2024-04-21 22:10:08
The play Požár tells about the destruction of the world, the need for human solidarity and refugees. After a ten-year hiatus, the troupe returns to perhaps the best-known living German playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig. The next reruns are scheduled for April 24 and May 8.
The game tells the story of two villages that are friends at first, but after a series of disasters, their togetherness begins to disappear and enmity sets in.
At first, only a stream separates the villages. But one is pursued by various calamities, while the other avoids misfortune. One village is flourishing, in the other people are increasingly helpless. Over time, the stream splits and becomes a wild river, with indifference from the wealthier banks instead of a willingness to help the weaker and poorer. One night, a big fire forces the residents of both villages to board a rescue boat and head out to sea, director Josef Doležal explains. “At the center of my staging concept is human solidarity. At the heart of the whole story is each of us and our attitude towards the world, which is tested by the play to see if we are still human,” he explains.
The 56-year-old German author of the play, Roland Schimmelpfennig, is known for his social commitment and unusual writing style in the form of free verse. In the play Požár, he left the concrete finalization of the resulting shape mainly to the stage managers.
Doležal started from space. Komorní divided the Pilsen small stage into two opposite auditoriums, so that the audience accidentally becomes part of one of the villages. “In the middle of the playing area stands a long, narrow footbridge, our stage. Two groups of people stand opposite each other, looking at each other across the flowing river,” Doležal describes the scene.
He set the village in the West Slavic world, the production also includes folklore, dance and singing. The audience will hear two musical lines inspired by Slavic folk melody. One is the work of composer and scenographer Martin Šimek, the other is based on Czech, Slovak and Polish songs.
The director places emphasis on the choreography of Markéta Pospíšilová, a ballet master and until recently a member of the prestigious ensemble Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. “Our inspiration was, on the one hand, folklore and its dance expressions, and on the other, contemporary expressive dance,” Doležal explains. The author team is completed by Ukrainian costume designer Olena Zahrebninova. The game was translated by Michal Kotrouš.
Eight actors perform in the production – Jana Ondrušková, Nicole Tisotová, Kamila Šmejkalová, Apolena Veldová, Eliška Vocelová, Matyáš Greif, Vladimír Pokorný and Petr Urban.
Fire was commissioned by the National Theater in Mannheim, Germany, where it had its world premiere in January 2017. It accentuates the tragedy of people who die at sea trying to get out of their country. Ten years ago, the Tyl Theater staged Schimmelpfennig’s play Push Up.