When Life Doesn't Go as Expected
How do you imagine the curve that would represent your life? This ideal biography allows for minor missteps and existential difficulties, but have you thought about the loss of a loved one? To what extent would this major event affect your idea of a more or less easy-going life? The autobiographical production "Anytime, Anywhere" by students from the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague might help you in your search for answers.
In a short production, Kristina Kellnerová and Jovita Siu Ji Chin present the personal experiences they have had to go through in their lives. The absence of the sea, the permanent moving, the lack of funds to visit family during Christmas, or the loss of a loved one – the intensity of the problems tends to increase, but it is during the analysis of the most difficult topics (e.g. cremation of a once-buried mother due to a limited number of grave sites) that the well-tuned comic punchlines also come in. Intimate statements are interpreted by the students in a minimally lit space, with the light from small lamps pointing out only the most essential acts. This production also works with projections or voice and sound recordings to enhance its intimate atmosphere and bring the deepest fears of the two young people closer. The acting of the two actresses is minimalistic and fully focused on credible testimony, which ideally should not only bring to catharsis the persons involved, but also the audience.
The production “anytime, anywhere” accumulates a number of themes whose theatrical treatment could have slipped into cliché. The Prague production, however, provided an open confession by creators who never went beyond the imaginary boundary and, at the same time, factually conveyed their own life worries. This form of processing, however, offers much wider possibilities which were not used 100%. Still, the final result did not suffer from their minimization.
