Download Portfolio 2011 in English

FESTE THEATRE
...is an independent professional theatre group from Brno, CZ...
...established in 2006...
MEMBERS:
Artistic Director and core performance director: Jiří Honzírek (guest
director in other Czech theatres in Ústí nad Labem, Most, Uherské
Hradiště, HaDivadlo Brno, Polárka Brno, etc.)
Professional actors (theatre company members in HaDivadlo Brno,
Divadlo Husa na provázku Brno, Městké divadlo Zlín, Moravské divadlo
Olomouc, Divadlo Pod Palmovkou Prague, etc.)
Professional dramaturgs, scene designers, producers
Graduates of Academy of Fine Arts and Masaryk University, Brno
PREMIERES:
IDENTITY 1: Our Islam
IDENTITY 2: Heiner Müller: Popis obrazu/Bildbeschreibung
IDENTITY 3: Nineteen Eighty Nine – A Revolution Practice
IDENTITY 4: Havel writes to Husák
IDENTITY 5: Marie Restituta, or A hospital at the edge of the Reich
IDENTITY 6: Be Free!
IDENTITY 7: Haz.Art
IDENTITY 8: Dr. Emil Hácha aneb Já na Háchu, Hácha na mě
IDENTITY 9: She Pastured Her Horse on the Balcony
PARTICIPATION AT THE FESTIVALS:
…příští vlna / next wave... (Prague)
Festival of European Regions (Hradec Králové)
Encounter / Setkání / Stretnutie (Zlín)
OFF EUROPA (Dresden)
Carussel (Wien)
International festivat Theatrical World (Brno)
Muzika (Paka)
Zlomvaz
Festival Creative Africa
Summer Film School (Uherské Hradiště)
Dni Ipl´a – Slovak-Hungarian festival (Sahy/Ipolyság)
Festival Brno Worlds
Festival Kopřiva (Kopřivnice)
Velká inventura (Liberec)
and others.
AWARDS:
2007 Performance of the Year nominee, Divadelní Noviny survey
(performance: IDENTITY 1: Our Islam)
“Young theatre goers in Brno begin to accept almost iconically the works of the Feste
Theatre consisting of performers and authors of about thirty years of age (the name taken
after the jester in The Twelfth Night by Shakespeare). It even seems that it is possible to
speak about a birth of a new generational theatre with clear personal views and opinions
about the current world.”
Jana Soukupová, MF Dnes daily newspaper.
PRODUCTION: Klára Mišunová
[email protected]
Tel: +420 777 86 26 14
www.divadlofeste.cz
DRAMATURGY:
taboos and ambiguous social-political topics
The line of dramaturgy which instigates the choice of project topics is
IDENTITY – A HUMAN BEING’S UNITY – SELF-PERCEPTION
Feste Theatre
is an author’s theatre,
works with texts which were not originally intended as
dramatic or theatrical,
has been socially active with a clear goal for a long time,
which is unique in the Czech context,
pursues the development of open civic society,
focuses on contents inspiring social debate and
phenomena influencing the topical (mainly mass-media)
discourse at home and internationally and the following
interpretation of reality,
works with researches and academic studies of the given
social issues,
in our living space. The examination of an individual’s identity leads the
performances of the Feste Theatre to memory preservation and to finding
topical moment influencing memory in the future.
"Mankind is defenceless only where it has no experience and no memory."
Elias Canetti
“Documentary theatre is one of the most topical streams in the current European
theatre. In our country, this trend is represented in the works of Miroslav
Bambušek and Jiří Honzírek and his Feste Theatre. Both boldly and radically
reflect and map out – in different ways – the recent, unhealed past of the area
called the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia.”
Vladimír Hulec, …příští vlna/next wave… festival director
is always trying to find a new approach to a specific
theatrical interpretation (documentary, movement, crossover, drama, improvisation).
“Feste Theatre managed to revive the interest in original documentary drama on the Czech
stage. In the performances such as Our Islam, Bildbeschreibung, Nineteen Eighty Nine,
Havel writes to Husák, Be Free!, Haz.Art and Dr. Emil Hácha, Jiří Honzírek managed to
formulate topical and social conditions and to confront the audiences with them.”
Dora Viceníková, dramaturg, Reduta Theatre (Brno) artistic vice-director
IDENTITY I: OUR ISLAM
Identity 1
Documentary drama
Authorial, theatrical-social project which was the first to deal with the
issue of Islam in the Czech Republic.
The first performance within the Identity Cycle is trying to find sources of
prejudices of Europeans towards people from Muslim countries and
communities and their way of life. The aims of the performance are:
- to educate the European public about Muslim culture, religion and
way of life,
- to observe and describe the contrast between the lived reality of
Czech Muslims and their image in the Czech mass-media.
“If the only pictures we have about the others are pictures of madness,
then the only thing we get is fear...”
The plot of the performance consists of several situations. Three of them
are repeated several times and developed – a young woman in danger
from three men with a huge bag in the public transport, an interview
between a TV host and a Czech convert to Islam and a class by a highschool teacher. In other situations, we can see Muslim women immigrants
to Europe, an American female soldier leaving to fight in Iraq, an Islamist
suicide bomber and George W. Bush’s address.
