Season 48: Proximity

We believe that closeness, empathy, mutual assistance and cooperation will be key qualities for coping with increasingly turbulent times filled with multiplying crises all around us. However, we do not want to deprive ourselves of a more metaphorical reading of the term. First of all, the word “proximity” reflects our newfound closeness with Ukraine, which arose after the Russian aggression. The context of Eastern Europe, which in the post-revolutionary perspective we may have perceived, or longed to perceive, as distant, is suddenly much closer. At the beginning of the preparations for this season, we felt the need to learn and read the current Ukrainian texts in particular, because we thought that the prejudices that often condemn Ukrainians and Ukrainians in our society to the position of unskilled workers, often even in unfavorable conditions, apply to us as well. They are reflected, for example, in the fact that we have never seen Ukrainian literature as a relevant literary region for the search for titles in the coming seasons. Along with this initial task, at the beginning of our preparations, we decided to look for a text in addition to Ukrainian and Russian, which would prove that even in totalitarian regimes people live free thinking. In the end, after long discussions, we concluded that the creation of a balance — one Ukrainian and one Russian text — was artificial. The current situation is not balanced, but very skewed, and in our opinion there is simply no room for Russian texts now. We solved this dilemma by deciding to process our debates and moral polemics about Russian literature in authorial terms. To devote more attention to the local position and relationship of Czech and Russian culture today.

The mentioned motifs are the substance for the emerging author's text titled Humanism 2022 Artistic Director Ivan Buraj and Bohdan Karásek, who have already worked on the theme of the climate crisis in a pre-last year production Ours. Bohdan Karásek is especially a film author and his films (most famous Charles, Me and You from 2019) are characterized by their civil expression and the realism of the dialogues — this is inspired by our efforts to develop in HadiVadle the work with the natural intimacy of studio theatre, when the closeness between the actor and the audience is similar to the intimate proximity of a film camera. This time a production of us Humanism 2022 takes on vacation former classmates from drama school, from the fields of directing, dramaturgy and production, who spend it in Venice. In a city on the water, a city where the peaks and ideals of Western culture meet with the sea and the muddy current. The main characters in an apartment rented through Airbnb discuss the ethical challenges of contemporary art, about Russian culture and whether it is okay to boycott Russian texts in the current situation. One of the characters, the director, wants to put the text in the following theater season Watermarks by the Russian Nobelist Josif Brodsky, about Venice and the relativity of meaning. It thus seeks to advocate an open consciousness that transcends the parties of war conflict. But is it possible to maintain political neutrality and total openness in our work and attitudes in life today? Our heroes get bogged down in questions about the connections between honesty in a work of art and sincerity in their personal lives, such as marriage, and find unexpected parallels between relationship and political problems. Are we able to live in the truth all the time? Is Europe in moral decline and destructive chaos, as presented by Russian propaganda? Are we to be faithful to what? Is our culture just an empty concept to cover up the reality of pernicious pragmatism? And what is an unnecessary luxury in a state of war? Are we at war? Humanism 2022 as testimony to a time in which horror and comfort exist eerily close together. The production will premiere on November 12, 2022.

Following these issues related to the Russian aggression in Ukraine and its consequences, we decided to go further along the path of documentary theater and are working on a special project called Before the War Ends, Until the End of the War. It is a collage of personal accounts from Ukrainian women and men brought to Brno and the surrounding area by the February invasion of Putin's Russia. His own strong testimony and vision of the future, directed by Max Nowotarski. A student of the Theatre Faculty of JAMU, who himself hails from central Ukraine, has conducted dialogues with selected performers over the past months. The journey of each of them to the Czech Republic and the possibilities of connecting here to life in their original homeland are significantly different. What is common, however, is an effort to integrate into another, in many makeshift, environments. The documentary stage essay focusing on the integration of Ukrainian refugees and their everyday lives will be presented in only a few reruns at the end of the year — December 12, 13 and 14, 2022, due to the specific possibilities of the performers.

