The first issue of the year brings, as always, the complete results of the critical survey that the Theatre Critics’ Awards are based on. An essay by Miroslav Petříček, “Anything Goes” opens a cycle dedicated to anarchism and it includes excerpts from works by Colin Ward (“A Short History of Anarchism”) and Gustav Landauer (“Anarchy and Karl Marx”). These are complemented by a series of short essays on the theme of artificial intelligence by Frank Marvin (“The End of the Informatorium”), Olimpia Talos (“UI-AI: The Emancipation of the Intelligence Minority”) and Bianca Calabrese (“People’s Theatre”). In the section “Theatre… Post-Normal” we continue mapping out theatres that oscillate on the fringes of genres, types and the majority interest. Kateřina Veselovská writes about the production of Gould, based on script by Egon Tobiáš and directed by Jiří Ondra at the Divadlo D21 (“My Socks are Leaving Me Slowly”); Blanka Křivánková reviews The Tempest, a project staged with an international cast by the creative tandem SKUTR in a new venue called Jatka78 (SlaughterHouse78) (“Notes from an Island Solitary”); Michal Zahálka considers the production Post Velvet, a kaleidoscopic look back at a quarter of century of freedom, staged at the National Theatre by Jiří Adámek (“Refrains of Embarrassment and Hope”), and Marie Zdeňková writes in her essay “Hell-Earth-Heaven” about two “alternative” productions by Jan Nebeský, Inferno – Dante’s Variations and Taciturnly Screaming. In the section “Hamlet… and Pollesch” Vladimír Mikulka (“Something Rotten. Us. People.”) writes on Hamlet directed at the Schauspielhaus Bochum by Jan Klata and performed at last year’s Pilsen festival Theatre. Zuzana Augustová also considers guest performances in her essay “Theatre Liberated from Theatre” about René Pollesch’s productions Gasoline Bill from the Münchner Kammerspiele (introduced at the Prague Festival of German Language Theatre) and House for Sale by Volksbühne Berlin. The following section is dedicated to Prague and Bratislava productions of Strauss’s Salome (Mojžišová: “Salome Spoilt and Defiled”) and it also brings an interview with the director Mariusz Treliński. In his essay “As if on Pins and Needles!” Rudo Leška writes about productions of Karvaš’s Midnight Mass at the Slovak National Theatre and Uprising at the Divadlo Aréna; Martina Ulmanová reviews Divadlo Aréna’s production Capital (“In a Drift of Chips and Foam Candies”), based on Karl Marx/Capital by Peter Lomnický, which is also published in this issue. “Comedy Mix” opens a “Czech series” with Petr Vydra’s News, the next instalment of the “Morcec and Hádry” comic strip is entitled Czech Talents Ltd. and the now traditional “Kaleidoscope of Brief News from around the World” is also here.
The Theatre Critics’ Awards The Awards are a continuation of the former Alfréd Radok Awards. They are traditionally based on the sums of votes in a survey held by the Svět a divadlo magazine (69 critics participated this year). For the first time in its history , in its twenty-third year the survey has produced a clear winner: Prague’s Divadlo Na zábradlí (Theatre on the Balustrade). That is to say, the Play of the Year is the musical-cabaret portrait of Václav Havel by the composer and playwright Miloš Orson Štědroň, Velvet Havel, staged at the Theatre on the Balustrade by Jan Frič. The production also scored in both acting categories where the awards went to Miloslav König, who played Václav Havel, and Marie Spurná in the role of Olga Havlová. Štědroň’s original text became the Czech Play of the Year and he also won the category of Best Music of the Year for Velvet Havel. The award for the Best Set Design of the Year went to Marek Cpin for his scenery for the production Pleasure Seekers by Jan Mikulášek and Dora Viceníková, directed by Mikulášek also at the Divadlo Na zábradlí, and the Talent of the Year is the director Anna Petrželková, particularly due to her production Harridans based on texts by Daniil Charms. This production was also staged at the Divadlo Na zábradlí, which has also received the Theatre of the Year title.
Salome… and Treliński Michaela Mojžišová (“Salome Spoilt and Defiled”) compares Richard Strauss’s operatic productions at the National Theatres of Bratislava and Prague. The former, directed by Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle with music arranged by Friedrich Haider, sees humans as having become locked in a vicious circle of individuality in the hundred years since Salome was premièred. Salome (Jolana Fogašová) is a spoilt and cruel eccentric. In the Prague production, directed by Mariusz Treliński with music arranged by Heiko Mathias Förster, Salome (Gun-Brit Barkmin) is a traumatized woman, an introvert. While the Bratislava production is set in abstract “timelessness”, set designer Boris Kudlička placed the Prague Salome in a comfortable contemporary apartment. Macabre orchestration effectively collided with the abysmal content of the staged account in the Dance of the Seven Veils where the"image” to music is represented by a gory dream about an abused little girl. The following interview with Treliński (“The Classics Must Not Be Dead Heavy Weight”) by Rudo Leška discusses his directing of films (with his successful debut, an adaptation of Witkacy’s novel Farewell to Autumn), drama (to which he was attracted by Jerzy Grzegorzewski) and opera (where Plácido Domingo helped him): “For me, theatre is the essence of artificiality, a game. This is particularly conspicuous in opera because it is based on an agreement that we are going to tell the story through song. Thus from the outset it is a strange, surrealistic human work, like for instance chess…” The interview is largely about Salome: “I think our idea was a pretty simple one – but difficult to implement. We know the story of Oedipus and his complex. The production of Salome is an attempt to transfer a tangled web of family characters into the present day and to describe her complex.”