SAD 5/2012

Summary 5/2012

The issue opens with another instalment in the series “Philosophy and Icons”, where Miroslav Petříček writes on Jerold J. Abrams’s essay “Nietzsche’s Übermensch as the Post-humane Star-Child in 2001”. The section “J. A. Orestes” includes reviews of Pitínský’s production of Aeschylus’s Oresteia at the Municipal Theatre Zlín (Kateřina Veselovská: “J.A.P. Tripersonal” and Eva Stehlíková: “Presentation as a Doughnut”). In the section “The Alternative Body and Skin” Blanka Křivánková writes about Jakub Folvarčný’s production In the Trap of the Body and Jana Bohutínská about the production The Thirteenth Month / Requiem for Bruno Schulz (Spitfire Company and the Teatr na Woli of Warsaw). The section “Dancing to Eternity” turns to the Tanec Praha 2012 festival: Jiří Adámek (“A View into Eternity…”) writes about the productions Sideways Rain by Guilherme Botelho and Open for Everything by Constanza Macras and Dorky Park; Jana Návratová looks at choreographic productions by Charlotte Öfverholm, Wendy Houston and Saburo Teshigawara (“50+”). Activities of the famous and already not so young are also looked at by Jitka Pavlišová whose essay “Male Visit at the Blue Lady” reviews a new, masculine version of an originally feminine choreography Blue Lady by Carolyn Carlson. The section “Circus: From Woman to Chaos” opens with a portrait of a distinguished French performer (Frouin: “Jeanne Mordoj: To Dig under the Surface”), followed by a review of the productions Compagnie Ieto and m² (Compagnie Ea EO) from the Cirk-Uff Festival (Mikulka: “A New Circus Born from the Soul of the Old One”) and Calvin Cohn’s Manifest of Chaotic Creation. The section “Poland and Money” includes reviews of Klata’s production of Bożena Keff’s drama A Composition about Mother and Fatherland (Kamila Černá: “On Mother and Fatherland”) and of the production III Furie by Sylwia Chutnik, Magda Fertach and Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk and directed by Marcin Liber (Jan Jiřík: “Who Will Ever Understand This?”), the portrait of the duo of Paweł Demirski and Monika Strzępka (Jiřík: “In the Name of Leftist Theatre”), an outline of the newest demonstrations of Polish documentary theatre by Paweł Sztarbowski (“The Most Closely to Reality”) and a commentary by Paweł Płoski on the spring protests by Polish theatre makers. As usual, Pavel Trenský reviews the Theatertreffen festival (from Simons’ production of Sarah Kane’s playlets through Radio Hatred prepared by Milo Rau to – for example – Die (s)panische Fliege directed by Herbert Fritsch). In the section “Wiesbaden Eurodrama”, Martin Porubjak (“On Europe without Illusions”) and Arnošt Goldflam (“And Other Snapshots…”) discuss new productions (from Handke to Hermanis) performed at the presentation Neue Stücke aus Europa. In the following section Jana Machalická (“McAvignon”) and Jana Wild (“Do We Still Have any Hope At All?”) write about the Avignon Festival and its English language productions respectively (from McBurney’s Master and Margarita to 10 Billion by Stephen Emmot and Katie Mitchell). Contemporary Danish theatre and drama are introduced in the section “PornDenmark with Hamlet”. Lada Halounová writes in her essay “Poetic Porn in the Times of Modern Stasi” about a dramatisation of Josefine Klougart’s novel The Halls and Christian Lollike’s Normal Life at Aarhus Teater; Táňa Švehlová writes about a site-specific performance by the group Signa called Salò (“Real Slaps but the Intercourse is Only Fake One”); and Mette Garfield writes about the production Tiger Lilies Perform Hamlet at the theatre Republique. The section is completed by Christian Lollike’s playlet It. “Comedy Mix” introduces Misunderstanding (Matrimonial Moments, Part IV) by Jiří Adámek and the fifth instalment of Lucie Lomová’s comic strip “Shooting Star”, titled The Labyrinth of Question Marks.