Marcela Magdová, Aktuálně.cz, 16. November 2022

Martin Macháček, Podhoubí.cz, 30. November 2022

directed by Jan Frič 

dramaturgy Kateřina Součková

stage design Jan Frič and Jana Hauskrechtová

costumes Jana Hauskrechtová

music Mojmír Měchura

cast

premiere 5 November 2022

Director Jan Frič (1983), a sleeping member of the Společnost doktora Krásy society, is one of the most outstanding theatre personalities of his generation. His original cabaret Velvet Havel (at 2014 Flora) caused a sensation when it won all the theatre critics' awards.

From 2017–2022 he was the in-house drama director of the National Theatre, where he was invited by the then artistic director Daniela Špinar. Frič has realised a number of remarkable projects there, including his unique take on the classics Misanthrope, Oedipus Rex (both 2019) and Faust (2018), as well as productions of contemporary texts The End Light (2020) and The Father Watches Over the Daughter (2022). His adaptation of Gorky's drama Vassa Zheleznova with Zuzana Stivínová in the main role was awarded the Production of the Year 2021 in a theatre critics' survey.

He has worked with both chamber, alternative theatres (A studio Rubín, Masopust, Divadlo X10) and large theatres – at the National Theatre Brno he directed, among others, the debated Fassbinder's romance Fear Eats the Soul (2017).

Jan Frič's work deals with metaphysics and the contradictions of human existence. He is a long-standing critic of overproduction in Czech theatre and the alarming underfunding of the artistic professions, which he thematised in his production BurnOut or Burn! already in 2019.

Divadlo v Dlouhé is a renowned Prague repertory theatre founded in 1996. In addition to its in-house directors Hana Burešová and the late Jan Borna, guest directors Jan Nebeský, J. A. Pitínský, Jan Mikulášek and the SKUTR tandem have regularly contributed to the formation of the theatre's unique poetics.

The basic feature of the theatre is its diversity of genres and styles, targeting titles unknown and unseen. A specific feature is the collective acting interplay: although a number of acting stars have grown up here (including Jan Vondráček, Helena Dvořáková, Klára Oltová, Miroslav Hanuš, etc.), it is the esprit and energy of the ensemble that attracts the interest of audiences as well as critics. The scene regularly appears in nominations for prestigious awards, and has won several Theatre Critics' Awards and Thalia Awards.

Divadlo v Dlouhé has been a regular guest at the Flora Theatre Festival, including Pitínský's Peach Blossom Fan (2009), Mikulášek's Macbeth (2011) and Love and Money (2012), and most recently, Nebeský's Little Eyolf (2013). After ten years, the popular theatre returns to the festival with an atypical production Nothing Needs to be Done Any Longer which sparked a stormy debate among critics and audiences alike and earned the stamp of a „must-see“ production.

 

…………………………………………

photo Martin Špelda