Divadelní revue (Czech Theatre Review) vol. 34 · 2023 · no 1


Summary

The third issue of 2022nd Theatre Review presents two historical analyses, which focus on the history of Czech theatre of the second half of the 20th century. Tomáš Bojda's essay examines the original Czech radio production of the 1960s. Its objective is to define dramaturgical and directorial tendencies of the radio drama production of that time. Subsequently, the author seeks to present the radio production of the 1960s as a complex creative space, which absorbed a number of important artistic and cultural impulses from other sectors that were further developed and specifically completed. The essay draws attention to a drastic change in the dramaturgical and directorial practice of the Czechoslovak Radio after 1958 and examines the specificity of the radio play of the 1960s, i.e. the differentiation of authorial and dramaturgical strategies. Analyzes of two productions by the director Jiří Horčička – It was on your account (1964) and The Collector (1966) – refer to the typical features of Czech radio playwriting and directorial practices of the time.
Věra Velemanová in her analysis continues in mapping the work of scenographer Jan Dušek. The essay discusses the beginnings of Jan Dušek's stage design practice. After completing his studies at DAMU in 1967 with his graduate project for the production Maria, Josef a zlodějíček (Mary, Joseph and Pilfer), Dušek began his long-term collaboration with the director Pavel Hradil. The essay draws attention to the first stage of their collaborarion, which took place between the years 1969–1972 at Petr Bezruč Theatre in Ostrava. Here they prepared productions such as Doctor Faust, The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, The House of Dona Bernarda, and others. The essay intends to identify typical signs of Dušek's specific style, which already manifested itself in the first years of his work with vigorous and recognizable features, which were characteristic for his subsequent set designs and anticipated his most prolific collaboration with Evald Schorm at the Theatre on the Balustrade, Prague.
The issue also contains a translation of an essay by Cristina Grazioli, a professor at the Italian University degli studi di Padova, from 2020, about the grotesque features in the text of Alfred Jarry Silens. In the following block, we publish the papers by the members of the Research Team for the Modern Czech Theater of the Institute for Czech Literature, Academy of Sciences, which were presented at the panel discussion “Literary and Theater Studies – Borders, Intersections and ‘Disputed Territories’”, which took place as part of the VI. International Congress of Literary and Bohemian Studies (June 29, 2022). Barbara Topolová prepared the interview with the dramaturge, editor and theatre researcher Štěpán Otčenášek. Milan Strotzer reports on the state of research and documentation of the painted theatre curtains in the Czech lands.

analysis

Julie Pšenička
On Machov's Scenic Conception of Folk Dance: From the Lachian Dances to the London Bartered Bride [peer-reviewed article]

Michal Topor
Robert Saudek in theatrical context [peer-reviewed article]

interview

„...what more does a dramaturg need?“ Interview with the dramaturge and pedagogue Miloslav Klíma (Zdeněk A. Tichý, Jan Hančil)

results

of the 12th annual Václav Königsmark Award of the Czech Association for Theatre Research

reviews

Dalibor Tureček
List and Facts, or else the Usefulness of Heuristics (Václav Štěpán – Markéta Trávníčková: Stavovské divadlo 1824–1862: českojazyčný repertoár I–II)

Otto Drexler
About „Our“ Avant-Garde (Andrea Jochmanová – Ladislava Petišková: Osvobozené divadlo: na vlnách Devětsilu)

reports

Aleš Kolařík
Beyond the Horizons of Theatre (Jan Roubal Symposium, 18 November 2022, Centre for Performativity Research of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, Faculty of Arts, Olomouc)

new book relases (December 2022–June 2023)


Julie Pšenička
On Machov's Scenic Conception of Folk Dance: From the Lachian Dances to the London Bartered Bride. Through the London production of Smetana's Bartered Bride at Sadler's Wells Opera during the war years, the present study reflects on the influences of the ethnographic impulses of the domestic interwar avant-garde, which shaped Machov's approach to the choreography of this opera in 1943. Based on the given observations, it attempts to expand the perspective of Machov's domestic avant-garde experiences with folk dances with impulses he encountered in the English environment of 1943–1945, which significantly contributed to the shaping of his vision of modern Czech ballet in the post-war years. The case study seeks to broaden the previous knowledge that Vladimír Vašut, the Czech dance historian, published about Machov's work in London in the past, and which František Černý and Ota Ritz-Radlinský briefly mentioned. Research conducted in the collections of London memory institutions, specifically in the archives of the Islington Local History Center and Museum, V&A’s Theater and Performance Archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in The British Library made it possible to identify resources and documents that older researchers did not have available. Partial resources of an unclear provenance, the existence of which was indicated by Vašut in the second half of the 1980s, were identified in domestic collections (National Museum; Municipal Museum of Antonín Sova in Pacov; National Archive; National Library; Memorial of National Literature). Following Machov's approach to the choreography of The Bartered Bride, the analysis seeks to deepen earlier conclusions regarding Machov's London episode.
Contact: Julie Pšenička | ORCID 0000-0002-5099-1303 | Charles Univesity Prague | julie.psenicka[at]]centrum.cz

Michal Topor
Robert Saudek in theatrical context. Although Robert Saudek (1880 Kolín–1935 London) made his mark in the field of theatre with more than one work with immediate resonance, he is almost absent from history, neither in the German nor in the Czech perspective. The aim of the present study is primarily to reconstruct the theatrical aspect of Saudek’s career; this illumination is not primarily motivated by a conviction of the aesthetic height of the author’s theatrical work so much as by the possibilities that open up for a more nuanced understanding of the totality of his career and its (Central) European context. It traces Saudek’s movement between the experiments that developed his early dramaturgical considerations (from the „dramas of the child's soul“ [1903], through Schandmal (Shame) and Ein Wunderkind (The Miracle Child), to Revoluce na gymnáziu / Eine Gymnasiasten- Tragödie (Revolution / Tragedy at the Gymnasium), and then Saudek’s growth into the spheres of commercial, especially merry theatre (involving aspects of translation, co-authorship – with Rudolf Lothar, Alfred Halm, or Jan Fabricius), and productions across European theatres: from Vienna to Hamburg). The post-war years, by contrast, marked a complete departure from the theatrical world, which may make Saudek’s return to the stage before the mid-1930s all the more surprising, prompting questions about the importance of the theatre in the diverse field of his activities and interests, and attempted answers: with reference to the first few years, one can speak of an aesthetic-pedagogical ambition, later of the primacy of entertainment and extrovert imagination (here too, however, a certain social-critical reflection is possible); the play Schicksal (Fate), then, represents a return to the original gravity: the staging of a problem, a dilemma.
Contact: Michal Topor | ORCID: 0000-0003-4036-1292 | Institut pro studium literatury, o. p. s. | michal.topor[at]ipsl.cz