Czech theatre
Divadlo na cucky: Orpheus and Eurydice
The premiere of the latest production by Divadlo na cucky and director Jan Frič. This new adaptation of the classical myth departs from the traditional operatic form, turning the story of Orpheus trying to rescue his beloved Eurydice from the underworld into a point of departure for a deeper meditation on death, loss and dying. The underworld is therefore not only a mythical place, but also a metaphor for the psychological landscapes into which a person descends in extreme situations. Divadlo na cucky’s Orpheus and Eurydice is an original, performative adaptation of the classical myth, a chamber scenic work situated between music theatre, performance and experimental production.
19 June | Studio Beseda
Puppet Delicacies in the Laboratory
A cycle of chamber productions representing current forms of Czech authorial puppet and visual theatre: Nature Culture (Nebenbei), Tin, Lighthouse & Fish (R405), Giant (FRAS), and Blackout (A. J. Nosorožec). Four companies, four poetics, four distinct approaches and four insights into the experimental puppet theatre of today and tomorrow.
19, 20, 22 and 23 June | Drak Theatre Laboratory
Na zábradlí Theatre: Time Shelter
People generally long to flee into a happier past through their memories, to relive it. But what happens when whole nations want to escape into the past? The protagonist Gaustin has found a way to create clinics of time, where people suffering from memory loss can return to the period when they felt best. This illness, a kind of prolonged temporal amnesia, gradually transforms over the course of the story into a disease suffered by society as a whole. Jan Mikulášek’s original production is based on Georgi Gospodinov’s contemporary novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2023.
20 June | Klicpera Theatre
Mikro Teatro: Delicatesse
A horror grotesque about irresistible taste. An exceptional event that happens only once in a lifetime, and only for those who know that a true delicacy is not served on a silver platter, but in the space between dream and reality. Audiences are invited to a festive table full of intoxicating tastes and scents, where humour joins forces with absurdity, nostalgia with exaggeration, and poetic playfulness with unsettling elegance. Delicatesse is an invitation into a world where taste is more than a mere sense.
20 June | Drak Theatre Studio
Prague City Theatres: Annihilate
An adaptation of Michel Houellebecq’s latest novel. European identity is falling apart, the far right is gaining strength and the world is ceasing to make sense. Paul, a close collaborator of a minister, watches not only the collapse of the political system, but also the disintegration of his own family. His father is seriously ill, his marriage no longer works, and his relationships with his siblings are tense or non-existent. The line between political events and private life grows ever more blurred. The question of whether life can be happy is never asked aloud, but hangs in the air. Hope that anything can be repaired has disappeared. Nothing. Annihilate.
21 June | Klicpera Theatre
Collective Coller: My Hood
Anežka and Kamča are the absolute best friends. The only problem is that they have not seen each other for twenty years. One grew up in a caravan in Switzerland, the other in a housing estate in Prague. Memories, desires, wishes. A few years, a few schools, a few experiences – and one shared dance. Will they revive their strong childhood bond, or have they become irreversibly estranged? How deeply are we shaped by the environment in which we grow up? A production about searching for home in one’s native country, searching for home in one’s own hood, and an evening in which two worlds meet.
22 June | Drak Theatre Main Stage
Horácké Theatre Jihlava: A Camel in No Man’s Land
It is spring 1945. The war is over. The world is slowly returning to where it had been before the war. But then something unheard of in this region appears near the village of Pohled: a camel. More precisely, a she-camel. But what to do with her? She cannot plough. She is no good for meat. A group of small boys from the newly restored scouts troop comes up with a solution. Together with the camel Pepita, they set out on a rescue mission from Havlíčkův Brod to Prague Zoo. And so begins a journey of more than one hundred kilometres through post-war Czechoslovakia, full of peculiar celebrations of the war’s end and ideals that somehow got lost along the way.
23 June | Klicpera Theatre
Klicpera Theatre Day
An intense theatre marathon during which you can see three productions from this year’s Klicpera Theatre repertoire in a single day. The morning belongs to Cyrano, an energetic production in the rhythm of rap and hip hop. In the afternoon comes Cabaret Königgrätz, a playful yet humorous probe into life in Hradec Králové. The evening closes with The Portrait of a Lady, a powerful story about personal freedom, free choice and the condition of women. Do not miss this unique opportunity to spend a whole day with Klicpera Theatre.
23 June | Klicpera Theatre and Studio Beseda
Geisslers Hofcomoedianten: Anger
No one cares what you feel. No one cares what you want. No one cares what makes you furious. And inside, the scream keeps growing. I have the right to feel anger. Destroy. Trample. Tear apart. Kill. Somewhere in the middle of the labyrinth lurks a raging bull. Come and look it in the eye. This original stage statement by Petr Šmíd is the first part of a cycle inspired by the Baroque statues of Virtues and Vices by the famous Matyáš Bernard Braun in Kuks. Anger is more than a negative emotion. It is a tool that must be understood and learned, so that it stops harming and can begin to help.
23 June | Drak Theatre Main Stage
Spitfire Company: TWENTY-one
Twenty female directors and choreographers. One performer. TWENTY-one presents Ibsen’s Nora in the twenty-first century, seen twenty different ways. It raises questions of the identity of woman, artist and mother, refusing to remain trapped in a doll’s house. Directors from Prague, Nairobi and Ukraine bring their own realities and personal experience into the character. Each creator is given two days of rehearsal to create, together with performer Miřenka Čechová, a two-minute performative fragment. The performer’s body becomes a living document, a catalogue of twenty different directing approaches.
24 June | Studio Beseda
RUN OPERUN: Why Is She Like That?
How much do we have to change in order to be accepted? This opera, inspired by the real events surrounding Rosemary Kennedy – the sister of President John F. Kennedy, who underwent forced lobotomy – reveals the dark layers of social pressure, mental health and female autonomy. This intimate one-act piece for three singers unfolds a powerful emotional image, layered like an inner landscape of pain, hope and reconciliation. The musical language of composing duo Darja Kukal Moiseeva and Natálie Pleváková combines classical and electronic music to create a contemporary, vivid sonic space.
26 June | Studio Beseda
Divadlo NIE: Můra – There Is Still Some Light Left
Is darkness born in the shadows? And what about evil? Does it too creep quietly into human life from hidden corners? The ancient Slavs believed that the supernatural being Mora, later known as Můra, was the soul of the dead that had not found peace. The production Můra – There Is Still Some Light Left is based on the real destinies of three young people growing up in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s. Across three stories, it places emphasis on character acting, live music and a specific humour combined with alienation effects. It is precisely these elements that allow the creators to open up even the most difficult themes.
26 June | Drak Theatre Studio