2024-03-27 08:10:18
Sixty years have passed since the founding of the Studio Ypsilon theater in Prague, where Evald Schorm or Jan Grossman directed and whose acting ensemble had the highest concentration of good Czech comedians at the time. The anniversary is commemorated by a new exhibition at the Prague House of Photography. The history of the renowned scene is told through archival images and posters of founder Jan Schmid.
The exhibition was prepared by the theater in cooperation with the Gallery of the City of Prague, and will last until May 19.
According to the now 87-year-old Schmid, who founded it in 1964 and still remains its director, the free history of Studio Ypsilon is a miracle. “It’s a satisfaction, especially for me. Ypsilonka, as far as I can remember, has always existed under such an umbrella of freedom, which I consider a miracle to always keep it,” says the director, author, artist, playwright and also an actor.
Although Oldřich Kaiser with Jiří Lábus, Marek Eben, Luděk Sobota, Martin Dejdar and Jiří Schmitzer successively played in Ypsilonka, its founder never wanted to do popular theater. “I didn’t even enjoy it. But for a person to leave the theater and have the feeling that they really came to terms with what they experienced,” explains the head of Ypsilonka.
The first part of the exhibition consists of several hundred photos from productions. They are arranged chronologically according to the individual developmental stages of the theater. They capture almost everyone who has passed through it or worked with it. The retrospective is enriched by an audio guide that offers 83 musical or commemorative sound stops, screenings of TV documentaries or an interactive map for the current production called Spálená 16. It premiered in 2019 under Schmid’s direction.
The second part of the show consists of posters that Schmid created for all Ypsilon productions except for the very first one from 1964 called Encyclopedic password XX. century.
Director of Studio Ypsilon Jan Schmid. | Photo: CTK
The director’s unmistakable handwriting, closely linked with Ypsilon poetics, became part of the theater’s visual image. “It is a tribute, a tribute to his artistic skill. It is unique, and not only by Czech standards. We have before us a continuous series of posters by Jan Schmid, which he created for 60 years for one scene,” emphasizes curator Eva Kulová.
According to Schmid, there is no time for mere reminiscence. “I always like the work that I do and that is right now and presents me with a problem. It is often unsolvable, but basically it is always somehow similar. There is some nostalgia there, that we were young, but that’s all. I would like to continue creating, I still have some things ready that even history itself offers, for example the 90s in this country, which are not very processed,” he suggests.
Studio Ypsilon was founded in Liberec in 1963 as an independent experimental group of Jan Schmid, from the beginning until now the leader of the ensemble and the creator of its style and poetics. He founded it during his military service. “There was an awful lot missing in the society and the theater at the time. I felt that theater should be thought of in a completely different way. I was annoyed by the inflated psychology and, for example, fake pauses,” Schmid said in an interview for Hospodářské noviny.
Under the name Ypsilon, the ensemble existed since 1964, five years later it became professional.
His creative method has always been collective improvisation. The ensemble worked programmatically with controlled chance and infinity. “Improvisation was forbidden under socialism, but after some effort we got permission. But we had to record everything and submit it to the censors,” mentioned Schmid.
He also strove to mix all professions and musicians turned into actors. “Even the playwright Zdeněk Hořínek played, and it turned out that he is more convincing than any actor, because he is extremely authentic. Of course, he couldn’t be, for example, Macbeth, who was played by Jiří Lábus. He wasn’t equipped for that,” he said.
Since the end of 1978, Studio Ypsilon has been based in Prague, in the early functionalist Olympic Palace at Spálená 16. At first it was attached to the Jiří Wolker Theatre, in 1990 it became an independent stage.
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