Consultants: Vladimír Sáňka – the head of the Muslim Community in the Czech Republic,
Charif Bahbouch – writer and publisher of Syrian origin, Lubomír Kropáček – Arabist and
expert in Near-East relations and Jakub Macek – a media studies scholar, Masaryk
University (Brno).
The performance was nominated for the Performance of the Year 2007
in Divadelní noviny survey.
The Team:
Cast: Jan Grundman, Barbora Milotová, Tereza Richterová,
Pavlína Bitarová
Director: Jiří Honzírek
Text: Tomáš P. Kačer
Dramaturgy: Katarína Koišová
Scene design: Radka Vyplašilová
Music: Jiří Starý
Lighting: Radka Sičová
Sound: Víťa Halška
Production: Klára Mišunová
Première: 18 January 2007
NINETEEN EIGHTY NINE – A REVOLUTION
PRACTICE
Identity 3
Interactive drama
The revolutionary events of 1989 from today’s perspective. How has the
time of the revolution influenced the Czech identity?
The aims of the performance are:
- to question the authenticity of the revolution as a purely
spontaneous event directed by the events in the street,
- to emphasize the contrast between the life before and after the
turn.
“I have a great respect for the fact that young people, who may have not been
born then, are dealing with it and even see the events as worth a performance. It
is a kind of a way of self-awareness and this is, of course, respectable.”
(Václav Havel, Nekultura.cz)
Première 1 November 2008
Two stories. First – an interactive reconstruction of the legendary
negotiations between the Civic Forum and representatives of the
totalitarian power (audiences become Havel, Pithart, Vondra, Panek,
Adamec, or Klaus in one part of the performance). A revolution practice,
which is played out by theatrical means, thus enables the audiences to
experience a rough sketch of the Velvet Revolution. The second story
unfolds as three university students head towards their graduation
from May 1989 to June 1990.
Authentic transcripts of political negotiations from the revolutionary day are used in the
performance, as recorded by Vladimír Hanzel in his Accelerated Pulse of History.
...there are things we can simply agree on...
The team:
Cast: Jan Grundman, Barbora Milotová, Tereza Richtrová, Sergej
Sanža
Director: Jiří Honzírek
Text: Vladimír Hanzel, Jiří Honzírek, Jakub Macek, Tomáš P.
Kačer
Dramaturgy: Jakub Macek
Scene design: Radka Vyplašilová
Music: Jiří Starý
Light: Václav Kuropata
Sound: Víťa Halška
Production: Klára Mišunová
HAVEL WRITES TO HUSÁK
Identity 4
Language barrier-free performance. An hour long circus of
Communism.
The team:
Cast: Jan Grundman, Pavel Gajdoš
Director: Jiří Honzírek
Text: Václav Havel
Stage design: Lucie Labajová
Lighting: Václav Kuropata
The former President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, Václav
Havel, has belonged to the most prominent humanist intellectuals over the
last decades. His artistic use of language made him one of the most
important European playwrights of the 1960s and 1970s. He formulated
his ideas and views in dramas as well as in other published documents,
such as in his letter to Gustáv Husák (the former President of Communist
Czechoslovakia) which he wrote on 8 March 1975 and which became one
of the fundamental documents of the Czechoslovak dissent.
The letter is a precise analysis of fear, disinterestedness, selfishness,
hypocrisy and humiliation of people in a Communist society. But most of
all, it is about the unbelievable ability of Czech to let them be
manipulated.
The performance combines action and circus sketches with excerpts from
Havel’s letter and it asks along with the author:
“To how deep tomorrow’s spiritual and moral impotence of the nation will lead
today’s castration of its culture?”
Sound: David Velčovský
Production: Národní divadlo Brno, Klára Mišunová
Première 8 January 2009
HAZ.ART
Identity 7
Dumb show. Drama. Dance.
A Theatrical spam letter.
Slot machines. Casinos. The Czech Republic is the Las Vegas of
Europe.
There are more casinos in Václavské náměstí in Prague than in Austria.
In Prague, there are more of them than in Austria and Germany together.
There is one slot machine per 18.000 people in France.
In the Czech Republic, there is one slot machine per 170 people, in Brno
one per 60.
Collaboration: sociology students, Masaryk University, Karel NEŠPOR, M.D.,
Consultant Psychiatrist at the Department of Addictive Diseases, Psychiatric Hospital
Prague.
...and the win is the worst thing...
The team:
Cast: Jiří Kniha, Roman Blumaier
Director: Jiří Honzírek
Music: Jiří Starý
Stage design: Radomír Otýpka
Choreography: Kateřina H. Hanzlíková
Technical crew: Václav Kuropata
Production: Klára Mišunová
PR: Šárka Syslová
Première 6 June 2010
The issue of slot machines has become a pressing (not only) political
issue.
“How many players are needed to pay all staff and make profit? One is enough.”
(Karel Nešpor, M.D.)
