The Electra complex is named after a Greek heroine who, according to mythology, was strongly attached to her father. She was unable to separate herself from him even after his death. The term refers to the daughter's latent, often unconscious relationship with her father, and his desire to favor her or substitute her for her mother in his life.
Spanish writer and playwright Federico García Lorca is known for his dramas inspired by Spanish folklore, Andalusian nature, and surrealism. His most famous pieces, also called the rural trilogy, are Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba. The last of these was also the last one he wrote. In 1936, soon after finishing it, he was shot by Nationalist forces during the Spanish civil war. American composer Michael John LaChiusa rewrote the drama into a musical, a work which was premiered in 2006 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre under the title Bernarda Alba. Actors from the Janáčkova Academy of Performing Arts in Brno have brought this musical to Setkání/Encounter festival and stirred up passions of love, hate and family drama in Divadlo na Orlí.
The performance The Panic Song Show by the Italian ensemble offered a glimpse into a twisted reality show where participants, under the watchful eyes of the uncompromising organizers, did not exercise their own free will. From the very beginning, the audience was told that the performance would not only be broadcast live – clearly to enhance its authenticity – but would also portray violence and use intense lighting effects. But was this really necessary to convey the main ideas of the play?
Death. A sensitive subject for some, redemption for others. It has always been present among us. But the way we look at it is changing. Today, it is perhaps one of the most difficult things to cope with in our country. Yet everyone perceives it differently. Some people find it easier to cope with, and others struggle with it all their lives.
You’re sitting in a room upstairs, waiting to hear the approaching footsteps of your mother on the stairs. But her steps sound more hesitant with each passing day until they eventually stop altogether. What happens when, one day, your mother simply doesn’t return? Will you feel grief… or rather, relief? Julia Fidelus' monodrama 20 DEN explores the life of a daughter reflecting on her relationship with her mother and the question of whether she can still call herself a daughter when her mother is gone.
Bertolt Brecht, Florian Zeller, Július Bárč-Ivan, Karel Čapek, Maxim Gorky – all of them are thematically connected by a single word, even in the title: mother. Their selflessness (even sacrifice), maternal love, and loss. But while their plays, at times, show the world through a mother’s eyes, 20 DEN, a production from the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw (Białystok branch), tells the story of the one without whom the mother would not have her title – the daughter. Puppeteer Julia Fidelus wrote, directed, and performed the piece as a monodrama.
The beginning was promising: while the audience entered the hall, actors dressed in white plastic bags walked back and forth, quiet music played in the background, and only a few lights shone in the darkness. ‘Oops, this is going to be some very artistic theatre,’ I thought to myself. But it was anything but art. For me, as a spectator, more and more circles of hell appeared throughout the production, like Dante's. But probably not in the way the creators intended
