Summary 5/2014
In the section “Investigation and Escape”, the next selected excerpt from Luc Boltanski’s work entitled “The World You Cannot Escape From” is accompanied by a text by its translator Miroslav Petříček, “The Lurking Sight of Conspiracy”. In the series of interviews with literary managers, Karel Král continues with a conversation with Martin Kukučka and Lukáš Trpišovský, the dramaturgical and directorial tandem called SKUTR (“The Coming Theatre is Dramaturgical”). The interview is accompanied by Král’s essay “Pataputy (Half a Dozen by One Tandem)”. Two critical sections follow. In the first (“From the Left Bank”), Martin Švejda considers the past season at the Švanda Theatre in Smíchov (“At the End of a Four-Year Plan”) and in the second (“Intelligent Pop”) Vladimír Mikulka evaluates the latest productions by the director Daniel Špinar (“Between Bel-Ami and Insects”). The section “Revolution – Open Up” provides an excerpt from James Marshall’s book The Structure of Artistic Revolutions Today and Michal Zahálka’s review of Martin Smolka and Jiří Adámek’s opera The Lists of Infinity (“…And There is No Light Either”). In the section “And Exercise with Rebels” Jana Návratová looks back at the Tanec Praha Festival 2014 (“When Dance is not Enough”) and Martin Porubjak gives an account of the Neue Stücke aus Europa Festival (“Rebellious Theatre in Wiesbaden”). Prague (in MeetFactory) and Vienna (Burgtheater) productions of Elfriede Jelinek’s drama Schatten (Eurydike sagt) are reviewed by Zuzana Augustová. The section “Within the Fall” accompanies the play of this issue, which is Petr Zelenka’s Job Interviews and also includes an interview with the author (“In the End Pissing Off Becomes Indifference”) and Vladimir Mikulka’s review (“From Říp Hill to Macocha Abyss”) of its production directed by the author at the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice. The next Italian “Comedy Mix” introduces “a brainsick Hassid” Moni Ovadia and the next instalment of the “Morcec and Hádry” comic strip, titled “The Crooked Garrotter”.
1 + 1 = SKUTR This section is dedicated to the dramaturgical and directorial duo SKUTR (Martin Kukučka and Lukáš Trpišovský). In his essay “Pataputy (Half a Dozen by One Tandem)” Karel Král reflects on six of their productions created between the beginning of 2013 and the end of the last season. It is a range rich in genres and theatres both big and small, from experimental to entirely commercial ones: a ballet (Krabat – the National Theatre), drama (A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Summer Shakespeare Festival, and Swan Lake – the Klicpera Theatre Hradec Králové), musical (Mowgli – Kalich Theatre), “laterna magika” combining dance, drama and movie projection (Human Locomotion – Laterna Magika), and experimental cabaret (Le Cabaret de l’Universe – La Fabrika). Possibly the only forms missing from SKUTR’s list are puppet theatre (although it does include animation of objects), opera (although there is singing in every production) and new circus (although circus acts are not lacking). Though SKUTR is nowhere at home it has its team of collaborators including their set designer Jakub Kopecký. Together they create their typical style which is simultaneously grotesque and poetic and they adapt it successfully to various kinds of theatre. A connecting thread running through those six productions is the fact they could be tagged as fairy tales. The interview “The Coming Theatre is Dramaturgical” is also about their relation to fairy tales. The fairy tales represent archetypes for them. They turn to them also because they place demands on the audiences’ imagination. In this way fairy tales are related to rituals and poetry, dance and music. SKUTR’s poetics “melodramatically” link music, motion and words. They are confident that the primary thing in the theatre is a message and therefore they believe in the future of a dramaturgical kind of theatre, even though the status of a literary manager in contemporary theatre is fairly insecure.
Between Bel-Ami and Insects Though Daniel Špinar (born 1979) is indisputably one of the gifted talents of Czech theatre today, his productions have also tended to be rather hollow in spite of their outward stylishness. However, in the past season he produced a series of quality and balanced productions, successful not only with audiences but with critics too, as well as in theatrical surveys. At the Municipal Theatre of Kladno he staged his own adaptation of Maupassant’s Bel-Ami and Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette, at the Petr Bezruč Theatre of Ostrava it was a “singles” comedy My Romantic History by DC Jackson, at the Švandovo Theatre a theatrically penetrating adaptation of Hamlet and at the National Theatre the Čapek brothers’ parable Pictures from the Life of Insects. Špinar excels among Czech theatre directors firstly with his non-violent combination of professional skill and contemporary staging, interpretation and artistic elaboration and secondly in that he does not put himself forward at the expense of actors (it is no coincidence that actors from his productions collected so many awards in the last year). He is not a creator who primarily concentrates on seeking meanings and who opens up situations from inside. He approaches theatre more like a visul artist and he usually aims to establish a basic mood with constituent scenes leading off from it. A certain dose of catchiness and ostentatiousness is also a usual element of his style: it results in productions we could term “intelligent modern pop”. All the productions discussed in the essay have something in common:: they were all produced by medium-sized, modestly progressive ensembles. Špinar’s attitude seems to offer a promising way forward for aspiring municipal theatres in their attempt to extricate themselves from conservative stereotypes for a “subscribing audience” but without annoying their more established audience with overly indigestible outlandishness.