Ferdinand Vanek Award 2015
THEY ARE ANIMALS
and other plays with politics
An anthology of short political plays 2015
Ferdinand Vaněk Award 2015
Cristian Ceresoli: The Execution of Pain
“Gentlemen, raise your hands, anyone, who here, among us, had ever had a father, a dad, because it will be a father, who will today, here and now, for sure, be given a verdict.”
Chaim Cigan: The Memoirs of King Ahasuerus
(One act play)
“When you are writing history, Your Majesty, you should bear in mind that it will be for eternity!”
Magda Fertacz: Body Full of Pain
(Sanitary Rituals)
“I am standing here in front of you and before I even open my mouth, you will say that I am hysterical, unreliable, crazy, that I don´t own a single penny, that I am an insane witch.”
Nikolai Khalezin: Return to Forever
“Boys are born for a war. Girls are born to teach their fathers some lessons. So, for a war too. Why are dogs born? Probably in order to be loved. Or to love.”
DC Jackson: 140 Characters With Nothing To Say
“What’s the difference between what you are doing here now and what those beasts did in Paris with a gun? The liberal Fascists and the Muslim Fascists are united in attempting to clamp down our freedom of speech. «Je suis Charlie».”
Tomáš Kafka: Marital Scenes from Casablanca
“I would really like to know, what you would do, if someone so brutally distorted your own traumas! It´s more repulsive than the tabloids! Do you know how I looked in my own eyes in that moment? How I felt? Just imagine someone told you that you envy all unsuccessful masturbators…”
S.d.Ch.: The Last Goose Supper
(Gastro-political drama, created in honour of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, as well as the sixty-sixth anniversary of Victorious February 1948)
“Find a second, a third job, or we’ll have an undernourished and sinewy athlete instead of a goose. And do not think that I will be always eating it instead of you! I am a human being and have my limits and borderlines just as everybody else! It depends solely on you under which circumstances we’ll meet here again - whether we’d be chasing the bones around the roasting pan with fingers begrimed with shit or relishing a golden roast!”
Viliam Klimáček: Strange Times, Strange Love, Strange Lives
(three little plays with two songs and one crucifixion)
“I am thinking whether it makes sense to react with art to this strange world, because whenever I write something, the very second it becomes old, the reality rewrites it immediately. It is faster than me, crueller than me and more precise than me, it is fucking talented – a damned good writer with endless imagination, not a loser like me… (He leaves)”
Artur Pałyga: Meat
“I am staying just because I am a coward, a true coward, for fucksake! I should have gone to the government meeting and not have bothered about you, would it matter if I had difficulties concentrating in the beginning? That I wouldn’t have an idea what decisions we took? But I’d have some real influence on the matters of the world, the society, or no?
Your fucking fate, your disintegrating body, and your life ruined by booze do not interest me at all!”
Małgorzata Sikroska-Miszczuk: La Loba
(Singing Over The Bones)
“Our father had a strange status:
Neither alive, nor dead
I know it had an influence on me
When I touched the tumour, I didn’t go to the doctor, no way
I pretended I didn’t have one
I felt really terrible that night
It wasn’t wise – but that’s how it was
I was scared –“
Csaba Székely: They Are Animals
“From now on… I am … an emperor. (He collapses with tiredness.) I hope that it… is clear. (Looks up at the sky) Look! A vulture… Go away!…I am… an emperor. Go away! (His head sinks) Still, everything was better before.”
