Announcement [Oct 9, 11:45] : Due to the new anti-coronavirus measures, there will be changes in the programme. Please check the website and Facebook page of Divadlo Husa na provázku.
Brno’s iconic avant-garde theatre is continuing its program of shows performed with English surtitles, with four such productions hitting the stage this month, including a first chance for English-speaking audiences to enjoy the theatre’s take on “Don Quixote”. Photo: A scene from “Don Quixote”. Credit: Ivo-Dvořák.
Brno, Oct 8 (BD) – Brno’s Goose on a String Theatre (Divadlo Husa na provazku) on Zelny Trh is nationally renowned as a breeding ground for some of the Czech Republic’s most innovative and challenging stage performances. This month, the theatre is continuing its program of English-friendly shows, performed in Czech with English surtitles. Each of the shows is a unique and mind-opening experience that comes highly recommended, and this is a great chance for non-Czech speakers to sample some of the best theatre Brno has to offer.
Saturday October 10th, 7pm – VITKA
***BRNO DAILY HOT TIP – If you only go once this month, go to VITKA.***
A sinfonietta by director Anna Davidová and writer Kateřina Tučková about the talent and passions of the Brno-based composer, conductor and femme fatale Vítězslava Kaprálová, who began composing at the age of nine and went on to conduct the Czech Philharmonic and the BBC Orchestra, before dying tragically young. She established herself in a field that is still largely the preserve of men, and surrounded herself with numerous lovers. She remains one of the most frequently performed Czech composers and even has her own postage stamp. The story of an unbridled, passionate free spirit – in defiance of everything and everyone! Lead actress Tereza Marečková won a richly-deserved Divadelní noviny Award for the role of Vitka.
Monday October 12th, 7pm – DON QUIXOTE
The dramatist and director Jan Mikulášek, the principal director at Prague’s Divadlo Na zábradlí and one of the most acclaimed theatre directors of his generation, will joust with the legendary “knight of the sorrowful countenance” next Monday, in this innovative take on Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel, undoubtedly one of the greatest novels in world literature. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha accurately described the advent of Europe’s Modern Age, a period in flux, when the one divine truth disintegrated into a hundred relative truths and people began to discover and question reality itself. Is Don Quixote a madman who cannot see reality? A genius who is the only one to recognise it? A left-wing activist refusing to accept it? Or is he a contemporary of ours, we who are living four hundred years later in an era in which reality has ceased to exist?
Tuesday, October 20th, 7pm – DYNASTY (LEHMAN TRILOGY)
Director Michal Dočekal brings to life Stefano Massini’s “Dynasty”, a gripping story from the history of capitalism. In the beginning there was a suitcase and a ship to America. At the end, the fourth largest bank in the USA. A story from a time when you could still only trade what you could touch. This engrossing portrait of a German-Jewish family begins with the arrival of one of the Lehman brothers in America, where he opened a small shop, and ends with the bankruptcy of the world-famous Lehman Brothers bank, triggering the global economic crisis. However, Dočekal’s production does not dwell on dry economic facts and figures, but is full of spontaneous theatricality, playfulness and a wild tempo, in keeping with the mantra… “Time is money!”
Friday, October 23rd, 7pm – THE GAMBLER
A frantic theatrical roulette… Is this still Dostoyevsky? Is this still theatre? This is a production by the controversial director Michal Hába based on Dostoyevsky’s novella, in which the great author settled his accounts with Western thought, using his own experience as a gambler. Gambling, debts – these are things that the main character, Alexei, hates, yet at the same time he is fascinated by the world of money. He knows what he doesn’t want, but he doesn’t know exactly what he wants – and gambling is all there is to hand. A story of love during the era of late capitalism, now “late” for 200 years.
