-style props, the surtitles above the stage, the abundant stage machinery, the pose-like playing of some actors, the repetitive, ritualised arrangement of the images, the (quasi-) operatic closing scene: all this creates an originally stylised spectacle and ranges
the surface of something more essential; the demonstration of a strengthening in the work method of this theatre. The Drama Studio is unmistakably and in the true sense of the word contemporary, at the same time operating through an exclusivity which sometimes gives an impression of being closed into itself. Its productions often communicate with the audience by means of short cuts, whether comically exaggerated playing as type, or dallying with naturalism. Many of the plays mentioned above could be played in any Czech theatre, but their st productions somehow miss that more general accessibility; they appear as the natural product of the given character of theatre. However, this may at the same time explain the somewhat lukewarm (sometimes only polite) critical reception and lower interest in the activity of the
Ji Pokorn: Dad Scores, directed by Ji Pokorn, dramaturgy Markta Blhov, set Petr B. Novk, costumes Zuzana Krejzkov, Drama Studio, premire 22. 1. 1999. Markta Blhov: Autumn Play, directed by David Czesany, dramaturgy Markta Blhov, set Petr B. Novk, costumes Zuzana Krejzkov, music Roman Zach, Drama Studio, premire 11. 6. 1999. Jarol Ostraval: Tin Can, directed by Ji Pokorn, dramaturgy Lenka Havlkov, costumes Zuzana Krejzkov, Drama Studio, premire 19. 9. 1999. Ji Pokorn: Rest in Peace, directed by David Czesany, dramaturgy Lenka Havlkov, set David ern, costumes Zuzana Krejzkov, music Roman Zach, Drama Studio, premire 27. 11. 1999. Zdenk Jeceln: Tristan and Isolde, directed by Irena Perclov, dramaturgy Lenka Havlkov, set Petr B. Novk, costumes Michaela Huffsteterov, music Petr Filk, movement Zdenk Novk, Drama Studio, premire 25. 2. 2000. Lenka Havlkov: Rat , directed by Ji Pokorn, dramaturgy Markta Blhov, set Petr B. Novk, costumes Zuzana Krejzkov, music Bohuslav Martin, sung music Ji Samek, Drama Studio, premire 22. 4. 2000. Miroslav Bambuek: In the Oasis In the Little Machine In New York, directed by Miroslav Bambuek and Ji Pokorn, designed by Tom Bambuek, Drama Studio in cooperation with D. I. Lebedung Louny, premire 16. 6. 2000 in Louny - star vodrn Egon L. Tobi: Smokie , directed by Miroslav Bambuek, dramaturgy Markta Blhov and Ji Pokorn, set Tom Bambuek, costumes Andrea Krlov, Drama Studio, premire 29. 9. 2000.
ACzech
Season
New Drama?
David Drozd
From Brno
Lubo Balk, Gumagumrum / Divadlo Husa na provzku, Brno 2001 / Directed by Lubo Balk
Set design Tom Rusn / Costumes Sylva Zimula Hankov and Blanka Tesaov
>Photo Radan Koryansk
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NEW DRAMA? FROM BRNO
New Drama? From Brno

