The review – „You are not evil, just deformed” – The Brothers Karamazov in waltz rhythm

Amita Keita’s production of the Brothers Karamazov from Prague’s Disk (DAMU) uses musical stylization. With the help of a waltz, the musicians on stage take us to the seemingly carefree year of the Karamazovs, where because there is no God, everything is allowed. The distorted relationships of one family surface and escalate into the murder of old Karamazov (Pavel Čeněk Vaculík) allegedly committed by his son Dimitri (David Krchňavý). His imprisonment in the family is represented by a movement variation before the court scene – the individual characters can be seen through one of the three entrances to the stage. Accompanied by a peculiar waltz, they imitate the apostles on the astronomical clock. The music is picking up pace and the characters are turning into a wild roar, from which Mitya is trying to escape.

His brother Ivan (Michael Goldschmit) is trapped in his head for a change, suffering from delusions, refusing to accept them as a rational person. Nevertheless, he communicates with the spirit of his dead father. Brother Alyosha (Kryštof Dvořáček), in turn, experiences a crisis of faith depicted at the very end of the performance by a pleading prayer and the subsequent laying down of the monk’s robe. Pavel Čeněk Vaculík interprets the old Karamazov more as an exuberant old man than as a monster worthy of hatred.

In the Disk Theatre, therefore, the Karamazov Brothers are portrayed as essentially unhappy rather than downright evil.

Klára Hauserová (DAMU)