2022/23
Season 48:
Closeness

August 2022

Hi,

we chose the topic of Closeness for our new 48th season in HaDivadlo. And to get closer to you, we decided not to introduce this season with a manifesto, but to write the introduction as a friendly letter to our close friends that we consider you, our audiences, to be. Our initial motivation behind choosing the topic of Closeness is our desire to get closer to each other: not only in terms of relationships inside the theatre but also closer to you– our audience members.

Closeness, the ability to empathise, mutual help and cooperation will be the key qualities for dealing with increasingly turbulent times full of multiplying crises all around us. But there is, of course, a metaphorical side to the notion, which we don’t want to deprive ourselves of. “Closeness” reflects our closeness to Ukraine that we have recently experienced after the Russian aggression. The context of Eastern Europe we perceived or wished to perceive in post-revolution times as something distant, is suddenly much closer. While preparing this year’s season, we felt the need to complete our education and read contemporary Ukrainian texts, because we thought that the prejudice in our society that often sees Ukrainians as unskilled workers and sometimes leaves them in disadvantageous conditions applies to us as well. The prejudice is reflected in the reality that we have never perceived Ukrainian literature as a relevant literary region to look for plays for upcoming seasons. Along with this initial assignment, we also decided from the start of our preparations to stage a Russian text along Ukrainian texts to prove that people can think freely even under totalitarian regimes. After long debates we came to a conclusion, that a balance consisting of one Ukrainian and one Russian text is too artifical. The current situation is not balanced, it’s very skewed, and there is simply no room for Russian texts at the moment. We resolved this dilemma by deciding to process our debates and moral discussions about Russian literature in an authorial form, to focus on a local perspective and the current relationship between Czech and Russian culture.

The mentioned motives serve as a topic for emerging authorial text Humanism 2022 by artistic director Ivan Buraj and Bohdan Karásek who already worked on the topic of climate crisis in last year’s authorial production called Ours. Bohdan Karásek is mainly a filmmaker and his films (his best-known film Karel, you and I from 2019) are characterized by informal expression and dialogue realism. This is inspirationally close to our efforts to further work with natural intimacy of a studio theatre in HaDivadlo because this closeness between actors and audiences is similar to the familiar closeness of movie cameras. This season’s production Humanism 2022 takes us on a holiday of former classmates from theatre school, directing, dramaturgy and production majors, who go together to Venice, the city of water, where ideals and highlights of Western culture meet the sea and murky waterways. Staying in an apartment rented on Airbnb, the main characters talk ethical roles of contemporary art, Russian culture and whether it is right to boycott Russian texts with regard to the current situation.
One of the characters who is a director is going to stage Watermark by Joseph Brodsky, an essay on Venice and a military conflict. The director tries to defend open-mindedness that goes beyond the sides of a military conflict. However, can we maintain political neutrality and total open-mindedness in our work as well as life attitudes today? The protagonists reflect on the connection between honesty in artwork and honesty in personal life such as marriage and discover unexpected parallels between relational and political issue. Are we able to constantly live our truth? Is Europe experiencing moral decline and facing destructive chaos as claimed by Russian propaganda? Have we got something to be faithful to? Has our culture become an empty notion used to cover the grim reality of pernicious pragmatism? And what is an unnecessary luxury in a state of war? Are we at war? Humanism 2022 is a testimony of a time in which horror and comfort exist frighteningly close to each other. The play will premiere on 12th November 2022.

In relation to the questions linked to Russian aggression in Ukraine and its consequences, we decided to engage in documentary theatre and create a special project called Until the War Is Over / До кінця війни. It is a collage of personal testimonies of Ukrainian women and men who came to Brno and its surroundings because of Russia’s invasion in February. Directed by Max Nowotarsky, the play shows strong personal testimonies and visions of the future. The director who studied Theatre Faculty JAMU and is originally from Central Ukraine had dialogues with chosen performers for several months. Each has a very different story of how they got to the Czech Republic and to what extent they can continue the life they had at home. What they all have in common is the desire to integrate into a different, in many ways provisional, environment. This documentary scenic essay about integration of Ukrainian refugees and their everydayness will have a limited number of performances later this year due to limited performers’ availability – on 12th, 13th and 14th December 2022.

