Summary 4/2014
The next excerpt from Luc Boltanski’s essay “Mysteries and Conspiracies” is accompanied by its translator Miroslav Petříček’s text “A Well Justified Persecution Mania”. The following section consists of an interview with Jan Horák, literary manager and director of the Studio Hrdinů (Heroes’ Studio) (“My Interest in Theatre did not Come from the Theatre Itself”), and Jakub Škorpil’s essay “Heroic Heroes” (q.v.). The next two essays offer a seasonal summarisation: Josef Rubeš writes about Jiří Havelka’s productions Intimacy Regulations, Correction and Madness (“To Whirl the Imagination Softly”) and Michal Zahálka about productions by the graduate class of the Drama Department at the Alternative and Puppet Theatre DAMU Department staged at the DISK Theatre (“Theatre of the Lucky Generation”). Productions dedicated to the anniversary of the start of WWI frame the section “War(Home)War” where Karel Král writes on Robert Wilson’s 1914 at the National Theatre of Prague (“The First Lost WW” – q.v.) and Petr Štědroň on the productions Homesickness and Crime by Christoph Marthaler and FRONT by Luk Perceval, staged at the Thalia Theatre and Deutches Schauspielhaus Hamburg respectively (“Homesickness and Front in Hamburg”). In a section dedicated to the dance scene, Jana Návratová writes about the “choreographic opera” Dido and Aeneas by Sasha Waltz (“Dido and Aeneas Reloaded”), Petra Dotlačilová about a ballet project by the National Theatre of Prague Czech Ballet Symphony II (“The NT Ballet Goes Back to Czech Music”) and Marie Zdeňková about a “bordering” performance by the Handa Gote research & development company, a variation on The Rite of Spring (“Waiting for the Spring”). In the section of “postcards” from the Wiener Festwochen Michaela Mojžišová writes about the operas Orfeo ed Eurydice (“Myth according to Romeo Castellucci”), Così fan tutte (“Haneke’s Laboratory of Emotions”) and Bluthaus (“Mussbach’s Haas”), Milo Juráni reviews the production Ten Thousand Tigers (“Multimedia Malaysia By Ho Tzu Nyen”), Martina Ulmanová Stavanger – Pulp People (“With Bogomolov to Norway and back”) and Soňa Šimková responds to Michaela Mojžišová’s review (“Castellucci Congenial”). The section “Death and Defiance” contains an essay by the playwright and member of the jury for the Slovak New Drama contest for the best new play Viliam Klimáček (“Made in Slovakia”), Blix Unruh’s short essay “The Madness of Critique and the Truth of Fools, and an interview with the playwright Wolfram Lotz (“In Football I Side with the Czechs”) whose plays Mom and The Great March are also published. This issue’s Comedy Mix introduces an Italian comedian Daniel Luttazzi. The next instalment of Hynek Dřízhal’s and Petr Vodička’s comic strip “Morcec and Hádry” is titled “Summer – The Time of Festivals”.
Heroic Heroes Jakub Škorpil looks at biographical productions from the past season of the Prague Heroes’ Studio. The first was Milena’s Recipes by Simona Petrů and Kamila Polívková featuring the characters of Milena Jesenská, a writer and journalist from between the wars and one of Franz Kafka’s girlfriends, killed by Germans in Mauthausen in 1944, and her daughter Jana “Honza” Krejcarová, also a writer and a member of the post-war artistic underground. It was followed by The Emotional Comedian, directed by Michal Pěchouček and Jan Horák and dedicated to a communist journalist executed in Berlin in 1943 who was transformed by communist propaganda into a legend with elements of an almost saintly martyr. The last of the productions reviewed is Helpmate Walser by Lucie Trmíková and director Jan Nebeský, which combines an adaptation of Gert Hofmann’s novella The Writer Robert Walser Is Leaving the Literary Club with a selection of Walser’s work. The reviewer praise the first two productions for their kaleidoscopic structure which creates a staged portrait from what at first sight seem to be marginal little narratives and moments, albeit typical of the characters or their reputation and legend. The authors primarily make use of their heroes’ own works and they spice them with secondary literature, possibly thematically related. Thus a plastic image emerges, which aims not to take anybody’s side and which does not represent an authorial interpretation but strives for maximum objectivity (though naturally influenced by the author’s choice of material) and is a reflection of frequently ambivalent directors’ relation to the objects of their interest. Productions are backed up by performances of actors in “title” roles, in this case Ivana Uhlířová (Milena), Naďa Kovářová (Krejcarová) and Stanislav Majer (Fučík). However, the reviewer does not feel the same about Helpmate Walser, even though Jan Nebeský is one of the most original Czech directors. That is to say, both the text by Lucie Trmíková and Nebeský’s production are reeled out rather too straightforwardly: we follow two only remotely corresponding narratives that are presented in an overly unambiguous way (nonconformist artist versus prissy bourgeois). As a result Walser looks black and white, dull and routine and it lacks the charge and excitement of the other productions.
The First Lost WW (the Expulsion of Robert Wilson by the National Theatre) The essay is a critical review of 1914 (Theatre Postcards from Troubled Times). Karel Král, who also critiqued Wilson’s earlier productions at the Prague National Theatre in SAD magazine has already written in connection with the launch of Janáček’s Destiny (2002) about the Czech aversion to this foreigner who demanded big royalties, did not understand us, repeated himself, used beautiful but cold-hearted forms and whose work lacked a deeper meaning. The most recent production seems to give credence to the bearers of such opinions. Though Wilson thus loses the nimbus of a wizard who could stage the Yellow Pages with the same success, 1914 proves that Wilson is no loner but needs a first-rate work. So far in the Czech Republic he has staged such national heavyweights as Leoš Janáček and Karel Čapek, but this time he came up against Czech shortcomings. It is not about actors: we can only think with sympathy about their lot when they do their best; however, if there is nothing to be performed it is all in vain. The basic trouble lies in the libretto, although its author, Marta Ljubková, based her text on two fundamental reflections on WWI, a “tragedy” The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus and Jaroslav Hašek’s humorous novel The Good Soldier Švejk. In the textual collage from the two works she chooses fleeting excerpts that do not come together to form a plot and do not offer a range from bitter irony to painful, apocalyptic tragedy because she poeticizes (through a composition with many refrains) and makes the play pathetic (particularly through the character called Time). This tendency is then reinforced by rather unimaginative, monotonous but exhaustingly resounding music by Aleš Březina. Unfortunately, Robert Wilson stays loyal to this line too and although he creates his typical grotesque types he gives their actions a lyrical character. The dullness of the textual mishmash that lacks clear situations is further deepened by senseless changes in characters – as though it does not matter what a certain person does or says. As a result the production resembles above all those productions compiled in the times of the communist regime to celebrate various anniversaries. It was naturally understood that they would be outwardly pathetic and inwardly hollow, whipped up without any personal passion. It is sad that even today similar works could get the green light and that 1914 would be probably staged elsewhere in the world: it is a work by a famous director and the anniversary of WWI is being observed everywhere. Sad to say it is possibly the last guest performance by a world-renowned director in the Czech Republic for a long time. There is a whip ready for anybody of that kind: the production of 1914 as proof that there is no point in paying for expensive foreigners.