The issue opens with Miroslav Petříček’s article “Anarchism: Creation and Spontaneity” which is a commentary on an excerpt from Peter Marshall’s essay “Society and Its Government”. It is accompanied by Mustapha Mond’s essay “The True Meaning of a Utopia” and a translation of a text by the legendary Geoffroi de Charney “God’s Perfection”. In the section “Normally with… Demons” Petr Horák writes about productions by the Aréna Chamber Theatre, the Silesian National Theatre and the Petr Bezruč Theatre (“To Walk the Demon”), Radka Kunderová offers a portrait of the director Michal Zetel at the time of his move from the Buranteatr of Brno to the Slovácké theatre in Uherské Hradiště (“Romantic Ironist between Conservatism and Post-Drama”), and Blanka Křivánková in her “Earthquakes and Passion in Quotation Marks” reviews two productions by the new head of the National Theatre Drama Company Daniel Špinar (Earthquakes in London and Othello). Dagmar Silbiger Sliuková writes in a Shakespearean section “Tamely… with Love” about Sprušanský’s production of The Taming of the Shrew at the Andrej Bagár Theatre in Nitra (“The Taming of the Vultures”) and about Romeo and Juliet directed by Polina Kalinina at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol (“Romeo and Juliet Not Altogether about Love…”). The section “Ridiculously with a Screw” includes a review of Wolfram Lotze’s Ridiculous Darkness directed at the Burgtheater by Dušan D. Pařízek (Martin Macháček: “Pařízek’s Viennese Darkness”), a monologue The Final Plea of a Somali Pirate by Wolfram Lotze (originally a separate text which has become a part of Ridiculous Darkness) and a review of three productions at the State opera of Berlin in the Schiller Theatre (Lenka Šaldová: “Berlin Inspirations”). In the section “In Dance Mood… with Reality” Karolina Plicková writes about selected productions from this year’s Czech Dance Platform (“Phrasing the Pain and Other Dances” – q.v.) and about the productions Book Burning and Immerwahr by Pieter De Buysser (“New Myths in Flemish Fashion”). The section “Post-normally… with Mystique” consists of an interview with Maria Cavina, producer and co-founder of Jedefrau.org (“Perhaps I Should Work in a Hospice”). The following texts are also related to Jedefrau.org. Jakub Škorpil (“/Non/Compulsory Concerts”) reviews the productions Euphonies and 4321 by Jiří Adámek. Karel Král writes about productions of Mozart’s Magic Flute at the National Theatre and Mutus Liber by Handa Gote Research & Development ensemble (“This Our Czech Mystique …“ – q.v.). This also relates to an essay by one of Handa Gote’s authors, Tomáš Procházka, entitled “Cargo Worshippers” and the non-traditional play of this issue is a strip cartoon screenplay Mutus Liber (drawings by Robert Smolík). The “Comedy Mix” introduces the work of the comedian Daniel Čech. The ninth instalment of Hynek Dřízhal’s and Petr Vodička’s “Morcec and Hádry” comic strip is entitled “The Mystery of a Nibbled Attraction”.
Phrasing the Pain and Other Dances Karolina Plicková singles out three productions from the programme of this year’s Czech Dance Platform. The first is Globe by Jiří Bartovanec, a regular member of Sasha Waltz & Guests ensemble. The choreography on the theme of the loss of identity in a globalized world originally came into being for seven dancers from three continents and it was staged in Prague in an altered guise. Bartovanec builds on the principle of the diffusion of constituent solos which “infect” each other and thus are globalized. Plicková only regrets that the choreographer did not resist the temptation to bring the theme to a final conclusion. Variations on dance sequences (although mostly multiplied, rather than overlapping) are also the theme of a work by the Flemish choreographer Ann Van den Broek who worked with the 420People ensemble on the production Phrasing the Pain. In it she attempts to deal with the painful experience of the loss of someone close to you but the result is not so much contemplative as surprisingly aggressive. According to the author, the “concentrated emotion at the core” of the choreography recalls plays by Sarah Kane. Diptych by Michal Záhora, a member of the NANOHACH group, was originally created for the surroundings of a Baroque church and that defined it both thematically (a pas-de-deux by two men is actually a battle between good and evil and the following female solo refers to the biblical Eden) and in movement. Záhora works with symbolic Baroque gestures and at the same time a distinct signature of his choreography is the refraction of a body along a deflected vertical axis. According to Plicková, the transfer to the dance hall has not impaired the production and it still has an impact “as if Braun’s Baroque statues could be made to dance”.
Our Mystique of Czechs… Karel Král writes about productions linked by esotericism. At the National Theatre Vladimír Morávek provoke opera reviewers by implanting a character of Mozart into The Magic Flute. Pamina leaves with him at the end, accompanying him affectionately on his last journey. However, the mood is frolicsome rather than lyrical and it is dominated by the urges of the participants, which are also a synonym for sex-appeal. It is the singers of the female characters who dominate: Marie Fajtová (Pamina) and Olga Jelínková (Queen of Night). The eye is drawn by scenery with surrealistic collages by Miroslav Huptych. Their topography includes spacious cathedral naves or landscapes with ancient columns, towers, pyramids and most frequently animal motifs. It is a chimerical fauna: three-eyed elephant, two-head snake, three-head lion or a line of mice with hourglasses. There are choruses of motifs: fireworks coming from an angel’s trumpet, Mozart’s chuckle, the ticking of a clock. Many motifs of the production, in which the author allegedly revealed the secret of Masonic rituals, emerge from this “irreligious religion”. For instance, Papageno’s glockenspiel is in the shape of a pyramid made from a dollar note which is popularly taken as the evidence of a world Masonic plot. Today Masonic motifs mostly heighten the mysteriousness of the story. Few spectators are educated in Masonry. Perhaps no Masonic secret really exists and Masons only imitate ancient alchemists without any awareness of an authentic meaning.
For their production Mutus Liber the Handa Gote Research & Development ensemble adapted the homonymous, an illustrated alchemistic work of 1677. It shows the production of a philosopher’s stone, although in a rather opaque way that preserves the secret of the method. The authors of Handa Gote work both on a theatre stage (for instance, they dance) and at their workbenches serving alchemy in a broader sense (also through cooking, music or a computer aided projection). Their approach is that of DIY handymen. They are faithful to the theme in the sense that they create – apart from the inserted songs – a performance without words that reproduces the symbolic and production line of the original. The alchemist’s production of the philosopher’s stone itself is a scholarly, magical and at the same time humorous endeavour (for instance, they install some wires and a tube in soil, then they put a bulb into this material and pump gas into it, they turn on the electricity and the bulb lights up briefly like a lamp). Finally, spectators are invited for a meal that has just been finished but this is perhaps not the only output of work by the alchemists from Handa Gote. They realize that we are all worshippers of a Cargo Cult. We even imitate what we forget over the course of time, such as various rituals. It is as if children reached this point through experiments in school laboratories without their teachers’ supervision. What remains is a ritual, incantation, but it could also be a way to reach and hit the target.