Contemporary Ukrainian novel Felix Austria by one of the most read Ukrainian author Sofia Andrukhovych explores closeness from a new and quite unexpected perspective: How to be close without destroying each other? How to find room for non-destructive conflicts? How to cope with closeness that has turned into dependence on the other person? And what about closeness that turned into a dangerous and toxic bond? Former HaDivadlo member Iva Klestilová and renown Slovak director, current artistic director of Municipal Theatre in Žilina and photographer Eduard Kudláč will help us find answers to all the questions in an authorial adaptation of the novel called Fire in Felix Austria. The original novel is set in 1900, in Halych, Austria-Hungary, given its timelessness, the authors of the play decided to set the play in the present. War-torn Ukraine is facing the perpetual question whether it is part of the West or the European Union and multinational environment is the source of constant inequalities and different living conditions of its citizens. The main characters are two women fused together by fate like “branches of a tree”. The parents of both girls died during a massive fire when the girls were very young. Their relationship and mutual dependence, however, cannot help them overcome their different positions – Stefanie is an Ukrainian maid in the family home of Adela, daughter of a Polish-German doctor. They live surrounded by characters from different social backgrounds (a sculptor, a pastor, an illusionist, a fishmonger…) that move through their episodic narrative and get emotionally infected. The play showcases a broad multinational society hovering between explosion and empathy when its parts meet and come into conflict. The adaptation dedicated to the exploration of contracts in living conditions and fickle character psychology will premiere symbolically on 24th February 2023, one year since the start of the ongoing war conflict.

In springtime, the topic of closeness will be shown from another angle – the proximity of the city of Brno and the protected landscape area of the Moravian Karst. The production of the same name exploring our notions of nature and the way these notions bend real nature is directed and written by Peter Gonda and his team, another Slovak author in HaDivadlo. The Moravian Karst is a sought-after area mentioned in countless legends and expert studies – 2021 marked the 100th anniversary since the start of speological activities in the area. The traditions and traces of human activity since prehistoric times are deeply imprinted in the underground landscape and wild forests, not only in the form of mining history and the development of the industrial revolution, but also in the stories of caving discoveries or landscape interventions. Questions regarding the meaning of words such as wilderness and protection can help us uncover what has become a romanticized fiction in our notions of landscape. We believe that theatre productions can be based on a landscape as well as on a literary text. Our project the Moravian Karst is an experiment examining whether we can have a dramaturgical line telling the stories of forests, rivers or mountains. The production made by director Peter Gonda, his regular dramaturge and music performer Adam Dragun, our dramaturge Anna Prstková and Matěj Sýkora, stage designer already known by HaDivadlo audiences from productions like Chevengur, Moby Dick, will be based on scientific evidence, historical facts, local folklore but also personal experience of proximity of the area full of not only natural wonders. The play will premiere on 28th April 2023.

This year’s season will also focus on bringing our colleagues’ views of theatre closer to the outside world. For that reason, we are preparing a series of masterclasses with guest artists who will share with you their methods of work and talk about their visions of contemporary and future theatre. In addition to the meetings with directors, you will have the opportunity to learn more about the work of Peter Machajdík (Fire in Felix Austria), internationally renowned Slovak composer, or Jonatán Pastirčák (the Moravian Karst), representative of the young generation and of the Slovak music industry, author of music for a number of audiovisual and stage pieces. These masterclasses will be complemented by guest productions by Eduard Kudláč or Peter Gonda, so that you can better understand and become familiar with the poetics of their work. It is important to us that our theatre is not only a place where new productions are born, but also a space for exploration, deeper understanding of the world and art. While working on a production, we experience a full immersion in its context and, by extension, get to know all the creators involved better. The longer we are part of HaDivadlo, the more we are aware of how important this immersive process is for the overall perception of a production, therefore, we want to share this with you.

One of the special efforts related to Closeness is to process this topic through co-participation in the creation of this season’s dramaturgy; we want this season’s dramaturgy to be open to your view – open to our audience. We are looking for tools that will enable you to become co-dramaturges of the upcoming season. There will be dramaturgical meetings open to the public where we will be happy to hear your input. More information will be provided later this season.

We continue to focus on dramaturgical introductions, post-play discussions and other accompanying educational activities at which we will be happy to see you. As an extension to specific plays, our A2 discussions will be held again this season so that you can enjoy an inspiring discussion about broader social contexts of our theatre work.

We are getting ready for the 30th anniversary of our home institution, the Centre for Experimental Theatre, that we are part of together with the Husa na Provázku Theatre and the Terén Performance Art Platform. In cooperation with the editorial board of CEDIT, magazine issued CET, we will organize a full-day programme called Theatre for everyone that will explore the possibilities and limits of contemporary cultural institutions. In the evening, a production portraying our institution will be performed, under Ivan Buraj’s direction, in the form of micro stories and and shared experiences of former and current employees from different positions and periods.