A Salon of Original Texts has been regularly organised in Brno since 1994 by the dramaturgical Studio D of Professor Srba and the studio in directing run by Professor Scherhaufer, both in the Theatre Faculty of the Janek Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU). A broad range of works is presented, including poetry readings and short stories, the larger part being dramatic scripts, sometimes for radio or film. Any of the students at JAMU can offer a text for presentation. At the beginning there was enormous interest among writers. For the most part the salons lasted for three days, the readings beginning in the afternoon and lasting late into the night. For example, at the very first Salon thirteen dramatic works were presented. Interest has declined in recent years, but even so the reading of scripts lasts for two afternoons. The possibility to hear and see ones own text in a staged reading has proved immeasurably valuable for all the young authors, as has the need to revise the scripts for reading, to analyse them with a director and to cast them. It was at the Salons that the very first works of Lubo Balk, Roman Sikora, Marek Horok, Pavel Trtlek and Jitka Martinkov were staged, authors whose plays moved beyond the boundary of school work and were presented on the stages of professional theatres. For the first two years of the Salons it was possible to publish collections of the plays, and some of the authors presented their work on the internet. In 1996 the collection Hrdlili hrdly na plotn (Throats Debating on a Stove) was published. It includes the first scripts by Roman Sikora and Lubo Balk as well as other work by dramaturgy students which emerged in Professor Srbas dramaturgy studio roughly between 1993 and 1996. In spite of the fact that many of these are mere experiments, they represent the only probe into original drama available in printed form. The stance overwhelmingly taken by most of these texts is that of irony, ridicule, playfulness and an apparent distancing from the surrounding world which is described with grotesque exaggeration. But if we follow the development of these authors, who did not end up just with one or two little playlets, there are clear attempts to overcome the self-centredness emanating from a grotesque overview. At the same time they set out in different directions: towards a somewhat realistic position or on the contrary, towards an eccentric, complicated metaphor and strong linguistic stylisation. The first striking work by Lubo Balk was the one-act play Fanou a prostitutka (Fanou and the Prostitute). It is based on a paradoxical situation: the prostitute Lza pays Fanou to act out with her a variety of love scenes, thus satisfying her cravings for sensitivity, neglected in the course of her work. Balk fills out the simple situation with a precise study of differentiated clichs in relationships, which Fanou gradually acts out for Lza, emphasising especially the banal phrases by which such declarations are marked. Smrt Huberta Perny (The Death of Hubert Perna, awarded third prize in the Alfrd Radok Awards in 1994) is the closest of Balks texts to absurd drama. Hubert Perna is an obscure inventor living in a small apartment. Two individuals, Ba and Ma, find their way to him, launch into meaningless speeches,
Pavel Trtlek, Will othe Wisps / Divadlo Husa na provzku, Brno 2001 Directed by Pavel Baura / Set design Michaela Hoej / Costumes Kamila Polvkov >Photo Radan Koryansk
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attack him, admire him, until in the end they put him to death. It seems to be about strange officials who have to execute death. All sorts of clichs accumulate in this play as well, in this case hyperbolised and worked into meaningless pictures, the dialogues often out of joint and illogical composing as a whole the picture of the death of a man closed into himself, communicating only with himself. The most extensive play by Balk is Musulman (Muslim), a study of interpersonal relationships, this time on the model of an entire family. Balk gradually guides us through the everyday life of a family upset just when their crazy grandad suggests to their father Jaromr that someone is poisoning him. The neurotic father has a fit of paranoia. A family friend tries to solve the whole situation by a complicated intrigue: he hides Father in a cupboard and brings in the whole family. Father is supposed to discover from the casual conversation of his loved ones that everyone is fond of him. But the exact opposite happens, and the longed-for happy end develops into a supremely embarrassing scene which only deepens Jaromrs paranoia. With pistol in hand, he immediately wants to know the whole truth and threatens everyone present. The only person who enjoys the situation is the rebel son Ren, disgusted by the hypocrisy of his family. When the others succeed in disarming Jaromr, Ren takes the weapon over and, in a fit of impotent exhibitionism, maybe revolt, shoots his grandfather. The title of the play indicates the metaphorical level of this family grotesque, musulman being an archaic term for someone of another faith or even another race altogether, here applied to Ren, the only character able to distance himself from the mechanical world of his family. Balks latest play is marked by a still stronger shift from the grotesque to a virtually realistic drama. Kvartet (Quartet), performed last season by the HaTheatre under the direction of the author, is a psychological drama about an exhausted relationship. A husband and wife living in an unsatisfactory relationship are confronted with the partner of their dreams, only to be returned to their own. Features of comedy in Balks work are to be found in The Comediograph, a programme of satirical cabaret sketches which the author also staged with HaTheatre. The first plays, or playlets, by Roman Sikora such as Koka na mrku (Cat on Small Cloud), Ad absurdum Christmas and Manel Ditu (Husband of Ditu), tend towards a playful, Poetist spirit. In some of them we find motifs typical for Sikoras more extensive and mature texts. Hra pro jednoho kance (Play for One Boar) is an apocryphal Don Juan story. In the first part we follow Don Juan selfconfidently seducing women by the most varied methods. At the end of the play we find ourselves at the sandpit where all Juans victims, contented mothers with prams, meet each other. It becomes apparent that it was they who chose Juan as the father of their children, and that the feared seducer is only a pragmatically tipped stud. The apocryphal one-act play Sodomagomora! describes the mission of two angels, bored officials, sent to Lots family for
the purpose of spoiling it, since the orderliness of this one household is an obstacle to the destruction of the city. It turns out however that their efforts are unnecessary; the father, Mr. Lota, is a moralistic hypocrite and his children want to leave him at the first opportunity. The more extensive Tank (with the subtitle farce with song and dance) continues in the line of farces. For the first time Sikora works one of his central themes a picture of wartime conflict. The authors cynical derision is here aimed at the vain and often inadequate attempts by foreign interventionists to settle wartime conflicts in former Yugoslavia. In Vlci (Wolves), on a similar theme, the inhabitants of the war-destroyed land
Marek Horok, Boiled Heads / Divadlo Husa na provzku, 2001

Directed by Pavel imk / Set design Pavel Bork
are given more space. Sikora chooses a very strong metaphor the people in his play literally become wolves. The hero of the play, Belial, at its beginning throws away his wretched mother scrounging for food and becomes a werewolf free in his inhumanity. The entrepreneurs, shown in completely simplified caricature, who consider the destroyed country to be a good investment, represent the help of the West. The only one who really wants to help the inhabitants is the American girl Alexis. She obviously doesnt understand that by continually throwing them money, of which she has a surplus, she is making dogs of them. However, Belial at the beginning of the play almost romantic, dark and defiant does not survive his meeting with the West. He succumbs to the superficial charm of Alexis, who kills him. Sikora makes use of a similar stylistic plurality in one of his most striking plays, conceived as a tragedy: Smeten Antigony (Antigone Swept Away, second prize in the 1997 Alfrd Radok Awards). This time Sikora explores the most sacred myth and turns it upsidedown. Antigone does not bury her brother but digs him up, for he is the last being with whom she has
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a deep relationship. The world around her is filled with grotesque caricatures the classical myth remorselessly transposed to today. Haemon makes love to Ismena only until his parents find a politically correct Fianc for him, and Creon is nothing more than a career-minded politician. For Sikora, Antigone is an anarchist who tries to defend her identity against the emptiness of the surrounding world. From an early sympathy with her sincerity and raw provocativeness, we gradually come to realise that she is as empty as the others, that her destructiveness doesnt lead anywhere, her impotent ferocity turned into itself. Alongside Belial, the character from Wolves, Antigone is Sikoras most substantial contribution to the discussion about the possible shape of the modern tragic hero. Sikora indicates these dark, more serious lines in his plays through a distinctive linguistic stylisation. The grotesque characters use banal clichs, journalistic and political phraseology, guiding austere dialogues to precise points. The significant characters often deliver monologues in which
Marek Horok, Boiled Heads / Divadlo Husa na provzku, 2001