Contemporary Ukrainian Novel Felix Austria Sofia Andrukhovych, one of the most widely read authors of the local scene, outlined the topic of Proximity from a new and in many unexpected angles: How to be close and not destroy yourself? How to find space for non-destructive conflict? How to deal with closeness, which has already become an addiction to the other? With proximity as a dangerous toxic bond? These questions will help us answer in the author's adaptation of the novel — under a new title A fire in happy Austria — former member of HaDivadlo Iva Klestilová and director of leading, close Slovak scenes, currently artistic director of Žilina Municipal Theatre, as well as photographer, Eduard Kudláč. The original theme, set in the historical setting of Galicia, in the former Austria-Hungary in 1900, will be updated by the creators in its timeless resonance with the current situation. Ukraine, now embroiled in a war conflict, faces the eternal question of its non-affiliation with the West or the European Union, and the multiethnic environment is the source of constant inequalities and different living conditions of the population. The main characters here are two women, fused together by fate “like a branch of a tree.” The parents of both perished in a massive fire when they were barely children. However, their relationship to dependence does not have the chance to overcome differences in origin and different life situations — Stefanie is a Ukrainian maid in the native home of Adela, the daughter of a Polish-German doctor. They live surrounded by characters from different strata (sculptor, vicar, illusionist, fish seller...) who move near them in the episodic narrative and infect the emotional. An analysis of how the broader multiethnic society balances on the boundary between explosion and empathy when interacting with each other and meeting. The adaptation, dedicated to examining the contrasts in living conditions and the fickle psychology of the characters, will premiere symbolically on February 24, 2023, a year after the outbreak of the ongoing war conflict.

The spring season will open the theme of Proximity from another point of view — proximity to the city of Brno and protected landscape areas Moravian Karst. The production of the same name exploring the relationship between ideas about nature and how nature is bent by these ideas, is directed and written by another Slovak filmmaker Peter Gonda and his team. A sought-after area, about which there are countless legends and expert studies — in 2021, exactly 100 years have passed since the first speleological activities in the region. In these underground and wild forest outcrops, traditions and signs of human activity have been deeply imprinted since prehistoric times, not only in the form of mining history and the development of the industrial revolution, but also in the stories of cave discoveries or landscape interventions. Questions about the meaning of words like wilderness and conservation lead us in today's world to uncover what has become romanticized fiction in our ideas about the landscape. We believe that the theme of the theatre may not only be a literary text, but also a landscape. Project Moravian Karst is our experiment investigating whether this is how a dramaturgical line can be created that deals with stories of forests, rivers or mountains. Production by Peter Gonda, his regular dramaturge and otherwise also musical performer Adam Dragun and our dramaturgist Anna Prstková, or in HaDivadle by the already well-known scenographer Matěj Sýkora (Chevengur, Moby Dick), will rely on scientific sources, historical facts and local folklore, but also on your own experience of proximity to this not only naturally varied area. The premiere will take place on April 28, 2023.

The aim of this season will also be to approximate the thinking about the theatre of our collaborators. Therefore, we are preparing a series of masterclasses of guest artists and artists, in which they will share with us their methods of work, as well as perspectives on current and future theatre. In addition to meeting with the directors of the Prime Minister, we will be able to get to know better, for example, the work of the internationally renowned Slovak composer Peter Machajdík (A fire in happy Austria) or, on the contrary, a member of the young generation of the Slovak music scene, author of music for a number of audiovisual and stage works by Jonatán Pastirčák (Moravian Karst). These masterclasses will be complemented by hosting selected productions by Eduard Kudláč or Peter Gonda, shown in an attempt to understand and approach their poetics more comprehensively. We see it as important not only to conceive our theatre as a place where new productions are produced, but also as a space for research, for a deeper understanding of both the world and art. For us, the preparation of each production is an intensive delving into its context, which is also related to the acquaintance of the invited creators. The longer we work in our theater, the more we realize how important this process is for the perception of the work itself, and therefore we would like to share it with you.

A special project is also our effort to complete the theme of Proximity in the level of participation in the production of the dramaturgy of the season, which we want to open to the previews of you — the audience. We are looking for tools to make you co-creators of next season's dramaturgy. We discuss the form of dramaturgical meetings open to the public, when we would like to work with audience participation. Details will be released during the season.

We continue to focus on dramaturgical introductions and discussions after performances and other accompanying educational activities, which we warmly invite you to this season as well. In order to be able to draw on the wider social contexts of our work, A2 Discussions will continue to be linked to individual productions as their extension into a common debate.

We are also going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our home institution, the Centre of Experimental Theatre, which we are a part of together with the Husa na Strand Theatre and Terén platform. As part of the day-long program, together with the editorial staff of the CEDIT magazine, we are preparing a program called Theatre for All, which will explore the possibilities and limits of contemporary cultural institutions. In the evening we will be presented with a portrait of our institution, directed by Ivan Buraj, through micro-stories and experiences given by its former and current employees from different positions and periods.

Let's see what else and new Season 48: Proximity will open beyond horizons and qualities. We look forward to seeing you and our joint meetings, which are a basic condition for the creation of theatre. Let's be close!

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