The review – Labour be honored, comrades!

The symbol of hammer and sickle has represented a certain and extremely important union of two classes- the peasants and workers. The philosophy of the Soviet Union has “educated” children in special pioneer camps from an early age, because the youth were a so-called key tool for expansion and strengthening the system and a dominant ideology that was hidden behind such words as freedom or salvation. 

The production of  graduate students of JAMU in Brno deals not with this topic only, but also discusses the ideas of religion, the secret service of the State Security Service, collectivization and others. I personally think that the creative team also wants to point out the possible political and mental overlaps into today’s presence. They draw attention to the unfair practises by their theatrical work, through which they were able to erase something that was undesirable – as a scene using a shredder or the act of cremation and dumping the remains. 

The creators (Igor Dostálek, Veronika Volejníková) decided to turn the novel “Let Everything Reach its Place“ by Sylvia Richterová into a drama script. Although the play is 180 minutes long, which is a relatively long time to maintain concentration even for an adult, it did not exhaust me,  because all the individual components of the theater complement created an excellent theatrical language by which they spoke to the audience – openly and naturally. Perhaps the most interesting element for me is the scenography – shadow play, the process of recycling scenic elements in the space, dominant light design and accurate, pure costume realization.

The production of  the play “Hády – Touching the Past” is, in my opinion, not only thematically, visually and acoustically consistent and fascinating, but especially impressive in terms of acting and movement.

Dominika Horváthová (VŠMU)