Directed by Pavel imk / Set design Pavel Bork
those images predominate that are associatively linked, ferocity and anxiety literally torn from the inner being of the character. Accompanying this is the destruction of a firm dramatic structure; fragments of prose appear in the script, the causality of the action is limited by the very order of the scenes. A clear inspiration for Sikora in this respect is the work of Heiner Mller. This principle was put into effect most expressively in Nehybnost (Inflexibility), where two characters named only He and She spend their time with playful dialogues and song, owning up to their anxiety in lengthy monologues. Time is measured only by the pregnancy of the woman and the increasing girth of the man devouring the universe. The
woman hopes that the child who is to be born will subvert the inflexibility of their deformed world. However, the child dies and nothing changes. The script is written in very expressive language, more like a model for a stage poem than a classical play. As far as number of works is concerned, Marek Horok has written the least, but the most evenly. Mein Faust is an individual variation on a classical theme. This Faust is an alchoholic who turns his unbearable famulus Wagner into twins Richard and Wagner. These sonlets rebel against their father, escape, and try to steal his magic book. However, they never leave his house, in which is a greenhouse containing the whole world. The paranoid Faust, who has created his world inside his home because he is afraid of the outside world, is hunted to death by his sons. Trakl is freely inspired by several facts from the life of the poet Georg Trakl, at the same time being a more general testimony about the relationship of a sentimental writer to the world around him. Vaen hlavy (Boiled Heads) could be understood as a contribution to Czech cool, the story of a married couple living in solitude in a wood who are thrown so much off the rails by the unexpected invasion of several other people that in self-defence they resort to murder. These three plays have all reached the finals of the Alfrd Radok Awards, Boiled Heads obtaining the second prize in 1999. Pavel Trtlek is one of the youngest authors represented here. Even so, he has already written a number of plays, although somewhat in the manner of a graphomaniac. As in Sikora, we can find many different motifs which pass from shorter plays into more extensive forms. His first completed play was Bludice (Will-o-the Wisps), about three women who decide to be streetwalkers, but who hang around in vain in the wrong street a kind of feminine version of Waiting for Godot. Krystnka is reminiscent of the drama of the absurd: a teacher visits a dying girl to give her lessons, whilst in the next room her mother and a friend consult fashion journals to decide what they will wear at the funeral. pna (Dirt, which reached the final of the Alfrd Radok Awards in 1999) is a lengthy drama in which Trtlek with sometimes almost unbearable literalness announces the crisis of contemporary society, the corruption of politicians and the degeneracy of family relationships. In grotesque, expressively simplified outline he sketches the figures of politicians, the maffia, streetwalkers and television moderators in order to establish that civilisation turned out to be a failure. In the course of the play the stage is gradually flooded with more and more dirt, which a chorus of sweepers-commentators tries in vain to sweep up, until in the end the whole world perishes in a fire. In conclusion the Spirit of Nature appears and emotionally sums everything up again. Trtleks scripts are attractive mainly through the force with which they are created. However, of all the work discussed here, they are from the point of view of form the most inadequate, suffering especially from literalness and prolixity. The measure of grotesque exaggeration and authorial derision
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(almost to the extent of a mentor) can sometimes be exorbitant. That of course does not exclude the scripts from being the starting point for theatrical staging. The most even from the point of view of form and content is one of Trtleks latest plays, Viov smrad (The Cherry Stench) subtitled the private liquidation of the public Chekhov. This is a topical adaptation of The Cherry Orchard where we follow Chekhovs world in todays setting, emphasising the grotesque qualities and uncommunicativeness of the characters. The banalities of the dialogues in The Cherry Orchard become the banalities of television drama. However, the Grandmother from Jaroslavl (only occasionally mentioned in Chekhov) enters before the end and it comes out that she is an eyewitness of Chekhov and has devoted all her life to creating in reality the world of his characters. Many of the characters in the play are not related at all; they were only hired to create a virtual world. All the generalisation written up to now about the new scripts by the authors from JAMU, is exceeded by the quite specific poetic of Jitka Martinkovs play. It is so to speak a kind of poetic poem in dialogue, written in very stylised language, often working with a cyclically repeated motif. In Vteiny soli (Seconds of Salt) everything literally turns around the grandmother, her granddaughter, and their unfulfilled relationship, symbolised by the matches which refuse to light
and the stockings which do not warm. The coming season will be an important one for the staging of these authors. A project for young writers is taking place at the Theatre Goose on a String in Brno, in the context of which Lubo Balks Gumagumarum, Marek Horoks Boiled Heads and Pavel Trtleks Will o the Wisps will be performed between January and March. A production of Jitka Martinkovs latest play Zemstiny (Earth Shadows) is in rehearsal for the studio MARTA in Brno, whilst Sikoras Inflexibility will be prepared by the Prague theatre group M.U.T. for the Palace Acropolis in Prague.
BIOGRAPHY FOR ORIENTATION:
The scripts here described can be found in the collections: 1. Salon pvodnch text (First Salon of Original Scripts), published by JAMU, Brno 1994, internal publication for the school; 2. Salon pvodnch text (Second Salon of Original Scripts), published by JAMU, Brno 1995, internal publication for the school; Hrdlili hrdly na plotn (Throats Debating on a Stove), JAMU, Brno 1996 (obtainable from the book shop in the JAMU library); Marek Horoks plays were published in the internet journal Yorick (http://yorick. hyperlink. cz): Mein Faust (1st number) and Trakl (5th number). Roman Sikora has his own web page at: http://mujweb.cz/www/sikora/index.htm.
New Drama? From Brno
Opera
Jan Dehner
and Now?
OPERA HERE AND NOW?
Here
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This question also appeared in the title of the 5th Biennial of Czech Opera Theatre, Opera Festival 2001. Participants included not only all the opera companies of the Czech Republic, but also schools of performing arts where operas are staged by students: two academies (Prague and Brno) and two conservatoires (Ostrava and Pardubice). The festival provided a general overview of the level and state of opera staging in the Czech lands. Insofar as the theatres choice for the festival was oriented to that motto (they decided themselves what productions they would send to the festival), it appears that in the new millennium only a few opera houses are introducing radically new impulses, and in some cases artists from abroad. The conventional theatrical shape of the pieces seen (limited of course by financial and administrative conditions) is no "Bohuslav Martin, Theatre Beyond the Gate / Nrodn divadlo moravskoslezsk, Ostrava 2000 / Directed by Michael Tarant / Set design and costumes Dana Hvov >Photo Josef Hradil different from what would have been seen in the past. The- #Bohuslav Martin, The Soldier and the Dancer / Sttn opera Praha, 2000 / Directed by David Pountney and Nicola Raab / Set design and costumes Duncan Hayler >Photo Josef Ptek res no doubt that a major part of the domestic public adores opera in this form, perceiving it still primarily as a musical work, dramaturgy relies on works never or rarely played in this the visual element being secondary. country (for example, Schnberg: Erwartung; but also One of the few companies whose dramaturgy and practice Meyerbeer: Robert le diable). At this level, there is a striving after enlivens the Czech opera stage is the State Opera in Prague. It a new stage form sometimes more, sometimes less successful. works on two differentiated levels. The first is the staging of the Very often the musical side is similarly uneven. The leadership of the State Opera has succeeded in co-opting regular repertoire as sanctified classics (Verdi, Bizet, Mozart) in productions almost too respectfully old. The second line of the well-known British director David Pountney, who has from
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OPERA HERE AND NOW?
Opera Here
