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DEJVICKÉ THEATRE
MUŽ BEZ MINULOSTI
MIES VAILLA MENNEISYYTTÄ
David Novotný & Tatiana Vilhelmová © Hynek Glos
Original script:
Adaptation and director:
Translation to Czech:
Stage setting and costums:
Dramaturgy:
Music:
Choreocraphy:
Finnish subtitles:
Aki Kaurismäki
Miroslav Krobot
Pavla Arvela
Andrej Ďurík
Karel František Tománek
Marek Doubrava
Kristýna Lhotáková
Kari Senius
Cast:
David Novotný, Martin Myšička, Ivan Trojan, Jaroslav Plesl,
Pavel Šimčík, Václav Neužil, Pavol Smolárik, Tatiana
Vilhelmová, Johanna Tesařová, Lenka Krobotová, Klára
Melíšková, Petra Hřebíčková, Martha Issová, Jana Holcová,
Petra Hřebíčková, Beaerney the Dog.
Other cast members:
Tereza Měřičková, Jindřiška Rybáková, Klára Marešková, Jan
Dvořák, Lukáš Hornych, Otakar Košťál, Radek Patzel
ABOUT DEJVICKÉ THEATRE
Dejvické Theatre (DD) is one of the most interesting crews in the Czech theatre scene at the
moment. DD was founded by the Prague 6 Metropolitan District in 1992, at the time when theatres
concentrated on the big social and political changes which took place after the “Velvet revolution”
in November 1989. When the founders (together with its artistic director Jan Borna) left, director
Miroslav Krobot, who concluded his six-year engagement with the National Theatre, became the
artistic director of the theatre in 1997. Krobot brought his students with him: graduates from the
Academy of Performing Arts.
Dejvické Theatre will celebrate its 15th anniversary. The company has changed significantly during
its 15-year history, and its collective stage creations were replaced by a repertory focusing on the
work of an actor and honours his/her individuality. “The theatre oscillates between an ordinary
drama repertory theatre and a studio theatre. We maintain that edge quite intentionally.” Miroslav
Krobot said in an interview for the Czech Radio station.
Dejvické searches for new texts, for example Petr Zelenka's The Stories of Ordinary Madness and
Teremin, Miroslav Krobot's Sirup, and many others. In addition, adaptations of world-widely
known literature, such as Oblomov by I.A. Goncharov, Karamazov Brothers by F.M. Dostoyevsky,
Love Story by I.B. Singer, and Elective Affinities by J.W. Goethe and plays by the most renowned
playwrights, for example Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Twelfth Night, Gogol’s The Government
Inspector and Chekhov’s Three Sisters, have their secure place in the repertory of Dejvické theatre.
During its 15-year history, Dejvické has received Czech's The Theatre of the Year-nomination three
times (in 1995, 2002 and 2006). Multiple productions have been nominated for the Alfred Radok
Award, the most prestigious Czech theatre prize. Sister Anxiety, a play directed by J. A. Pitínský in
1995, and The Stories of Ordinary Madness, directed by Petr Zelenka in 200, were both rewarded
with the Alfred Radok Award. Another succesfull performance was Teremin by Petr Zelenka, which
won both the Sazka and the Theatre News Award.
Furthermore, members of the Theatre crew have been nominated several times for distinguished
awards: Ivan Trojan twice for the Alfred Radok Award and three times for the Thalie Award (he
received it for Oblomov in 2000). Tatiana Vilhelmová was nominated for the Alfred Radok Award
for her role of Babeta in the production Sic.
The Dejvické Theatre is a regular guest of many domestic and international theatre festivals.
Dejvické's crew has visited e.g. Festival Theater in Pilsen (Czech Republic), Festival Stretnutie in
Zlin (Czech Republic), Festival of Czech Theater in Bratislava (Slovakia), Festival of Pleasant and
Unpleasant Plays in Powszechny Theater in Lodz (Poland), Festival in Czestochowa (Poland),
Festival in Torun (Poland) and FIBA festival in Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Dejvické Theatre is financed by public sources such as Prague 6 Metropolitan District, the City of
Prague, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, as well as by the private sector; ČSOB,
Metrostav, Altron, MBM and Terra nova, among others.
VUODEN NÄYTELMÄ 2010
Yhteensä 107 tsekkiläistä kulttuuripersoonaa on Prahassa ilmestyvän teatteritaiteen ammattilehden
(Divadelni noviny) järjestämässä äänestyksessä valinnut Dejvicke divadlon MIES VAILLA
MENNEISYYTTÄ VUODEN NÄYTELMÄKSI 2010.
Miroslav Krobotin näyttämösovitus ja ohjaus sai yhtä paljon ääniä kuin seuraavat sijoille 2 - 6
päässeet yhteensä. Äänestys järjestettiin tänä vuonna 18. kerran. (Divadelni noviny 1/2011,
11.1.2011).
REVIEWS
Marie Reslová, Financial News
AKI KAURISMÄKI - THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST, A PLAY ABOUT LOVE
Translation: Pavla Arvela, costumes and scenes: Andrej Ďurík, dramaturgy: Karel František
Tománek, music and musical training: Marek Doubrava, stage movement: Kristýna Lhotáková,
stage adaption and director: Miroslav Krobot
Starring: David Novotný, Martin Myšička, Ivan Trojan, Jaroslav Plesl, Pavel Šimčík, Václav
Neužil, Pavol Smolárik, Tatiana Vilhelmová, Johanna Tesařová, Lenka Krobotová, Petra
Hřebíčková, Klára Melíšková, Martha Issová, Jana Holcová, and more.
