SAD 3/2011

Summary 3/2011

The issue opens with the third instalment of the annotated translation of Giorgio Agamben’s essay Homo sacer, this time titled by Miroslav Petříček “From Human Being to Non-citizens”. The section “National Legends… and Stumbling” continues to explore this year’s theme of myths, legends and icons. It comprises Libor Prášil’s essay “Epopee as an Epic Movie”, Lenka Dambrovská’s review of Prague and Ostrava dramatisations of Szczygieł’s Gottland (“The Myth Called National Character”), a portrait of the alternative theatre community Kyklos Galaktikos (Tomáš Procházka: “Labyrinths by Kyklos Galaktikos”) and a reflection on Havel’s film version of his Leaving (Miroslav Petříček: “The Stone and Voice”). The section “Eskymo Torture... in Comics” contains reviews of two productions that resemble comics: Havelka’s Wanted Welzl at Dejvické theatre (Martin Zahálka: “Pictures of the Wild North”) and Mikulášek’s adaptation of Čapek’s short stories in the Husa na provázku theatre (Marek Lollok: “Embarrassing Torture – Sour Cartoon Comedies under One Roof”). The two following sections are operatic ones. In the first one (“Saviour and Jester… in a Czech Way”) Jiří Černý reviews Wagner’s Parsifal directed in the National Theatre by Jiří Heřman (“Wagnerian Consecration without Rattling Chivalry”) and Josef Herman writes on Verdi’s Rigoletto staged in Plzeň by Róbert Alföldi (“An Operatic Mouse Who Has Bellowed”). Lenka Šaldová writes about a total of six German productions of Dvořák’s Rusalka in the section “A Wagon of Rusalkas… And Other Ladies” (“Rusalka Poor and Pallid?”) and Michaela Mojžišová goes back to productions of Britten’s Rape of Lucretia and Händel’s Rodelinda, Regina de’Longobardi at the Thaeter an der Wien. In the section “In Berlin… Show” Barbora Schnelle writes about new productions by Sasha Waltz, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Nicolas Stemann (“Dance, Document, Show”) and Jiří Adámek compares the cultural climates of Berlin and Prague (“A Tourist in Berlin and Back in Prague”). Both Petr Christov (“More rather than Outstanding”) and Vladimír Mikulka (“It Happened in St Petersburg”) returns to this year’s Premio Europa in the section “Premio Europa… Like Honey”. In his essay “Winterreise as a Theatre Production” Pavel Trenský writes on adaptations of Schubert’s song cycle by Katie Mitchell and the trio Burkhardt, Duffy and Malloy. In the section “Wałbrzych… Onwards to Belgrade” Jakub Škorpil writes about the Polish author-director duo Paweł Demirski and Monika Strzępka (“Two from Wałbrzych”) and Barbora Schnelle on productions of recent Serbian dramas (“Belgrade, New Drama and Goran Jevtić”). The section “Drama… from the Wilderness” gives the results of the Alfréd Radok Awards for the Best Original Czech and Slovak Drama and the commentary (“Dramas with Dramas”) by Iva Klestilová, a member of the jury both of the Czech “Radoks” and the Slovak “Dráma”. The section concludes with an interview with Lenka Lagronová, whose plays The End and From Stardust are published in this issue. The traditional Kaleidoscope, Comedy Mix (František and Marie Hartmann: Riddles) and the comic strip by Hana Voříšková entitled Hallo, are this time supplemented by Blanka Křivánková’s mini-dram The Battle for a Rook’s Fur, inspired by the presentation of the Mark Ravenhill Award and Ravenhill’s own performance of his The Experiment.

Dramas with Dramas In her “notes of a jury member” Iva Klestilová reflects on the two anonymous contests for the best original Czech and Slovak play. 42 plays were submitted for the 19^th year of the Czech contest in the Alfréd Radok Awards. Some writers dealt with politics, signalling their disillusionment with the state of society, others based their works on traditional family themes, while still others played with songs or fairy tales. Facebook, Internet or communication on the Web were also present, as were copies of plays written long ago. Scenic notes (sometimes expanding into a virtual character), the language of TV series (some authors presented their dramas as screenplays) and the curtain (as a means of interrupting the play when the playwright did not know what to do next) were distinctly popular. In selecting six texts from among the limited final round, the jury had to consider whether it would be possible not to present any of the awards. The answer lies in the presentation of the winners: Eva Prchalová (Vertigo – 1^st place), Iveta Horváthová (Family Blues – 2^nd place) and Jakub Kolár (Homo Haber – 3^rd place). The winning plays and others that qualified for the final round (Miloš Doležal: Žalov, Blanka Křivánková: Killer Whales and Tomáš Urbánek: Mister Mouse) are interesting but they all need more work. The only play this jury member was impressed by – though it did not reach the final round – was Lenka Lagronová’s The End. 48 works were submitted for the 11^th year of the Slovak contest, Dráma. The same themes and blemishes were repeated here, too, although some plays were better still. The 1^st place for Dráma was shared by Zuza Ferenczová and Peter Janků (for the plays Babyboom and Stones of Life), the 2^nd prize went to Lenka Lagronová (From Stardust) and the 3^rd place went to Martin Hvišč and Helena Eliášová (for the plays Triad and On That Night).

Lenka Lagronová: The End Two women (Soňa and Sofie) clad in evening dresses are, both literally and metaphorically, “stuck in the mud” – in a non-specific space, time and situation where they are waiting “till we move a little bit” or possibly “till it comes to an end”. It could be said that they are in a kind of limbo in the Christian sense of word. This could also be borne out by a little girl Kristýnka who arrives with her little bucket and spade “to cook a wedding”. Firstly the groom is discussed as a man who is disguised and hidden and later on, when Soňa and Sofie find a cross in the mud, he is rather clearly identified with Jesus. However, he does not bring redemption, both heroines stay in the same place and in Soňa’s words “we are at the end, you stupid bitch”. A commentary on their situation is given by an old woman Aranka (perhaps their mother in a religious sense, maybe death itself). The play is written in an economic and at the same time poetically stylized language that combines contemporary jargon and artificial vernacular.

Lenka Lagronová: From Stardust The protagonists of the play From Stardust are found in a similar kind of holding pattern or stagnation. Three daughters are living with their mother in an abandoned house (a traditional motif in this writer’s plays). Táňa and Dáša cast their minds back to their common former lover, a man whose rather intense friendship never developed into a love affair, but whose death is still (perhaps because of this) something they are unable to deal with. The youngest one, the slightly backward Kája, constantly “broadcasts” signals to extraterrestrials with her torch and transistor radio, representing in this way “a legacy” of their father, who talked to them of conquering space. Thus the only “reasonable” person in the family is Mother, but behind her tough pragmatism and matter-of-factness there is more than a hint of the same bleakness and desire for love and hope as in her daughters. The final “cosmic theatre”, at the same time a revelation of many celestial phenomena, may offer a sense of a happy ending, the answer to the sisters’ call, but everything remains open.