Let’s see what new horizons and qualities the new Season 48: Closeness brings about. We are looking forward to seeing you and meeting you because it is vital for our theatre’s work. Let’s get closer.

See you in HaDivadlo!

Humanism 2022 Until the War Is Over / До кінця війни Fire in Felix Austria The Moravian Karst

2021/22
Season 47:
Degrowth

One of the opportunities, the most important one probably, that the coronavirus pandemic brought was the possibility of realising how many things in the world we live in cannot be taken for granted. While the world has been searching its conscience, people reflected on slowing down, rethought consumption and production frameworks and asked questions about where our civilization is heading. The theme of return, the lifeline in the moment of sudden and profound instability, turned out to be no more than an effective marketing slogan for further acceleration. The reset was, actually, a return to disregarding limits set by the material world and our vulnerable bodies as well. The striving for GDP growth prevailed yet again over the expanding rifts in the ecosystem and the more and more alarming social inequalities. Art as a potential source of social imagination and a hunting ground for future possibilities failed on many occasions and rather passively joined the movement of a burst dam of performance by the rest of society. Care or sustainability are now only discussed at expert conferences. With the past years’ focus on quantity instead of quality and reporting performance instead of an honest search for meaning, such tendencies are twice as strong in the restarted society as they were. Art seems to have lost its ability to be the medium of otherness and has become an under-funded slave of uniformity. In response to the general acceleration, we decided to devote the new season to DEGROWTH. We see the imaginative concept of degrowth, based on several decades of interdisciplinary thinking and actions, as the most inspiring way of finding a way out of crisis, in which society puts economic laws above all other laws and GDP growth prevails over all other values, ignoring the complexity of the topic of quality of life. We do not see degrowth as resignation or inaction, we see it as a means to deepen our view of the world around us and improve our ability to find other goals than productivity. Degrowth invites us to remove things, to slow down, and, paradoxically, to gain more. We understand the concept as redirecting our focus from quantity to intensity and quality, from statuses to relationships and bonds. We would like to explore these principles during our work, while redefining the mission of restored theatre activities. How to create sustainably? What is the capacity of our consciousness for new pieces? What is the purpose of our activities? How to not drown in the flood of ‘Potemkin villages’ built to show productivity? How to create happily? How to rebel against the dictate of efforts to capitalise on everything? How can we avoid social disintegration and nature’s decline? How to be together? After a break of nearly one year, we decided to apply this season’s title Degrowth not only to the dramaturgy of potential new plays, but also to the functioning of our theatre, and, therefore, we will not produce any new plays for season 2021/22. Instead of constantly producing new things, we want to shift our focus onto our current plays, recontextualize them and deepen our perspective on these pieces. Imagine that you wouldn’t buy any new things for one year and would only explore new qualities of relationships to the things you already have. Therefore, we would like to invite creators who have already worked with us as well as members of our collective to join us for a season in which we will not produce new plays, but there will be a series of unique events such as discussions, lectures, happenings, paratheatrical events, hybrid genres, authors’ analyses of current pieces bringing a new perspective on old works. The instructions are simple: to create sustainably, with joy and as a community, to risk, to search, to come back, to build relationships. In addition to evening events planned in a brief time frame, spontaneously and without self-censorship, which is needed when requesting repetition, we will also organise two projects for season 2022/23 on a long-term basis and the degrowth season will feature their first chapters and pre-events. We see the new season’s concept as a journey which takes HaDivadlo from framing a classic repertory theatre towards a cultural institution, a laboratory for Utopian thinking, which, in addition to artistic activities and their multiplication, engages in erasing boundaries between art and society. Join us on this journey! Happiness matters more than productivity! Degrowth!One of the opportunities, the most important one probably, that the coronavirus pandemic brought was the possibility of realising how many things in the world we live in cannot be taken for granted. While the world has been searching its conscience, people reflected on slowing down, rethought consumption and production frameworks and asked questions about where our civilization is heading. The theme of return, the lifeline in the moment of sudden and profound instability, turned out to be no more than an effective marketing slogan for further acceleration. The reset was, actually, a return to disregarding limits set by the material world and our vulnerable bodies as well. The striving for GDP growth prevailed yet again over the expanding rifts in the ecosystem and the more and more alarming social inequalities. Art as a potential source of social imagination and a hunting ground for future possibilities failed on many occasions and rather passively joined the movement of a burst dam of performance by the rest of society. Care or sustainability are now only discussed at expert conferences. With the past years’ focus on quantity instead of quality and reporting performance instead of an honest search for meaning, such tendencies are twice as strong in the restarted society as they were. Art seems to have lost its ability to be the medium of otherness and has become an under-funded slave of uniformity. In response to the general acceleration, we decided to devote the new season to DEGROWTH. We see the imaginative concept of degrowth, based on several decades of interdisciplinary thinking and actions, as the most inspiring way of finding a way out of crisis, in which society puts economic laws above all other laws and GDP growth prevails over all other values, ignoring the complexity of the topic of quality of life. We do not see degrowth as resignation or inaction, we see it as a means to deepen our view of the world around us and improve our ability to find other goals than productivity. Degrowth invites us to remove things, to slow down, and, paradoxically, to gain more. We understand the concept as redirecting our focus from quantity to intensity and quality, from statuses to relationships and bonds. We would like to explore these principles during our work, while redefining the mission of restored theatre activities. How to create sustainably? What is the capacity of our consciousness for new pieces? What is the purpose of our activities? How to not drown in the flood of ‘Potemkin villages’ built to show productivity? How to create happily? How to rebel against the dictate of efforts to capitalise on everything? How can we avoid social disintegration and nature’s decline? How to be together? After a break of nearly one year, we decided to apply this season’s title Degrowth not only to the dramaturgy of potential new plays, but also to the functioning of our theatre, and, therefore, we will not produce any new plays for season 2021/22. Instead of constantly producing new things, we want to shift our focus onto our current plays, recontextualize them and deepen our perspective on these pieces. Imagine that you wouldn’t buy any new things for one year and would only explore new qualities of relationships to the things you already have. Therefore, we would like to invite creators who have already worked with us as well as members of our collective to join us for a season in which we will not produce new plays, but there will be a series of unique events such as discussions, lectures, happenings, paratheatrical events, hybrid genres, authors’ analyses of current pieces bringing a new perspective on old works. The instructions are simple: to create sustainably, with joy and as a community, to risk, to search, to come back, to build relationships. In addition to evening events planned in a brief time frame, spontaneously and without self-censorship, which is needed when requesting repetition, we will also organise two projects for season 2022/23 on a long-term basis and the degrowth season will feature their first chapters and pre-events. We see the new season’s concept as a journey which takes HaDivadlo from framing a classic repertory theatre towards a cultural institution, a laboratory for Utopian thinking, which, in addition to artistic activities and their multiplication, engages in erasing boundaries between art and society. Join us on this journey! Happiness matters more than productivity! Degrowth!

