February 27, 2012
I'm taking a class entitled "Prague Theatre Scene: Performance Analysis". We see a show every week, many of them production I wouldn't otherwise hear of, which is GREAT! The first show I saw with my class was called "Gottland", a loose adaptation of Polish journalist Marius Szczygieł's novel, about the Czechs, of the same title.
All in all, "Gottland" was a clusterfuck. There was an array of key figures in Czech history presented on stage, though infused with the addition of social networking: Facebook updates were projected onto a screen, many of the actors had a laptop with them. I gathered it was a psychological exploration of how the past is handled in the present. How defining is history to us in the present, and how does it define us? How do we process our history: collectively and individually?
The first act had an institutional feel; large cast all in black-and-white office ensembles, sitting at small tables with laptops. The set did a wonderful job of mirroring the psychological confinements history places upon us: two bare concrete-looking walls conjoining together in a triangular point upstage. Escape looks visible, but barely possible, if at all. You're trapped within your own history, but the feeling of being trapped is a universal fear, raising the questions of how much does our own history differentiate us? If it all comes down to the shared feeling of being trapped, not so much.
The first act ended with a distinctive display of absurdist humor, popular in Czech culture. Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" played loudly while one by one, each character recalled their own horrific death and exited the stage. The juxtaposition of the happy music along with the disturbing recollections is fantastically powerful in creating huge discomfort in the audience. And I dig that. Art can be aesthetically pleasing, it can resonate with you personally, but if it doesn't make you squirm, if it doesn't provoke questions, if you don't leave thinking what the fuck did I just see, it's not a work of art. There would be no progression.
The second act, on the other hand, was pure absurdism. The concept of the script is probing, it's stimulating, but in performance it was a bipolar mess. Each character wore costumes very distinct to their character (costume-wise, there was no unity, only confusion). The script jumped about in a manner far to abstract to comprehend, especially considering the language barrier. The show was all in Czech, with English subtitles projected above the stage.
My opinion? In theory, excellent. In reality, messy. Slow down, people. There's Americans in the audience.
Here's some links with more info about the show. The first is the theatre's page, with the cast and crew and such, and the second contains more of an analysis.
Švandovo Divadlo: Gottland
Gottland review
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