On March 18, the Theatre on the Balustrade presented the Czech premiere of The Accomplice (Der Mitmacher/ Komplic), a play written by Friedrich Dürrenmatt about corruption and organized crime.
The Theatre on the Balustrade’s premiere of The Accomplice (Der Mitmacher) seemed to demonstrate the reality that presenting Dürrenmatt´s plays in the Czech Republic (from the very beginning) has always been a reflection of the country’s current political situation. The staging of all of Durrenmatt´s plays was hinged on the release or on the strengthening of the regime that had forbade Dürrenmatt´s drama for the ten years following 1977. The play, The Accomplice, arrived on our stages at a time when the increase in organized crime in the political sphere was medialized, at a time when it is not already apparent, and the performance of the Theatre on the Balustrade directly demonstrates this.
The play’s stage directions indicate “the present day”, but the creative team of the theatre provides a more precise setting: Prague. At the very beginning of the play, when the main character Doc explains how he became the assistant to the leader of a gang of criminals, we follow his recent journeys through Prague in projected film sequences. Reminders of the pathetic face of our society, political scandals and criminal affairs often later permeate into Durrenmatt´s story; luckily it does not interfere with his compactness. The Theatre on the Balustrade’s staging of Durrenmatt´s comedy (as the author himself considered his play) is founded more on the well-constructed blueprint of the world of the gangsters and their intrigues, but they have succeeded in being an average model of the world of corruption, in its own commonness far from the disgusting than the concrete forbidding examples of today’s reality of Czech politics. Director David Czesany and his company of actors have succeeded in keeping the portrayal of the play as a true story, still using comical exaggeration and a clear shaping of the characters. Igor Chmela plays Doc, a scientist who has been fired from his job and who makes a living off the chemical liquidation of corpses. His world is located five floors underground, where a service elevator brings him corpses to be liquidated. An enormous gate dominates the stage, and only a few wooden or metal transport containers are littered about. The struggle for power between the king of the underworld (Boss) and the chief of police (Cop) takes place in this environment. Leoš Noha´s portrayal of Boss is that of a jovial scoundrel “with a human face”, with a blustering pride affecting his own orderly family, and at the same time murdering in the dozens. Marie Spurná plays the wry hero (Cop), who strives against corruption from the very beginning like a Don Quixote, trying to fight against corruption, and eventually understanding that “when someone discovers murder today, he is the one who suffers from it and not the one who has committed the crime”. Surprisingly, her performance in this male role does not come across as a willful act. Her Cop is a gloomy, rigid character - more symbolic than perhaps concrete. Cop is a character who utters a cynical yet at the same time veritable sentence that sounds like a brutal testimony of the entire production – “those even more corrupt will follow me”.
Theatre on the Balustrade (Divadlo Na zábradlí) - Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The Accomplice (Der Mitmacher / Komplic) – translation: Jiří Stach – Direction - David Czesany, set design - Petr B. Novák, costumes - Katarína Hollá, Czech premiere March 18, 2008.
More information at: www.nazabradli.cz