of dancers in dance-halls even includes architectural features of Prague presented as maquettes; they symbolised the problematic quality of some new buildings in the historical area of Prague. The set also sketched the nature of the characters the little cottage of the parents of Kalidor (who in the end wins his loved one, the dancer) is a delicious pink. The movement of the leading performers is very witty (choreography by Regina Hofmanov), not only the ballet (including the children), but also the soloists and chorus. Even though the set is variously coloured, it has a clear internal order and is attractive and effective for the audience. No less effective production was another staging of Martin: the ballet-opera Theatre Beyond the Gate, prepared by the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre in Ostrava by the drama
his youth and very frequently staged operas from the Czech repertoire (especially Janek). Pountney brought over his colleague Nicola Raab and together they staged the rarely performed first opera by Bohuslav Martin The Soldier and the Dancing-Girl. The libretto by J. L. Budn (the pseudonym of Jan Lwenbach) moved the setting of Plautus comedy Pseudolus to the first quarter of the 20th century. The musical form is closer to revue than to traditional opera, and alongside the idiom of serious neoclassicism includes typical music of the roaring twenties (tango, charleston). The whole is a challenge to the directors invention and the challenge was creatively met. Duncan Hayler designed the set from mobile pieces, in style underlining the dada intention of the libretto. The motif of the auction which the director inserted as a symbol of the saleability
Bedich Smetana, The Kiss / Divadlo J. K. Tyla, Plze 2000 / Directed by Karel Broek / Set design Jan Tobola / Costumes Tom Kypta >Photo Marta Kolafov
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W. A. Mozart, Don Giovanni / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by Jana Kaliov / Set design Milo Kali / Costumes Jan Rika
director Michael Tarant and permanent guest of Ostrava opera, the Italian conductor Paolo Gatto. In this piece of music theatre the composer tried to combine the elements of commedia dellarte, Debureau-style mime and Bohemian folk song (in their traditional, ritual form). The Ostrava company used these given structures and developed, primarily in inserted prose dialogue, the composers intention through improvisation. To the largely conservative audience (including specialists) it could seem as though there was too much of this extempore; however, one could not resist the charmingly spoken Belorussian-tinged Czech of the night-watchman (Sergej Zubkevich). The design (Dana Hvov) has a simple, clearly folk nature (a mobile wooden construction), the costumes combine the typology of commedia dellarte with stylised (or allusive) folklore. The
choreography of the first act (Igor Vejsada) is inventive, varied, quasi-improvised, with a witty reference to the idioms of modern dance. Unlike some of his drama colleagues who have staged opera in recent years, the director Tarant did not force his vision and ideas on Martins opera and therefore found a form in which the action logically flows from the structure of the work, not only from the libretto. The production was extremely popular in Ostrava, especially with the younger audience. Opera librettos in Czech have always been considered problematic, as is unfortunately the case with the naive text by Elika Krsnohorsk for Smetanas The Kiss (Hubika). But this is certainly no reason for the sarcastically naive concept as presented in the Pilsen production by Karel Broek, doyen of
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Giuseppe Verdi, Otello / Divadlo F. X. aldy, Liberec 1998 / Directed by Anton Nekovar / Set design Jan Vanura / Costumes Lidmila varcov >Photo archives
Czech puppeteers (and co-creator of the popular puppet version of Mozarts Don Giovanni, playing in Prague for more than ten years. ) His approach is very characteristic of one of the tendencies of Czech staging practice: a mixture of methods of opera direction at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with a quasi-postmodern commentary often ironising the work. The intimate action of the first act of The Kiss is shifted to a public village green peopled by a socially differentiated chorus (including a priest accompanied by a woman with a notebook is that supposed to be the librettist, or the author of the story on which the libretto is based?). The set, resourceful in its material (wood) is unable to evoke through the grotesquely operating sculpture on stage (steps, diagonals) the forest of the second act
(although tree trunks are added, hanging from the grid). Broek as director aims for a new view of the relationship and conflict between the main characters of Vendulka and Luk, but overloads the ironic moments for example, an extra masked to look like Smetana appears in the finale. Unfortunately the conductor (Petr Kofro) has a similarly jokey approach, in type and method using agogics which indicate a lack of understanding of Smetanas partitura. In comparison with this professional production, The Kiss by the Pardubice conservatoire had the decidedly more sympathetic fervour of its young singers and instrumentalists. Even though the task was almost beyond their powers, clearly there are very capable teachers in Pardubice (who also pay attention to the
and Now?
distinctness of the sung word) and a no less gifted instrumental school. In spite of the fact that the visual aspects of the production appeared a little amateur (direction by Jana Uherov, design by Petr Zeman), mainly the movement of the singers onstage, it made an optimistic impression. The production of Monteverdis Il ritorno dUlisse in patria in a version by the Brno Janek Academy of Performing Arts, on the other hand, left one worried about the future of opera in our theatres. It was performed by the instrumental group Musica Florea (conductor Marek tryncl) which specialises in early music (unfortunately augmented by modern trombones and a trumpet), the singers similarly aimed for a vocal performance in that style (although without counter-tenors). However, the concept of the director Bohuslava Krmarov was a fundamental problem. In her graduation work, she turned the yearning Odysseus into a seriously ill patient, and the whole action (with the exception of Odysseuss encounter with the wooers) resembled popular television serials set in hospitals. An attempt was made to give the production a deeper dimension with quasi-philosophical quotations spoken semi-amateurishly through loudspeakers, film clips and slides (badly projected). Members of the audience had to open their ears and close their eyes to recognise one of Monteverdis operas rarely performed in the Czech Lands (This was only the second performance of Il Ritorno, the first being Jan Klusks musical adaptation in 1973). The predominant form of opera production in the Czech lands, accepted without problems, even requested by the public, was represented at the festival by two productions: the Brno Andrea Chnier (practically unknown in this country, by Umberto Giordano) and the Liberec Otello by Giuseppe Verdi. Both were on the whole convincing musically (especially the exceptionally successful production by the head of Liberec opera Martin Doubravsk), with guest singers from abroad in the main roles (the forte-tenor Michael Renier appeared in both productions). The Brno production of Giordanos opera directed by the experienced creator of musicals Stanislav Moa was a costumed concert performance, pictorially flat in its design. In the Liberec production of Otello the director Anton Nekovar aimed at a theatrical effect on an empty stage (a slanting circle with a corresponding hung counterpart) he organised what was at first sight an effective grouping, but the imperfect realisation of the symbolic intentions sometimes appeared comical and the singers were limited to conventional gesture. One of the smallest of our opera companies, in Opava, showed the greatest dramaturgical courage. The conductor Petr umnk chose to stage the Czech premire of Francois Poulencs opera Dialoghi delle Carmelitane. He devoted exceptional care to the difficult partituras and in spite of the limited strength of the singers and orchestra, achieved an unusually intense effect. He was supported by the director Frantiek Preisler snr., traditionally but carefully building a meaningful situation and guiding the singers to a clear concept of their roles (particularly exceptional was Anna Barov as the Mother Superior).
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The works of the basic repertoire have frequently, in particular at the beginning of the emancipation of opera direction (but in the present day as well) been staged from surprising viewpoints: the stage form comes into conflict with the strictly, literally understood libretto, but the result should not come into conflict with the mission of the work. Unfortunately, that is what happens with the new production of Mozarts Don Giovanni as performed by the opera company of the National Theatre in Prague. The staging by Jana Kaliov works like a clumsy pastiche of recent unsuccessful German productions.
Francis Poulenc, Dialoghi delle Carmelitane / Slezsk divadlo, Opava

