Current Affairs Prague hosts new festival of English-language plays
The English-speaking community in Prague has few chances to see drama performed in English. But this is just about to change, as The Prague Post - the country's leading English-language newspaper - has decided to encourage English-language theatre in the city, and founded its own festival of short plays.
Photo: www.praguepost.com
To arouse the interest of authors in the First Annual Prague Post Short
Play Festival, the paper organized and sponsored a playwriting contest.
The scripts had to be in English and the plays were supposed to last no
more than twenty minutes. Another important criterion was that all
entrants had to be either current or former residents of the Czech
Republic. Out of nearly 100 plays the jury selected the best three which
will be staged at the Minor Theatre in Prague's Vodickova Street, with the
first performance this Saturday. On the last night, March 19, the winner
will be awarded a cash prize worth 20 000 crowns (900 US dollars).
Photo: Richard CermakRichard Byrne is one of the three finalists. He spent a whole year in
Prague in the early 1990s, and has come back about ten times since. His
play "Burn your Bookes [sic]" was clearly inspired by Prague and
its history.
Photo: Richard Cermak"When I first lived here in 1991 I was interested in those
stories,
though I was a little more interested at the time in learning about Czech
culture. I was reading about the Good Soldier Svejk, and I was really
trying to learn as much about this culture instead of my own culture,
coming to Prague. But later on, after I left Prague, I started doing a lot
more research into [would-be alchemist Edward] Kelley, and it really
started to become fascinating for
me, and it seemed like there was a good chance to maybe make a play out of
it."
What do you personally like about the days of Rudolph II and all those alchemists?
Photo: Richard Cermak
"I find it a really stimulating period for two reasons. The
first is
that, of course, it was such an ornate, opulent period. Prague was
literally the centre of all sorts of intellectual life, poetry, art,
alchemy and all these things. But also, there are so many parallels to our
own situation today: alchemy and those kinds of arts really were sort of
proto-science and they were the research and development arm of the
Renaissance empire. The stakes were very high and people were losing
their lives if they failed. I find that kind of extremity very interesting
and very dramatic."
What do you think of the production of the play? Are you happy with it?
"Yes, I'm absolutely extatic. My director Julek Neumann is amazing, brilliant, I have three wonderful actors who were really playing their hearts out, and I think we are going to have a really good show!"
