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COMMISSION Played in the English Language. In the performance we observe an
unnamed and
non-characterized pair of a man and a woman pass through different
situations
and environments. In the beginning we see them untarnished and pure,
just
like in the Garden of Eden. Their age is, however, a bit untypical and
the topics they are talking about – obedience and rebellion – are
disturbing
and unnerving. We watch them again, tense and irritated at the
monotonousness
of marriage, or talking banalities to a visiting friend. These scenes
are
interrupted by incursions of brutal and primitive cruelty, and the
resulting
superior irrational construction, from the outside world. Both
storylines
clash in the last scene, in which the relationship of the people breaks
down, but the incomprehensible world of absurd rules collapses too. The
high authority demonstrates its dominance despite its disintegration,
but
the individual rebellion brings certain hope for internal
liberation.
12th season, 22nd premiere
Script: Group of actors
The performance was produced through collective creative process from June 9, 2001 to April 12, 2002. List of Performance: No interval, duration 1 hour 25 minutes. Stage area: Width 5 - 9 m, depth 5 - 12 m, min. 24 power circuits, minidisc system.
FROM A DISTANCE Played in the English Language. By and with Lucia Piussi & Blaho Uhlár. The two
performing
protagonists, who also wrote the screenplay, have filled their world
with
elements of clownery, stylized theater, paraphrased movie plots, acts
of
cruelty and freewheeling theatrical imagination, blending text with
motion
in a cacophonous blur of emotion.
Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
First night 17.
12. 1999.
The play was created with the financial contribution from the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic and the State Cultural Fund Pro Slovakia. List of
Performance: No interval,
duration 1 hour 15 minutes. Stage area: Width 5 - 9 m, depth 5 - 12 m,
min. 24 power circuits, minidisc system.
BOTTOM (Ode to the McWorld) This play uses
words. We find
people in ordinary situations that are lived through – as it happens
these
days – through media. The behavior is copied from the commercial TV
broadcasts.
There is effort to master the prescribed commercial "human
interaction".
Real rawness overlaps with the rawness hidden under the commercial
wrapping.
There are people, whose only problems are whether to go buy something
or
not; and there is a personal tragedy, which satisfies itself in broad
publicity.
Scenario: Ľubomír
Burgr, Monika
Čertezni, Lucia Piussi, Zuzana Piussi, Blaho Uhlár.
MONODRAMAS Monologues of six characters trying to establish contact with their surroundings, with people, but also contact with themselves. A withdrawn person is amusing himself by memorizing some found letters, suffering with his own painful imagination. A "one-sided dialogue", revealing human suffering, disillusionment, but also the eternal animal power. Hyperrealistic documentary picture of a creature living next to us, the non-systematic contemplation about life, creativity, energy and interpersonal relationships; retired actor in an imaginary interview and "metarealistic" monologue. Stage-designer: Zuzana Piussi Music: Ľubomír Burgr using excerpts from L. Janáček Starring: Ľubomír Burgr, Ingrid Hrubaničová, Jozef Chmel, Laco Kerata, Lucia Piussi, Zuzana Piussi. First night 29. 11. 1997. no interval, duration 1 hour and 25 mins. Stage area: width 9 m, depth 12 m, minimum 12 power circuits, mixing desk, 1 microphon, 2 minidisc system. A piano and two actors on stage. One of them reads strange texts, stories, poems and sings evergreens, while the other one sings and plays the piano chastely. All this evokes memories, distant countries, known and unknown people. Texts spoken in various languages fuse into a funny-sad unity. A grotesque, sentimental, ironic and romantic encounter. Lyrics: Ladislav
Kerata.
FROMOVERTHERE An hysterical and desperate outcry of madness This play uses words - Slovak,
English, Serb
and vulgar. You can see a weird paraphrase of an oriental theater being
analyzed in English by some sort of intellectual consumers. You hear a
dialogue on the meaning of artistic creativity, but only one actress
speaks,
and it's in Serb. You witness a lengthy "TV" discussion about
culture
which concludes that "culture is culture". A popular Soviet hit turns
the
clock back a couple of decades. You listen to an American woman's
nonsensical
bar talk and see a desperate defense against penetration of vulgarity
into
our lives expressed in vulgar language. You feel the desperation of
people
in a society that offers little--if any--hope for a better future.
First night 17. 9. 1999. Director: Blaho Uhlár,
stage-designer: Zuzana
Piussi, costumes: Zuzana Piussi and collective, music: Ľubomír Burgr,
starring:
Ľubomír Burgr, Ingrid Hrubaničová, Lucia Piussi and Zuzana Piussi.
The play was created with the
financial
contribution from the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic and
the
State Cultural Fund Pro Slovakia.
