SAD 5/2011

Summary 5/2011

This issue opens with “To Conceive the Unconceivable”, an extract from Georges Didi-Huberman’s essay inspired by authorised photographs from Auschwitz, annotated and translated by Miroslav Petříček and titled “Images – Despite Everything”. In the introductory section “Horrors and History” it is supplemented by “Massacres and Masturbations”, a review by Vladimír Mikulka of the adaptation of Patrik Ouředník’s Europeana, directed by Jan Mikulášek at the Reduta in Brno. The section “Comfort and Bunny” introduces Jiří Erml’s “We are Responsible for Our Comfort”, a review of two productions of the Czech poetics drama from the middle of the last century: Topol’s The End of Carnival (directed by J. A. Pitínský at the National Theatre) and František Hrubín’s Crystal Night (directed by Štěpán Pácl). Karel Král writes in his essay “Theatre of Clichés and Poetry (with Bunny on Top)” primarily about the production I Am Your Bunny, which was staged at the Archa Theatre by Petr Nikl, the author of the following typographical essay “New York Prague”. The section “Masters and Fools” returns to this year’s Prague Quadriennale and besides Lenka Šaldová’s review “Lovesick” offers interviews with Heiner Goebbels (“Non-Lavishness”), Josef Nadj (“Secrecy”), Romeo Castellucci (“Investigation”) and Arnold Aronson (“Theatre Has No Claim to Exist”). On legal aspects of licence agreements there is an interview with Jiří Srstka and Viktor Košut, titled “Attention! Licences!”, and it is accompanied in the section “Visions and Licenses” by Bruno Mattei’s essay “Re-Visualisation: A Critical Review of Audio-vision”. In the section “Flute and Forest” Lenka Šaldová writes about Brook’s Magic Flute (“A Pleasant Ninety Minutes”), Dana Silbiger-Sliuková about Richard II and The Comedy of Errors at British Tobacco Factory (“Tobacco Shakespeare”), and Karel Král on As You Like It staged by David Radok at the Revolving Theatre of Český Krumlov (“As You Dream It”). The section “Records and the Misanthrope” comes from Slovakia and is the first part of a portrait of the Slovak National Theatre’s 2010/2011 season by Martina Ulmanová (“National and Record-breaking”) and Michal Zahálka’s review of The Misanthrope directed by Roman Polák and festooned with critical awards (“The Misanthrope in Fetters of Sex”). The section “The Artist and Reality” consists mostly of essays on this year’s Theatertreffen, and the selected festival productions are described by Pavel Trenský (“Theatertreffen 2011”) and Barbora Schnelle (“Theatre in the Clutches of Reality”) who is also the author of a portrait of the recently deceased controversial director Christoph Schlingensief (“They Call Him by the Foul Name of Artist”). The section “Disney and Children” is dedicated to contemporary British drama and includes a transcript of Aleks Sierz’s Prague lecture “From Disney to Enron (New Drama and Contemporary British Theatre)”, Jakub Škorpil’s essay (“Many Effects”) on Neilson’s Wonderful World of Dissocia, Lucy Prebble’s Enron, Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London, and Diana Damien’s portraits of selected young women playwrights linked primarily to the Royal Court Theatre (“Young British Women Playwrights”). The closing report “Churchill’s Jews and Children” by Hana Pavelková comments on controversies aroused by the play of this issue, Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza by Caryl Churchill. The Comedy Mix continues its cycle dedicated to Peter Cook and brings his sketch Ravens, Hana Voříšková’s comic strip entitled What’s There? and the now traditional Kaleidoscope.

Lovesick As a part of the Prague Quadriennale the National Theatre launched Glass’s opera “Les enfants terribles” directed by Alice Nellis, with musical direction by Petr Kofroň. As the setting, they chose the grounds of the psychiatric hospital in Bohnice, in its former central kitchen. The most inspirational thing was not so much the setting of the medical institution, although actors entered the play as a part of its staff, as the hall, which is inspirational in itself: a barn of a room with vaulted ceilings, smudged walls, flaking tiling, dingy glassed-in doors and a peculiar opening in the ceiling. It’s a gloomy, dreary environment, very appropriate for the story of siblings withdrawn into their own world, dependent on each other. Paul and Lise are two young people who at first sight do not stand out. It is Agathe who is extravagant and showily proud and who falls in love with Paul when they are unobtrusively introduced by contra-tenor Jan Mikušek. Lise (Alžběta Poláčková) is a commanding girl, Paul (Pavel Hájek) is a tiny blond, seemingly weak both physically and in his will to live. Yet their relationship is fated and perverse, murderous and tender. The directors emphasised the reality of the space with metal hospital beds and tables, letting inhospitableness emerge. And then, in a second, they managed to create a magic space reflecting the inner world of the protagonists by mind-expanding colour lighting and non-descriptive, enigmatic projections on walls, ceiling and glassed-in doors. Paper snow fell dreamily from the opening in the ceiling, there were silhouettes looming behind the glass door or cloth partition, and a purple shadow was reflected on the tiling… It was one of the best productions of Czech opera in the last season.

As You Dream It The revolving auditorium of Český Krumlov is set in the castle park so the fictitious, artistic reality challenges the real one during performances. In Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci director Josef Průšek relied on a large screen with an army of performers (over 100 people and two horses) dominated by José Cura. Each member of the audience feels like wealthy person who enjoys being amused by plebeians. The proper environment is stressed and there are plenty of laughing buffoons here, not to mention tightrope-walkers and jugglers. Here, two things that are already close are merging: aristocratic opera and popular circus. In contrast to this spectacular performance David Radok in his production of “As You Like It” took the difference between illusion and reality and made it a theme distinguishable in much more than the male disguise of the main heroine. For instance the lighting design changes real trees into set pieces, model sheep stand on real grass, birdsong by performers resonates in the air. Many characters are embodiments of innocence, including the young shepherd couple. In an otherwise indistinctly historicized stage setting, they are almost our contemporaries, hippies. Seeing them, the spectator comes to realize that the pastoral existence is not an illusion overcome long ago but a re-established idea of life as it should be – as is said today – in harmony with nature and at the same time with truth and love. In the end, with the quadruple wedding already behind us, we can hear the beginning of the Beatles’ All You Need Is Love on a loop. Three times the word love in a none too cheery, minor mood. Like the dance without music from the beginning of the production, its impact seems fatal. And it goes on ringing in our ears even though the song is now played in its entirety, chirpily, in a major key. Then the panorama of the park opens up, with dozens of candles glowing in glasses on the grass and the characters move slowly off through this field of stars. It is simple and beautiful, but also sad; like a commemoration ceremony for an illusion.

Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza The short controversial play by Caryl Churchill is made up of seven scenes embracing roughly seventy years of modern Jewish history. The Holocaust, the creation of the state of Israel, the conflict with Arabs and mutual aggression with the Palestinians – all these are depicted here as the voice of one parent instructing the other what to tell their daughter and how. Thus the most frequent and most often repeated phrases which give the text almost a form of litany are: “Tell her… / Don’t tell her…” or “Don’t frighten her”. Although Churchill herself declared that the text is primarily about how to communicate the reality of existing violence to a child, the play provoked major controversy and was condemned as unbalanced, anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli. An important element in the criticism was by the fact that the author is well-known supporter of Palestine and she offers her play for performance for free so long as the producers take up a collection for the people of Gaza after the performance. Disputes over Churchill’s text and the main arguments of both its opponents and defenders are summarized by Hana Pavelková in her essay “Churchill’s Jews and Children”.