Drama Revue 4/2004
Summary

J. Černý: 1948 (Czech Theatre and Society in 1948)

In February 1948 after three years of preparation Czech communists took over the absolute power. During one months the rectified Parliament authorized the original version of Theatre Law, which democratic parties had been trying to improve for two years. In the same time the professional union - The Union of Czech Actors - was dissolved. The actors became trade unionists, examined politically and profesionally and administrated by the ministerial theatre council directed by party apparatus. Prague theatre life was according to the original trend of ideas of architect Miroslav Kouřil simplified by fusion of Grand Opera and National Theatre and by the liquidation of Theatre of 5th May, New Theatre, Theatre of V+W, Studio NT, Theatre of young pioneers, Exdisc and inconvenient urban cabaret stages. The Theatre of Satire would be liquidated in a short time. The "Engineer of Czech theatres" Kouřil as the chief of Theatre and Dramaturgy Council (the most important - since autumn 1947 the chief of cultural department of Cultural and Promotion compartment of the Secretariat of Central Committee of The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) was finishing the building of the region theatre net, he was founding the theatre stages, dissolving others, amalgamating them and sending the directors to them. The most essential matter was that only after February censorial interdicts there started fulfilling the political control of dramaturgy. In the end of 1948 Czech theatre visibly had the totalitarian characteristics.

Z. Hořínek: Post Infernum

The plays written by August Strindberg in the time after the existencial and religious "crisis of Inferno" are taking up the previous works, but they look at the characteristic topics in the new perspective and mostly lamely they aim to search for positive base. And they develop the ways and means of the representation in the new directions. Strindberg dealt with the question of dramatic character and its acting already in the preface to Miss Julia. The unambiguous causality was replaced by multiple valued motivation conditionalizing not only the deepening of dramatic psychology, but also new procedures in composition of dramatic action leading to more complicated principles (mosaic, montage, partiture of typical motifs). In post-infernal plays there came idiomatic shift: the motifs still function in the level of psychology, but the more they single themselves, they project themselves into non-psychological signs of dynamic (action) or static (ornamental, illustrative or symbolic) character. Study follows some of these motifs and their use: the way of movement of dramatic action (the way, wandering, the penetrating inside), scenic fabling by the atmosphere, the use of art and music inspiration for saturation and sublimation of cranky dramatic structure by magic dialectics of the real and fantastic elements. Strindberg solves the everlasting problem of dramatic creation how to overcome the antagonism of the outside and inside his way by searching of sensorial scenic equivalents for inner experience, feelings, psychic state. So the dualism which in reality doesn't exist is being cancelled out.

H. Schneider: The Ways to the Bondage (Four Theatres in Northern Bohemia between 1933 and 1938)

The study follows the destiny of four theatres in Northern Bohemia which were chosen by the Henlein's party in agreability with cultural political centres of the Reich as the main aim of their efforts to possess Sudeten theatre life. The tactics of this charge misused the financial problems of the theatres during the economical crisis and differed according to the various conditions in single places. In Cheb there was the director Anton Kohl in the season 1935/36, who stream-lined the functioning of the theatre in the spirit of Nazi cultural politics, but he had to leave in the end of the season. When the municipality didn't succeed in finding suitable director, Theatre Community of Cheb came in the play and its chief Nikolaus Stingl subordinated the working of the theatre completely to Nazi orders. He held there thanks to financial support from the Reich. In Teplice-Šanov the process was running under the directorship of Curth Hurrle, qualified director but also circumspect tactician, who was able partly comply with Nazi pressure, but he avoided the complete level out of the theatre till May 1938. In Ústí nad Labem the equal role was played by Alfred Huttig who led the theatre (at the cost of some concessions) on quite high art level till May 1938, but after he fully conformed to the pressure of the circumstances. The theatre in Liberec became the aim of the most intense attacks. For a long time the theatre under the directorship of Oskar Basch and especially very efficient Paul Barnay with the support of public was able to resist the Nazi pressure and overcame even the boycott directed and organized from the Reich till the end of March 1938.

I. Šulajová: The Theoretical Problems of Dramatizations

The present thesis takes as its topic the problems of the dramatization considered a specific type of metatext, as well as one of the subtypes of the dramatic genre. The aim of the thesis is to pin down the term dramatization and to classify it theoretically as a specific type of metatext. The theoretical analysis of the term is made possible with regard to both a semiotic excursus into the changing structure of the dramatized work as well as a historical excursus into the development of dramatization in connection with the discourse of intertextuality. The dramatization is consistently understood as separate from the literal "transposition of the prosaic work into the form of drama", and viewed in the light of structuralist knowledge of the dialectics of the dramatic text (drama as a part of both literary and theatrical structures), it is conceived of analogically as a text that works within two kinds of structure - i.e. a metatext that creates a new literary value and that is at the same time a part of a potential theatrical work. On the other hand the dramatization is different from the term adaptation as the meaning of the term does not capture the biunique existence of the dramatic text capable of being presented "now and here". Based on the semiotic model of theatre, the terms intersemiotic or intermediary translation (or even transformation) are used throughout the thesis. They explain the change from a solely literary structure to a structure which is both literary and theatrical. Furthermore, the thesis deals with aspects partaking in the creation of a dramatizational metatext - the genre of the original, the dramatizing subject, the particular theatre the dramatization is intended for, theatre audiences etc. It is also concerned with the forms dramatizational texts take on (a classical dramatic, a scenario, a prompt book etc.), their names, as well as the signing of the newly created texts. Last but not least, the thesis looks into the conditions needed for a dramatization to work as an intertext. The historical excursus in the work briefly outlines the mixing of the two genres in question, prose and drama, from the mythical unity of genres, through their rigorous separation (in the eras of the Renaissance, Classicism and Realism) to the present state of the matter. A particular emphasis is put on modernist and avant-garde art of the first half of the twentieth century and the subsequent developments in fringe, experimental or studio theatres of the second half of the twentieth century.

V. Smoláková: Gombrowicz and Czech Theatre

The study (worked up for specialized issue of Polish magazine Pamiętnik teatralny, dedicated to 100th anniversary of W. Gombrowicz's birth) examines the reception of three dramas of Gombrowicz (Yvonna, the Princess of Burgundy, The Wedding, Operette) in Czech context - not only theatrical but also social and political one. Considering the fact that the first of the plays was published in Czech translation in the magazine Divadlo in April 1969 (the second was published in "informative" internal edition of Dilia in 1981, and in the same edition was published also the third one in 1979), each of the line of single Czech professional productions creates against their will some kind of "political event" and reflects particular phase of "the process of normalization and consolidation" of Czech society after August 1968. Parallelly, or complementarily the process of "politicization" in the area of amateur theatre, visible since eighties of 20th century is followed. Nevertheless before Nobember 1989 there ancompromisingly formed the director's personalities - Petr Lébl (two productions inspired by F. Kafka and especially Wyspianski's Wesele) and J. A. Pitínský. Their practically collateral productions of The Wedding (which was not showed in our country till that time) - in Prague theatre Disk and Ha-divadlo in Brno in November 1991 epitomized alternative attempts (not influenced by other non-artistic regards) to penetrate into the core of Gombrowicz's drama and have stayed the appeal for Czech contemporary professional stage.