Theatre at Pohoda 2023
"I wrote the dramaturgy of this year's performative programme to represent creators from all over Slovakia and two guests from the Czech Republic. A big role in this process played detachment, interactivity, contemporary artistic language, civic and queer issues. I'm very excited to see the final programme, which features names that have never performed at Pohoda before, and especially their latest work. From fresh take on the contemporary German drama of Falk Richter with his sober and insightful look at people, to monodramatic stories about people living in a village, a village living in people, and climate change all around us, to an interactive format where the audience takes responsibility for the future and every decision counts. Comedians, drag queens, aggressive mermaids and puppets take over the stage. It's all going to be great," says the curator of the Pohoda theatre, director Alžbeta Vrzgula.
10. June 2023
Divadlo DPM: Nikdy Navždy (Never Forever)
Ageing actress. Therapist. Young influencer. Teacher. Lonely man.
None of them find peace.
They search for real connections but find only mirrors of themselves in others, dissolving into digital identities and an infinite number of virtual possibilities, working themselves to exhaustion, mostly on themselves. They experience a strange sense of burnout, a loss of wholeness and concreteness; their personalities have no edges, their bodies and souls are wounded, and their scars have not fully healed. Isolated, narcissistic, worn out. Each of them carries hidden wounds that can burst open again at any moment.
"Falk Richter's texts tell the stories of people whose lives could be compared to the state of 'undead' – they are scarred city warriors in survival mode, ready to commit any act to prove to themselves that they are still alive.”
The German playwright and director wrote Never Forever in 2014 for the Berlin theatre Schaubuehne. Postdramatic techniques, in which the theme of the production and the undramatic form of the characters' speeches are always in the foreground, have long been present in his texts. The author has long since gave up on traditional retelling of a linear story, the creation of characters or simple relationships between dramatic figures. The strength of Richter's texts, however, lies not only in the progressiveness of their formal production, but above all in his strong civic attitude toward the ethical, social, and political problems of the world in which he writes.
Foto: Bara Podola
Divadlo na cucky: Budoucí lokální hvězda Hochman hraje bývalou globální hvězdu Thunberg (Future Local Star Hochman Plays Former World Star Thunberg)
Humorous theatre from the days of climate catastrophe.
Don't know what to do about a problem called climate catastrophe? (You know all about it, but you don't know what to do about it? Or you don't know that much about it, but you at least suspect it's a problem?) Have you been going through all kinds of feelings and still don't know what to do? No problem, you will find the answer here. Just become a star and use your fame to talk about today's problems at every opportunity – in interviews, on TV, at television and film awards... But wait a minute, not everyone can become a star. Not everyone can save the world. Fortunately, there's a future local star, Hochman, and he will cast the light of his glory upon you, too, and you'll know it's worth doing something about. Hopefully. Or at least you'll remember that love matters. Even if there are plenty of concrete and clear-cut culprits in the world to blame for the climate change.
GAFFA: Dedina (Village)
A random monodrama about a village.
About the inner village.
About the outer village.
You deserve a job.
You will have a job.
Eliminate hunger. Activate your libido.
Burn Morana from spring to spring.
Celebrate May as long as you wish.
Bury your neighbours' fences and your own. Both.
Buy honey. Sell salt.
Wave to the dead. Let them hear it.
Spit on their candle with God on the lid.
Everyone named Katka B makes mistakes.
Like mother, like mare.
Walk barefoot.
Out of sight, in the heart.
Wearing your heart on your tongue doesn't hurt.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the gift horse.
Where there is a will, there is a driveway.
The mare walks barefoot. Going around in squares. Hide your feet.
Like water off a snakes’ back.
Ref
No pain no / No pain no / No pain no / No gain no / No pain / No gain / No pain
Divadlo Na Peróne: My, ľud! (We, the People!)
"Sea levels are rising... The climate and the world are changing... The earth is warming... Slowly but surely..."
As a result of climate change, large parts of the islands are threatened by rising sea levels. For this reason, many Islanders are fleeing the islands and their long and arduous journey ends in Lida. As a result, the country is facing great unrest. It's the first time that its inhabitants are confronted with a refugee crisis. The King of Lida quickly decides to accommodate the Islanders in a temporary tent camp in the centre of the capital Marsk. The Lidans initially welcome the Islanders, collect money to support them, and bring food and toys to the camp. However, several months passes, and there is still no telling when the Islanders will be able to return home. The deteriorating situation forces the King to take the historic step of calling the first democratic presidential elections. The country is suddenly preparing to fill a new political role that has never existed in Lida before.
