May 12th Thu, 5:30 PM – 6:40 PM | Moravské divadlo
Ivan Buraj – Pavel Sterec – Bohdan Karásek OURS – A STUDY OF A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE CLIMATE CRISIS HaDivadlo Brno
An informal clash of generational mindsets and ideological preferences in an ordinary living room occupied by our ordinary neighbours. A Sunday family exchange of views as a democracy simulator – in a subdued minimalistically drafted study by the HaDivadlo artistic director Ivan Buraj.
The festival performance (with a dramaturgical introduction by the director from 5 pm) features the creative intervention of the intermedia Slovak artist Michal Mitro, which can be seen in the Moravské divadlo theatre foyer from 1 pm to 5 pm.
Ticket price:
With their “study of a dialogue on the climate crisis”, Ivan Buraj’s team presents a heavy topic around which Czech theatre artists have been treading rather cautiously. For the creators from Brno, it serves as an explosive that reliably devastates the family “idyll.”
Marcela Magdová, A2, 4/2020
Familiar debates over noodle soup… An inconspicuous kitchen drama unfolds on the set of a family visit. There is the mother, a former dissident (Simona Peková), the older, childless daughter with her husband doing business in photovoltaics (husband and wife Kamila Valůšková and Jiří M. Valůšek), and the younger daughter, an environmental activist (Táňa Malíková), all sitting at the table. They represent not only their generation, but also life attitudes, demonstrated through their vocabulary full of the platitudes of certain social groups. “And it is the extremely authentic performances of all the aforementioned actors that give the text weight, confirm its power, underline the catharsis and its appeal to the audience,” says the critic Luboš Mareček.
In addition to Ivan Buraj and the dramaturge Matěj Nytra, the filmmaker Bohdan Karásek (the film Karel, Me and You) and the visual artist Pavel Sterec (AVU teacher and finalist of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award 2015) took part in the creation of the authorial play, using a semi-documentary method. In their minimalist sketch, they let the symptomatic problems of today resonate. The authors functionally set the constantly discussed, yet still abstract topic of the climate crisis in an intimate environment, close and familiar to everyone: “I have long been interested in the phenomenon of Sunday family conversations about politics. For me, it is a space in which I refine my own political thinking,” Ivan Buraj reveals in an interview. “It is a kind of model simulator of democracy, the ability to communicate, to listen, but most importantly, to step out of one’s bubble. Because it is impossible to solve the climate crisis without sorting out our relationships,” Buraj believes.
The festival performance is accompanied by an installation of a fragment Creative Intervention (to the Ours production) by the intermedia Slovak artist Michal Mitro, which can be seen in the Moravské divadlo theatre foyer from 1 pm to 5 pm.
directed by Ivan Buraj
dramaturgy Matěj Nytra
assistant director Anna Magdalena Pavlicová
stage design Pavel Sterec
costumes Kateřina Kumhalová
expert consultant Matěj Metelec
characters and cast
Zdena (mother) Simona Peková
Eliška (younger daughter) Táňa Malíková
Kristýna (older daughter) Kamila Valůšková
Milan (her husband) Jiří M. Valůšek
premiere 31 january 2020
Ivan Buraj (1988) was born in Bratislava. While studying drama directing at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, he was already working as an intern at the National Theatre Prague with Robert Wilson's production of The Makropulos Case (2010). He earned his Masters' degree in 2011 with his adaptation of Kleist's The Prince of Homburg, which was successful at the ISTROPOLITANA festival in Bratislava (special award of the jury and audience award) and was even nominated for the Theatre Newspaper Award.
He has been the artistic director of HaDivadlo since 2015, where he has prepared 10 productions thus far. He attracted the attention of the critics with his ambitious adaptation of Herman Broch's trilogy The Sleepwalkers (2016) or Ibsen’s Eyolf. With staging Gorky’s Provincials (Divadelní noviny award for best drama), Buraj initiated a line of production where he attempts to cope with realism in the context of the crisis of an individual isolated in his/her inability to perceive others – all three productions were featured at the past editions of the festival. The second prominent line which threads through Buraj’s work is reflection on climate change and the effort to integrate radical ecology into the theatre process. In light of this belief, productions such as Ours, Perception or Cosmos (National Theatre) were created. Cosmos together with Provincials and Stiller (Studio Hrdinů) together make up Buraj’s trilogy on the critique of anthropocentrism. Flora theatre festival follows the production of Ivan Buraj closely and will offer four of his productions in this year’s focus on the director’s work: Ours, Perception, Vernissage and Cosmos.
HaDivadlo theatre is situated in Brno, however, it was officially established in Prostějov in 1974 as Hanácké divadlo (director Svatopluk Vála and dramaturg Josef Kovalčuk were associated with it). Soon after it worked its way up from an amateur group to a professional studio stage with demanding dramaturgy.
They moved to Brno in 1985 and by merging with Ochotnický kroužek of J. A. Pitínský, the Kabinet múz was created. After some minor mishaps with their residence, they settled down in the former cinema of Alfa Pasáž in 2004. Remarkable personalities have participated in forming the unique poetics of the theatre such as the director and playwright Arnošt Goldflam, the actor and author Miloš Černoušek (aka Cyril Drozda), the musicians Jiří Bulis and Václav Koubek, the actors Ján Sedal, Marie Ludvíková and Miloslav Maršálek and the directors Jiří Pokorný, Břetislav Rychlík, Oxana Smilková, David Jařab, Luboš Balák and Marián Amsler.
Since 2015, Ivan Buraj has been the artistic director of the theatre. Apart from the German language texts: apart from Broch’s Sleepwalkers, also Bernhard’s slapstick The Force of Habit, Lotz’s drama Ridiculous Darkness, Müller’s memento The Message, Haushofer's Wall or Büchner's Woyzeck – part of the Flora 2021), the theatre repertoire includes production tailor-made for the theatre (Pitínský stage essay ’68, collective projects Ours and Perception or Austerlitz's experiment There Is a Show Going On During the Length of the Show).
Kamila Polívková works regularly with the theatre, she staged Schwab's First Ladies (Divadelní noviny award 2020) or the novel adaptations: Macocha after Petra Hůlová (2019) and The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, which is part of this year's Flora. Each season at HaDivadlo is framed by a specific theme reflecting the current issues in the society (such as Sources, Work or Adaptation). This year's motto „Degrowth“ is in the times of overproduction emphasizing the sustainability, even in the theatre sphere. Instead of bringing new premieres, HaDivadlo ingeniously „recycles“ older production through creative interventions with accent on fresh reflection of social and environmental topics, as will the creative team describe in the thematic discussion.
“It has been and still is a theatre involving an uncompromising search for current theatre language, although it has a tradition of intimate gesture and awareness of its own peripheral nature,” Ivan Buraj described the five-year course of the theatre in an interview for Art Zóna. As a theatre of ambitious yet not elitist dramaturgy, it takes action towards the audiences by organising dramaturgical introductions to productions, discussions after them, seminars and other programmes for secondary school students. They closely cooperate with a new platform for performative art Terén, which originated in Brno and operates as the third stage of the Centre for Experimental Theatre alongside the renowned repertory theatres – Husa na provázku Theatre and HaDivadlo.
photo Káťa Opuntia
