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“I would never have used the word Negr if you hadn’t brought me Negr’s hand! The hand of a dark-skinned man, “is angry Carmichael, the protagonist of the play by the Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, The Used Hand. Carmichael is a crazy guy. In the words of African-American Toby, who is threatened with death by Carmichael: “That guy is a disabled racist who has no sense of humor and who has a total redness in front of his eyes when it comes to hands!”
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You will no longer see Carmichael or Toby on the Czech theater stage. Neither in the Prague Drama Club nor in the Liberec FX Šalda Theater. Both theaters suspended the performance a few months ago because the agency representing McDonagh did not like the fact that Toby was not played by a black actor from Africa or the Caribbean, but by Ondřej Sokol (or Jan Jedlinský in Liberec) with dark make-up. A wave of outrage arose on social networks. “What are we doing here for the Mores?”
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The drama club calmed the situation by announcing a tender for a dark-skinned actor. A few days ago, however, he announced that he was eventually withdrawing the Used Hand from the repertoire. It would have to be re-tested, which would mean intensive work for several months. It was priceless.
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It is a pity that the Used Hand will no longer be played. The Drama Club has the best experience with adaptations by an Irish playwright. The Orphaned West and Mr. Pillow, directed by Ondřej Sokol, have become almost legendary performances that have appeared on the theatre’s program for many years (The Orphaned West has been on the theatre’s program for 20 years). McDonagh’s harsh humor, which also made him famous in Hollywood, was liked by the Czech audience, and even more so by Činoherák. McDonagh by Sokol is a kind of brand. It is no wonder that Ujetá ruka has been going to the chamber hall of the Prague Theater for over ten years.
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I’m a racist, really!
“I’ve got a black guy strapped to a radiator here, and I’ve poured gas on him all over and I’m about to set him on fire, so you can hardly call it Positive Discrimination, can you?” hides pornographic magazines – with black women. “That doesn’t mean I’m not a racist,” Carmichael said.
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He’s a funny character. A man consumed by revenge and his own trauma – a severed hand, which was deprived of him at the age of seventeen by a group of “hikers”. Unlike Carmichael, the character of African-American drug dealer Toby is somewhat one-dimensional. By the way, this was blamed on the Irish playwright. “I don’t know a single black actor with respect who didn’t feel ashamed and furious when studying McDonagh’s new play,” wrote o The hands of an African-American critic, Hilton Als. According to a New Yorker journalist, McDonagh uses Toby’s blackness only as a prop.
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World, marvel. Not only the Czechs got caught because of the lost hand – the Irish author also had to listen to the criticism. Maybe that’s why he wants Toby not to be a mere caricature in The Elapsed Hand? Or worse, a white actor with a so-called blackface who has historically very negative connotations? McDonagh undoubtedly has butter on his head. But it’s still better than black face powder.
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To be fair – the Drama Club originally cast dark-skinned actors in the role of Toby. And it wasn’t ‘the best’. Domingo Correia’s speech was said to be close to “a well-recited Czech text rather than a character.” evaluated performance by the actor Czech Radio Vltava reviewer, according to which it was probably an attempt by the director to preserve authenticity.
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But authenticity is important. Of course not always. No one forbids Othello from being served by a white man. However, the hand is clearly on racism. Regardless of how the critic Hilton Als rates the game, it could be described as an anti-racist game. The fact that Toby’s role in the Czech Republic until recently was played by a white man, even a white man with a blackfac, fundamentally undermines its meaning. He despises her. That would be better if Ondřej Sokol did not paint at all. After all, the theater often works with abbreviations and symbolism, the spectator has to come up with so many things.
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Untranslatable diamond
The author of this text once played a rather small role in the Drama Club. In Milan Kundera’s performance, Ptákovina took turns with several other boys at the school board, where he guarded the chalk-painted female nature, the so-called diamond. The symbol was central to Pták’s – it also meant that the game could not be played anywhere else in the world. Only Czechs and Slovaks understand diamondsas Milan Kundera himself found out with regret.
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At a time of globalization and unrestricted cultural exports, it may seem that we can export everything from the Czech Republic and bring anything to it in the same way. But sometimes it just doesn’t work. Sometimes a cultural trophy from abroad is untranslatable. To understand it, we would have to add trauma, history.
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Or is it possible to look for parallels, as good translators do? What would the agency representing McDonagh say about a Romani actor? Perhaps he would retain the feeling of otherness that is so important in the Used Hand.
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