Miroslav Petříček
THE TRUTH OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES
RICHARD HOFSTADTER: THE PARANOID STYLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS
Karel Haloun:
ON THE BIGGEST SURPRISE THAT FUTURE HAS IN STORE FOR US
truth and lies on the road – third volume
Petr Fischer:
THE TRUTH OF THE ADRENALIN OF EVENTS
documentary papers – third volume
Peter Benjaminson
SPEECH AS JEWELLERY
ON THE NEAR FUTURE
from chat room of „nation is art“ group – subgroup of „how to crotchet“
Marie Zdeňková
AN ATTEMPT AT TRACKING THE UDEPICTABLE
two poles of czech scenography
Jozef Červenka
SEARCHING, FINDING AND UNSUCCESSFUL CELEBRATION (SEASON AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE BRNO OPERA AND THREE OPERA PREMIERES IN SLOVAKIA)
(Jacques Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffmann, dir. SKUTR, cond. Ondrej Olos, Janáčkova opera Národního divadla Brno, 2019; Richard Strauss: Rosenkavalier, dir. Jiří Heřman, cond. Robert Kružík, Janáčkova opera Národního divadla Brno, 2019; Marko Ivanović: Monument, libretto and dir. David Radok, cond. M.Ivanović, Janáčkova opera Národního divadla Brno; Josef Bohuslav Foerster: Eva, dir. Dana Dinková, cond. Marián Vach and Jan Procházka, Štátna opera v Banskej Bystrici, 2019; Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio, dir. Bruno Berger Gorski, cond. Vinucius Kattah, Opera Štátneho divadla v Košiciach, 2020; Antonín Dvořák: Rusalka, dir. Martin Kákoš, cond. Ondrej Olos, Opera Slovenského národného divadla v Bratislave, 2020)
Zuzana Augustová
KILLING OF LOVE (PENTHESILEA AT BERLINER ENSEMBLE)
(Heinrich von Kleist: Penthesilea, dir. Michael Theilheimer, Berliner Ensemble, 2015)
IN PINKK PYJAMA WE ROAM THROUGH DYSTOPIA
interview with professor Doris KOLESCH
Jakub Škorpil
THE WAY WE WERE? (DEKAMERON 2020)
(DEKAMERON 2020, concept Tomáš Svoboda, films directed by Adam Kratochvíl, camera Vojtech Dvořák a.o., edit A.Kratochvíl and Lukáš Táborský, Divadlo na Fidlovačce with STUDIO FAMU and Biofilms rental s.r.o, premiere 20.5.2020 - Luboš Balák: Handbook of better sex, dir. Kateřina Jonášová and Daniel Krejčík; Tomáš Dianiška: Big Brother, dir. Adéla Laštovková-Stodolová; David Košťák: Pigeons, dir. Jakub Čermák; Digital quarantine, script and dir. Jiří Havelka; Alice Nellis: attn., dir. Šimon Dominik; Barbora Hančilová: Residues of tenderness, dir. B.Hančilová and Ondřej Štefaňák; Breathe, script and dir. Kateřina Jonášová; Kristýna Čepková: Tied by contagion, dir. Petr Veselý; Finis Coronat Opus, script and dir. J.Čermák; Coro, Coro, Coro, script and dir. T.Svoboda)
Barbora Schnelle
INSCENACE TWIN SPEAKS IN TELEGRAM APPLICATION (GERMANY)
(vorschlag:hammer: Twin Speaks, adapted for Telegram, concept and performance Gesine Hohmann, Stephan Stock, Kristofer Gudmundsson, Bernhard la Dous, Paula Reissig, Malu Peeters, vorschlag:hammer, 2020)
Dana Silbiger Sliuková
END MEETING FOR ALL BY FORCED ENTERTAINMENT (GREAT BRITAIN)
(Forced Entertainment: END MEETING FOR ALL, directed and performed by Tim Etchells, co-creators and performers Robin Arthur, Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden and Terry O’Connor, Forced Entertainment on Zoom, 2020)
Lucie Hayashi
RESPONSIBILITY (JAPAN)
Petr Holý
IN THE WORLD OF KABUKI (TRADITIONAL JAPAN)
Martin Švehlík
NON-THEATRE IN THE TIMES OF PLAGUE (ITALY)
Jakub Škorpil
HAIR, NEEDLES AND EMOTIONS (VERY BRITTLE BOUGHS)
(Very Brittle Boughs, concept, script and dir. Ondřej Sokol, script and dramaturgy Markéta Kočí Machačíková, Činoherní klub with mall.tv and Donio.cz, 2020)
Karel Král
BORDERS OF DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS (SHORT CATALLOGUE OF PARALELL THEATRE)
(Inner-city, concept and dir. Ludvík Píza and col., residence project KALD DAMU, Pomezí, 2020; Behind the Doors No 21, concept and realization Barbora Klapalová, Ondřej Levý, Martin Sucharda and Matěj Sybr, Pomezí, 2019; Dear Karel!, authors Jindřiška Dudziaková and Marie König Dudziaková, Pomezí, 2019; Trips!, author and perfromer Jakub Hojka, Pomezí, 2019; Veduta, authors and perfromers Vendula Bělochová and Jan Tomšů, Pomezí, 2017; Silvia Mercuriali and Ant Hampton: Etiquette, Rotozaza, 2004; Over the City, script, sound design and dir. Kateřina Součková, 2019)
Marek Lollok
ON MINORITIES, PREJUDICES AND „NORMALITY“ (GADJOS GO TO HEAVEN)
(Jiří Havelka and col.: Gadjoes Go to Heaven. Comedy Ghetto, dir. J.Havelka, Divadlo Husa na provázku, 2020)
Kateřina Lesch Veselovská
BETWEEN US, WOMEN (FERRANTE CLUB)
(Ferrante club, dir. Iga Gańczarczyk and Magda Jiřička Stojowska, Studio Hrdinů, 2020)
Fredrik Brattberg
VIRUS (fugue)
MICHAŁ WALCZAK
THE YEAR OF METAL RAT
CRISTIAN CERESOLI
THE TORMENT OF WRITING
MAŁGORZATA SIKORSKA-MISZCZUK
STORY ABOUT THE FACT THAT MOST BEAUTIFUL STRATEGY TO OUTLIVE COVID IS TO ACCEPT A HEROINE WHO WOULD SAVE THE WORLD
Iva KLESTILOVÁ: END OF CHANGE
truth, love and the others 4/6
KLIMÁČEK DANGLÁR: TWINS 4 - Aquanet
