Divadelní revue (Czech Theatre Review) 2013 · no 1
vol. 24 · December 2013 · no 1Summary
The first issue of 2013's Theatre Review brings forward one thematic section, which addresses issues related to the Czech theatre of the 1960s–1980s. Martin Pšenička's analysis examines four productions of Brno-based amateur student theatre group Quidam in which the company experimented with a specific form of extremely physical theatre, which accentuated materiality/corporeality and immediacy of theatrical event. The analysis seeks to situate Quidam's liminal productions within the wider context of analogous theatre, as well as performance art experiments. Pšenička's analysis also stresses particular local conditions within which Quidam's experiments are contextualized as an extreme gesture of social disobedience, subverting the current social and political system. Karolina Plicková discusses the work of the Czech nonverbal theatre company named Pantomime of Alfred Jarry, which was founded in the 1960s in Prague by two young mimes Boris Hybner (born 1941) and Ctibor Turba (born 1944) as an act of opposition against the existing Marceauean style of the so called imaginary pantomime, developed in the Prague by Ladislav Fialka at the Theatre on the Balustrade. Inspired by the Jarryesque grotesque, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, Samuel Beckett's theatre of the absurd, Buster Keaton's slapstick comedy, surrealism, beat generation and jazz, they created an entirely new motion gestus and the mime type of the clown-bum. Through the study of historical materials, as well as through personal interviews with the artists, the article attempts at reconstructing the company's productions, defining their distinctive characteristics (i.e. the specifics of the work with props and sound), and revising some of the previous conclusions about them. In her article “Czech Theatre Reviewing Practice at the Time of the Early Perestroika (1985–1986)” Radka Kunderová analyses the relationship between theatre reviewing practice and the cultural policy of the ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1986, when the process of perestroika started in the USSR. A particular attention is paid to the theatre reviews which reflected the production of Roman Hlaváč's Zvláštní řízení (Special Procedure) at the National Theatre in Prague. Kunderová examines reviews published in both official and illegal periodicals. Thorough analysis of reviews in the context of media and institutional practices shows several functions of the theatre reviewing practice. It also reveals, to some extent, the plurality of opinions existing in the Czech official press. Martin J. Švejda looks at the work of the writer and playwright Alex Koenigsmark (1944–2013) in the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem. It analyses the situation in the theatre before the director Ivan Rajmont assumed the position of artistic director, maps the professional biography of Alex Koenigsmark before he started cooperating with this theatre, and explains the circumstances under which the cooperation was launched. The study further discusses the plays written by Koenigsmark specifically for this theatre: Edessa, Troilus and Cressida, Sbohem, bel ami! (Farewell, bel ami!), and Obraz z dějin (The Image from History). Vladimír Mikulkas's article discusses four Czech productions of political theatre from the late 1980s, staged by the smaller studio theatres who dared to occasionally offer productions that with their as yet unthinkable openness consciously put themselves into opposition against the official political line. An essay of Hungarian Slavist Endre Bojtár presents unique and as yet unpublished correspondence between Václav Havel and his Hungarian translator of The Garden Party. Miroslav Lukáš's essay “Potemkin Villages” in Petr Lébl's Productions addresses a specific visual dramaturgy of the Czech director and set designer. The thematic section completes an interview with Jan Císař, a theatre educator, historian, theorist, and reviewer. The issue contains four reviews of recently published books and a rich section of documents, in which we publish scripts of Quidam and Pantomime of Alfred Jarry.
editorial
czech theater of the 1960s–1980s
Martin PšeničkaBleeding Thought: Group Quidam (1966–1972): Between Theatre and Performance
Karolina Plicková
Pantomime of Alfred Jarry: The Emergence of the Second Generation of Czech Pantomime
Martin J. Švejda
“Ivan knew that I was thirsting for theatre:” Alex Koenigsmarks and The Drama Studio Ústí nad Labem
Radka Kunderová
Czech Theatre Reviewing Practice at the Time of the Early Perestroika (1985–1986)
Vladimír Mikulka
“Not to be afraid and act:” Four Productions of Political Theatre in the Late 1980s
Endre Bojtár
Václav Havel’s Difficult Journey.to Hungarian Readers and Spectators
Miroslav Lukáš
“Potemkin Villages” in Petr Lébl’s Productions
interview
I already have an inventory number here. Interview with the theatre educator, historian, theorist, and reviewer Jan Císař (Alena Zemančíková)reviews
Adolf ScherlValuable Book on E. F. B. (Jan Burian: Nežádoucí návraty E. F. Buriana.)
Aleš Merenus
Veltruský Redivivus, or else Theatre Semiotics Almost After Twenty Years (Jiří Veltruský: An Approach to the Semiotics of Theatre.)
Pavel Janoušek
Missing Things (Bořivoj Srba: Paralipomena: K aktuálním otázkám metodologie výzkumu divadelní tvorby.)
