Topography of a New Theatre-Making Context Rebecca McFadden Goldsmi

352 Pages·2013·2.19 MB·English

Performance Beyond Borders in Twenty-first Century Prague: Topography of a New
Theatre-Making Context

Rebecca McFadden
Goldsmiths, University of London
PhD Theatre and Performance

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I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own.

Rebecca McFadden

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Abstract
Within the framework of the sociology of theatre, this thesis explores the current
performance-making landscape of Prague, mapping the emergence of the nové divadlo
(new theatre) movement since 2000. An examination of the historical development of
Czech theatre foregrounds the discussion of contemporary practice, charting its changing
social-political role in domestic and international contexts. Theatre’s significance in forging
an ethnolinguistically defined national consciousness is considered as a legacy that
continues to impact the field. Theatrical values originating in the nineteenth-century
national revival are traced through the interwar avant-garde, dissident small theatre
movement of the 1960s and auteur’s theatre of the 1970s and 1980s. The Velvet Revolution
of 1989 and theatre artists’ contributions to the defeat of communism are considered as
catalysing a period of self-reflexivity, as theatres grappled with new logistical
infrastructures and faced a crisis of purpose both dramaturgical and social in scope. These
changes are framed by discussion of the divergent visions of the country’s future posited by
Václav Havel and Václav Klaus throughout the 1990s, as well as tensions surrounding
European Union ascension and other globalizing processes.
A close examination of the nové divadlo infrastructure that has arisen in the past twenty
years identifies the strategies by which this faction of the field has forged a third theatre-
making space, distinct from either the repertory system or the pre-revolution avant-garde.
Central to this discussion is a consideration of the nové divadlo’s companies, venues and
festivals as both reactive and active: responding to an increasingly international city and,
simultaneously, actively positioning Czech theatre on world stages. The work and critical
reception of Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave) and Krepsko, both self-defining as
“international” by virtue of their composition and international touring presence, are
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considered with regard to the companies’ dramaturgy, methodology and social function.
Finally, the thesis considers how the work of the new theatre movement and, specifically,
Farma v jeskyni, constitutes a “practical politics” rooted in the political philosophy of
Havel and Jan Patočka.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 7

Introduction 9

1. Society, Politics and Performance: The Role of 22
Theatre in the Emergence of Czech National
Consciousness, 1620-1945
1.1. Framing the National Revival 22
1.2. Origins of the National Revival 28
1.3. Evolution of the National Revival 38
1.4. Diverging Cultural Trends in the Aftermath of 1848 47
1.5. Theatrical, Political and Cultural Developments of the First 56
Republic, 1918-1938
1.6. Conclusions and Common Themes 71

2. A Socio-cultural History of Czech Theatre Under 74
Communism, 1945-1989
2.1. Kulturnost in Action: Post-war Theatrical Continuity 78
and Evolution
2.2. Únor/February: The Communist Coup D’état of 1948 81
2.3. Transforming Theatre and Society: Social and Cultural 83
Restructuring, 1948-1956
2.4. Political Liberalization and Theatrical Reinvigoration, 92
1956-1967
2.5. From the Prague Spring to Normalization, 1968-1972 114
2.6. The Social and Cultural Policies of Normalization 118
2.7. Living in Truth: The Autorské Divadlo of the 1970s and 1980s 128
2.8. The Velvet Revolution of November 1989 139

3. The Czech Theatre Landscape in Flux: Post-communist 150
Transformation, Continuity and Rupture
3.1. Appropriating Kulturnost: Post-Communist Political and 152
Economic Narratives
3.2. The Culture Sector’s “Terra Incognita”: Czech Theatre 161
in the 1990s
3.3. Cultural Policy in the Post-Communist Era 168
3.4. New Paradigms: The Prague Experiment 173
3.5. Defining Political Theatre for a New Millennium 177
3.6. Import and Export: Culture as Foreign Policy 185
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4. Něco nového/Something New: Czech Nové Divadlo, 2000-2012 193
4.1. Spaces and Festivals in Flux, 1989-2001 194
4.2. Out of the Ark and onto the World Stage 196
4.2.1. Divadlo Archa 196
4.2.2. Ctibor Turba and Alfred ve dvoře 199
4.2.3. Czech Contemporary Dance and the Nové 206
Divadlo Scene
4.3. New Stages for a New Millennium 210
4.4. Accusations of Amateurism: Nové Divadlo Meets the Press 213
4.5. Something Czech, or not Czech: Krepsko 225

5. Immigrants in Prague: Farma v jeskyni/Farm in the Cave 238
5.1. Origins 238
5.2. The Productions 258
5.2.1. Sclavi / Emigrantova píseň (Sclavi / The Song of an 259
Emigrant)
5.2.2. Čekárna (Waiting Room) 271
5.2.3. Divadlo (The Theatre) 277
5.3. Critical Reception 288
5.4. Politics and Praxis: Farma as “Practical Political Opinion” 300
5.5. A Kind of Home 306

