Theatre for Schools performed for SPŠ SE

This theatre from Hradec Králové is one of the busiest theatre companies in the Czech Republic. It is an intimate theatre (2 actors) with an emphasis on contact with the audience, preferring an entertaining form that is most acceptable to young people. However, despite the relatively relaxed atmosphere, it offers pupils a factual professional interpretation, excerpts from famous plays and illustrative examples of the variety of genres. The performance is always held in the school premises, in our case it was the gym.

First, at 9 o'clock, all fourth graders gathered to reenact some situations from 20th century theatre in a humorous way. Performance Theatre textbook transported us first to the atmosphere of the First Republic, which the protagonists recalled with an excerpt from the play "Don Juan & comp." from the repertoire of the Liberated Theatre (comedy works of Voskovec and Werich). The pre-war dramatic atmosphere, on the other hand, was captured by the dialogue from the theatrical adaptation of the novel Karel Čapek "War with the newts". The performance also included an excerpt from the cradle of Czech popular music, the Prague theatre. Semaphore and a cabaret sketch J. Suchý and J. Šlitr. Seventies reminded part of the legendary musical from Brno theatre Goose on a String "Ballad for the Bandit", where our student also participated in the performance Veronica. The actors also included a bit of one-act play "Wrong." From Václav Havel as an example of absurd drama from the period of normalization and Theatre textbook culminated in a display of completely peculiar humour Jára Cimrman Theatre from the game "Investigating the loss of a class book". The response from our student audience was very positive, as evidenced by the bursts of laughter and long applause at the end of the performance.

At 11 am, the third graders moved on to the performance, for which the title "The Legend of V+W or The Story of Liberated Theatre" was chosen. Students learned how the legendary duo began performing in the theater, what a forbina is, and how this part of the show came to be. Students also encountered V+W's tongue-in-cheek humor, characterized by its own innovations (candida, napnelism). The scenes were like something out of a romance play (Golem), and from socially oriented games (The world behind bars), of course the protagonists cannot avoid excerpts from anti-Nazi dramas (Heaven on Earth) The show closed with the famous cannon execution from Faty Morgany, which again makes use of collaboration with the audience.

According to the actors, the group of third-year students initially appeared "cold and rubbery", but they too quickly melted away and eventually the same enthusiasm as the previous performance was repeated.

This was the third time that the little theatre for schools has been performed here, each time with great success, as we have witnessed now.

Mgr. Ludmila Petržalová (using information from www.divadelkoproskoly.cz)