Divadelní revue (Czech Theatre Review) 2015 · no 3
vol. 26 · Juin 2015 · no 3Summary
The third issue of 2015’s Czech Theatre Review brings forward two separate sections. The first thematic bloc focuses on the topics related to the twentieth century Czech theatre. Ladislava Petišková’s essay “Jarmila Kröschlová’s Cooperation with Avant-garde Directors and the National Theatre in Prague” observes stylistic trends and opinions of leading representatives of the Association of Modern Culture Devětsil who integrated the art of dance and stage movement into the artistic avant-garde program. In this effort they were followed by the directors such as Jiří Frejka, Jindřich Honzl, E. F. Burian, and expressive dance choreographers. J. Kröschlová’s cooperation with the Liberated Theatre, Theatre Dada and Modern Studio is examined in the context of joint productions and mutual creative exchange. Years of this mutual work made Kröschlová to set the ground for an independent creation in the field of dance, which eventually brought a stimulus for the modern form of dance pantomime. Kröschlová, however, enriched the art of mise en scène with the practices that ultimately resulted in the enforcement of movement collaboration of choreographer and director as a stable discipline of directing. In her essay “Avant-garde Marriage of Art and Politics”, Martina Musilová explores the influence of ideology and politics on theoretical texts of Jindřich Honzl, written between 1920s and 1950s. She analyzes the texts “Mimic Sign and Mimic Symptoms”, “Actor's Inspiration”, and “The Definition of the Mimics”, discusses the reception of Russian and Soviet theater in the interwar Czechoslovakia, the relationship of Czech leftist avant-garde with the Soviet constructivist avant-garde, personal contacts of individual artists and relationships with the numerous Russian emigrants to Czechoslovakia. These circumstances influenced not only Honzl’s political attitudes, but also his artistic practice. The impact of these factors is reflected in his texts, namely in the re-evaluation of the concept of convention and spontaneity or of his relation to K. S. Stanislavski. Naďa Satková draws attention to the 1960 production of Tennessee Williams' play Orpheus Descending, directed by Jiří Svoboda at the Oldřich Stibor Theatre in Olomouc. It was the first stage adaptation of the play in Czechoslovakia. The analysis of individual components of the production demonstrates characteristic features of Svoboda's practice that can be observed in his other productions of psychological plays. To illustrate Svoboda’s approach, his production is compared with that of Alfréd Radok’s, staged at the Prague Municipal Theatres in 1963. Lenka Jungmannová’s “How was it with the Butterfly on the Antenna?” examines the circumstances within which Václav Havel’s one-act play Butterfly on the Antenna was created. Based on the documentary material and comparative methodology (taking into account other playwright’s texts from the same time span), the analysis argues that the play was not written in 1968 but earlier at the turn of 1963 and 1964. Radka Kunderová in her essay “Example or a Trojan Horse? Ajtmatov’s The Day Last More Than a Hundred Years at the Vinohrady Theatre (1986) and the Ambivalent Position of Soviet Culture in the Czech Theater During the Perestroika” analyzes the stage adaptation of Chinghiz Aitmatov’s novel, produced at Prague's Vinohrady The essay (re)constructs the position of the production in a wide range of contexts of the late “normalization” period. The second larger section of this issue consists of papers presented at the Prague conference that commemorated 50th birth anniversary of prematurely deceased Czech director Petr Lébl. David Drozd’s paper re-assesses Lébl’s work in the wider context of Czech theatre directing; Nina Vangeli’s contribution examines Lébl’s elusive aesthetic style; Věra Velemanová and Miroslav Lukáš analyze two Lébl’s productions, Servants and Tauridus. The last piece of the section is a transcript of Petr Lébl’s speech to Vladimír Morávek. The issue contains an interview with the Czech theatre historian Eva Šormová, as well as four reviews of recently published books and Petra Ježková’s report on the state of the project Czech Theatre Encyclopedia. In the last section “Documents” we publish yet unpublished Sergej Machonin’s text about the samizdat journal O divadle.
20th century czech theatre
Ladislava PetiškováJarmila Kröschlová’s Cooperation with Avant-garde Directors and the National Theatre in Prague [article]
Martina Musilová
Avant-garde Marriage of Art and Politics. The Influence of Ideology on Theoretical Texts of Jindřich Honzl [article]
Naďa Satková
Orpheus Descending to Olomouc. Jiří Svoboda’s Production of Orpheus Descending at the Oldřich Stibor Theatre (1960) [article]
Lenka Jungmannová
How was it with the Butterfly on the Antenna? [article]
Radka Kunderová
Example or a Trojan Horse? Ajtmatov’s The Day Last More Than a Hundred Years at the Vinohrady Theatre (1986) and the Ambivalent Position of Soviet Culture in the Czech Theater During the Perestroika [article]
Petr Lébl
David DrozdDifferences Re-measured. Tranformation of Czech Stage directing in the 1980s and the Petr Lébl’s Theatre Practice [article]
Nina Vangeli
The Last L’art-pour-l’artist P L. [essay]
Věra Velemanová
Dream of Two Prisoners. A Journey to Unity. Principle of Duality in Petr Lébl’s Servants [essay]
Miroslav Lukáš
Tauridus as Political Theatre [essay]
Petr Lébl
Tauridus [document]
Petr Lébl
Lébl notes to Morávek [document]
Interview
Dream about Theatre Lexicon. Interview with Czech theatre historian Eva Šormová (Barbara Topolová)reviews
Veronika AmbrosA Quest for the Rules of a Game (Libor Vodička: Vyjádřit hrou: podobenství a [sebe]stylizace v dramatu Václava Havla.)
Věra Ptáčková
Almost Forty Years of Conversations about Set-Design (Barbora Příhodová: Scénografie mluví: Hovory Jarky M. Buriana s Josefem Svobodou.)