Creative Interventions – Season 47: Degrowth (Czech) Dům kultury a naděje

2020/21
Season 46:
Adaptation

Our global civilization has already experienced so many ups and downs that, compared to human life, it is more in retirement age (in which it must reckon with its fragility). However, our behaviour seems more as if we were showing signs of never-ending youth and were only offered opportunities for unlimited growth. We have the means to destroy not only ourselves, but also to threaten the existence of future forms of life that could come after us. Our maturity and experience have so far brought neither wisdom nor responsibility – instead, we find ourselves in a dangerously prolonged midlife crisis, constantly buying Harleys of civilization and embarking on wild journeys in an effort to simulate lasting happiness and ignore all the limits that our era imposes on us. But as we are finding out, we are not the only ones who have something to say about the shape of the world. The COVID-19 crisis was seen by many as the first global crisis after a long period of apparent peace and prosperity. But can we really call the corona crisis a crisis and that which preceded it a normal state to which it is worth returning? Is it not more valuable in this altered (emergency) state of consciousness to grasp this crisis, so impressive in the media, as an important background that reveals our vulnerability as well as other crises threatening the survival on our planet? What we have witnessed in this new experience was a definite and clear understanding of the interconnectedness of all – not only in our bodies but also our societies. Also the line between natural and human, which has until recently been very clear, has disappeared, and we have the opportunity to see to what extent we all overlap and how much we depend on each other. In short, we live in an environment for which we are co-responsible, but which at the same time will never be completely understandable and will therefore forever remain a little out of our control. It is therefore essential to start talking about ways of adapting to this fragility and interdependence – the adaptation will be either conscious or forced by external circumstances (and even in the first case does not envisage any certainty and guaranteed outcomes). The world which we laboriously tried to explore and conquer and which we wanted to grasp in its totality and to bring under control, is simply gone. Now the most realistic view of the world seems to be one that is constantly in motion and allows for the unknown and incomprehensible. But how should we really feel in a world of multicrises, which is so unpredictable? Can we feel hopeful? Is it possible to adapt without joy? When did the whole crisis actually start? Is it not connected to the excess of human occurrence? After all, isn’t all organic life (in the otherwise inorganic Universe) an excess? And what if crises and excesses are the essence of our being, because outside them only the “normalcy” of death and non-existence awaits us? Crisis and excess as our living space. Human and inhuman. The joy of creative potential is unknown. We’re still here. ‘We’ is more than we thought. ADAPTATION.Our global civilization has already experienced so many ups and downs that, compared to human life, it is more in retirement age (in which it must reckon with its fragility). However, our behaviour seems more as if we were showing signs of never-ending youth and were only offered opportunities for unlimited growth. We have the means to destroy not only ourselves, but also to threaten the existence of future forms of life that could come after us. Our maturity and experience have so far brought neither wisdom nor responsibility – instead, we find ourselves in a dangerously prolonged midlife crisis, constantly buying Harleys of civilization and embarking on wild journeys in an effort to simulate lasting happiness and ignore all the limits that our era imposes on us. But as we are finding out, we are not the only ones who have something to say about the shape of the world. The COVID-19 crisis was seen by many as the first global crisis after a long period of apparent peace and prosperity. But can we really call the corona crisis a crisis and that which preceded it a normal state to which it is worth returning? Is it not more valuable in this altered (emergency) state of consciousness to grasp this crisis, so impressive in the media, as an important background that reveals our vulnerability as well as other crises threatening the survival on our planet? What we have witnessed in this new experience was a definite and clear understanding of the interconnectedness of all – not only in our bodies but also our societies. Also the line between natural and human, which has until recently been very clear, has disappeared, and we have the opportunity to see to what extent we all overlap and how much we depend on each other. In short, we live in an environment for which we are