MEDIATHEK

THREE STRONG MEN ON THE ROAD A fairy-tale comedy about the fact that strength isn’t everything, and how it helps if we all pull together. A production for the whole family, with a libretto by Vít Peřina, who has already worked with the theatre on several other successful projects (James Blond, Otesánek). He gained the City of Pilsen Award for Three Strong Men at this year’s Skupa’s Pilsen festival. The story features the well-known archetype of the three brothers who go out into the world to seek their fortune. Here, however, they have to be pushed into taking such a step by their mother, who has thus far run such a “Mama Hotel” – washing, cleaning and cooking for them – that they have not even wanted to change anything in their lives.

// CREDITS //

DIRECTION: Tomáš Dvořák
SET DESIGN: Ivan Nesveda
DRAMATURGY: Petra Kosová
MUSIC: Petr Vydarený
CAST: Martin Bartůšek, Petr Borovský, Milena Hartmanová, Jakub Hora, Josef Jelínek, Robert Kroupar, Radka Mašková, Marie Mrázková, Petr Vydarený

Premiere May 22nd, 2017

// AUTHOR //

TOMÁŠ DVOŘÁK (1956) A permanent director at Pilsen’s Alfa Theatre, who comes from a puppeteer family (his father was one of the founders of Divadlo DRAK in Hradec Králové) and the history of modern Czech puppet theatre is in part the history of his successful productions, which he has directed not only at his home theatre but in The Naive Theatre Liberec. Those that have graced the THEATRE festival in past years include The Headless Knight, Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, Alina, The Handsome Fire Chief and Swan Lake from the Liberec theatre, plus Goodness Gracious, It’s The Dogheads, The Three Musketeers and James Blond from Alfa.

ALFA THEATRE The Alfa Theatre’s direct forerunner, the CHILDREN’S THEATRE, opened in 1966 in Alfa located on Americká street. In 1992 it moved to a modern building at Rokycanská 7, and changed to its current title. It is maintained by the City of Pilsen. The theatre addresses a broad audience – from preschool children up to adults – offering all of them an alternative to the dominant media culture. The theatre has undertaken over 100 foreign tours, this year taking one of its most successful productions, The Three Musketeers, directed by Tomáš Dvořák, to Saudi Arabia and Japan. The theatre is also the joint organiser of the SKUPA’S PILSEN festival, a biennial of puppet theatre.

// PRESS //

There are three strong men behind the guitars, Petr Borovský, Martin Bartůšek and Josef Jelínek, who also act as the puppeteers and voices of the three brothers, presenting them in several “drama” styles. Music is also provided by those in the other roles, Robert Kroupar and Petr Vydarený, and the frolicsome female trio Milena Hartmanová, Radka Mašková and Marie Marková, who bring a feminine element to this mercilessly motorway-oriented tale and complementing the blokeishness with some impishness. How does the story go? The mother tells the three strong brothers that it is time they went out into the world to look for brides. As well as some dumb-bells, their late father left them some motorbikes locked up in the woodshed. The boys divide them up in a way that is not entirely fair – more along the lines of “might is right” – so that in Ivan Nesveda’s artistic stylisation each youth has clothes of the same colour as his bike. So we have a yellow, blue and a red biker.

– Jan Kerbr, Loutkář

^[efr]

Powered by Froala Editor