International productions
La Perla 29: The Tiger Lillies In A Macbeth Song (Spain)
The festival opens with A Macbeth Song by the Catalan company La Perla 29, created in collaboration with the British cabaret-punk band The Tiger Lillies. This distinctive production offers a singular music-theatre reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Macbeth. In La Perla 29’s hands, it is not only a musical performance with a strong international reputation, but also a suggestive story about unbridled desire for power, war and guilt, about blood-stained hands, dark prophecies, witchcraft and restless nights shrouded in mist, and above all about human ambition that crosses every limit and leaves behind crimes whose burden never disappears.
19 June | Klicpera Theatre
La Compagnie Babel: Fathers (France)
This intimate production for two actors opens up the theme of fatherhood and family bonds. With gentle humour, different figures of fathers gradually appear on stage: authoritarian, uncertain, loving and absent. The mosaic of stories emerged from extensive creative research among members of different communities. Fathers does not seek simple answers, but asks questions that reach beyond the boundaries of the family: how are the roles of men and fathers changing in contemporary society? What models do we carry from the past? The production is grounded in the storytelling skill of its two performers, yet soon almost turns into dialogue, and the audience feels as if it has become fully part of this unique encounter.
19–20 June | Studio Beseda
Electric Circus: The Glowing Pickle bar (The Netherlands)
When you accept the invitation to The Glowing Pickle bar, you and ten other spectators spend six minutes inside a miniature bar. At first glance, it seems to be a completely ordinary, perhaps even slightly boring day for the regulars. But the calm atmosphere of the pub is disturbed by an unexpected creak of the door and the arrival of a stranger who turns the whole place upside down and reveals the bar from an entirely new perspective. The Dutch company Electric Circus combines puppetry with electromechanics and technological innovation. The entire performance unfolds without the physical presence of puppeteers, yet all animation happens live, without screens or projections, using only motors, electronics and programming.
20 June | Drak Theatre open-air area
El Patio Teatro: Insides (Spain)
The Spanish company El Patio Teatro invites audiences on a fascinating journey through the human body. This is not a dry scientific lecture, but rather a delicate exploration of what is hidden inside a person. Through object work and storytelling, two performers uncover the mysteries of the body, examining what pulses beneath the skin and what usually remains invisible to the eye. In this visually rich anatomy lesson, empirical and even scientific material mingles with emotion and lived experience. The poetic production shows not only what the human body is made of, but also what humanity itself might be.
21–22 June | Drak Theatre Studio
Cie La boite à Sel: BAD BLOCK (France)
How many emotions can fit into one small object? And can cold technology have a soul of its own? Imagine receiving a strange translucent cube in your hands. It is silent, motionless, alien. But all it takes is the first touch and the cube lights up, blinks nervously, rustles, whispers something… and suddenly comes alive before your eyes. You enter a world where technology is not merely a tool, but an entity that feels uncannily alive. The result is a unique fusion of high-tech digital art, sound art and fragile puppet intimacy. Here the audience becomes a collective orchestra, conducting the atmosphere of the performance through movement and interaction.
Notice: performed only in English, without Czech translation.
24–25 June | Drak Theatre Studio
Bratislava Puppet Theatre: Neuvěřitelné příběhy Mórica Beňovského (Slovakia)
A production for children and parents about the thrilling travels of Móric Beňovský, bringing to life the unbelievable story of one of the best-known adventurers of the eighteenth century. Móric Beňovský – soldier, sailor, refugee and legendary king of Madagascar – takes us on a journey from Europe across rough Kamchatka, inhospitable seas and all the way to exotic Japan and Taiwan. With great inventiveness, surprising encounters, impossible escapes and grand dreams of fame come to life. The production combines historical adventure with fantasy, entertains and teaches at once, and is intended for younger and older audiences who love travel, humour and big stories.
24 June | Drak Theatre Main Stage
Ján Palárik Theatre Trnava: Snow Negatives: Wetzler, Vrba, Schulman, Lux (Slovakia, Poland, Germany)
Although created under the auspices of Ján Palárik Theatre in Trnava, this production is a Slovak-Polish-German co-production. It combines theatre, film and digital technologies to follow the real lives of people who stood up to fascism: the writer Alfréd Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from Auschwitz and brought testimony about the extermination camp; the activist, journalist and actor Štefan Lux; and the photographer and partisan Faye Schulman. Through their stories, the production searches for answers to questions about the origins of hatred, the courage of the individual and why society so often overlooks or even trivialises evil.
25 June | Klicpera Theatre
BOT: BRASS (The Netherlands)
In BRASS, the Dutch company BOT plunges into the pulsating, overheated vacuum between two world wars. Through raw music, visual absurdity and humour, the creators point to the contradictions between the desire for innovation and sharpened conservatism. Inspired strongly by events of a century ago, this rough-edged and playful music theatre uses basic materials and precarious technologies to create an atmosphere that feels both disturbing and close to home. It is not merely a backward glance, but a look at a world in which we ask every day: will tension escalate into catastrophic explosion, or will reason prevail and allow us to reconcile with one another this time?
24–25 June | Hradebka courtyard
Teatro Matita: U!-BU (Slovenia)
Jarry’s grotesque hardly needs updating, as it still mercilessly exposes the immoral, perverse, hypocritical, cowardly, servile and greedy self-appointed “kings” who remain among us. A quintet of dadaists draws you into the world of ubuism, pataphysics and ironic social critique. Using a few toilet brushes, mime puppets, drums, keyboards, bass guitar and two bellies, they portray what we may be moving towards all too willingly today: existing in the service of an idiot. Matija Solce’s project connects musicians, puppeteers and actors on the border between political and object theatre, grotesque “merdre-operetta” and dadaist concert.
26 June | Drak Theatre Main Stage