The stage poem Pokojíček by Jan Antonín Pitínský captures one extraordinary day in a block of flats. The play, which is more than three decades old, has been newly staged by the National Theater in Brno. The author’s daughter Anna Davidová took over the direction.
The premieres will take place this Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13 in Brno’s Reduta, the next reruns will follow on April 18 and 27.
The play is about a dysfunctional family that didn’t find time for their happiness. “Unfortunately, no one is really happy in this family. Numbness, aloofness and fear reign there. As a parent, everyone makes a lot of mistakes with their upbringing, but the inability to deal with their parental mistakes returns like a boomerang,” describes Davidová.
In the game, the 30th birthday celebration of the daughter Maria is on the agenda, but she has not left her room for five years and does not communicate with the rest of the family. The younger daughter Lída comes to introduce her suitor for the first time. And the same day Jirka’s son runs away from the war. Their destinies intersect in a block of flats where nothing works except for the constantly open windows.
The scene was designed by Marek Cpin. “Since Pitínský’s text is symbolic and surreal, I decided that even the scenography would work more with symbols, exaggeration, and expression,” he explains. He wanted to create a psychological space, not a realistic backdrop of a block of flats. “Artificial materials, plastic, veneer, plastic, were important to me, which evoke in me the feeling I had from the block of flats where I grew up,” adds Cpin.
Instead of rectangular walls, there is a semi-circular wall made of orange curtains or a giant cactus on the stage. Both evoke the feeling of an arid prairie or desert. The parents are played by Kateřina Liďáková and Petr Kubes. Their children were portrayed by Isabela Smečka, Viktor Kuzník and guest actress Terezie Holubová, a student of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts. Pavel Čeněk Vaculík will play the suitor Viktor, who is troubled by the conditions in the family he is visiting and persistent acne.
“Collaboration with Anna Davidová is different from what we are normally used to during rehearsals,” notes Vaculík. “It is a never-ending process of finding means of expression that are influenced by Anna’s distinctive handwriting. And at the same time, the work is incredibly free and fun. Each of us wants to come up with the craziest ideas and nonsense,” he adds.
The director does not think that the characters are outlined in clear lines. “They are erratic, ambiguous and behave improbably. They are on the run from their own wasted lives,” concludes Anna Davidová.
Pitínský’s fourth play, Pokojíček, was first staged in the spring of 1993 by Prague’s Na Zabradlí Theater under the direction of Petr Lébl, who is no longer alive. “I really like Pitínský. His things are for me a written fear of people,” said Lébl about him. Marie Málková, Jiří Ornest, Karel Dobrý or Leoš Suchařípa performed in the then Prague production.
