Czech Theatre - 2002 - 03

The Czech theatre 2002/03

Alas, no epoch-making production put the Czech theatre on the front pages of newspapers and before TV cameras at home and abroad - a natural disaster attracted their attention. The August flood on the rivers Vltava and Labe (Elbe) hit many places and interfered with the life of 17 Czech theatres and several literally disappeared in the stormy waters! The Czechs once more, as so often in dramatic circumstances, stood by one another. Colleagues from undamaged theatres immediately offered their help, while side by side with professional rescue parties their audiences extended a helping hand. Even colleagues from foreign theatres participated in fund raising.

Dominancy of directors

Some theatres were back to normal within a few weeks, whereas others had to get by for a year or more with guest performances in theatres throughout the country. Among the leading theatres most badly hit was the Prague Divadlo v Dlouhé (Theatre in Dlouhá Street). Despite all setbacks already in November the ensemble came with a premiere at a hosting theatre - Divadlo Na zábradlí (Theatre On the Balustrade) R. Harwood's The Dresser; the director of the play, whose protagonists cope with King Lear during air raids (sic) in Britain, was the excellent Slovak actor and director Martin Huba. Huba's participation assumed symbolic meaning - the end of June 2002 saw the exceptional success of King Lear, directed by Huba for the Shakespearean Summer Festival at Prague Castle. And the sand, a part of the stage design, was used during the flood to fill sacks for the anti-flood barriers on the banks of the Vltava...Who could have thought of a more impressive image of the theatre's transiency and cohesion.

The flood could also be seen as a parable of the whimsicality of the theatre world, where an aversion for changes only means ruin. The Theatre in Dlouhá Street actually emerged from the grey average to join the elite only after the arrival of two new directors - Hana Burešová and Jan Borna. The director Miroslav Krobot gave up, some time ago, his job at the National Theatre in Prague took over the Dejvické divadlo (Dejvice theatre), whose home is a small basement hall in the suburbs. He soon transformed it into one the most popular theatres in the capital. His latest production in October 2003 was Mozart's Magic Flute, not however with opera singers, but as a comedy-cabaret with actors. One of the directors he summoned was Janusz Klimsza, who in December 2003 staged T. Williams´s A Streetcar Named Desire, transferring the play's action to the 1960s. Actually, until the end of last year's season Janusz Klimsza was the artistic head of another remarkable ensemble: The Theatre Company of Petr Bezruč in Ostrava.

The supremacy of the three above-mentioned theatres took form, when the generation that started as theatre directors in the 1980 gradually assumed responsibility for their ensembles. Although Burešová, Borna, Krobot and Klimsza have each their own original style, their work shares some common features. They interpret classics in a new, not unfrequently provocative manner, they favour new plays and dramatizations, often as their authors. They resort to striking stylizations and grotesque elements, while demanding from the actors a modern, natural expression. It is worth mentioning that their productions bespeak an obvious sense of music.

Their common features are close to the heart of Ladislav Smoček, director and dramatist, who actually belongs to the generation of living classics; he is knwon as the founder of the Drama Club (Činoherní klub) - a theatre that in the 1960s triumphantly swept Europe. Smoček still works at the Činoherní klub, which is experiencing its renaissance. Smoček is an excellent counterpart of the highly gifted Slovak director Martin Čičvák, who recently graduated from Janáček' Academy of Performing Arts in Brno.

The most highly praised and equally damned Czech director is Vladimír Morávek, who transformed the unexciting regional Klicpera theatre in Hradec Králové (eastern Bohemia, approx. hundred thousand inhabitants) into a place, where outstanding projects are born. Morávek's endeavours at the Klicpera Theatre culminated in his Chekhovian trilogy, in which he interweaves with great inventiveness the fate of the protagonists of Chekhov's plays. Morávek concluded the trilogy in October 2002 with the production of Uncle Solenyi (i.e salted), an arrangement of Uncle Vanya, based on the principle that some personages, among them Solenyi, pass from one play to another. Morávek, however, did not simply stage three different plays (The Three Sisters, The Seagull, Uncle Solenyi), on two occasions the whole trilogy was performed on the same day under the title Čechov Čechům (Chekhov for the Czechs). The fascinating result stands up to the famous Shakesperean saga Schlachten! from the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg.

But even were Morávek ready to let himself be cut up with a power saw, most debates would still focus on the changes at the Prague National Theatre. In this respect the situation in Prague strongly resembles the situation in Paris or Vienna - the so-called "first" theatres rouse most expectations, although the historical reasons of their uniqueness no longer exist. The 2002/2003 season saw a new director at the National theatre - the scenographer Daniel Dvořák, previously head of the State Opera Prague. A simple slogan sums up the programme of his team: "Attract audiences that will not come to admire the historical buildings, but to see what sort of theatre we offer." The conservatism of the National Theatre's audiences is notorious. The desire to change was most obvious in the drama ensemble, headed by director Michal Dočekal, of the same generation as Vladimír Morávek. He launched an almost sacrilegious project called The Shed - a temporary theatre next to the Estates Theatre, where Mozart conducted the world premiere of Don Giovanni; in June 2003 people could see there Heiner Müller's Hamlet-Machine, Sarah Kane's Phaedra and Werner Schwab's Faust: My Breast, My Helmet.

