Miroslav Petříček’s essay “Reflections on Time, Story Telling and Nomads” is accompanied by an extract from Jean-Toussaint Desanti’s book Reflections on Time – Philosophical Variations. The section “Time… for Fear” offers further essays: “Horror without Cause” by Carrie Slither and “Driving off Fear with Fear (Blockbuster and Flop)” by Augustin Assortir, and Zuzana Augustová’s review “Hamlet and Fear” on two productions by Schaubühne Berlin: Ostermeier’s Hamlet and FEAR by Falk Richter. In the section “War Monsters…”, Vladimír Mikulka reviews the adaptation of Grosman’s A Shop on Main Street directed by Jiří Pokorný (Divadlo X10), Josef Rubeš (“The Cremators /Theme, Style, Actor/”) writes on the adaptation of Fuks’ The Cremator at the National Theatre Prague (directed by Jan Mikulášek) and at the Divadlo Petra Bezruče of Ostrava (directed by Jakub Nvota), and Karolina Plicková (“The Chilling Silence of Snowdrifts”) on a dance production Christmas Crib of Lešany by Lenka Vagnerová & Comp. The section “… and Places Cherished by Darkness” includes Markéta Polochová’s review (“Irony is the Best Policy”) on Dürrenmatt’s Frank der Fünfte (directed by Hana Burešová, Municipal Theatre Brno) and Broch’s Sleepwalkers (directed by Ivan Buraj, HaDivadlo), Kateřina Veselovská (“Fascination as a Mode of Concentration”) writes about experimental poetry inspired by the production “the mouth will stop it” at Prague theatre Disk (directed by Jiří Adámek), Jakub Škorpil (“Genes, the Universe and Everything”) reviews the production of René Levínský’s play Press Space to Continue at the National Theatre (directed by Jan Frič), Marie Zdeňková reviews Ibsen’s A Doll’s House directed at the Divadlo pod Palmovkou by Jan Nebeský (“The Secret of Christmas without Gifts”), Marek Lollok writes on Braňo Holiček’s Tribes at the National Theatre Brno (“Tribes as an Attempt at Generation Confession?”), and Karel Král (“Liberec Islands”) on the production There Are Places Cherished by Darkness… (directed by Filip Homola, Naivní divadlo Liberec). The basis of “Kašpar’s… Špalek” section is an interview with actor, director and producer Jakub Špalek (“I Don’t Know What Happens Next”) accompanied by a review (Křivánková: “What and Why to Seek in a /Blue Guttering/ Mash”) of two productions of Ivan Vyrypaev’s works directed at the theatre Kašpar by Jakub Špalek (The Illusion) and Marek Němec (Drunks). The Slovak section “SK History… and Resurrection” offers a review of a Žilina production of Daniel Doubt’s Resurrection directed by Eduard Kudláč (Lejková: “Do We Understand Absurdity and Nonsense?”) and Martina Ulmanová’s study entitled “A Report on a Transpersonal Mission” summarizing in themed subsections Slovak productions inspired by the lives of legendary historic persons. The section “Circus of Crisis… with a Secret” consists of a review of the production Limits staged by Cirk Cirkör (Dotlačilová: “On Immigration Crisis /in Two Circus Acts/)” and Vladimír Mikulka returns in his essay “With a Secret on a Shield” to the fourth volume of the Cirkopolis Festival and the productions Taival (NUUA), Marée Basse (Comp. Sacékripa), Autour du Domaine (Collectif porte 27) and Aneckxander (Alexander Vantournhout). The play of this issue is the text nominated by the Theatre Critics’ Awards survey as the Play of 2016 – Olga (Horrors from Hrádeček) by Anna Saavedra. The “Comedy Mix”, dedicated this year to Hubert Krejčí, this time includes his Memory of Prague and the eighth instalment of the comic strip “Theatre Sadism Lessons” by S.d.Ch. is entitled Comic Sans MS.
There Are Places Cherished by Darkness… In his essay “Liberec Islands” Karel Král looks at a production by the Naivní divadlo. Under the long and complex title There Are Places Cherished by Darkness Where Never and Nothing Is Concealed on Remote Islands they stage an adaptation of Judith Schalansky’s book Atlas of Remote Islands. The starting point was not this time a theatrical idea but book-inspired ambient music by the duo, Kora et la Mechanix (Filip Homola and Michal Kořán). To compositions constructed from sounds resembling gusts of wind, sea breathing, birds’ screaming or whales singing, a similarly strange, minimalistic and suggestive theatre piece arose under Homola’s direction. The audience sitting around a long wooden table listen to music and stories far from the romantic image of islands as small paradises on earth. A small dog sled runs past the audience on a strip of white paper leaving behind it blood stains and a plethora of torn feathers embodying fledglings slaughtered by bird lovers, on a runway highlighted by small bulbs a plane starts up, pieces of fish from the whalers’ island splash on the table, small dolls heads from an island where many newborns die float in mason jars… Projection on canvases suspended above the table transform the table itself into a five-masted vessel. It takes us all the way to the atoll sinking into the sea. The end can, but need not, be understood by a spectator symbolically or fatally. The paradox of the performance lies in the fact that it frightens and captivates at the same time.
Anna Saavedra: Olga (Horrors from Hrádeček) Though Anna Saavedra’s play is inspired by the life of Olga, the first wife of President Václav Havel, this is not a biographical work. Saavedra does not proceed chronologically but wanders in time (for instance, she lines up thematically analogical scenes with secret police before and after November 1989). Although Olga Havlová is the title character, almost same amount of time – if not more – is devoted to her husband Václav, presented in the script, however, by three characters labelled Man 1–3. As in real life Havlová is here more of a figure in the background (who is always on hand when she is needed) and at the same time she is an observer and sarcastic glossarist of her husband’s life. She is resigned to a point with both his political engagement (as dissident and as president), and his love affairs. In Saavedra’s play Havel’s lovers even organize a mini-convention with the inevitable finding that they themselves could not exist if not for the solid and constant centre of gravity – Olga. However, Saavedra is not building a monument. Although she is more ironic about Olga’s environment she does not hold any unnecessary sentiment for her heroine. She divides her play into shorter scenes, some of which are repeated in altered historical circumstances and she also takes the long view on meta-theatrical reality when she transforms her characters into reporters.