The playscript is based on the book I Have Lost Enough by Karel Nešpor.
Haz.Art is a cross-over theatre.
During the performance, the actors and audiences create together an
electronic “theatrical spam letter” which is sent after the performance to
local authorities that decide about the numbers and placements of casinos,
slot machines and other gambling devices.
Audiences may sign this “unclaimed” letter, which leads to a creation of a
petition drawing attention to the issue of gambling and slot machines.
The story follows the last seven years of Hácha’s life, when he was the
president of the country.
DR. EMIL HÁCHA
aneb Já na Háchu, Hácha na mě
...respect to law is the political imperative...
Identity 8
A drama with five acts and two intermezzos.
A new tragic hero is sought on the background of historical turnovers. Is a
tragic fate a ticket to the world of tragic heroes? Emil Hácha does not
agree. Oedipus, Hamlet and Sophie do not know. Who writes history?
Dr. Emil Hácha
- president, lawyer, translator and poet
- the president of Czechoslovakia (1938-1939)
- the state president of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (19391945)
His political fate is one of the most conservative chapters in the modern
Czech history.
His complicated destiny became a tool of the Communist propaganda
which created a distorted image of a man who fought for the Czech
identity in its most difficult hour.
“My greatest tragedy is that everybody wants to turn my life into a tragedy.”
The dramatic text is inspired by the classical drama structure. The chorus
is a marked part of the performance which consists of simultaneous
speeches or singing by three minor characters of the play – Oedipus,
Hamlet and Sophie. These three classical tragic characters that are about
to decide whether Hácha’s fate is tragic enough to enter the pantheon of
tragic characters. In the present time, they are putting Hácha, who knows
he is dead, under the test of all key moments of his life.
The team:
Cast: Jan Grundman, Barbora Milotová, Luboš Stárek, Václav
Hanzl, Jiří M. Procházka
Director: Jiří Honzírek
Music: Jiří M. Procházka, Jiří Starý
Stage design: Radka Vyplašilová
Technical crew: Václav Kuropata
Production: Klára Mišunová
PR: Šárka Syslová
Première 10 October 2010
SHE PASTURED HER HORSE ON A BALCONY
Identity 9
Sci-fi.
A woman. A horse. Parasites. Dispose!
It is the year 2238. Strange skeletons of a woman and a horse have been
found. Who was the woman? A where did the horse come from?
Focus on the tabooed social-political problem of today – the issue of the
Roma minority.
„...Jani, me tuke kamavas calo jileha the kamav tut…“
The story. Three scientists are analysing the discovery of a woman’s
skeleton with a horse in the year 2238. They should stop their enquiry at
the moment when they find out that she belonged to the extinct Roma
ethic group. But they continue regardless all restrictions and possible
threats. They analyse the skeleton and study Roma history. However, the
results of their explorations are terrifying. What if the Romas did not
extinct naturally? What if they were annihilated? And why?
“In the end, we learn two things from the story: how stupid our prejudices are
and how we don’t ever learn. The performance is perfect. Not a redundant
sentence, not a redundant gesture. The actors are focused and devoted to what
they are presenting. Music by Jiří Starý is not simplistic. All components
including the scene, costumes and various sci-fi gadgets serve their purpose. And
according to the director, Jiří Honzírek, the whole performance cost six thousand
Czech crowns [240 €]. For this unbelievable amount it was possible to produce a
performance which is necessary, beautiful and deep.” (Jana Soukupová, MF
Dnes)
The partner of the project is the Museum of Gipsy Culture in Brno. The performance was
created with the support of the Foundation for the Victims of the Holocaust.
„...Jani, I loved you very much and I love you…“
The team:
Cast: Jan Grundman, Barbora Milotová, Luboš Stárek
Director: Jiří Honzírek
Script: Jiří Honzírek, Katarína Koišová, Sabina Macháčová
Dramaturgy: Katarína Koišová, Sabina Macháčová
Music: Jiří Starý
Stage design: Radomír Otýpka
Costumes: Žiži
Technical crew: Václav Kuropata
Production: Barbora Doležalová
PR: Šárka Syslová
Première 29 January 2011
MATĚJ THE VIRTUOUS
A puppet fairytale about corruption
He who does not steal is not Czech! Hop, hop, hop!
An ordinary Czech man Matěj the Virtuous takes advantage of
the opportunity and steals the state treasure. The Light Fairy and the
Devil struggle for his soul. The capacities of the state – The Leader
of the Nation, The Highest Judge, The Highest Priest, The State’s
Spokesman, The Commander and others – want to steal the public
money back and “split” it. Hedona, the most beautiful woman in the
world, is a key character of the story.
In the land, where he who does not steal is not Czech, Matěj the
Virtuous seems to be an ideal opportunity for entertainment and rest
for the whole family. The whole package is wrapped up in a crazed
pace of brilliant, biting poetics of one of the precious clowns of the
Czechs, Ladislav Klíma.
Text: Arnošt Dvořák and Ladislav Klíma
Concept, director, actor: Lubomír Stárek
Première 26 March 2011