Jan Šotkovský
Magic of Theatre for Beginners (Jiří Havelka: Zmrazit čerstvé ovoce: Útržky úvah o divadelní zkoušce.)
new book releases
reports
Helena AlbertováCollection of Theatre Posters at the Arts and Theatre Institute in Prague
Martin Hanoušek
Two Anniversaries of the Estates Theatre (230 Years of the Estates Theatre in Prague: Creative Potential of the Playhouse in the European Context)
timeline
documents
Martin PšeničkaThe Script of Archimimus
Jiří Pavloušek
Archimimus
Karolina Plicková
Scripts of Pantomime of Alfred Jarry
Boris Hybner, Ctibor Turba, Richard Rýda
Harakiri
Jan V. Kratochvíl, Ctibor Turba, Boris Hybner
Udělej mu to zprava (Turba tacet)
Boris Hybner, Josef Platz, Richard Rýda
Poslední večeře
Ctibor Turba & Jan V. Kratochvíl
PAR 3441
Ctibor Turba
Commentary on the Pantomime of Alfred Jarry’s Scripts
Johana Černá
List of Material Resources for the Productions of Rozrazil 1/88 (o democracii) of the Theatre on the String and Z Košic do Aše a ještě dál of the Drama Studio Ústí nad Labem
Resumes of peer-reviewed articles
Martin PšeničkaBleeding Thought: Group Quidam (1966–1972): Between Theatre and Performance
The analysis examines four productions of Brno-based amateur student theatre group Quidam ([kvi:dam] from Lat. “somebody” or “something”): Archimimus (1968), Osmihran (Octagon, 1968), Tápající apostata (Fumbling Apostate, 1970), and Poslední bitva krále Sardanapala (Last Battle of King Sardanapalus, 1972). In these productions, informed by Antonin Artaud's theatre of cruelty, Quidam experimented with a specific form of extremely physical theatre, which accentuated materiality/corporeality and immediacy of theatrical event. The analysis seeks to situate Quidam’s liminal productions within the wider context of analogous theatre (Jerzy Grotowski, Living Theatre, The Performance Group), as well as performance art experiments (Hermann Nitsch and Wiener actionists, Chris Burden, Milan Knížák, Petr Štembera, Jan Mlčoch, Marina Abramović). However, the analysis also stresses particular local conditions within which Quidam's experiments are contextualized as an extreme gesture of social disobedience, subverting the current social and political system.
Karolina Plicková
Pantomime of Alfred Jarry: The Emergence of the Second Generation of Czech Pantomime
The article discusses the work of the Czech nonverbal theatre company named Pantomime of Alfred Jarry, which was founded in the 1960s in Prague by two young mimes Boris Hybner (born 1941) and Ctibor Turba (born 1944) as an act of opposition against the existing Marceauean style of the so called imaginary pantomime, developed in the Prague by Ladislav Fialka at the Theatre on the Balustrade. Inspired by the Jarryesque grotesque, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, Samuel Beckett's theatre of the absurd, Buster Keaton's slapstick comedy, surrealism, beat generation and jazz, they created an entirely new motion gestus and the mime type of the clown-bum. It was especially their internationally successful production of Harakiri (1968), intended as a protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, that meant a significant breakthrough in the development of pantomime, which consequently headed towards expressive physical theatre. Through the study of historical materials, as well as through personal interviews with the artists, the article attempts at reconstructing the company's productions, defining their distinctive characteristics (i.e. the specifics of the work with props and sound), and revising some of the previous conclusions about them.
Martin J. Švejda
“Ivan knew that I was thirsting for theatre:” Alex Koenigsmarks and The Drama Studio Ústí nad Labem
The article discusses the work of the writer and playwright Alex Koenigsmark (1944–2013) in the Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem. It analyses the situation in the theatre before the director Ivan Rajmont assumed the position of artistic director, maps the professional biography of Alex Koenigsmark before he started cooperating with this theatre, and explains the circumstances under which the cooperation was launched. The study further discusses the plays written by Koenigsmark specifically for this theatre: Edessa, Troilus and Cressida, Sbohem, bel ami! (Farewell, bel ami!), and Obraz z dějin (The Image from History). It discusses the circumstances of their emergence, analyses the scripts and compares their original versions with the final, production ones. Finally, the article explains the reasons for the termination of Koenigsmark's cooperation with the Drama Studio, and his subsequent career in theatre.
Radka Kunderová
Czech Theatre Reviewing Practice at the Time of the Early Perestroika (1985–1986)
The study analyses the relationship between theatre reviewing practice and the cultural policy of the ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1986, when the process of perestroika started in the USSR. A particular attention is paid to the theatre reviews which reflected the production of Roman Hlaváč’s Zvláštní řízení (Special Procedure, National Theatre in Prague, directed by Václav Hudeček, premiered 13 March 1986), which was staged as a tribute to the Communist Party's 65th anniversary and its XVII. congress. The analysis examines reviews published in both official and illegal “samizdat” periodicals, as well as theatre reviews produced by the Theatre Institute, originally a control institution of the Ministry of Culture. The analysis also discusses specific, self-reflecting theatre criticism, written by the artists themselves. Thorough analysis of reviews in the context of media and institutional practices shows several functions of the theatre reviewing practice. It also reveals, to some extent, the plurality of opinions existing in the Czech official press. The year 1986 seems to be the breaking point in the relationship between the dissent and the authors, who worked within the “official” structures, yet shared a critical view on the society. The fact that these two groups started to merge at this time might be an indirect impact of the perestroika.
Vladimír Mikulka
“Not to be afraid and act:” Four Productions of Political Theatre in the Late 1980s
The article discusses four Czech productions of political theatre from the late 1980s. At the time when the stern totalitarian regime was slowly losing its power, primarily smaller studio theatres dared to occasionally offer productions that with their as yet unthinkable openness consciously put themselves into opposition against the official political line. The individual cases under scrutiny represent different ways of expressing their resistance. While Koncert V… (Concert V…) of the Theatre on the String in Brno criticizes the hypocrisy and incompetence of the party leaders according to the example of Gorbachev's glasnost, Z Košic do Aše a ještě dál (From Košice to Aš and Even Further) of The Drama Studio in Ústí nad Labem ironically challenge the normalization regime itself. The following two productions, Rozrazil (Speedwell) of the Theatre on the String in Brno, and Res Publica of the Prague Realistic Theatre, evoke a whole range of previously tabooed themes and names by sequences of cabaret-like sketches.