MEDIATHEK

Puppets have got Talent - A talent contest as performed by puppets. František, a somewhat unsuccessful magician, is approached one day by a mysterious manager who offers him a representation contract – and above all success and fame. However, the condition is that he has to win the Supertalent contest. Will František manage to get through all the rounds and make it to the final? Will he win? And if he does, will it have been worth it? A purely illusive puppet comedy that, in the form of parody, looks at the current boom in talent contests and reality shows.

About the director of the play "Puppets have got Talent": Tomáš Dvořák (1956) – After studying at DAMU theatre school he started to work at Alfa Theatre in Pilsen in 1979, where, with the exception of a year spent at the Naïve Theatre from 1989 to 1990, he still works. Productions he has directed include The Wake in Hudlice and Prague, Goodness Gracious, It’s The Dogheads and Love Saves All. Together with artist Ivan Nesveda he draws on the legacy of traditional puppet theatre, something that is particularly noticeable in their productions of plays by Iva Peřinová at the Naïve Theatre in Liberec: The Headless Knight, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Alína or Petřín in Another Part of the World, The Beautiful Fireman or Fire in the National Theatre and Swan Lake.

Reviews:
This production from Liberec is the work of a brilliantly – coordinated team, in the best sense of the word. A team in which Tomáš Dvořák tirelessly perfects, develops and hones Vít Peřina’s ideas. A team in which Marek Zákostelecký has given the puppets an expressive form that joins the terse shorthand of caricature with the dynamics of the comic strip. A team, in which six actors and actresses (Diana Čičmanová, Michaela Homolová, Tomáš Bělohlávek, Filip Homola, Adam Kubišta and Marek Sýkora) share eighteen characters, countless props and stage effects and set changes. The demanding puppet animation sees the younger members of the company providing excellent support to their older colleagues. The voices that the cast give to Peřina’s heroes have a common denominator with the whole production: nimble playfulness and ferocious hyperbole.

Z. A. Tichý, Loutkář


Peřina’s text is full of brilliant exaggerations and wordplay. It is a brutal parody of the increasing absurdity of television contests. Dvořák’s direction smoothly alternates between stage and film techniques. The characteristic attributes of the puppets imbue the protagonists with the right amount of ‘psychological’ depth.

Jan Kerbr: Czech Theatre

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