2000 / Directed by Frantiek Preisler snr / Set design Alexander Babraj Costumes Elika Zapletalov >Photo Jii Kristian
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which tries to make visual effect Wagners work requires outstanding interpretation not only musically but scenically. An example of thoughtless innovation is the latest production of Puccinis Tosca. The director Vladimr Morvek, praised for his deconstructive productions for the Hradec Krlov drama company (Hamlet), approached the opera partitura in a similar manner. Because, however, opera (by its very essence) cannot be disassembled and then put together in another way for the director to realise his personal vision, Morvek had to limit himself to arranging symbols and processions of extras. In the
The shape, maybe acceptable for a musical comedy, suggests to the audience that in fact that should be the contemporary form of a classic work. For the festival Opera 2001 the opera company of the Prague National Theatre presented Wagners Tristan und Isolde, last performed in its entirety in the 1924/25 season. The musical concept and execution by the guest conductor Ji Kout is excellent, similarly in the context of the possibilities of the execution of foreign singers (not at all in the premier category), amongst whom Yvona kvrov (Brangne) shows up very well. The direction by J. A. Pitnsk is a thoughtful arrangement
Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by J. A. Pitnsk / Set design Jn Zavarsk / Costumes Tom Kypta
>Photo Oldich Pernica
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Giacomo Puccini, Tosca / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by Vladimr Morvek / Set design Ale Votava / Costumes Alexandra Gruskov
end result Tosca turned into a tragicomedy even though it is a personal drama played out against the background of a political study. Such an interpretation would be more difficult to achieve for the director, but more effective. However, the leadership of the National Theatre succeeded in finding a positive response to the question of the contemporary shape of opera with their production of Shostakovichs Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, a rare coming-together of musical and scenic elements. The conductor Frantiek Preisler jnr. built up the difficult and extensive partitura with captivating gradation. It confirmed director David Radoks approach to the work as in no way using it as material to present himself, but with respect for its mission. Unfortunately, the unanimous admiration of connoisseurs of opera did not in this case extend to the general public,
which usually expects to hear elegant arias beautifully sung. In the search for new impulses the State Opera in Prague also turned to contemporary opera. It gave the world premires of two new works. Andreas Pflger from Switzerland wrote Die Physiker on a theme from the once popular play of that name by Friedrich Drrenmatt; Phaedra by Emil Viklick (the authors first work in this genre) was the victor in the State Operas competition for new work. Unfortunately it is evident that neither work (nor their productions) will outlive its first run. In spite of the fact that opera production in the Czech lands still lags behind general trends (as developed mainly to the west of our frontiers), we can say that our best productions here and now are beginning to approach that standard.
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"Emil Viklick, Phaedra / Sttn opera Praha, 2000 / Directed by Ji Nekvasil / Set design Daniel Dvok
Costumes Simona Rybkov >Photo archives
$Andreas Pflger, Die Physiker / Sttn opera Praha, 2000 / Directed by Anton Nekovar / Set design Daniel Dvok
Costumes Jan Ulin >Photo Josef Ptek
NOTEBOOK / THE ALFRD RADOK AWARDS
The Alfrd Radok Awards
Notebook
" Best Actor of the Year 2000 Jan Potmil, Richard III, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Divadeln spolek Kapar, Prague
/57
In January 2001 fifty-two Czech theatre critics took part in the survey of the journal Svt a divadlo, on the basis of which the most important Czech theatre awards - Alfrd Radok Awards - are given every year since 1992. The best achievements in Czech theatre in the year 2000 were awarded in eight categories:
" Production of the Year 2000 Dmitri Shostakovitch: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, directed by David Radok, National Theatre Prague " Theatre of the Year 2000 inohern studio, st nad Labem " Stage Design of the Year 2000 Ale Votava, set design, Giacomo Puccini, Tosca, directed by Vladimr Morvek, National Theatre Prague " Best Actress of the Year 2000 Klaudia Dernerov, Katerina Izmailova, Dmitri Shostakovitch, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, National Theatre Prague
" Music of the Year 2000 Vladimr Franz, music, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, directed by Vladimr Morvek, Klicperovo divadlo, Hradec Krlov " Best Play (Original or in Translation) of the Year 2000 Mark Ravenhill, Faust (Faust Is Dead), translated by Jitka Sloupov, produced by HaDivadlo, Brno " Talent of the Year 2000 Richard Krajo, actor, Divadlo Petra Bezrue, Ostrava
STAGE DESIGN OF THE YEAR 2000: Giacomo Puccini, Tosca / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by Vladimr Morvek / Set design Ale Votava
Costumes Alexandra Gruskov >Photo Hana Smejkalov
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NOTEBOOK / THE ALFRD RADOK AWARDS
NOTEBOOK / THE ALFRD RADOK AWARDS / BASIC STATISTICAL DATA / NEW BOOKS FROM THE THEATRE INSTITUTE
/59
The Alfrd Radok Awards