co-responsible, but which at the same time will never be completely understandable and will therefore forever remain a little out of our control. It is therefore essential to start talking about ways of adapting to this fragility and interdependence – the adaptation will be either conscious or forced by external circumstances (and even in the first case does not envisage any certainty and guaranteed outcomes). The world which we laboriously tried to explore and conquer and which we wanted to grasp in its totality and to bring under control, is simply gone. Now the most realistic view of the world seems to be one that is constantly in motion and allows for the unknown and incomprehensible. But how should we really feel in a world of multicrises, which is so unpredictable? Can we feel hopeful? Is it possible to adapt without joy? When did the whole crisis actually start? Is it not connected to the excess of human occurrence? After all, isn’t all organic life (in the otherwise inorganic Universe) an excess? And what if crises and excesses are the essence of our being, because outside them only the “normalcy” of death and non-existence awaits us? Crisis and excess as our living space. Human and inhuman. The joy of creative potential is unknown. We’re still here. ‘We’ is more than we thought. ADAPTATION.

(Czech) Budoucnost divadla (Czech) Remediace rozpracované inscenace Zeď The Wall Throughout the performance there is a performance under way (Czech) Dům kultury a únavy

2019/20
Season 45:
Sources

The climate crisis is not a future threat – it has already begun. We have never inhabited the world we live in now. Humanity has already crossed four of the nine planetary limits – guarantees of habitability and survival on Earth. Sustainable development remains unsustainable, resources are running low. People’s black conscience has been, at least since the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the Anthropocene era, too dark. We fly recklessly, consume unecologically and too often burn coal and oil. We are units of a growth market mechanism, running gigantic corporations devastating nature on an unprecedented massive scale, while we ignore reports of possible solutions coming from all sides. How to break the fall? What should we do when we have enough of our own problems? Is it time for nihilism? Or is the climate crisis rather an opportunity to reconstruct the notion of “humanity” as a return to a collective and co-responsible project not produced by any ideology but by an indisputable need of our planet, which is becoming a new player in history? And what other projects does the effort to save the planet bring? Should we continue to think only about recycling and electric cars? Believe in technological progress? Or do we have to become the solution ourselves? It’s time to rethink our personal dreams and life strategies. It’s time to rethink the essence of our society, which no longer illuminates the darkness of nature with the light of civilization, but brings its own darkness. Sustainability. Activism and slowing down. Degrowth. All this poses entirely new challenges to our perception and its complexity. That is why we’re dedicating our 45th season to the topic of RESOURCES! The future is now. Join it with us!The climate crisis is not a future threat – it has already begun. We have never inhabited the world we live in now. Humanity has already crossed four of the nine planetary limits – guarantees of habitability and survival on Earth. Sustainable development remains unsustainable, resources are running low. People’s black conscience has been, at least since the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the Anthropocene era, too dark. We fly recklessly, consume unecologically and too often burn coal and oil. We are units of a growth market mechanism, running gigantic corporations devastating nature on an unprecedented massive scale, while we ignore reports of possible solutions coming from all sides. How to break the fall? What should we do when we have enough of our own problems? Is it time for nihilism? Or is the climate crisis rather an opportunity to reconstruct the notion of “humanity” as a return to a collective and co-responsible project not produced by any ideology but by an indisputable need of our planet, which is becoming a new player in history? And what other projects does the effort to save the planet bring? Should we continue to think only about recycling and electric cars? Believe in technological progress? Or do we have to become the solution ourselves? It’s time to rethink our personal dreams and life strategies. It’s time to rethink the essence of our society, which no longer illuminates the darkness of nature with the light of civilization, but brings its own darkness. Sustainability. Activism and slowing down. Degrowth. All this poses entirely new challenges to our perception and its complexity. That is why we’re dedicating our 45th season to the topic of RESOURCES! The future is now. Join it with us!

