A series of newly commissioned short plays using Václav Havel’s character, Ferdinand Vaněk (or his relatives and descendants) and placing them in modern scenarios, imaging them in the world of today. Vanek was based on Havel himself but because a symbol of the dissident movement in Czechoslovakia.
A new Slovak play by Luba Lesna examining the former Slovak President Tiso and his complicity with Hitler during World War II, based on the book Your Honour, Mr President by Madeline Vadkerty. Madeline Vadkerty will be in attendance to discuss the history behind the play.
A new Ukranian play by Tetiana Kytsenko, translated by John Freedman, exploring the real life of her friend, a nonbinary soldier named Antonina Romanovama. Two actors represent the male and female aspects of Antonins. Translated by John Freedman with Nataliia Bratus. Directed by Lisa Rothe.
A new Czech play by Tomáš Ráliš, translated by Eva Danickova. Nominated for this year's Czech Radok Awards for Best Play. A darkly satirical reimagining of Hamlet’s world, focusing particularly on sexual indiscretions and their political/familial repercussions.
A comic thriller that mixes wall street-style misdeeds with mafia-style consequences, based on the real Estonian banking scandal in which Russian oligarchs used Estonian banks to launder their money into the EU.
Excerpts from Czech plays that use Havel's character, Vaněk, originally created as a stand-in for himself (a dissident playwright) during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia. The character was then adapted by numerous other Czech dissident playwrights such as Pavel Landovsky and Pavel Kohout. The excerpts will be accompanied by a discussion with Carol Strong, who recently wrote a book about the character and its enduring significance.
A contemporary tragicomedy, a paraphrase of the biblical brothers Cain and Abel, which tells a story of love, friendship and the hatred of otherness fueled by the far-right National Socialists.
A contemporary play dealing with the current war, about a Ukranian family on a farm and a Russian soldier who stumbles into their farm.
A story of the famous Steiner Antiquarian Bookshop in Bratislava, Slovakia. It takes place during the anti-Jewish repressions in the early 1940s in the Nazi Slovak state when the antiquarian bookshop was subject to Aryanization, meaning expropriation.
We are in the famous weekend lodge of Vaclav Havel. The play is supposed to be about his first wife Olga (immortalized in Havel’s "Letters to Olga"). But again and again, Havel interferes with her, plays himself into the foreground with his needs and life plans.
Josh Hamilton performs a dramatic reading of Franz Kafka’s Diaries, now published in a complete and newly translated edition by Ross Benjamin. A conversation between Benjamin and scholar Veronika Tuckerova will follow the reading.
Follow writer and philosopher Liu Xiaobo upon his release from a re-education camp, as he struggles to find his footing in pursuit of freedom of speech and democracy in China..
An absurd drama taking place in a supermarket of the future in a society where everyone is under surveillance. Reason, truth, and compassion are seemingly left behind.
Can a robot write a play that reflects the world in the times we live in? Find out at the stage reading of a play created fully by a computer. Follow the story of the married couple Ivan and Nina, whose lives become deeply impacted by incoming war.
A tragicomedy with an unhappy ending that can take place anywhere in the world. It shows the helplessness and loneliness of socially excluded people in cities where nature and public space are slowly disappearing.
A work of both real life and poetry: a story of a woman arrested and deported with her seven children to the Romanian wilderness under the communist regime of the 1950s. Andras Visky, author of Juliet, will introduce the work from Hungary via livestreaming.
A play about young people who live in a fake world of lifestyle magazines and TV shows. Overwhelmed by images of perfect happiness and true love, they can no longer actually recognize perfect happiness and true love.
Excerpts from four plays published in the anthology Exile Is My Home will be read. Among them will be the titular play, a sci-fi immigrant fairytale brilliantly combining absurdist comedy, irony, and suspense.
The protagonists of this story have no specific gender, race, names, or age. They are democratically elected representatives of intimacy. The play’s text talks without discrimination about our darkest affairs and most glorious battles, of which we ourselves cannot speak.
