DIVADELNÍ FLORA

May 21st Sat, 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM | kostel Panny Marie Sněžné + S-klub

Peter Handke ZDENĚK ADAMEC. SELF-ACCUSATION Divadlo Na zábradlí Prague

A double bill of the oldest and newest dramatic texts by the Austrian author and Nobel prize winner in coproduction with our leading theatre and the Prager Theaterfestival deutscher Sprache. A vigorous blending of Hanke’s work with his personal postulates and opinions, German with Czech, Czech protagonists with German ones, private with public, sacral festival setting with secular ones – directed by Dušan D. Pařízek.

Discussion follows.

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The performance starts in the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snow (kostel Panny Marie Sněžné), from where we then move to the S-klub venue.

Pařízek conveys Handke’s play of language into the theatre space by maximizing the actors’ energy, which is so strong that it instantly binds the audience, making it cooperate with the actors as a flexible, sensitive mass until the end of the performance. (…) It has been a long time since such a great intensity of acting has been felt on stage, yet without exhibition, without self-serving showing off, completely in the sense, in the interest of the play.

Petr Fischer, Právo, 4 January 2022

In his latest play called Zdeněk Adamec, the Austrian playwright Peter Handke deals with the case of a young man who burned himself to death on Prague’s Wenceslas Square in 2003, the place where student Jan Palach set himself on fire in 1968 in protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. With his debut at Divadlo Na zábradlí, Dušan D. Pařízek continues his previous interpretations of Handke’s plays – not only by casting Stanislav Majer and Martin Pechlát, actors of the former Prague Chamber Theatre – and also his series of German-language productions questioning national myths and their verifiable veracity.

The project has expanded to include the stage sketch Self-Accusation, which aims to reflect on Peter Handke as a public figure with a controversial reputation. The great Nobel Prize-winning writer – and provocateur in one person – is portrayed by the exceptional German actor Samuel Finzi, who is ably seconded by Jiří Černý, another of “Pařízek’s” actors.

The audience of the Flora Theatre Festival had the chance to see the drama Self-Accusation directed by Pařízek back in 2016, in a production by the Volkstheater of Vienna with the phenomenal Austrian actress Stefanie Reinsperger. The director’s return to Handke’s bitterly funny debut and the surprisingly functional combination with his latest text Zdeněk Adamec promise an extraordinarily strong theatre experience. According to the critic Iva Mikulová, in the Czech context, Pařízek made “a highly topical contribution to public discourse at a time when part of society is unaware that part of civic life, indeed its very essence, is the acceptance of responsibility for one’s own actions.” The festival audience is thus offered a unique opportunity to “step into the same river a second time” with the director.

stage design and directed by Dušan D. Pařízek

translation Petr Štědroň, Jitka Bodláková
dramaturgy Petr Štědroň, Dora Viceníková
costumes Kamila Polívková

cast Samuel Finzi, Jiří Černý, Stanislav Majer, Martin Pechlát

premiere 2 December 2021

Dušan David Pařízek (1971) ranks among the most successful Czech theatre directors both abroad and in the country. He is one of the founding fathers of Pražské komorní divadlo which, under his direction (2002–2012), became one of the most progressive stages in the country. Dramaturgically, he relies on complex themes of authors such as Schwab, Bernhard, Jelinek and Handke, to whom he regularly returns – the last time with his new production Zdeněk Adamec. Self-Accusation. At the beginning of the millennium, he established himself at the most distinguished German-speaking stages all around Europe. He was awarded the Nestroy Prize several times as well as the Theater heute magazine awards. He currently primarily works in German-speaking theatres such as Schauspiel Köln, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus or Schauspielhaus Bochum.
His work can be seen as a study of relationships within the Central European region and national identities which are, despite the common history, rather diverse and whose national myths are worth considering as subjects of re-examination. This was the focus of his recent production King Ottokar’s Fortune and End at Volkstheater Vienna with Karel Dobrý in the main role or his co-production project of Studio Hrdinů and Theater Bremen The Case Švejk (at Flora 2017). Pařízek also consistently and systematically focuses on the topic of sustainability in theatre operations which is connected to the concept of modular stage design which is typical and determining for his work. Pařízek’s adaptation of Ridiculous Darkness at Burgtheater Vienna won the prestigious Theater heute survey and became the Production of the 2014/2015 season of the German-speaking area. His adaptations in the Viennese Volkstheater – Old Masters (Bernhard) and Self-Accusation (Handke) also met with a great response. All three Austrian productions were exclusively featured at the twentieth Flora Theatre Festival within the Regie: Dušan D. Pařízek section.

Soon after it was established in 1958, Divadlo Na zábradlí became a seedbed for Czech Theatre of the Absurd thanks to the director Jan Grossman and the dramatist Václav Havel. Several film directors of the Czech New Wave found a home there since they were not allowed to produce films during the normalisation era (e.g. Jiří Menzel, Jaromil Jireš, and primarily Evald Schorm). As of the 2013/2014 season, the management of the theatre was assumed by the former artistic director of Reduta Theatre – Petr Štědroň, who also brought with him the dramaturge Dora Viceníková, the director Jan Mikulášek, and the stage designer Marek Cpin – together they create the unique and characteristic poetics of the ensemble. They systematically reflect on burning topics which resound with society and at the same time inspect the timeless phenomena of human life. They emphasise an irregular dramaturgy going in the direction of original productions, dramatizations of novels as well as radical interpretations of classic and current dramas. Prominent representatives of the Y-generation such as Petr Erbes and Boris Jedinák (together with 8 lidí ensemble), Adam Svozil and Kristýna Jankovcová, Jan Frič or the film-maker Jan Prušinovský are also given space there.
The Flora programme section Profil: Divadlo Na zábradlí introduced a cross-section of their production in 2015 and featured regularly other productions of the theatre at the later festival annuals:Obsession, Hamlets, Macbeth – Too Much Blood, Woodcutters and Personas.

photo KIVA