In this interactive, theatrical social performance, audience members become Lida citizens and influence events in the country with their decisions. How will their choice turn out?
Foto: Dávid Hanko
Divadlo Houže: Fándly alebo Stručná história neúspechu (Fándly or a Brief History of Failure)
The story of the life journey of the Catholic priest, writer, enlightener and folk healer Juraj Fándly. The protagonist is sent to earth in the 18th century, when the age of enlightenment and reason is blossoming in Europe. Fándly's task is clear: he's to help the common people out of ignorance and break the vicious circle in which generations live and increasingly decay. But superstition, rumours and conservative thinking are opposed to facts and logic thinking. Thus, Juraj Fándly finds himself in a fight that is much more difficult than he expected. The fanatical crowd and simple thinking are very powerful weapons against which even the greatest expertise or scientific capacity is often no match.
Although the story of this scholar, unrecognised in his time, tells of the unfortunate fate and triumph of the mob, the producers also view it with distance and detachment. It's thanks to them that the production is given the necessary perspective and is a wealth of situations, pub songs and satirical humour that make you smile.
Smútok v srdci, falafel v placke: soirée o životných frustráciách (Sadness in the Heart, Falafel in the Pita: Soirée About Life’s Frustrations)
- How are you doing?
- Shitty. But I bought some wine.
A gay man, his unhappy friend and a religious mother come to a bar and the meeting turns into an evening full of musings on life, love and religion accompanied by music and Powerpoint presentations. The collage of relationships and situations is based on the eponymous collection of Facebook status messages and the blog Troška Troska.
Foto: Ivo Fandel
PiNKBUS: Karen's Palooza
What happens when a Czech and Slovak drag queen and a BDSM mermaid from Brazil meet on stage?
Find out in a one-hour drag show by Just Karen, Venice and dancer Helena Araújo.
Get ready for a queer explosion of glitter, emotion and absurdity and the most colourful wedding in the world.
With musical accompaniment by Beyoncé, Bonnie Tyler, SOPHIE and live bagpipe music.
Jozef Vaľo: Coming Out
The show draws attention to "coming out" in the world of football, where there are currently no gay players who have come out – which has been done only by 3 players in all of history. It's about the homophobic atmosphere at football events and in the world of football in general, where over 70% of fans don't even know that they're chanting homophobic slurs. The author deals with this issue from the other side. Hi, my name is Jozef. I'm gay and ashamed of the fact that I love football. Bizarre, I know. Just like football players being ashamed of being gay. That's not the only bizarre thing, though. The show works with drag lipsync or the idea of a church sermon. Through this bipolarity, the show wants to make it clear that you can like anything, be anyone, and still be a good football player... and a human being.
SPECIAL PERFORMANCE:
Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theatre named after Mykola Kulish : Kitty as a memory of the darkness
Kitty as a memory of the darkness is a story about the life that Ukrainians had been living in Donbas for 8 years, and about the realities in which people from the Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk and part of Kharkiv regions found themselves in 2022.
The plot is based on a touching monologue of a woman from Donbas. A woman wearing dark glasses sells three orphaned kittens - white, grey and black - all that remained of her home, her land, her peaceful world - after the Russian occupation... You can take off the glasses, but the darkness remains - under the eyes and in the eyes...
While telling her story, the heroine cooks borshch. She is peeling potatoes, carrots, chopping cabbage, and at this time talking about the horrors she experienced during the occupation. The preparation of a traditional dish balances the terrible story and, at the same time, shows the resistance of the heroine, who remains a patriot when her country is destroyed, a housewife when she is deprived of her home.
The woman treats the audience with this borshch in the end of the play. This is quite symbolic, because she shares almost the last benefits with the hope that better times are ahead and light will overcome darkness.
During the entire action, the kittens are "hidden" in a box... And, according to Serhiy Pavlyuk's stage version, the heroine keeps not one (as in the play), but all three kittens, because soon the heroine will have her own home and they all will ave a place to live.
Foto: Serhij Kononenko