(fantasy comics about final battle between theatre and television in our as well as parallel world)
The issue opens with “The Truth of Conspiracy Theories”, Miroslav Petříček’s essay, which the author has accompanied by an excerpt from Richard Hofstadter’s article “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”. Karel Haloun’s series “Truth and Lies on the Road” continues with its third, Greek instalment “On the Biggest Surprise that the Future Has in Store for Us”. Petr Fischer dedicates his next “documentary paper” to the duo Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda (“The Truth of the Adrenalin of Events”). The section “Truth… and Future” then concludes with Peter Benjaminson’s essay “Speech as Jewellery” and a transcription of a discussion group on “nation is art” (“On the Near Future”). In the section “In a Haze… of the Golden Age” Marie Zdeňková writes about characteristic features of “small” and “representative” theatres’ stage designs (“An Attempt at Tracking the Undepictable”). Jozef Červenka (“Searching, Finding and Unsuccessful Celebration”) writes about the season in the Opera of the National Theatre’s Brno and Slovak stages. Zuzana Augustová reviews Thalheimer’s production of Kleist’s Penthesilea at the Berliner Ensemble (“Killing of Love”) and the section concludes with an interview with Professor Doris Kolesch about German immersive theatre (“In Pink Theatre We Roam through Dystopia”). The section “Pandemic Muses… From Here to There and Back Again” is dedicated to (non)theatre activities in the times of coronavirus and it is framed by two contributions by Jakub Škorpil: the first is about the project Decameron 2020, ten new short plays by Czech playwrights staged at Divadlo na Fidlovačce (“The Way We Were?”), and the second about a streamed series Highly Brittle Boughs by Ondřej Sokol and the Činoherní klub Prague (“Hair, Needles and Emotions”). Barbora Schnelle looks at the production of Twin Peaks on the Telegram platform by the group vorschlag:hammer, and Dana Silbiger Sliuková at the zoom project End Meeting for All by Forced Entertainment. In her essay “Responsibility” Lucie Hayashi describes the wider impacts of the pandemic on Japanese culture while Petr Holý considers its influence on a traditional genre of kabuki theatre. The situation in Italy, heavily afflicted by pandemic, is described by Martin Švehlík (“Non-Theatre in the Times of Plague”). In the section “Opening of… Natural Springs”, Karel Král offers under the title “Borders of Different Dimensions” a short catalogue of parallel theatre, i.e. forms in which a spectator becomes an active partner. Marek Lollok reviews the production Gadjos Go to Heaven, directed at the Husa na provázku Theatre by Jiří Havelka (“On Minorities, Prejudices and «Normality»”), and Blanka Křivánková writes about the production Ferrante Club, prepared at the Studio Hrdinů by Ina Gańczarczyk and Magda Jiřička Stojowska on motifs from books by Elena Ferrante. As the play of the issue this time we offer four “Short Plays from Quarantine”, written for the Svět a divadlo magazine by Fredrik Brattberg, Michał Walczak, Cristian Ceresoli and Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk (all q. v.). The series of flash dramas “Truth, Love and Those Others” continues with Iva Klestilová’s play Wind of Change, and this instalment of the comic by the duo Klimáček-Danglár is entitled Aquanet.
Short Plays from Quarantine At the beginning of the pandemic the editors went to leading European playwrights and asked them to try in any form of their choice to process the experience of “the times of coronavirus”. Norwegian Fredrik BRATTBERG uses his favourite music-inspired forms and in the playlet The Virus (Fugue) he shows the world as a toy where a smaller world is concealed inside the bigger one and the latter is inside an even bigger one all of which copy each other. In his play The Year of the Metal Rat the Polish playwright Michał WALCZAK describes a world in which real impacts of the pandemic like failing businesses and human relations are mixed with a fantasy dystopia where depopulated cities are taken back by nature and the world reverts to dog-eat-dog. Walczak’s compatriot Małgorzata SIKORSKA-MISZCZUK offers her Story about the Fact that the Most Beautiful Strategy to Outlive Covid is to Accept a Heroine who Would Save the World, an intimate, rather monologue confession of a (half)fictitious author whose “twofold despair” convinces the Universe to hold on to the world a little bit longer and not to crush it with a pestilential blow. The Italian Cristian CERESOLI stays entirely personal and he divides his text The Torment of Writing into thirty “variations” with concluding and opening arias. He outlines the parallels between his own hard clinical depression and the condition in which Italy affected by pandemic was caught, and particularly the area of Bergamo where Ceresoli lives.