ATTACK (Variety Show) Reciting Krasko’s Slave; opera tunes – True Loving, Pravoslavnyje; pop tunes – Miss, I’ll Give You a Ride, Girls from My Kindergarten, also Annie Lennox and Bonnie Tyler tunes as performed by the Stoka ensamble and their guests; Bugatti Step, scenes from plays, musical and literary presentations. Thirteen member orchestra. Fun. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
FACES Performance without words. We see uncertainty, hidden distress, simulated indolence, deformation as an expression of pain, or game, or perhaps also sincere emotion. Blue colour evokes cold, but sometimes also kitschy atmosphere of nostalgia which is systematically broken by hyperbole and irony. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
NOX (WHO WILL GUESS THE NAME OF THE TAX COLLECTOR) Production sounds like a realistic play without words. More concrete people live in a specific space that can be regarded as a room. They perform actions which are very concrete. Nevertheless, a real meaning of concreteness cannot be explained. The gloomy atmosphere of nocturnal scenes evokes images of Edward Munch, anxiety from the search for one°s own identity, but it also indicates life materialized by a superficial advertising gesture and fear of oneself. A micro story allows spectators to anticipate that all characters belonged to someone and somewhere, however, it seems that they gave up the search for this place long ago. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
LIDO DI JESOLO This performance shows four lonely men in the dark surroundings of suggested unfulfilled relationships. Strange stories display a disappearing harmony in which harmonious chords are dissolved lacking any clear response or echo: dialogues resemble monologues. When the tree of knowledge finally grows, all of them rather depart to infinity. Dialogues, monologues, songs and duets. Starring: Ľubo
Burgr, Laco
Kerata, Peter Zagar, Vlado Zboroň.
EO IPSO This performance is based on text. There is no plot but the stories of individuals are too concrete though hardly named or comprehended. At the same time they are clearly understood. Flesh and blood characters are revealed in front of the spectator: characters we encounter daily, the worried try to get into contact with the others but they only succeed with difficulties. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
NO ONE BUT A SEA GULL BATHES ITS FEET IN MY TEARS Dominated by music, the performance depicts life of the main female character perceived and lived through music. One can hear tunes of an old pop song, Schubert, Marilyn Monroe, Oskar Nedbal but also a cabaret song, pop song, avant-garde, paraphrases and parodies written by authors Ingrid Hrubaničová (lyrics) and Ľubomír Burgr (music). The acting-singing performance of Ingrid Hrubaničová also presents a semantic level - the essence of womanhood with all its graceful and disgusting aspects, love and selfishness. The concealed story uses sentiment which is continuously twisted. Lyrics: Ingrid
Hrubaničová.
DONARIUM An extraordinary society in an extraordinary space, for example a café, where you sometimes hear a song, almost at the same time there enters an ocean-going steamliner with floodlights, then there appear very concrete personalities that communicate through a few words-dialogues and sometimes they think, they find understanding, some of them are lost, looking for something, sometimes they disappear somewhere above and never come back. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
THE HEATH /Optimistic/ The actors crawl out from underneath the audience that are sitting on three sides because after the senseless actions they can again get underneath them, like unidentified creatures. During the whole performance the spectator encompasses an atmosphere of fear, anxiety and distress with every step. The people turn to targets, executors change to victims, the words turn to sounds, violence is a part of love, love is a part of violence. But heavy gloom is considered with overspread joy of creativity. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
Blind Man's Buff (children's Performance) This performance was born from children's memories and imagination. In fragments with only a little amount of text, appears theacher-authority and disorientated child, children's toys, a black clown that makes no pleasure and fun, all kinds of bizarre figures, but also children's agressivity and unspoiled, inquisitive child-like gestures. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
DYP INAF /Heavy mental/ Performance with minimum text creating an expressive black-and-white artistic mosaic. Fragments of a human memory materialize to a heap of moving photographs, among which 'he' and 'she' sometimes appear. They are finding themselves, they start to communicate and with the tones of Mahler's music they find only a tragic separation. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
IMPASSE/Sentimental journey/ A mixture of fragments, absurd scenes, persiflages, numerous changes of costumes and masks, played in a narrow corridor, between the audience. The couple wearing death-coloured white masks and costumes, suggesting tight-fitting jackets, are speaking words of love, he in English, she in Slovak. Dominating movement, artistic symbols, live music. Colourful, full of life, grotesque, with black humour, ironic and plenty contradictions. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
The Collapse /Who is who/ Four black characters on a white background are trying to find their place, their home, they attempt to find themselves. More over they are trying to name the things, the things are unclear and covered with fog. Love appears in the form of a decorated wreath and kitschy light. At once the characters seem to feel that they have lost someone but they don't know whom. They don't know what he had looked like, what they only know is, that they are missing him. Director: Blaho
Uhlár.
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