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With Irvine Welsh about the End of Civilisation
The Author of the famous Trainspotting Fascinated the Audience at the Dejvické divadlo in Prague
Irvine Welsh, made famous by the 1996 Danny Boyle movie Trainspotting, just stormed in on the Czech stage like a Scottish gale. The Edinburgh rebel’s A Blockage in the System was brought to the Dejvické divadlo by a Slovak mission. The theatre adaptation based on the stories and the film script for The Acid House was written by Daniel Majling from the borough of Liptovské Revúce and Michal Vajdička, originally from the town of Martin, made his directorial impact, not for the first time in this country.
The image of a horror pub with a bar, a tap, a fruit machine, a couple of tables and chairs of dubious football club of the lowest league was conjured up by another Slovak – set designer Pavol Andraško known mainly for his collaboration with the director Marián Pecko. The author of punk music of the production, Marián Čekovský, went along with the tough storyline, too.
Everything is stopped
I have no doubt A Blockage in the System will dismay the lovers and admirers of “fine theatrical arts”. Suffice to remember discussions around the Trainspotting movie. The flood of slang will block their ears and they will be unable to take in the new drama aesthetics or the philosophical disputation about the existence of God – in direct polemic with Nietzsche’s “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.“
But the strongest point of A Blockage in the System is its story about one of the possible ends of civilisation. About basically reducing communication to fixed, several words long, templates of foul-language clichés, a chain of screeches that replace speech. About the world that was taken over by nincompoops unable to realize the value of human life, as they are leading theirs to the level of signing language while promoting stronghand bravado and preferring ignorance: all the way from the politicians down to the unemployed whose only religion is to belong to a football team.
And, in the middle of all of this, God is fiddling around, as tired as the mankind. He is aware of His own error of creation. The toy is out of his hands for a long time. The adaptable race not only destroys other species; it also thinks God’s punishment is just a change of situation. Acting at the Dejvické divadlo is perfect. Ivan Trojan’s God drowns in excrement from the “blockage of the system” of the toilet in his own flat. He’s desperate and doesn’t know what to do. Nothing works any more.
Delicatessen of Acting
Especially excelling within the herd of animals in the socially clogged system are Miroslav Krobot as a phlegmatic and sinning Father, Hynek Čermák in the role of the brainless criminal Gary, Jana Holcová as the martyr Marge, Klára Melíšková as a promiscuous alcoholic Katriona and Lenka Krobotová as Evelyn battling with her environment.
Following Jan Antonín Pitínský’s Kalib’s Crime at the Slovácké divadlo in Uherské Hradiště, this production might already make a second candidate for the prestigious Alfred Radok’s Awards as the Production of the Year. And that’s at the moment when the last year’s prizes were not even awarded yet.
By Jiří P. Kříž, Právo