Drama Revue 1/2003
Summary

V. Just: Causa of Vilém Werner (Sketches for one Portrait)

If you pronounce the name "Vilém Werner" among the people of the artistic world, nobody would probably know who it was. If you don't say: it's the one who wrote Lidé na koe (People on the Floe (play 1936, film 1937). Nevertheless the author living in 1892-1966 belonged to the most often performed ones, he was one of the most sucessful playwrights of 20th century both in artistic and spectator's way. He wrote 24 plays, he published two books (one of them was re-published three times). His plays were played in hundreds of reprises on tens of our and foreign stages (Germany, Austria, Israel, the USA etc.), both professional and amateur. Since the end of twenties to fourties of 20th century Werner became tribal author of two biggest, the most representative Prague stages - National Theatre and The Theatre on Vinohrady. Since 1942 his plays thanks to nazis had been put on the index - and stayed there paradoxically during the other two changes of regime (1945, 1948) till Werner's death in 1966. If we want to answer the question, how such a rubbing out of very important playwright from the cultural memory could happen, we must search in sources: in the authentic texts of the plays (from People on the Floe to Man in Hell - also in the plays not played and even not published till now), to Werner's political writings and his correspondence with important collegues- theatre artists.

M. Jacková: Fathers, Brothers, Brothers and Saints (the Plays at New-town Jezuitical College in Twenties of 18th century)

Only very small number of complete texts of school jezuitical plays has been preserved. The rare exception is the set of 66 manuscript plays and exercises from Prague New-town college written in the years 1724-45, which is deposited in State Central Archive in Prague. Twenty of them were written in the years 1724-29, that means in the decade which was very important for Jesuits in Czech province. The widest group of these plays is formed by the texts which deal with the relationship between the father- king and his sons or between two brothers. The other group is formed by hagiographic plays, the typical heroes of which are the real martyrs, maybe better characterized as pious boys, improved young men or the pagans converted to Christianity. Very frequent are the plays about Jan of Nepomuk, the beatification (1721) and canonisation (1729) of whom frames the decade. Two texts are related to the Easter. The plays are variously long, from very short exercises to extensive two-parts texts. We can find there also the texts with firm construction, but also such texts which have no plot or dramatic story in the sense of the word. Very important role in these plays is presented by the songs and dance or pantomimic performances and from their analysis results that the authors didn't rack their brains over the theoretical directions and in some cases nor with the regulations and provisions of their superiors.

A. Scherl: Renato Mordo and His Opera Stagings in Czechoslovakia

Opera director Renato Mordo, who became well-known especially by his avant-garde stagings of Wagner's operas in Hessen Theatre in Darmstadt, spent the second important phase of his creative development (till now not very well-known) in Prague German Theatre in 1932-1938. Also his stagings here were remarkable especially for his ability to create tension between the artistic work and its modern interpretation in relatively non-violent re-tuning of whole atmosphere of staging into fantasy, fairy-tale and dreamlike mode, and in comedy genre into grotesque. From the first staging of Wagner's Der Fliegende Hollander in 1932 he produced there 57 opera stagings, he was looking for new ways of staging of Mozart's operas, he staged there also important opera new works (Hans Krása: Die Verlobung im Traum 1933) ande he was appreciated also as a director of Czech opera classic (Bedoich Smetana: Dalibor 1938).

J. Roubal: Two Weddings of Petr Lébl. An Open-Air Museum of Lethargy and a Hung Over Panorama

Despite the fact that Wyspianski's drama The Wedding (or, Wesele, the original Polish title) had been twice translated into Czech (in 1918 and 1987), the Czech director Petr Lébl (1965-1999) first staged it only in 1989 and again in 1998. The earlier production was put on by his famous amateur company Jelo (It Went); the later production originated at the Prague Theatre on the Balustrade (Divadlo Na zábradlí) that Lébl led as an art director from 1992 until his tragic suicide. Lébl was the most significant and original representative of postmodern direction in the context of Czech theatre. His vision of "rich theatre" was associated with his visual talent, particularly with his concept of the "visual dramatic" and a sense for the play of associations. The 1989 production of Wesele was a characteristic work of the time: the text was politically foregrounded and as its "topic and genre", Lébl chose an open-air museum, thus creating a "joke on a revolution that never happened". The production appealed to the widespread lethargy existing in the society at the time (see e.g. references to Czech national mythology), creating a kind of a political cryptogram. The first night preceded the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia by only a week, leading to events in which Lébl himself took an active part as a student. However, the 1998 Wesele reflects both different conditions and another moment in time when compared to its earlier counterpart. Professional theatre had allowed Lébl to further develop and foreground the original concept in an entirely different social climate. This time, Wesele became a sarcastic expression of both the general and the personal frustrations and disillusion springing from an unfulfilled vision of social changes. This skeptical quality can be sensed in the culmination of blasphemous degradation of burnt-out romantic revolutionary ideals and national ideologies. Aesthetically, Lébl uses a number of approaches typical of himself (and postmodern theatre): deconstruction that becomes destruction of all values and the story, ironic hyperbole, playful association, theatricality, and visual imagination. The use of these approaches results in an original synthesis of satire, parody and stage poetry. The later production might be even seen as a tragic grotesque that carries in itself deeply rooted spleen masked by cynicism