The dramatization of the Czech bestseller, for which author Kateřina Tučková also won the State Prize for Literature, was to have its premiere at the Slovak National Theater on April 1. But the game was stopped during rehearsals.
The story of Bílá Voda concerns the status of nuns of one church order and is set in the period from the 1950s to the present day.
“The responses to the book are not only positive, which I actually acknowledge with gratitude, because if it leaned only on one side, it would be suspicious,” says one of the most successful Czech writers, Kateřina Tučková, in an interview that is part of the Seznam Zpráv Gallery of Personalities project.
Bílá Voda, which the author worked on for ten years and which soon after its publication last year became the Czech bestseller of the year for adult fiction, sparked discussion not only because of the description of the conditions experienced by members of the church order since the forced imprisonment of the communists in the 1950s, but also because of the opening of the question of whether women religious should have a “more respected position” in today’s church, as Kateřina Tučková says in an interview.
Theologian Mireia Ryšková even responded to the book Bílá Voda she statedthat the unequal position of women in the Roman Catholic Church has not yet been opened by anyone except Kateřina Tučková.
“Taboo topics really attract me,” says Kateřina Tučková in an interview and mentions, for example, her novel The Expulsion of Gerta Schnirch, which deals with the appalling conditions during the post-war deportation of Czechoslovak Germans from Brno. “Thanks to the fact that (while writing Bílá Voda, editor’s note) I started uncovering the stories of nuns, the issue of the Moravian underground church came up.”
In the book, Kateřina Tučková describes situations when nuns were ordained by a Catholic priest precisely to help people in extreme life situations, in communist internment camps or prisons.
This motif in the novel caused controversy in some church circles. “I was worried about how the nuns would react to it, but I actually got really nice reactions. There are also negative ones, but the ones that stick out to me the most are when we met and understood each other,” says Kateřina Tučková.
Photo: Michal Šula, Seznam Zpravy
Kateřina Tučková and Jiří Kubík during the filming of an interview in the Seznam Zpráv studio.
Bílá Voda will appear in the repertoire of two Czech theaters during the next year. In February, it will be staged by the Brno Municipal Theater directed by Dod Gombár, and in May by the Estates Theater in Prague directed by Michal Vajdička. The Slovak National Theater had already planned it in April this year, but during rehearsals it took a very unconventional step. It canceled the premiere and withdrew the production.
“Something happened during rehearsals and the play wasn’t shown – how did they write it? – due to ideological and conceptual clashes. And I don’t know what that can mean exactly,” says Kateřina Tučková in an interview. “It could be anything.”
Seznam The report subsequently approached the Slovak National Theater with a request for a statement. The head of the drama Miriam Kičiňová tried to explain the matter only “off the record”. She spoke in general about the different ideas of the author team, the dramaturg of the theater, and even the actors who were cast in the main characters. Unfortunately, the request for an official response that could be published has not been heard.
Kateřina Tučková draws inspiration from archival materials when writing her novels, such as Žítkov’s Goddesses. Has she already gone to the archives again and what will her next book be about? What makes her able to erase the 800 pages already written and start over? Is writing therapy for her, especially when she is linked to the past by unhappy memories of her childhood?
You can listen to the interview now in the audio version at the beginning of the article – we will publish the full transcript and video recording of the interview on Saturday.
Gallery of personalities. Guests of Jiří Kubík
Let yourself be inspired by the lives, opinions or turning points in the careers of important women and men. Among the first guests of the editor-in-chief of Seznam Zpráv Jiří Kubík were, for example, the poet, actor and artist Jiří Suchý, former minister Karel Schwarzenberg, football goalkeeper Petr Čech, actress Daniela Kolářová, surgeon Pavel Pafko or President of the Constitutional Court Pavel Rychetský. In the coming weeks, we will present interviews with producer Fer Fenič, rector of the Charles University Milena Králíčková and singer Maria Rottra.
2023-07-20 16:30:33
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