In a group of eight, we enter the building of the Krásný nový immersive theater through a latticed door. When the door closes behind us, we find ourselves in a completely different world. Instead of the walls of the old bottom house in which the whole performance takes place, we are surrounded by an elegant interior of wooden tables with light. “Welcome to Athena’s eye clinic. My name is Alex and I will be in charge of your dog the whole time,” a woman in a medical gown greets us shortly. He then turns on his heel and knocks on the door at the end of the short corridor we are in. “Doctor, it’s time,” he announces.

Another woman appears in the doorway, holding a mug in the shape of an owl. He welcomes us and immediately begins to explain how everything will happen in the following hours. He speaks calmly and deliberately, after all, we are just another one of the many patients who have come to the clinic to undergo routine procedures. All of us in the group, as we learn from Dr. Sýčková, suffer from the so-called blooming eye syndrome. “You don’t have to worry about anything, we have already done hundreds of successful procedures, it’s done in twenty minutes,” Dr. Sýčková assures us.

“So please, it’s all going to be a fluke. But what does it matter,” the woman suddenly ponders, “Alex, can you?” she asks the nurse for help, and she immediately hands over her black, soft blinds. “Recovery after the procedure is between four and six weeks. During this time it is essential and necessary that you keep these flaps on your eyes and do not remove them under any circumstances .If you take them off early, you won’t, won’t you?

A very common operation

The two women then motion for us to follow them and guide us to our rooms. The interior of the newly equipped clinic has a calming effect, it would be difficult to find here a raw and sterile hospital environment with the smell of disinfectant. We are all given a bed with white sheets and a blindfold. “Put the flaps on now and make sure they don’t press you anywhere and that no light shines through,” the nurse urges us. So I put on my soft glasses and suddenly found myself in complete darkness. Certainly no light shines through those glasses. “I’m saying goodbye to you for today, my shift is coming to an end, a colleague will take care of you overnight. Now we’ll let you smell anesthetic and we’ll meet again in the morning- tomorrow after the procedure,” said Alex. for us.

As soon as the shutters give us a glimpse, the production begins to assault our remaining senses. The anesthetic with which they put us to sleep sharpens our olfactory cells, the sounds of surgical instruments and the sound of vital signs, which begin to appear through the room, again frighten the hearing us. It seems that the operation is over successfully, now we have to wait until the morning and go home. The peace on the bed is slightly disturbed by the loud television in the nurse’s office, which the clinic staff cuts into their night shift. “And now there is completely new news. “Tonight, a strong geomagnetic storm will hit the Earth, scientists from the European Space Agency are predicting…” continues the man, to which Dr. Sýčková’s voice then asks her nurse to make her coffee.

However, the stay in the medical facility gradually decreases. | Photo: Aktuálně.cz

“And we turn to a live broadcast of the speech of the Prime Minister of the Republic: “I above all want calm to be preserved…” I hear the television again, before voices the Prime Minister and the presenters are lost again in the silence of a muffled conversation, maybe it is Dr. Sýčková, her voice is now strained, I am not sure if it is there or someone else coming over the intercom, asking everyone to come to the office immediately.

An alarm will then be sent. The constant wailing of a siren is not pleasant. You certainly don’t want to hear that kind of noise when you’re lying in the hospital after eye surgery, wearing dark glasses that you can’t take off at any cost. Someone breaks into the room. “Stand up, quickly, we have to go out,” we recognize in the strong voice of the nurse Alex. “What’s going on?” one of us asks, “Where are you taking us?” more will give. “Now is not the time to explain, let’s go,” answered the nurse calmly, who in the meantime put us behind her. I grip the shoulders of the man in front of me tightly with my hands and step blindly into the unknown. There is smoke in the air. We need to get out of here fast.

Help others or save yourself in particular? | Photo: Tereza Šolcová

As soon as we leave the clinic, the long journey begins. The production is really playing with us now, our eyes have been covered for a long time, which is obvious enough to sharpen the rest of our senses. First we found ourselves out on the street. We hear people running around, sometimes a car passing by. In the distance, there is a crash and broken glass. “Haven’t you seen my child?” an unknown female voice asks, but she gets no answer.

And what was next?

Showing how the whole show is going on would certainly take away from a unique experience for viewers. Note that our edge then continued through an apartment where children’s toys were scattered everywhere, but there was no longer a child, but I can. I also remember the feelings I had when sighted people later wanted to hold us against our will in some kind of detention camp, from which we escaped – still blind as kittens – four by four through a tunnel or maybe a foot.

During the performance, individual characters saved us at first, and then left us mostly willing. Some wanted to hurt us, others wanted to help us. And although we have not seen anything all along, it seems that the dilemma is always to at least behave humanely and morally and to help our fellow man, or should we obey instinct and live exclusively for yourself, burned brightly in our retinas throughout. the performance. Only when we reached the extreme, because in the end all the characters and our guides left us as a useless burden, we could finally take the blinders off our eyes. I think when we all stood there, we were scared. We were not afraid that we might not see. We were afraid there would be nothing left to look at.