You auditioned to be the director of the Viola theater. What concept did you go into it with?
The concept was derived from the fact that I invited the director and author of theater plays Martina Kinska, with whom I have been working for years. She directs me, we did one project together six years ago, which will now have a finale, which I produced and she wrote and directed. I’m also playing with my husband and I really believe her, we’ll sit down.
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And the second person was Honza Kučera, because I had the desire and vision to return more music to Viola, which historically had its place there, in connection with poetry and by itself. So the concept was based on the two of them and their vision. Just yesterday, we had a so-called dramaturgical council together. In addition to the fact that I would like to return literary texts there – both domestic and international – poetry will and should have its place there. And besides the combination of poetry and music, maybe just music, such musician happenings.
Just yesterday, Honza came up with the fact that many actors sing beautifully, so he would sometimes do a themed happening: a chanson evening, a jazz evening, a period themed one, we’ll come up with it all. He has great enthusiasm and is very happy to get involved.
And poetry as such too. On the one hand, I would like to do original poetry shows, and on the other hand, I would like to invite what I am looking for and intend to take a peek at what already exists.
So will you go to small theaters and clubs?
Yes, I would like to. I already have a few tips, now to put it together in time. So I would also like to get there. Plus yesterday, Honza and I also talked about doing things jam sessions evenings, because he said that it is nowhere here at all, that it does not exist. He was just telling me that he had recently returned from New York – and I had been to a night like that – where there’s a row of saxophonists, a row of piano players, and a row of guitar players standing outside the club at ten, eleven at night, one by one, waiting for a seat to become available , so that they can forjamare.
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So there goes jazz all night.
Yes, but that’s how it was in that Viola. When I was researching the history, Emil Viklický told about how he really used to go there as a young man and wait for the piano to be free at two in the morning so that he could sit at it after the bardsjamare.
Something in the house, something away
You have over 20 titles in that Viola, I think you play in three. One I haven’t mentioned yet is the game Thanks for Aphasia, which is a topic in itself. As a director, will you drop any of your plays from the repertoire?
If I feel that people don’t go to it, that it ceases to be attractive or that it has lost its peak, then that is a question not entirely for me, but also for a debate with the director. But I have to say that I have no problem saying goodbye to what I like, because I think that some things have their time.
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Theater is a big process, the performance evolves. Even if you love it and are sorry that it won’t be there anymore, there will be something else. That’s the principle: if you don’t release the chair you’re still sitting on, no one else will sit there and there will be no change. So I think that’s normally evolution, development. I will probably be sorry, but if there are arguments for it and it really should happen, then I have no problem with withdrawing it, because I know that there will be something else.
Moreover, it won’t fit in the theater anymore, it’s like toys. When the children kept bringing me some stuffed animals, I said: fine, ok, but some have to go. If something goes into the house, something has to go, otherwise we won’t be moving here in a while.
I like that you want to return to poetry. Are people interested in it today?
I don’t really know if I’m in a bubble – I sure am…
I am also in a bubble, and for example when I buy poetry books in the bookstore, there is almost no one there.
I’m looking into it from all angles right now. I have friends who do poetry with music, actors who do Charles Bukowski – that’s what I want to go see, I’m very interested in that. So they told me about the response it has, that they are really beautiful evenings. Actually, I hear this opinion from many quarters.
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I don’t know if I’m really in the fan bubble, but I’m curious about it myself. After all, this May, Beata Parkanová will direct a wonderful collection of poems by Miloš Doležal, who wrote it in one go after the death of his wife.
He got a Magnesia Litera for her and was sitting here recently.
Yes, she is really amazing. It is interspersed with his wife’s dreams and I read it in one sitting. I’m curious myself, because it’s very melancholic, very deep, but incredibly impressive, what it will do in that Viola.
It should feature Jenovéfa Boková, who plays the violin, and I know that Beata wants to use the music in that sense. I’m really looking forward to it and I’m really curious because it will be a pilot piece for me.
What was Hugo Haas to Adina Mandlová and what is her own husband-co-actor to Klára Cibulková? Listen to the full interview.
