The issue opens with the next instalment of Miroslav Petříček’s “anarchist” cycle, this time entitled “Order from Chaos”, and an excerpt from Simon Critchley’s essay “Ethics as Anarchistic Meta-Politics”. In the section “Post-normal… Irritation” Vladimír Mikulka introduces the works of director Jan Kačena (“If the Devil’s There, Let Him Come Out!” – q.v.) and Barbora Etlíková writes on the Divadlo koňa a motora, personally and poetically close to Kačena (“Against Hatred with a Foam Plastic Hammer”). The section “Ostrava… Without Sense” includes an interview with the manager of the Petr Bezruč Theatre Tomáš Suchánek (“The Art of Selling Art”) and Petr Horák’s essay about the Petr Bezruč Theatre productions Nahniličko (Soft-Boiled) and Lidumor, aneb má játra beze smyslu (PeoplePlague or My Meaningless Liver) at the Chamber Scene Aréna Ostrava (“Soft-Boiled or Hard-Boiled”). The section “Puppets… with Circus” consists of a review of selected productions from this year’s Skupa Pilsen International Festival (Vladimír Mikulka: “Turn off Telephones and Tune In”), an excerpt from Erik Weisz’s book The Dynamics of Puppets, a short essay by Iva Frelová (“Bravo, Punch!”) and Karel Král’s article about three foreign and three Czech contemporary circus productions (“Family is a Pretty Circus”), including the well-received Walls and Handbags and the contradictory Family by Cirk La Putyka. Problems with government censorship in Russia are dealt with in the section “Artist… against Statesman” which includes an interview with Pavel Rudnev (“Theatre does not Allow any Ideology”), a commentary by Tereza Krčálová (“Russia Stipulates an Order in Culture”) and an open letter by director Varvara Faer “I am a Swine with a White Braid”. In his essay “Documentary. And Theatrical?” Jakub Škorpil writes about the productions Hate Radio, Samedi détente, Vjatlag and An Old Monk introduced at the festival Divadelná Nitra 2015 and in the section “From Documents to Portraits” Martina Ulmanová complements this with “notes on portraits” of the Slovak actors Robert Roth, Daniel Fischer, Martin Huba, Boris Farkaš and Martin Šalach (“Actors”). Dana Silbiger-Sliuková looks back at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival and productions by Simon McBurney, Robert Lepage, Ivo van Hove, Enda Walsh, Iván Fischer and Barrie Kosky in the section “Indians… and Juliette Binoche”. Veronika Horáčková introduces the Dutch playwright and director Eric de Vroedt and his project of ten political plays mightysociety; the first of which – mightysociety1: How Even I Learnt to Love the Latest Political Wonder – is published as the play of this issue. “Comedy Mix” this time recalls the works of already defunct Theatre Filtré and the twelfth instalment of the “Morcec and Hádry” comic strip by Hynek Dřízhal and Petr Vodička is characteristically entitled The Last Episode.
If the Devil’s There, Let Him Come Out! Jan Kačena is a director who has been moving for years on the fringes of Czech theatre. However, he works both in reputable theatres and on almost amateur terms. He often directs for children (though those plays sometimes arouse dread both in them and their parents). He indulges in mystical, trashy, often religiously coloured stories and manages to transform them into strange theatrical forms full of absurd, cynical humour and cruelty. Their main virtue however is the director’s rarely seen ability to tell a story with the aid of purely theatrical images. Kačena’s productions are usually impalpable and divergent, full of dreamily unclear, almost grotesque scenes intercut by infantile joking but also by disimpassioned, sometimes almost lyrical passages. The essay deals with three loose adaptations of literary works by American writers. The Devil Sleeps in a Cross of Trestles is an adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel Carrie, Get Up, the World is on Fire, We Have to Go to Piss on It is drawn from Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Crossing and U-Dick (Oratorium) was partly inspired by the autobiographical sci-fi novel VALIS by American writer Philip K. Dick and partly by gnostic texts from The Nag Hammadi Library.