SAD 4/2019

The issue opens with Miroslav Petříček’s essay “Freedom in Utopia” accompanied by an excerpt from André Glucksmann’s “The Master Thinkers”. Karel Haloun’s continues with fourth instalment of his series entitled “Through Normalization to the Velvet” and section “Freedom with… a Misanthrope” closes with essays by Jan A (“Let the Little Children”) and Miran Mohar (“A Misanthrope in Love”). The section “Yellow Solder… of Demise” is dedicated to Czech alternative theatre and Karel Král (“The Order of Chaos”) writes about the productions Yellow Darkness by Petr Nikl and Rain Dance by the Handa Gote Research & Development ensemble. Pavel Klusák (“Teenage Dreams Are So Hard to Beat”) writes about another of Handa Gote’s productions Two Notebooks and Tomáš Procházka closes the section with his essay “We Were and Will Not Be” about Peter Gonda’s production Six Stories about Origins and Extinction. The section “Intimate Rubín” is dedicated to the Prague A studio Rubín where a new art director Dagmar Radová has concluded her first season. Martin Švejda sums up this season in his essay “Explorations of Intimate Topics” and reviews productions of Thelma and Selma (directed by Jiří Ondra), Lonely Horny Only (directed by Ondřej Štefaňák), Burnout or Burn Out! (directed by Jan Frič), and The Clown, an adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s novel by Lucie Ferenzová. The section closes with the interview with Dagmar Radová, entitled “I Hope Fans of More Artistic Dramaturgy Will Find Us”. In the section “HaDi Yearns for… the National” Barbora Kašparová writes (“Two Blows for Planet Rescue”) about two productions by the Brno theatre HaDivadlo – Gorky’s The Philistines presented by the director Ivan Buraj under the title The Petty Bourgeois and Büchner’s Woyzeck adapted and directed by Miroslav Bambušek. The other Brno production in this section is Pinter’s adaptation of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time at the National Theatre in Brno under Jan Antonín Pitínský (Rubeš: “Words Lost in Images”). Marie Zdeňková writes in her essay entitled “Marysha (screams)” about adaptation of Mrštík brothers’ classic drama Marysha, presented under the title Marysha (remains silent) by director Jakub Čermák with his ensemble Depressive Children Yearn for Money. The section “And the National… Along the Tram” offers the only essay, Lenka Šaldová’s review (“20^th Century Opera on the Stage of the National Theatre”) of three modern operas presented by the Prague National Theatre: Letters, Riddles and Writs by Michael Nyman and The Classical Style by Steven Stucky, directed by Alice Nellis with musical direction by David Švec under the title Mozart and Others; Prokofiev’s L’amour des trois oranges directed by Sláva Daubnerová with musical direction by Christopher Ward, and Petr Wajsar’s Tramvestie directed by Marek Bureš and conducted by Richard Hein. In the section “Lietuvos teatro… Vitrina” Barbora Etlíková writes (“Women’s Voices over the Harbour”) about productions at the Klaipeda Festival TheATRIUM: The Door (directed by Jo Strømgren), The Children of Rosenthal and The Book of Job (directed by Eimuntas Nekrošius), A Russian Romance (directed by Oskaras Koršunovas), A Comic Strip Opera “α” (“Alpha”) directed by Dr. GoraParasit and The Perfect Match directed by Paulius Ignatavičius. In the section “Berliner Festspiele… Theatertreffen” Barbora Schnelle writes (“Is it the End of Political Theatre in Germany?”) about productions of Hotel Strindberg directed by Simon Stone, an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Humiliated and Insulted (directed by Sebastian Hartmann), Christopher Rüping’s project Dionysos Stadt and a staging of Persona on the basis of Ingmar Bergman’s movie (directed by Anna Bergman). The section “New Drama… with Moral Insanity” includes reviews of selected productions from the Bratislava festival Nová dráma: Revolt Athens by the Greek ODC Ensemble (Timčíková: “Destruction of a Paper Town”), The Reunification of the Two Koreas directed by Júlia Rászusová (Blatný: “Unrest in a Zen Garden”) and The Emperor of America directed by Iveta Ditte Jurčová (Raiterová: “Streets So Long You Cannot See The End”). The section closes with interviews with the actor Peter Barejčík (“Moral Insanity is Basically a Debut”) and the director Júlia Rázusová (“The Aim was to Make the Most Authentic Statement”). Their script for the production Moral Insanity inspired by Umberto Eco’s Prague Cemetery and xenophobic websites is published there. The “Comedy Mix” this time presents the German comedian Jan Böhmermann and Egon Tobiáš’s comic strip Titanium Stalks continues with its tenth instalment.