Changes in opera are more difficult, even though the National Theatre still feels the repercussions of the positive upheavals caused by such guest directors as David Pountney, Robert Wilson and David Radok. This is the case of opera throughout the Czech Republic and similar problems exist in ballet too. Opera and ballet are mostly a part of theatres with several ensembles and their financing is very costly. In consequence their directors are under pressure to satisfy the tastes of traditionalist audiences, who want their Il Trovatore and Swan Lake. For the most part only isolated projects break the siege by traditionalists, such as Verdi's Räuber (Robbers) at he Silesian Theatre (Slezské divalo) in Opava (October 2002, director Josef Novák) or Smetana´s The Bartered Bride at the J.K.Tyl Theatre in Plzeň (October 2002, director Daniel Balatka). The same is true of the National Theatre, where Jiří Nekvasil, head of the opera ensemble, who also came from the State Opera, staged in May 2003 John Adams's opera The Death of Klinghoffer. Another project materialized in October, a joint project of the drama and opera ensembles - in a single evening audiences could see Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, directed by Michal Dočekal, and Marcel Mihalovici's opera with Beckett's text as libretto. In August the stagnant waters were stirred up by Philip Glass' opera La Belle et la Bete staged by Petr Forman and his team, who as a rule are not involved with "stone" theatres.

Even some ballet premieres qualify as exceptional events. But they are, once more, but isolated achievements of ballet ensembles, spurred by favourable constallations - no long-lasting trends. Libor Vaculík, director and choreographer, maintains a steady form - in November 2002 he created for the National Theatre in Brno the ballet Ivan the Terrible to Prokofiev's music. On the bill of the Prague National Theatre we find since June 2003 The Butterfly Effect, which includes Jiří Kilián's choreography Stamping Ground; another interesting piece is Ways O3 by Petr Zuska, head of the ballet ensemble, who before returning to Prague was an appreciated dancer and choreographer in Germany and Canada. Another Zuska's excellent choreography, Mary's Dream, is the pride of the Prague Chamber Ballet; however... however, in recent years this ensemble had to struggle for survival. Its fate is typical of the modern dance and movement theatre in the Czech Republic at the beginning of the 21st century. Czech artists who are loath to abandon professional standards in these areas have to for the most part work abroad. This approach contributed to the very successful functioning of the group Déja Donné, founded by the Czech-Italian duo of choreographers Lenka Flory and Simone Sandroni.

Despite material problems we see more and more impulses for the work of artists, who ignore the narrow limits of theatre genres. The result are some new rather remarkable groups - the Teatr Novogo Fronta (New Front Theatre), inspired by both the poetry of the Japanese dance buto and Russian mysticism, confirmed its place among the best European alternative theatres with the production of Dias de las Noches (Chaika and Kalashnikov) in December 2003. The Continuo theatre very aptly modifies the models of the so-called new circus trend - from acrobatic vituosity it moves towards poetic, visually highly artistic productions such as last year's Life in Feathers. In addition to these productions the heatre prepares every year, at the turn of July and August, a rather special project in the gardens of the manor Kratochvíle in southern Bohemia. In the summer 2003 their stage was mainly the surface of the moat - Continuo demonstrated that water is not necessarily an enemy of the theatre.

Puppet theatre

Nothing unusual happened in the puppet theatre, traditionally the pride of Czech theatre. Such directors as Josef Krofta or Tomáš Dvořák keep up their high production standards, but for the future we should pin our hopes on their younger colleagues, e.g. Jan Jirků from the theatre Minor in Prague or Jakub Krofta from the theatre Drak (Dragon) in Hradec Králové. An observer not conversant with the situation in the Czech Republic could be under the impression that musicals are a highly lively area in Czech theatre. Although there is a boom in musicals, it is a matter rather of quantity than quality. We should however not forget that musicals are attracting to the theatre audiences who on the whole tend to shun theatre going. But neither the return, after eleven years, of the imported Les Misérables, nor local novelties are outstanding events and this goes for both the works themselves and their staging.

Conclusion

Leaving aside the disastrous floods in the summer 2002, then Czech theatre scored abroad above all with the 10th Prague Quadrennial 2004, the largest international exhibition of scenography and theatre architecture. But this event takes place only every four years. Czech theatres fairly often tour Europe and Japan - however,most organizers request a specific work in a reliable production. But people in the Czech theatre have more to offer than good professional standards. The group Déja Donné is already well established, but on several other occasions the organizers opted for unknown Czechs. In November 2002 the Klicpera Theatre scored in France with the first two parts of their Chekhov trilogy (The Three Sisters and The Seagall) at the L'Apostrophe scćne nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d'Oise. And Frederika Smetanová's and Michal Lázňovský's Divadlo na voru (Ttheatre On the Raft) performed throughtout October their cabaret production End of he World at the Salon Gogo.

Perhaps far more disastrous floods will be necessary for festival bosses in western Europe to realize that original theatre exists not only in Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Russia, but also in the Czech Republic. Czech theatre people absorb impulses from West and East and then handle them in their own way. The theatre they create boasts Czech playfulness and irony, grotesque exaggeration and a look at the world through poetic spectacles.

                                                                                                                                                                       Z.A.TICHÝ