Ours Perception Moby Dick (Czech) Sedimenty, diagnózy, wellness

2018/19
Season 44:
Work

We seem to be a society obsessed with performance and personal status, but also a society without clear direction and shared values. Mass resignation to public space and emphasis on personal success put the work for which we receive money in the position of the most important criterion determining our value and informing our view of the world and others. The world has become economical and poured into spreadsheets. The idea of mission is increasingly disappearing from work driving our economy, leaving in its place only a pragmatic view of income and social status. Concepts such as care, public service and sustainability are, despite the ubiquitous ecological collapse of our planet, overshadowed by those of efficiency, profit or growth. Value-creating work is displaced by money-only work. The social divide between radically overestimated and radically underestimated work is widening more and more. The idea that human dignity is given only by the ability to meet all work-related demands, however absurd they may be, is becoming more and more compelling. The growing incidence of depression ceases to be a personal problem and becomes a political problem. As if the value of work went crazy and we with it. That is why during this 44th season we ask: Can today’s society really appreciate the value of our work? Does the work of most people really help society and nature, or is it just a ticket to the zone of unlimited consumption? Aren’t we using our performance to cover up our inner chaos? Do we understand the consequences of our work? Is art work? How valuable is it and for whom? And what about education, does it prepare us to face the tasks needed in our future work, or is it more of an initiation into the world of meaningless work? Aren’t we missing out on real work because of artificial work? Perhaps we should be working on our public spaces? On interpersonal relationships? On ourselves? And who will evaluate this work? And finally, aren’t we approaching the time of a new era, the era of machine work? What will be our work in such a world? And anyway – will future work serve anyone?We seem to be a society obsessed with performance and personal status, but also a society without clear direction and shared values. Mass resignation to public space and emphasis on personal success put the work for which we receive money in the position of the most important criterion determining our value and informing our view of the world and others. The world has become economical and poured into spreadsheets. The idea of mission is increasingly disappearing from work driving our economy, leaving in its place only a pragmatic view of income and social status. Concepts such as care, public service and sustainability are, despite the ubiquitous ecological collapse of our planet, overshadowed by those of efficiency, profit or growth. Value-creating work is displaced by money-only work. The social divide between radically overestimated and radically underestimated work is widening more and more. The idea that human dignity is given only by the ability to meet all work-related demands, however absurd they may be, is becoming more and more compelling. The growing incidence of depression ceases to be a personal problem and becomes a political problem. As if the value of work went crazy and we with it. That is why during this 44th season we ask: Can today’s society really appreciate the value of our work? Does the work of most people really help society and nature, or is it just a ticket to the zone of unlimited consumption? Aren’t we using our performance to cover up our inner chaos? Do we understand the consequences of our work? Is art work? How valuable is it and for whom? And what about education, does it prepare us to face the tasks needed in our future work, or is it more of an initiation into the world of meaningless work? Aren’t we missing out on real work because of artificial work? Perhaps we should be working on our public spaces? On interpersonal relationships? On ourselves? And who will evaluate this work? And finally, aren’t we approaching the time of a new era, the era of machine work? What will be our work in such a world? And anyway – will future work serve anyone?