The ninth annual competition for the best original Czech and Slovak drama has brought another top award (the second prize) to the most often appraised winner, Slovakian playwright Viliam Klimek. His Chekhov The Boxer is a characterful and personal paraphrase of Chekhovs fate and drama. Klimek, originally a physician, and more recently a screenwriter of a Slovakian sitcom, has surrounded Chekhov (whose Three Sisters had just been successfully televised as a sitcom in the Tzarian Television) with doctors from his work. Many playwrights deal with slice of life drama. It applies to a wide extent to two plays awarded with third prizes. Minach A Trilogy about Women and Mostly For Women by Iva Volnkov, the actress of Brnos HaDivadlo, is dedicated almost absolutely to female players. Her heroines are always on the brink of some relationship. The plot winds and turns particularly through the speech of these women. A Pad by Martin Tich represents yet another variation of the contemporary form of brutal texts: this time it is about the occupation of an apartment of a dead, and later mummified pensioner, by a couple of young lovers, a couple of homeless persons, and in the end by two policemen who take advantage of the circumstances and terrorize and abuse the visitors caught in the act.
Czech Theatres in 2000: Basic Statistical Data

In the Czech Republic last year, there were 52 repertory theatres with their own companies of various types in operation (14 of these were multi-ensembles, the basic model being the coexistence of opera, drama and ballet companies) that had regular funding allocated from local budgets (43 theatres) and from federal budget (9 theatres). Another 35 standing stages without their own companies were also financed from public resources (local budgets). A total of 176 theatres and subjects dedicated to the performing arts (58 of these without their own company, and 39 without their own stage) were regularly and systematically active in the theatre life in the Czech Republic during the year 2000. 204 theatre stages were in operation, offering a capacity of 60,525 seats. A total of 8,409 people were employed in all of these subjects of which 3,505 were artistic. 1,555 titles were in the repertoire, and 2,091 productions were produced (of which 720 were premires). In total, 75 new Czech titles were produced. 22,147 performances took place in the Czech Republic, attracting over 5.5 million visitors (the average percent of visitors was 85). Czech theatre ensembles played 711 performances abroad. Theatre activities were supported from public financing with contributions of almost 2 billion crowns.
New Books from the Theatre Institute