Antero Lujanen wakes up and realizes that he can’t remember his name, where he works, or
whether he’s even married, absolutely nothing. He finds himself among the homeless, but his fate is
in his hands. He meets Irma, a member of the Salvation Army and everything starts to take a turn
for the better, but only until that moment when he learns that he’s...
It’s something like “other theater “, this new offering from Dejvice Theatre. In The Man without a
Past, based on a film by Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, director Miroslav Krobot forces his actors
to forget about everything we imagine about acting. With no makeup on, the cast speak their lines
“normally”, dry without practically any gestures. But looking at them doesn’t make us forget in the
least about that which is really important up there, that they are listening to each other and
communicating in silence and with their own special humor. They are characters and themselves.
This extraordinarily sensitive inner-connection among all the players is accompanied by the music
of Marek Doubrava, which permeates every scene, gives them a solid structure, a shape... a voice
emanating straight from the heart.
The dramatic adaption of Kaurismäki’s film is a simple, almost ingeniously trivial story. A man is
assaulted and beaten by thugs at the train station and loses his memory. He has to learn everything
again, as if he were seeing the world, things and human relationships for the first time, innocently
like a child. He starts from “scratch”, with the homeless, and gradually realizes what is really
important in life. He finds love in his relationship with Salvation Army worker Irma (Tatiana
Vilhelmová).
The dramatic action shifts to a random episode with bank robbers, thanks to which he finds himself
at the police, in the bureaucratic machine... and back in his “former” life. But finally we see the
happy ending that makes a person feel relief as with the obligatory fairytale statement “And they
lived happily ever after.” We don’t think about whether we’re still talking about the real world or
not.
The Man without a Past is more like a real story about a fable, a picture that summons up
disenchantment and the question: what and how much is important of that which we wring out of
life. Together with The Man without a Past (David Novotný) we witness that special lightness of
being that occurs with a loss of memory, putting all our apparently important things, values, and
relationships “to the side”, and cleansing ourselves of everything that we used to be. We feel that
after a long period of time we can once again hear ourselves, hear our hearts beating. Maybe even
hear that someone.
Most of the performance takes place without any background, in the bare, empty spaces of the
stage. Only for the first scene do we see something, the characteristically diagonal wall of the train
station and “homecoming” bordering the empty space (stage design Andrej Ďurík). Unfortunately,
handling it was quite disruptive. The short scenes between the robbery and the arrival of the Man
without a Past to the homeless colony were likewise encumbered with some awkward symbolism.
The path to perceiving everything unpronounceable in theater opens up for us a delicate, quite
distinctive style of absurd humor contained in the intonations, music and singing, the wordless
communication or the movements (Kristýna Lhotáková). At times this type of performance reminds
us of a musical, freely dispensing needless bits of joy, at other times it’s like one of Beckett’s
existential farces. Some real unique theater.
Kateřina Rathouská, MF DNES
The tragicomedy The Man without a Past has an unmistakable “Finnish” atmosphere, is minimalist
in approach and is, despite the cheerful moments and happy ending, quite oppressive. The new look
was probably a bigger challenge for Krobot. His interpretation of this drama about a robbed and
beaten up man who forgets not only his own name but also everything about his life before and
finds consolation only in the arms of a self-sacrificing woman working for the Salvation Army is
crazier and funnier.
The shift in perspective is clear: where the film version seethed with hopelessness, the Czech
theater going public was often quite amused. The comedy steamrolled past the tragedy, with the
director adding humor very specific to us and in doing so completely changed the work. He was not
afraid to incorporate jokes like Finnish vodka randomly appearing in a dirty old refrigerator or some
truly bizarre dance-movement numbers.
The actors, however, do not make faces or exhibit tawdry behavior, thanks to which even the most
absurd scene underscores the originality of the staging. The same is true with the costumes, most of
which looks like it came from a cheap secondhand shop, and a restrained, albeit intelligent setting
that goes well with the interiors and exteriors. The remarkable music of Marek Doubrava also does
its part, rounded off moreover with songs by the Beach Boys. After the acting, the music is the next
most important workhorse of the performance, pervading individual scenes or coming to a complete
stop and suddenly announcing that a shred of memory has returned to the Man without a Past, who
since the beginning has been presented as something of a musical buff.
Miroslav Krobot in an interview with Maria Reslová for Hospodářské noviny:
− Each of your productions is to a certain degree something like a report about what you’re
actually thinking, about the state we all find ourselves in. What is the theme of The Man
without a Past?
− I saw an interview with Kaurismäki on YouTube. He drank probably a liter of wine mixed
with beer during it. They asked him: What is the task of the director? He stared for a
moment and then said: You must give people hope. Or: And what are the biggest problems
today that interest you? And he again stared for a minute and said: You know, I have a
problem with alcohol. And that was the spirit of the interview and what I felt from it was a
great sadness on one hand, but on the other an incredibly entertaining bewilderment that it’s
still a play. He himself speaks of The Man without a Past as a social-democratic romance.
There is so much longing for plain, simple things, for home, for relationships. The author is
heading towards a happy ending because that’s what he wants or would like to have, but at
the same time knows that it’s not to be. I really like to read science fiction. It is also
something like a longing for a moment to escape. Make your own beautiful world or
something like that... many people have such longings today. I’m not at all ashamed about it,
but I would like it to be a little alienated. This is my first such play about happiness. I think
that given the situation we live in today, it has a special resonance.