PERFORMANCE DETAIL

Gottland is not only a kingdom of a certain pop singer in Jevany but also a book of reports which has been written by a Polish journalist and writer Mariusz Szczygieł. The whole book is about the Czechs and the Czech Republic. It was published in Poland in 2006 and it immediately became a bestseller. The same happened a year later in our country and what is more it was awarded the European Literature Prize last year in December. The only one who can compete with the amount of copies of his books is Michal Viewegh. Szczygieł feels at home in our country. He collected materials for his reports for five years and during that time he became fluent in Czech. For him the Czechs are not only a nation of Svejks, cowards, and pub grumblers. In his fascinating reports the author presents people like Bata (the founder of Bata Shoes Company), sculptor Švec (the author of Stalin’s monument in Prague), the singing trio Golden Kids (Kubišová, Neckář, Vondráčková), writer Eduard Kirchberger (alias Karel Fabián), actress Baarová, physician and politician Moserová (who attended to Jan Palach) and others. Against the backdrop of their lives a picture of so called “Czech Personality” comes to the surface. Sometimes the point of view is ironic, another time humorous, often grotesque, but always sympathetic. Not being prejudiced by what the Czechs think of themselves Szczygieł discovered a great amount of surprising details and links that have been concealed from us until now. The idea of adapting his brilliant work to a stage production was conceived by director Jan Mikulášek and dramaturgist Marek Pivovar. Come and have a look at yourselves through the eyes of a man who was not born Czech, Moravian nor Silesian but who is much closer to us than most of us are to each other.