Provincials Woyzeck First Ladies (Czech) Doktorand Jan Faust

2017/18
Season 43:
Eternal return — Crisis of the future

While it is possible to perceive the title of the Eternal Return season as something sinister, even undead, this may not be entirely true. The past is necessary for every society, but not as a machine generating the same solutions, but as a source of unfinished projects in search of the future. Maybe we got lost (for a while?) in the labyrinth of consumption and exchange. Perhaps the seemingly only remnant of all struggles for a better society is the nihilism and cynicism of those who have definitely seen through the possibilities of the future. Perhaps it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of this timelessness (capitalism). But maybe it’s all just an impulse to look for a lost future in the past. Maybe it’s an opportunity to return the topic to this generation! Boris Buden sees the disintegration of the Western welfare state in the 1970s not only as a moral problem, but especially as the problem of the loss of meaning. When solidarity disappears, the bonds between people disappear. When the bonds disappear, there is nothing to construct a common meaning against the background. Thus, things take the place of people and people objectify themselves as the products of their own economic strategies. Economics as the only logic of everything. War of all against all! So is it not high time to try to restore the meaning of society after the cleansing therapy of the eternally ironic postmodernism, isn’t it time to move on? Isn’t it time to demand a future instead of growth? So we know: meaning is permanent diplomacy, permanent negotiation, which, however, should not end with the deification of opinionlessness freeing up a navigator’s place in an uncontrolled market, but with negotiation as a search for a common direction. Neither the state nor our society is a company. The state is a dialogue! And if we desire a state to which we are to be faithful, we must desire a dialogue seeking future direction. May our season be a laboriously negotiated direction that will inspire further negotiations. Let it be understood not only as a polemic about the alleged end of history, but also as an inquiry into the aims of future art and into what our future selves should be like. The fight for perception begins. Come with us into the past to get the future. Come with us to look for what is missing!While it is possible to perceive the title of the Eternal Return season as something sinister, even undead, this may not be entirely true. The past is necessary for every society, but not as a machine generating the same solutions, but as a source of unfinished projects in search of the future. Maybe we got lost (for a while?) in the labyrinth of consumption and exchange. Perhaps the seemingly only remnant of all struggles for a better society is the nihilism and cynicism of those who have definitely seen through the possibilities of the future. Perhaps it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of this timelessness (capitalism). But maybe it’s all just an impulse to look for a lost future in the past. Maybe it’s an opportunity to return the topic to this generation! Boris Buden sees the disintegration of the Western welfare state in the 1970s not only as a moral problem, but especially as the problem of the loss of meaning. When solidarity disappears, the bonds between people disappear. When the bonds disappear, there is nothing to construct a common meaning against the background. Thus, things take the place of people and people objectify themselves as the products of their own economic strategies. Economics as the only logic of everything. War of all against all! So is it not high time to try to restore the meaning of society after the cleansing therapy of the eternally ironic postmodernism, isn’t it time to move on? Isn’t it time to demand a future instead of growth? So we know: meaning is permanent diplomacy, permanent negotiation, which, however, should not end with the deification of opinionlessness freeing up a navigator’s place in an uncontrolled market, but with negotiation as a search for a common direction. Neither the state nor our society is a company. The state is a dialogue! And if we desire a state to which we are to be faithful, we must desire a dialogue seeking future direction. May our season be a laboriously negotiated direction that will inspire further negotiations. Let it be understood not only as a polemic about the alleged end of history, but also as an inquiry into the aims of future art and into what our future selves should be like. The fight for perception begins. Come with us into the past to get the future. Come with us to look for what is missing!

Eyolf K antropocénu ’68 Čevengur

2016/17
Season 42:
Us and them

Europe is at a crossroads. Pragmatism, hopelessness, narcissism, capitalism, refugees, brexit, czexit, exit, cancellation! The uncertainty caused by the turbulent globalised world of today, when everything is so far and so close at the same time, creates fear and uncertainty. The world seems like a hostile, chaotic and cold place. Fanaticism alternates with nihilism. There is a desire for clarity. Longing for home. But this home creates an impenetrable border! This is US and there are THEM. A definition of negation that says, “I am what you are not!” But then who are we? We dedicate our 42nd season to the topic of SELF-REFLECTION, the only way to see ourselves through self-doubt and to know the common essence of our fear. Because it is quite possible that in our pampered uncertainty we are finally unexpectedly together. It is high time to understand that ALL OF US must face today’s global problems! But how to rise above our stereotypical views of the world and see the falseness of the boundaries of US and THEM?! How many of you are there?Europe is at a crossroads. Pragmatism, hopelessness, narcissism, capitalism, refugees, brexit, czexit, exit, cancellation! The uncertainty caused by the turbulent globalised world of today, when everything is so far and so close at the same time, creates fear and uncertainty. The world seems like a hostile, chaotic and cold place. Fanaticism alternates with nihilism. There is a desire for clarity. Longing for home. But this home creates an impenetrable border! This is US and there are THEM. A definition of negation that says, “I am what you are not!” But then who are we? We dedicate our 42nd season to the topic of SELF-REFLECTION, the only way to see ourselves through self-doubt and to know the common essence of our fear. Because it is quite possible that in our pampered uncertainty we are finally unexpectedly together. It is high time to understand that ALL OF US must face today’s global problems! But how to rise above our stereotypical views of the world and see the falseness of the boundaries of US and THEM?! How many of you are there?