"Karel Kraus: For Theatre of Drama
In the Czech Theatre Editions, where the Theatre Institute produces original theoretical and historiographic works, a new series is being launched entitled Essays, Critical Reviews, Analysis. The new series is being launched with the book by Karel Kraus, For Theatre of Drama. Kraus began his theatre career in the 1940s, maturing professionally as a dramaturge in the Vinohrady Theatre under Ji Frejka, one of the prominent representatives of the Czech avant-garde in the between the wars period. From his start, up until today, Kraus has retained an ideal of theatre formed by poets and actors, with the directing work acting as an intermediary between these basic factors. From his experience in working in large theatres (the Theatre on Vinohrady 19451950, the Drama Company of the National Theatre 1956-1961), he soon learned that the ideal poetical theatre for everyone, in this time of controlled mass media, remains a utopia. One potential opportunity for further development could have been to look for small original theatres that are not interested in addressing the wide, undifferentiating public, but seek their own like-minded circle. Meeting Otomar Kreja was decisive for Kraus entire further work. He helped to co-form the Kreja era of the National Theatres Drama Company and was one of the initiators and founders of the Theatre Behind the Gates (Divadlo za branou). He became one of the most distinctive personalities, of those that formed Czech theatre in the 1960s. Karel Kraus book is a studied expert resource, containing his collective annotated bibliography. The author organised a selection of his texts into several thematic sections. He chose only three articles from the beginning of his career for the first section, Old Ideas from the Early Years, which brings near his views on the theatre and his mission at the time when he entered his professional theatre career. Studies and articles in the other sections, From Various Cues and About Theatre and for Theatre, record the evolution of his views on theatre and its sense in our - and European - culture, on the relationship between the stage and the viewer in the changing periods, and on the character and function of acting. The segment Two Lucky Breaks, is dedicated to two
#$STAGE DESIGN OF THE YEAR 2000: Giacomo Puccini, Tosca / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by Vladimr Morvek / Set design Ale Votava
Costumes Alexandra Gruskov>Photo Hana Smejkalov
$STAGE DESIGN OF THE YEAR 2000 - 2ND PLACE: Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2000 / Directed by J. A. Pitnsk
Set design Jn Zavarsk / Costumes Tom Kypta >Photo Oldich Pernica
60/
NOTEBOOK / NEW BOOKS FROM THE THEATRE INSTITUTE
New Books from the Theatre Institute

personalities with whom Kraus worked as a dramaturge the directors Ji Frejka and Otomar Kreja. Here, again, he recapitulates his views on the mandate of the director in 20th century theatre. Compared to the number of contributions dedicated to Frejka, the essays on Kreja are being published on a large scale here for the first time ever, or at least for the first time in Czech. The last, most comprehensive part of the book, Getting Closer contains interpretations of dramatic texts, which were presented in repertoires (Hrubn, Topol, Chekhov, Nestroy, Giraudoux, Hofmannsthal, Marivaux and many others). The reflection, analysis and interpretation with which Kraus systematically accompanied his dramaturgical practice, testifies to his concentrated investigation into possibilities, which in our epoch remains a liberty of the theatre. It is also testimony of the extraordinary thought-out consistency with which Kraus conception of the theatre of dramatic story has developed from his youth - a continually renewed attempt to discover the meaning of human existence and his belief, that theatre without drama is a body without a soul. in the second section (18 contributions) discuss the concrete aspects of German language theatre in the Czech lands from the 17th to 20th centuries in drama, opera, pantomime, ballet and film, of travelling troupes and prominent individuals, etc. The third section of the anthology entitled Quellen Forschung Projekte (Sources Research Projects), contains 12 contributions that give an overview of special collections abroad that hold information on the history of German language theatre in the Czech lands, reviews on-going experiments with electronically processed data on theatre practice, and other particulars. The closing section of the anthology constructs an overview of places where German language theatre played in Prague from the 17th century to 1945, an overview of Prague theatre buildings connected with German operation, and Prague archives, museums and libraries with larger collections of information on theatre in the German language.
"Deutschsprachiges Theater in Prag. Begegnungen der Sprachen und Kulturen

(German Language Theatre in Prague. A Meeting of Languages and Cultures) An anthology of contributions from a conference organized in Prague in June 2000. The Theatre Institute, Prague 2001, approx. 520 pgs. German language theatre, which in the territory of todays Czech Republic has developed in contact with the Czech culture over hundreds of years, has contributed significant works and interpretative performances to European cultural history. In June 2000 the international colloquium Deutschsprachiges Theater in Prag, Begegnungen der Sprachen und Kulturen in Geschichte und Gegenwart (German Language Theatre in Prague - A Meeting of Languages and Cultures in History and the Present) took place in Prague, where specialists from nine countries addressed these issues. The anthology, which will come out in the German language with three contributions in English, is segmented into three thematic sections, following the conferences program. The first section, with 5 contributions, is dedicated to the general problem of defining national theatre and the position of national and minority theatres in national culture. The essays
"A Mirror of World Theatre at the End of the Millennium, PQ 95 and PQ 96

