MEDIATHEK

The earth is flat, Finland does not exist. The truth is not essential. Five actors move in unclear contours, indefinite relationships, at times the characters are lost. Perhaps they are seeking a home, perhaps they are seeking some kind of certainties, but we never find out. Gradually we find ourselves with them in a café, in a bus, but also in an indefinite curtain of smoke. Suffering from plenty is also accentuated. The actors’ actions are lost in the dark and the senselessness, but the sense is nevertheless possible to discern in what goes on stage. The word explains nothing.

// CREDITS //

DIRECTION: Blaho Uhlár
SET DESIGN: Miriam Struhárová
MUSIC SELECTION: Lenka Libjaková a Blaho Uhlár
CAST: Michaela Halcinová, Lenka Libjaková, Braňo Mosný, Tomáš Pokorný, Peter Tilajčík 

Premiere December 17th, 2017

// AUTHOR //

BLAHO UHLÁR (1951) sees creation as self-expression and provocation. He tends to be characterised as a non-conformist artist. In recent years he has inspired, and drawn inspiration from, the very newest generation of Slovak theatre artists, as can be seen in the production Postfaktótum. He studied direction at VŠMU in Bratislava, and from 1974 worked at the DPDM (Children and Youth Theatre) in Trnava. In 1991, together with the visual artist Miloš Karásek he founded the Stoka Theatre, an alternative space that now no longer exists. Despite protests and petitions, in 2006 it was pushed out by city construction.

STOKA THEATRE was founded in 1991 by Blaho Uhlár and Miloš Karásek, and is among the legends of Slovak alternative theatre. The theatre was situated in Pribinova street in Bratislava, and to deal with its financial problems in 1997 it opened a “pub” that helped to finance the theatre. Stoka became a multicultural space that hosted other theatres, concerts, authors’ readings, exhibitions and other cultural activities. It had to leave the site, against its will, in 2006. Stoka has taken part in the THEATRE festival several times with its non-conformist productions. It is now a civic association, connected with the artistic activities of its founder Blaho Uhlár. Its most recent productions indicate that – hopefully – the theatre is “rising from the ashes”.

// PRESS //

During our studies at VŠMU we learned that what we read today is postmodern, and in the theatre we often see productions of post-dramatic works. Have you also heard of post-factualism? What does this new stage in the development of humanity bring us? We believe the title of Postfaktótum partly refers to this new phenomenon, often reported on in the media – the postfactual period. This way of labelling the period in which we live is most often connected with populist politics of the kind practised by Donald Trump and his ilk. A closer specification of the post-factual epoch indicates that rather than facts, people believe empty promises. As far as the Stoka Theatre is concerned, it can be assumed that the absence of facts has long been one of the predominant characteristics of their plays. The world seems to be unexplainable, people at a loss, governed more by their emotions than by reason. Since the titles of Stoka’s productions are a rebus in themselves, we may only speculate what Postfaktótum is about, or to let ourselves be carried away by our own subjective impressions of the production.

– Lucia Galdíková, MLOKi.sk

It would almost be an insult to talk about a continuous plot line in connection with Stoka. The text is concentrated into episodes, and not in all of them does it have a dominant position. The audience “reads” it intuitively, and has to concentrate on the verbal level, while at the same time carefully following the gestures and movements of the actors, perceiving the atmosphere of the lighting and music, and the overall structure of the theatre form. The audience must also use personal experience and intellect in interpreting and decoding the significance. The form of the production does not make it easy. The various scenes are divided or connected in a way that is reminiscent of film editing – either with a “sharp” point, or by one situation mingling into another. The similarity to film approaches is also clear from the way in which the pictures are ordered – they follow on from each other with a jump, as if they were trying to achieve a parallel “narration” and at the same time they find themselves connected to the previous and following scenes in a specific montage of associations.

– Viera Bartková, monitoringdivadel.sk

Stoka is undoubtedly one of the legends of Slovak theatre, connected from the very beginning with Blaho Uhlár. The production Postfaktótum presents – in a highly favourable light – Michaela Halcinová, Lenka Libjaková, Braňo Mosný, Tomáš Pokorný and Peter Tilajčík. I list all five names because we were able to see them in further productions at New Drama 2018, and they showed a notable degree of stage concentration, individuality and something that in the Czech lands is characterised as going “beyond the footlights.” It is true that in Uhlár’s production, a sequence of bizarre, “existential” anecdotes, the protagonists were at their most convincing and best. With cruel humour, Postfaktótum demasks the social artifice, indifference and vulgarity of the period in which we live.

– Jan Kerbr, Kod – konkrétne o divadle

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