Bez prken

Divalo Bez prken, Czech Republic

Gustavo Ott – Pavlov, the dog and the ring

Malostranska Beseda - Music Club, Thursday, July 1, 2010, 7.00 p.m.

The play of Gustavo Ott, a well-established Venezuelan playwright (b.1963), winner of Tirso de Molina Award for the best play in Spanish language (outside Spain), was written more than 10 years ago. Shortly after being written it was produced under the direction of the author himself with his home community theatre group Teatro Sand Martín de Caracas. Pavlov basically travelled round the globe with this theatre group. The play was translated in many languages. The English translation, which was written by the author with the help of his wife, an American Heather McKay, was an impulse for its significant rewriting. The Czech translation was written between years 1999 and 2000 on the basis of authorial English version. The play was produced for the first time in the Czech Republic this year.

The play itself is seemingly a simple detective story dealing with a murder of a radio show host. However, the structure and the storyline will soon divert from this genre. The story is told retrospectively with several time leaps and shifts. First we follow a testimony of an important witness, then other witness’ testimony that preceded the first one; we follow one of the suspects a few hours before the crime and also the development of the night show, at the end of which the host is killed. Whatever the viewer’s conclusion on guilt or innocence of the characters concerned will be, more important is their confrontation with the author´s view on the topic of loneliness and responsibility in the world nowadays. Despite the original setting in former (Pre-Chavez) Caracas reality it surprisingly vividly sends its message to us too. Radically escalated situation blend with humour, serious or even tragic matters are treated with rough language, the play is very swift.

Members of the Theatre BEZ PRKEN come from Prague, Czech Republic. They originally started in 1996 as a drama club for children of 6-15 years of age and later evolved in a student drama group. In 1998 the theatre premiered their  first play – “The Fan” by Carlo Goldoni. In 2004 they transformed into an amateur theatre company under a new name “Theatre BEZ PRKEN” (theatre without boards). The new name was partially inspired by none permanent place for the theatre’s playing and rehearsing at that time. In 2005 they’ve found their new home in Rock Café club in the centre of Prague – this is a place not only for the rock music, but also for various theatre performances. The year 2008 was quite a milestone in the history of the company. It premiered its first own play “Já” (“Me”), which is a collage of different short scripts written by the members of the company. And for the first time, the play was directed by a professional director Akram Staněk. This play was very successful hence there was decided to continue cooperation with Akram in the next project – “Pavlov” by Gustavo Ott.

Cast: Petr Hyka, Karel Žďárek, Jiří Moudrý, Miroslav Křenek, Jana Moravcová, Linda Petáková

30. 6. - 4. 7. 2012

PRAHA