Vernissage The Sleepwalkers (Imitation and Intuition) Směšná temnota Premiérareprízareprízaderniérapremiéra Síla zvyku Macocha

2015/16
Season 41:
Individualistic society – To be (with) someone?

The topic unifying the forty-first season of HaDivadlo is individualism. We live in a time when, as Zygmunt Bauman writes, “identity ceases to be a given, but becomes a task.” The challenge to be original, special, to take care of the uniqueness of one’s SELF, becomes the universal premise of our lives. The originality of a personality, that is what an individual must not lack, otherwise he or she has lost in their existence. In addition, individuality can be easily bought and is not even expensive. However, the personality and uniqueness of the modern SELF are largely formed by the media and marketing. The obsession with individuality in recent years has only been intensified by social networks, supported by the rapidly growing technological quality of mobile phones, which are largely built on the narcissism of their users. Social networks become an initiator, which inspires in its users a constant desire to create a unique image of their individuality against a multitude of cyber friends. At the same time, the cynical environment of free competition of late capitalism and neoliberalism proclaiming an apparent equality of conditions contributes to this search for uniqueness, so that one does not “get socially lost”. We are constantly being instilled with a responsibility for ourselves and for what our lives look like or will look like. Everything is limited to how right our personal decisions are and if we can prove our abilities. The self becomes a product that must stand out from the competition. But are we really so independent of the world around us, of the society in which we move? In today’s ideologically fragmented, hyper-informed, but also hyper-confused age, where – as Slavoj Žižek wrote “reality is diminishing” – is it really possible to rationally and freely manage the project of one’s life? Is the desire for uniqueness really something natural or is it just very clever marketing that is supposed to give rise to new and new desires in us that cannot be satisfied? And what about people who have not become individuals? Do they have the right to participate in the creation of this individualistic society? Is there a place for solidarity in the age of individualism? Can there be a state and democracy at all? Can we form a community? Is it possible to differentiate between good and evil in today’s illegible times? What are the principles for defining them? Is it possible to be together? Is cyberspace an extension of public space or just a water surface of postmodern Narcissus? Based on these questions, we decided to dedicate the whole new season to the topic of individualism and society. The basic communication code of this season reflecting this theme is portrait. Each of the four upcoming productions on the main stage of the HaDivadlo will be a de facto portrait of the central character and “his or her” society.The topic unifying the forty-first season of HaDivadlo is individualism. We live in a time when, as Zygmunt Bauman writes, “identity ceases to be a given, but becomes a task.” The challenge to be original, special, to take care of the uniqueness of one’s SELF, becomes the universal premise of our lives. The originality of a personality, that is what an individual must not lack, otherwise he or she has lost in their existence. In addition, individuality can be easily bought and is not even expensive. However, the personality and uniqueness of the modern SELF are largely formed by the media and marketing. The obsession with individuality in recent years has only been intensified by social networks, supported by the rapidly growing technological quality of mobile phones, which are largely built on the narcissism of their users. Social networks become an initiator, which inspires in its users a constant desire to create a unique image of their individuality against a multitude of cyber friends. At the same time, the cynical environment of free competition of late capitalism and neoliberalism proclaiming an apparent equality of conditions contributes to this search for uniqueness, so that one does not “get socially lost”. We are constantly being instilled with a responsibility for ourselves and for what our lives look like or will look like. Everything is limited to how right our personal decisions are and if we can prove our abilities. The self becomes a product that must stand out from the competition. But are we really so independent of the world around us, of the society in which we move? In today’s ideologically fragmented, hyper-informed, but also hyper-confused age, where – as Slavoj Žižek wrote “reality is diminishing” – is it really possible to rationally and freely manage the project of one’s life? Is the desire for uniqueness really something natural or is it just very clever marketing that is supposed to give rise to new and new desires in us that cannot be satisfied? And what about people who have not become individuals? Do they have the right to participate in the creation of this individualistic society? Is there a place for solidarity in the age of individualism? Can there be a state and democracy at all? Can we form a community? Is it possible to differentiate between good and evil in today’s illegible times? What are the principles for defining them? Is it possible to be together? Is cyberspace an extension of public space or just a water surface of postmodern Narcissus? Based on these questions, we decided to dedicate the whole new season to the topic of individualism and society. The basic communication code of this season reflecting this theme is portrait. Each of the four upcoming productions on the main stage of the HaDivadlo will be a de facto portrait of the central character and “his or her” society.

Madame Bovary Laserová romance Big Sur Ice Pøz Uncle Vanya Dokonalost ON