After successful publication, the authors Vra Ptkov (stage design) and Vladimr Adamczyk (theatre architecture) are following up with a new volume on last two quadrennials of the past century, and with it, closing a prominent chapter about this international competitive exhibition, which has, since 1957, attracted theatre people stage designers and architects to Prague to take part in the competition, as well as in the confrontation of approaches to theatrical works and debate about theatre. Through essays by the authors Vra Ptkov (PQ 95 stage design), Marie Blkov (PQ 99 stage design and schools), Vladimr Adamczyk (PQ 95 architecture) and Ji Hilmera (PQ 99 architecture), the book attempts not only to describe these two last quadrennials, but also to explore the developing relationships and reciprocal influences of stage artists and theatre spaces on the construction or reconstruction of theatre spaces. The publication also contains a listing of the countries that participated in both years and of the awarded works. The book, which will be published in the summer of 2001, has 120 pages, 150 colour reproductions from the documentation of the Theatre Institute, and a series of black and white illustrations. Helena Albertov is the editor in charge.
NOTEBOOK / THE THEATRE INSTITUTES LEXICOGRAPHICAL PROJECTS
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The Theatre Institutes lexicographical Projects

"Czech Theatre. Encyclopedia of Theatre Companies
In November 2000, the Theatre Institute published the first of a series of lexicographical projects, edited by Eva ormov. It contains 292 entries on Czech theatres, theatres active on Czech territory, and presenting productions of every kind of theatre from straight theatre through music theatre to mime and puppetry. It covers a time span from the 17th century to the present day.
"Biographical Dictionary. Early Czech Theatre

This covers personalities of theatre operating on Czech territory from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 18th century. It surveys every important kind of theatre and theatre profession, Date of publication 2002. Edited by Ondej Hun and Alena Jakubcov.
"Czech Dictionary of Dance. Ballet, Dance and Mime

This publication, edited by Jana Holeov, came out in 2001. It offers, in individual and factual entries, basic information on the whole extent of the Czech movement theatre.
"Biographical Dictionary. Music Theatre in the 19th Century.

This likewise includes theatre artists of other nationalities active in the Czech lands. Publication is planned for 2004.
Biographical Dictionary
A gradually compiled multivolume project, conceived as a lexicographical handbook on the history of the Czech theatre. Its range extends from earliest times to the end of the 20th century history of theatre on Czech territory.
"Biographical Dictionary. Straight Theatre in the 19th Century.

This is connected with the second part of the Biographical Dictionary and covers the field of straight theatre. This volume is in a preparatory state, with entries in the process of compilation.
Notebook

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17

Where the Slow Moving Water of Czech Theatre is Flowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Hamletomania in Bohemia (and Moravia) at the Watershed of the Centuries . . . . .5

A Director and an Opera for the Happy Few . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Dmitri Shostakovitch/David RadokLady Macbeth of Mtsensk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Theatre without Respite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

How I Lost Myself on Dlouh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

A Czech Season at the inohern (Drama) Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

New Drama? From Brno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Opera Here and Now? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 Notebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Where the Slow Moving Water

WHERE THE SLOW MOVING WATER OF CZECH THEATRE IS FLOWING

of Czech Theatre is Flowing

Czech theatre rediscovers opera

The sweet sixties phenomenon

WHERE THE SLOW MOVING WATER OF CZECH THEATRE IS FLOWING

Contemporary performances and expressive interpretations of the classics

Money, first and foremost

Where the Slow Moving Water of Czech Theatre is Flowing

(and Moravia) at the Watershed of the Centuries Jitka Sloupov

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

Hamlet as a large-screen film by puppets

Urhamlet, or Posthamlet, and Hamlet

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

Hamlet as a funereal melodrama

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

Hamlet as a deformed poem

Hamlet in the Balkans

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

William Shakespeare, Hamlet / Nrodn divadlo Brno, 1999 / Directed by

Hamlet which hurts

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

Hamlet which thinks

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

P. S. Hamlet as a conceptual disc

HAMLETOMANIA IN BOHEMIA (AND MORAVIA) AT THE WATERSHED OF THE CENTURIES

A Director and an Opera

David Radok >Photo Viktor Kronbauer

A DIRECTOR AND AN OPERA FOR THE HAPPY FEW

an Opera for the Happy Few

A DIRECTOR AND AN OPERA FOR THE HAPPY FEW

Alban Berg, Wozzeck / Nrodn divadlo Praha, 2001

A Director and an Opera for the Happy Few

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH/DAVID RADOKLADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH/DAVID RADOKLADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

Dmitri Shostakovitch/David Radok

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH/DAVID RADOKLADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH/DAVID RADOKLADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVITCH/DAVID RADOKLADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

Dmitri Shostakovitch/David RadokLady Macbeth of Mtsensk

THEATRE WITHOUT RESPITE

THEATRE WITHOUT RESPITE

THEATRE WITHOUT RESPITE

THEATRE WITHOUT RESPITE

THEATRE WITHOUT RESPITE

THEATRE WITHOUT RESPITE

Theatre without Respite

HOW I LOST MYSELF ON DLOUH

HOW I LOST MYSELF ON DLOUH

HOW I LOST MYSELF ON DLOUH

HOW I LOST MYSELF ON DLOUH