May 18th Wed, 7:30 PM – 8:40 PM | S-klub
KOHLHAAS
(after Heinrich von Kleist)
Lachende Bestien
The story of a journey of a man who was wronged and who in search for justice resorted to violence. Kleist’s hero violates the law, Lachende Bestien – within their original commentary – “violate the interpretation”. “Eco-terrorist production” of Michal Hába, whose Heroes of Capitalist Labour and Palace by the Loire crowned the untraditional autumn 24 Flora theatre festival.
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The most surprising thing about Lachende Bestien’s new work is that the plethora of heterogeneous components and eclectic ideas, despite all the jokes and disparage, finally came together in a surprisingly consistent message (…). Kohlhaas neither denies nor frustratedly appeals, but rather presents, with detachment and playfulness, a whole authentic discourse of reflections, ideas and ideals.
Petra Zachatá, Divadelní noviny, 3/2022
For the third time, Lachende Bestien return artistically to Heinrich von Kleist’s novella reflecting on the historical story of injustice and the legitimacy of revenge. Their authorial approach, as is customary, is not a pure adaptation of the original text, but goes beyond the possibilities of its interpretation and engages in a creative dialogue with it. In Kohlhaas, the ensemble thus continues its line of authorial theatre that demonstrates, alienates and blurs the boundaries between the personal and the political. The initially austere, straightforward production about the pursuit of justice thus develops into a muti-layered, metatextual show full of irony and motifs driven ad absurdum against the backdrop of the original work. It nevertheless carries a clear social appeal – the need to break free from the lethargy pervading our lives and start fighting on a global scale.
The character of Michael Kohlhaas is used in psychiatry as an exemplary image of a perpetual complainer and whiner, often delusional, but at the same time a personality with a powerful sense of justice and a fighter for law and freedom. The question therefore remains whether, in relation to the present and especially to the ecological threats of today, we are not lacking a little of that dreaded querulousness…
concept and directed by Michal Hába and Šimon Spišák
music Jindřich Čížek
stage design Adriana Černá
dramaturgy Veronika Švecová
production Hana Svobodová
cast Jindřich Čížek, Michal Hába, Šimon Spišák, Simona Hába Zmrzlá
premiere 20 January 2022
Actor and director Michal Hába (1986) served internships at Volksbühne (with Frank Castorf) and Maxim Gorki Theater (with Sebastian Baumgarten) which formed his directorial language. Artistically, he claims allegiance to Bertolt Brecht’s legacy and his directorial style is inspired in distinct German theatre-makers such as Frank Castorf, René Pollesch, Christoph Marthaler, Herbert Fritsch and mainly Christoph Schlingensief. His distinctive productions are created with dramaturgical consistency and openly exposed leftist attitudes. In general, he focuses on contemporary political-critical theatre and tries to react to the current social developments, apart from other things with his work in the independent theatre group Lachende Bestien, which he leads as artistic director.
His projects are based on current as well as classic texts, which he deconstructs and enriches with new meanings. His work at the Prague City Theatres can serve as proof of this: Grillparzer’s King Ottokar’s Fortune and End (2019) or Heroes of Capitalist Labour (2020), which were together with Palace by the Loire part of Hába’s profile section at last year’s Flora imaginarily culminating with his Kohlhaas production this year.
I am not trying to provoke or upset people. (…) Theatre does not need to forcedly hold on to metaphors or cheap provocation. Theatre should not create metaphors of the world but try to interpret the current world as a metaphor. It should try to uncover the reality behind the horizon of events. (…) Not to show the ‘bright future’ but to stimulate imagination. As a theatre director, I firmly believe that today it is necessary to mainly stimulate the political one.
Michal Hába in an interview for Divadelní noviny, 1/2020
Alternative theatre ensemble Lachende Bestien from Prague was formed around the current artistic director Michal Hába, musician Jindřich Čížek and stage designer Adriana Černá already in 2011. The group is considered one of the most progressive Prague ensembles.
The creative team introduced themselves already with their debut in 2011 – a variation on de Sade’s controversial novel focusing on the borders of imagination and humanness, formally bridging drama, demonstration and performance. The production 120 dní svobody (120 Days of Freedom) resounds even today and de facto characterised the direction of the works which stimulate the audience and incite an active dialogue. They gained their renown by staging the Werner Schwab drama Pornogeography (2015), for which they were awarded the Josef Balvín Award in 2016.
Their current repertoire includes original projects – e. g. the production Ferdinande! (2016) inspired by Václav Havel’s work and focusing on the topic of an intellectual in the public space and Sezuan (basierend auf Brecht) based on Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan (2017). They also work with adaptations of ‘traditional’ theatre texts such as Müller’s Mission (2018), Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (2019, co-production with the Prague City Theatres) or Sikora’s Palace at the Loire (2020).
Lachende Bestien follow up in the tradition of Brechtian theatre, not only with the detached style of acting but mainly with analytical view of the reality. The ensemble often thematises and questions the idea of capitalism and systematically studies social injustice. As a result, Lachende Bestien is a socially and critically appellative theatre which, however, does not lack self-irony and a detached view over serious topics.
photo Michal Hančovský
