In times of personal despair, one reaches for various ways to mute, purify, or replace the pain experienced. There are many such ways. The genesis of such helpful practices goes perhaps as far back as Antiquity. The question is: what to choose?
Martyr, from the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, brought to the stage of Husa na provázku a satire of religion, the school system, and human society. The production is dominated by great acting performances and an interesting set.
Sneezing. Coughing. Yawning. When does it start? The hall is dark, and the murmurs of the expectant crowd can be heard. Where to begin? What topic to choose first? Where to find the point of our existence. Is it here and now, or there and later? Right from the beginning of the performance, the audience can ponder the futility of the actions, words, and movements of the actors. To proceed without reflection.
Not Found is an original production by three performers from the Dimitri Academy in Switzerland, which, in addition to the theme, also seeks answers to a number of questions. The summary of the production describes a state in which we long to know as many answers as possible, but the multitude of them overwhelms us and we get lost in new and new question-ending formulations. And that is exactly what the production is. It was created based on a single request that the students were given. Create the performance you want to create right now!
The human body and its entire system of tiny, sophisticated nerves and resilient muscles do not form a mere shell for the mind, but rather offer it a partner that can withstand its broad spectrum.
At 4:48 in the morning, the author of this play, Sarah Kane, would regularly wake up. What she faced throughout her life, she poured into her work. This play, chosen by three Serbian students for adaptation, has a very heavy and sad story. Autobiographical elements cannot be overlooked, but the author did not provide any “manual” for staging this play. A hospital environment accompanies the audience throughout the entire performance. Frequent interaction compels the audience to observe, be vigilant, alert, and search within the enormous cloud of text permeating the room. The theme of depression, thoughts bombarding the mind, feelings of loneliness and helplessness – all of this can be heard, seen, felt.
Psychosis 4:48 is a fragmentary text with an unconventional dramatic plan, a highly emotional ride across a fragmented human consciousness. By its very composition, themes, undetermined space-time and characters (no gender is specified, but neither is the number), the text compels a distinctly loose interpretation. However, the basic information for a sort of orientation can be deduced: the fragmentary story of a patient and her psychiatrist. The course of her treatment in a psychiatric hospital is accompanied by a detailed medical history and narrative monologues that alternate between the poetic and the prosaic. The thematic framework is also wide-ranging: suicide, critiques of outdated psychiatric practices, religious and social aspects, the symbolic linking of time and space, peer compatibility, and toxicity (which is based on the role of the dominant versus the submissive), and, finally, redemptive love – redemption or just a subtle drop of liquid into a sea of suffering.
After a morning meeting with Anna Rouhu, who introduced us to the concept of greener and sustainable theatre, another workshop took place in classroom 104 - this time dedicated to public space and socially engaged theatre.
For this year's SETKÁNÍ/ENCOUNTER, JAMU has prepared two productions - The Image of a Woman and Origin of Clouds or What It Means to Believe in Something. The former takes place in a closed apartment, the latter in an infinite space.