Conclusion 311

Appendix A: List of Acronyms 317

Bibliography 319

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Acknowledgments
This research benefited from the support of many friends and colleagues in the United
States, United Kingdom and Czech Republic. I thank my supervisor, Professor Maria
Shevtsova for her consistent belief in this project and tireless guidance throughout the
entire process, as well as my colleagues in the Sociology of Theatre and Performance
Research Group.
I am grateful to the generosity of Czech academics, including Dr. Martina Musilová
and Dr. Alexander Komlosi, who expressed interest in my research and pointed me in
fruitful directions. Dr. Jana Pilátová welcomed my questions with great generosity and
provided enormous insight into the work of Farma v jeskyni and laboratory theatre in the
Czech Republic. Krystyna Mogilnicka introduced me to Viliam Dočolomanský, helped me
gain access to closed company workshops and shared her own research on the creation of
Divadlo (The Theatre) with me. I am indebted to the artists from Alfred ve dvoře, Farma v
jeskyni, Krepsko and Veselé skoky who spoke with me about their work and welcomed me
into their workshops and rehearsals.
My Czech teachers Zdena Svěráková (London) and Jana Harperová (Prague),
equipped me to face the linguistic demands of this research. A host of Czech friends in
London and the Czech Republic provided conversation practice, second eyes on
translations and accommodation: many thanks to Eva Daníčková, Tereza Havlíčková and
family, Jiří Martykan, Eliška Strnadová and the Huptych family. Further thanks are due to
the Eastern European Studies programme of the American Council of Learned Societies,
which funded my study at Charles University with a Summer Language Study Fellowship.
Peter Zusi and the Czech literature reading group at the School of Slavonic and East
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European Studies, University College London welcomed me, further developed my
language skills and deepened my understanding of the field of Czech studies.
The roots of this research lie in my first encounter with Czech theatre culture as a
performer at the 2005 and 2007 Prague Fringe Festivals. These journeys were supported by
grants from the Theatre Department and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at my alma
mater, Villanova University, and I am appreciative of the Theatre faculty’s on-going
support of my work. Special thanks are due to Professor Harriet Power, whose faith in me
as an artist and scholar has sustained me through the most challenging aspects of this work.
I am indebted to the colleagues and friends who read and responded to my work:
Eva Daníčková, Shawn Kairschner and Lara Parmiani. Finally, I extend my love and
personal thanks to my mother, Ann McFadden, for her unwavering support of this project,
as well as to my partner Paul Wade and my friend and colleague Scheherazaad Cooper,
who have provided invaluable assistance, camaraderie and perspective throughout this
process.
This work is dedicated to the memory of my father, John R. McFadden.

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Introduction
This thesis explores the emergence of Prague’s nové divadlo (new theatre)
movement and the work of Prague-based companies Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave)
and Krepsko within the framework of the sociology of theatre. Each company has been
founded since 2001, over a decade removed from 1989’s Velvet Revolution and the fall of
communism in the Czech lands. Each company’s work is international in a way that would
have been impossible prior to 1989, either through the multiple nationalities of its founders,
the composition of its company and/or its international touring presence, and each produces
a variant of non-verbal, bi- or multilingual performances accessible to international and
increasingly diverse domestic audiences.1 While productions affiliated with the nové
divadlo are by no means artistically uniform, it is possible to identify reoccurring trends.
These include an emphasis on the physical expressiveness of the body and a theatrical
language in which the role of text is de-emphasized in the construction of narrative, which,
if present, is most often subject to multiple interpretations. As such, the work bears much in
common with practices Hans-Thies Lehmann describes as postdramatic, referring to “a
theatre that feels bound to operate beyond drama, at a time ‘after’ the authority of the
dramatic paradigm in theatre” (2006: 27). While this thesis examines the work in a
predominantly Czech context, it must also be noted that the nové divadlo’s companies and
practitioners do not emerge sui generis, but reflect the influence of evolving international
theatre practice throughout the twentieth century. Their work is often described as
“physical theatre”, a term, which, as Ana Sánchez-Colberg notes, “denotes a hybrid

1 Increasingly, given trends in re-diversification in the Czech Republic since 1989, an international and/or
multi-lingual audience is to be found domestically, particularly within the capital city of Prague, which
recorded a resident-foreigner population of 148,578 in 2010 (Czech Statistical Office, “Foreigners by region,
district and type of residence permit – 28 February 2010”).
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character and is testimony to its double legacy in both avant-garde theatre and dance”
(2007: 21).
The methodological perspective that underpins this thesis positions this research
within the field of the sociology of theatre, which, broadly speaking, views the study of
theatre as inseparable from the study of the cultures of which it is a part. As defined by
Maria Shevtsova, the field is characterised by its interdisciplinary approach: “[b]y
traversing the lines between the social sciences and the humanities and knitting them
together, we may achieve a truly interdisciplinary perspective” (2009: 32). Shevtsova’s
work builds upon a project initiated by Georges Gurvitch and Jean Duvignaud and draws
upon the work of sociologists Pierre Bourdieu, Émile Durkheim and Antonio Gramsci and
literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin.2 The interdisciplinarity inherent in the field promotes a
programme of study that “moves back and forth across ‘spheres’ [or different disciplines]
so that what is ‘sociological’ is ‘political’ is whatever else collective human action makes
it” (Ibid.). While numerous studies, by virtue of their content or sociological orientation,
might be classified as sociologies of theatre, the present work is constituted within the field
precisely because of its interdisciplinary approach, encompassing socio-political and
historical perspectives. Additionally, this thesis engages fully with the interconnected areas
of study charted by Shevtsova as appropriate to the field.3
The topographical orientation of this research draws on key concepts from Pierre
Bourdieu’s The Field of Cultural Production. Of particular relevance is Bourdieu’s
understanding of the field of play in any medium as constituted by a set of “structural

2 For a full discussion of the theoretical foundations and methodology of the sociology of theatre, see essays I-
IV in Shevtsova’s Sociology of Theatre and Performance (Verona: QuiEdit, 2009).
3 These include: Actors-Actresses; Directors; Stage Designers, Costumes Designers, Composers, Musicians,
Technicians; Playwrights; Adminsitration, Finance and Economy; Theatre Policies, Policies for Theatre;
Social Types of Theatre; Performance; Audiences; Dissemination and Distribution; Dramatic Texts; Dramatic
Genres; and Merging Theatrical Genres and Hybrids (see Shevtsova, 2009: 32-37).
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