MEDIATHEK

The Golden Sixties, or the Diary of Pavel J. - A theatre adaptation of the diaries of Pavel Juráček, director, screenwriter, Charter 77 signatory and key figure in the Czech film of the 1960s. His diary entries capture the rise and fall of a talented artist in conflict with the social and cultural circumstances of the period and his own bohemian nature. The diary offers not just an unusually intimate insight into Juráček's personality and his way of looking at the world and at the people around him, but also into the atmosphere of the "golden age of Czech cinematography", as viewed from within by one of those involved in the New Wave. In his deary, Pavel Juráček left a work of supreme literary quality and hypnotic expressiveness, an open document looking at both the lofty heights and the demons of artistic creation. The book was declared Book of the Year 2004 in a survey by the newpaper Lidové noviny, and won the Litera 2004 award for achievement in publishing. The production won the Alfréd Radok Award in 2013.

Reviews:
Quotes from the diaries mingle with stage pictures that are in part an exaggerated illustration of what is being said, and in part complement and develop what is said. Juráček's harrowing testimonies add up to create material that is one of the strongest things to have appeared in post-war literature, and "The Golden Sixties" offers theatre that is, without exaggeration, brilliant. The result is a depressing look at the dark side of a much-loved period and of one undoubted success, a play in which words and theatre pictures combine to strenghthen each other. This is Mikulášek's best production ever.
(by Vladimír Mikulka, Svět a divadlo)

The staff of Divadelní noviny labelled the production Success of the Month: Jan Mikulášek and Dora Viceníková have highlighted the personal level of entries, and thus at the forefront of the production we find the (general) human struggle with anxiety and imperfection, and not the events of the period. The historical background of the none-too-happy 1960s, when a golden era of film was created, the Czechoslavak New Wave does not pass unnoticed, however. It shines out of the fragmentary testimonies anf from the film projections that evoke the period. Disillusions, depression, discreditation - every scene shouts, but in every scene the production pays homage to artistic creation, film, unconventionality and, last but not least, Pavel Juráček.

A dramaturgically original picture, highly evocative in its direction, art design and acting, of one human fate and one decade.
(by Luboš Mareček, Svět a divadlo)

Mikulášek, together with art director Marek Cpin, once again paints beautiful pictures. The very idea of making the set a faded, almost abondoned bourgeois flat with charecteristic gilded walls that have long stopped shining, is ingenious.
(by Vojtěch Varyš, Týden)

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http://www.festivaldivadlo.cz/en/predstaveni/157/ and 22nd International Festival Theatre Pilsen Booklet (printed edition)