Alexej Byček
Czech Circus Upside Down (Hanuš Jordan – Ondřej Cihlář: Orbis cirkus.)
Ladislava Petišková
The Important Contribution to the History of Czech Avantgarde Theatre (Andrea Jochmannová: Za prostorem svět: Tvorba Jiřího Frejky ve dvacátých letech 20. století.)
reports
Petra JežkováCzech Theatre Encyclopedia: Printed and Online
new book releases
documents
Sergej Machoninwrites about O divadle. Unpublished text for Literární noviny from 1992
Resumes of peer-reviewed articles
Ladislava PetiškováJarmila Kröschlová’s Cooperation with Avant-garde Directors and the National Theatre in Prague [article]
The study observes stylistic trends and opinions of leading representatives of the Association of Modern Culture Devětsil who integrated the art of dance and stage movement into the artistic avant-garde program. In this effort they were followed by the directors such as Jiří Frejka, Jindřich Honzl, E. F. Burian, and expressive dance choreographers. J. Kröschlová’s cooperation with the Liberated Theatre, Theatre Dada and Modern Studio is examined in the context of joint productions and mutual creative exchange. The demise of the Modern Studio put an end to this fruitful collaboration – with the exception of one production at the National Theatre that completed artistic coexistence of Frejka with Kröschlová. Years of mutual work made choreographer to set the ground for an independent creation in the field of dance, which eventually brought a stimulus for the modern form of dance pantomime. Kröschlová, however, enriched the art of mise en scène with the practices, which ultimately resulted in the enforcement of movement collaboration of choreographer and director as a stable discipline of directing.
Martina Musilová
Avant-garde Marriage of Art and Politics. The Influence of Ideology on Theoretical Texts of Jindřich Honzl [article]
The study explores the influence of ideology and politics on theoretical texts of Jindřich Honzl, written between 1920s and 1950s. The author analyzes the texts “Mimic Sign and Mimic Symptoms", “Actor's Inspiration", and “The Definition of the Mimics", discusses the reception of Russian and Soviet theater in the interwar Czechoslovakia, the relationship of Czech leftist avant-garde with the Soviet constructivist avant-garde, personal contacts of individual artists and relationships with the numerous Russian emigrants to Czechoslovakia. These circumstances influenced not only Honzl’s political attitudes, but also his artistic practice. The impact of these factors is reflected in his texts, namely in the re-evaluation of the concept of convention and spontaneity or of his relation to K. S. Stanislavski.
Naďa Satková
Orpheus Descending to Olomouc. Jiří Svoboda’s Production of Orpheus Descending at the Oldřich Stibor Theatre (1960) [article]
The essay discusses the 1960 production of Tennessee Williams' play Orpheus Descending, directed by Jiří Svoboda at the Oldřich Stibor Theatre in Olomouc. It was the first stage adaptation of the play in Czechoslovakia. The analysis of individual components of the production demonstrates characteristic features of Svoboda's practice that can be observed in his other productions of psychological plays. To illustrate Svoboda’s approach, his production is compared with that of Alfréd Radok’s, staged at the Prague Municipal Theatres in 1963.
Lenka Jungmannová
How was it with the Butterfly on the Antenna? [article]
The study examines the circumstances within which Václav Havel’s one-act play Butterfly on the Antenna was created. Based on the documentary material and comparative methodology (taking into account other playwright’s texts from the same time span), the analysis argues that the play was not written in 1968 but earlier at the turn of 1963 and 1964. In the same critical fashion, the essay seeks to challenge formal and genre definitions of the drama—the author disapproves the generally accepted label of “TV drama” and suggests the term “one-act comedy” in order to accentuate the theatrical rather than TV framework of the play.
Radka Kunderová
Example or a Trojan Horse? Ajtmatov’s The Day Last More Than a Hundred Years at the Vinohrady Theatre (1986) and the Ambivalent Position of Soviet Culture in the Czech Theater During the Perestroika [article]
d the Ambivalent Position of Soviet Culture in the Czech Theater During the Perestroika. The essay summarizes the early Czech reception of the Soviet perestroika culture, and then discusses an ambivalent influence of Soviet impulses while analyzing the production of one of the “most official” Czech theaters of the 1980s, Prague's Vinohrady Theater. In 1986, there was a stage adaptation of Chingiz Ajtmatov’s novel The Day Last More Than a Hundred Years which, among others, addressed the topic of Stalinist cleansing. The methodological background of the essay provides Michal Pullmann’s concept of “authoritarian discourse”. The essay (re)constructs the position of the production in terms of Czech authoritarian discourse, including a wide range of contexts. The author characterizes the position of Ajtmatov’s novel in the Soviet culture, as well as its Czech reception. Subsequently, a status of Vinohrady theatre is (re)constructed, and both the approval process and an approach of artists to the social criticism of the novel is presented. The relationship of the production with the Czech authoritarian discourse is analyzed in the context of critical responses which varied across the spectrum of period press.
David Drozd
Differences Re-measured. Tranformation of Czech Stage directing in the 1980s and the Petr Lébl’s Theatre Practice [article]
The study seeks to re-assess the question and interpretive relevance of the term “postmodernism” frequently associated with the work of Czech theatre director Petr Lébl. The author believes that Lébl’s theatre practice can be rather accurately situated in the paradigm of post-dramatic theater (intertextuality, visual dramaturgy, rhythm, meta-theatricality, play with the density of signs). The author asserts that these phenomena can be observed in the work of alternative theater groups of the 1970s and 1980s and to certain extent in several productions of Otomar Krejča and Alfréd Radok or Jaroslav Malina’s stage designs. The prevailing opinion that postmodernism radically entered the Czech theatre in the 1990s is, thus, challenged as a distortion.