MEDIATHEK

Weissenstein - Weissenstein, a dramatisation of Johannes Urzidil’s short story of the same name, is the tale of a man who is unable to decide between two women, and indirectly causes their death. Director David Jařab has emphasised the expressive and grotesque elements of Weissenstein’s indecisiveness, his pitiful outsiderness and poorly-developed sense of self. In grotesque shorthand, full of subtle absurdities and gags, purely theatrical means are used to demonstrate the psyche of a man who was born "without the courage to be himself." With this stylistically-pure production, Divadlo Komedie once again shows that it is the rightful bearer of an Alfréd Radok award for Theatre of the Year.


Reviews:
"Weissenstein – A dramatisation of a short story by the Prague German-language writer Johannes Urzidil. Karl Weissenstein is a man with a large head, a small amount of self-confidence, great feelings of guilt, little ability to accept happiness, a great tendency to run into bad luck and little will to live. His life might have been quite nice if it had not been one long holding pattern, not even ending with death.

David Jařab puts three Weissensteins on stage (Jiří Černý, Martin Finger, Stanislav Majer). Three totally different variations on one ego. This is an exceptionally fortunate idea; the way in which the actors hand over to each other both in speech and actions, the way in which they comment on each other and fight each other, is an excellent and grotesque method, full of discreet absurdities and gags, of demonstrating, using purely theatrical means, the psychology of a man born “without the confidence to be himself.” Another brilliant idea is the apparently independent singing of Lenka Dusilová: she, too, is a commentator on the action, she too is a functional part of one of the most stylistically-pure productions of recent years."
(by Vladimír Just, Lidové noviny)


"Jařab, the author of the dramatisation and its director, has managed to develop on stage a remarkable, darkly grotesque and compact piece with brilliant formal ideas."
(by Roman Sikora, Deník Referendum)


"With this production, David Jařab has achieved a theatrically-convincing stage form that is close to him. In the context of the Komedie Theatre it is a further milestone on the distinctive, intellectually demanding and attractive theatrical path embarked upon seven years ago."
(by Vladimír Hulec, MF DNES)


"David Jařab has stripped Urzidil’s short story down to its essential skeleton, with some of its speeches. Those familiar with the hundred-page story must take their hats off to the skilful way in which Jařab has managed to cut away all the “literariness,” so that each word used is functionally-engaged in the theatrical form."
(by Josef Chuchma, MF DNES)

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