n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

theatre Rokoko, Prague

2005

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Translation

7

4

-

Original Playwright - Iva Volankova. In 2002, the play received the prestigious award - 2nd Place in an anonymous competition for the best original theatre play (Alfréd Radok´s Award).

As the title indicates, the play takes place in the present day. In the center of the action, we find Olga, Masha and Irina, characters that the author has pointed out. Olga is a cynical, spiteful old maid with neurotic affectations, and haunted by erotic thoughts. Irina is even more cynical (in opposite to Chekhov´s character), playing sexual games in public with her monumental lover. We also find Masha in the crisis - she has just had an abortion and has resigned herself from everything. In addition, she is trying to resolve the issue of artificial insemination - it's unnaturalness simply disgusts her. However, the sisters´ world is of course not only complicated by their internal problems, but also by external attacks: a fire brigade during their training exercises invades the sisters´ garden; a mysterious man with a hat leaves a suspicious box; and Václav Klaus "personally" telephones day-care worker Luisa (like a million other Czechs during his last election campaign). Masha´s husband cannot become director of his school because he was a collaborator with the Communist secret police. On the radio, we learn about a hostage-taking incident where "hundreds of hostages" are detained by Chechen terrorists, and poisoned by some unknown gas during an unsuccessful liberation attempt. The only characters that seemingly do not allow themselves to be pulled from the world are Andrej (much younger than Chekhov´s character), who does not come out at all from his room where he to always be playing computer games, and the Father - a retired general who has decided not to communicate with anyone. Everything is intertwined in the resulting apocalypse where everything is annihilated. It is not possible to live normally in today's world with today's information. The world is neither for men nor for women - and certainly not for children. The apocalypse of course occurs also on the television, while the characters sit in the garden and "roast hotdogs".

Cracow

27 Oct 2007

Narodowy Stary Theatre

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Translation

6

7

1 boy, extras

Original Playwright - Petr Zelenka

The main plot follows the story of the writer Jacek. Jacek has a guilty conscience because he had committed a crime: "in a sudden craze" he put to sleep, and then raped his friends' eleven year old son. The second story line is that of a slow downfall of a TV talk-show called Coming Clean in which popular and respected celebrities confess to their sins. That's where Jacek's publisher sends his author after the latter opens his heart to him and tells him about his crime and how he suffers as consequence. Every little bit in the media counts and can help sell Jacek's latest book. After some inner struggle, the protagonist applies and tells well in advance all those having played a role in his crime about appearing on the show. When he leaves the TV studio, he is ready to bear consequences of his past action. He is surprised when nobody reacts - he finds out the show was only recorded, and another pre-recorded instalment was broadcast on that night. Seemingly favourable incidents begin to push the hero on a downward spiral towards deadly emptiness and cynicism. In the end, the show never goes on air (the show's editor is divorcing its presenter). Coming Clean is discontinued and produces a new talk show called Jacek's crime goes unpunished.

Ohio Theater, NY

2006

True Comedy Theatre Company

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Translation

-

0

-

Original Playwright - Vaclav Havel

-

Theatre on the Balustrade, Prague

1991

Divadlo Na zábradlí

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

Play/Drama

Translation

5

4

-

Original Playwright - Karel Steigerwald. translated by Roger Downey and Stepan Simek

(The play uses Themis from the life of Osip Mandelstam, as described by Nadezhda Mandelstam in her book "Hope against Hope"). A picture of a society on the run. From Berlin to the Urals, from the Stalinist labour camps of the 1930s to the last assault of the East German refugees on the West German embassies of the main East European cities in the autumn of 1989.

Dejvicke theatre Prague

2005

-

-

-

I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page

-

Play/Drama

8

3

-

Original Playwright - Petr Zelenka

The play is based on the real life of Leon Sergeievich Theremin - an inventor, musician, and a spy. In the words of the father of the modern synthesizer, Robert Moog, without Theremin, Moog himself would not have been able to construct his synthesizer. Theremin was born in 1896, and during the First World War he worked for the radio- technical battalion of the Red Army. In 1920 he completed his important invention: a musical instrument called the thereminvox, which to this day is the only non-contact musical instrument in the world. In 1922 Theremin presented the instrument to the enthusiastic Lenin, who saw it as a magnificent opportunity to promote the new revolutionary music. On Lenins orders Theremin embarked on a concert tour around disease and hunger-ravaged, post-revolutionary Russia.The tour was followed by a concert series abroad  in Germany, France, and England. Those tours however, were organized by the newly formed Soviet Secret Service GRU, for which Theremin had begun to work as an agent. After conquering Paris, the Royal Albert Hall, and Berlin, Theremins journey continued, logically, to America. He arrives in New York with his German friend and business manager Hans Goldberg. His mission is clear: to place Theremins inventions in the US industry and to receive US patents while at the same time infiltrating the nascent American air and electronic industries. It is Theremins time in the United States that constitutes the actual plot of the play. Recitals in Carnegie Hall, private performances for millionaires parties, and even the first stadium concerts, the biggest of which attracts more than 20 000 people!!! Instead of the originally planned two months, Theremin would remain in America for ten years. At its most basic level, Theremin is a story about the rise and fall of the worlds first electronic music band. But beyond this Theremin is a portrait of a controversial and a peculiar human being. It is a story of a man caught in the torrents of 20th century history, unable to be free in his calling, his actions, and his wants.