MEDIATHEK

Hearing – The production won three Theatre Critics’ Awards (production, text, best actor) in 2015. The play forms part of a loose historical cycle by dramaturg and dramatist Tomáš Vůjtek, the first being the play With and Without Hope and the next Conciliation, which will be premiered in the Arena next season. The main character in Hearing is the former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, a bureaucratic perfectionist who devoted his abilities to the “final solution to the Jewish question.” In Hearing Eichmann tries to defend himself and asks for a hearing in front of God – who does not seem to be coming. The career of a Nazi criminal who wants to tell God himself his own version of events is confronted with the fates of the Jews who were taken in 1939 to the camp at Nisko on the San, the destination of Eichmann’s first transports. The very first transport left Moravská Ostrava on 18 October 1939. As in the play With and Without Hope, Vůjtek uses black humour to reflect on this Nazi career, coming from the fact that the figures talk about their fates using an authentic lexicon that is in dramatic, and often sarcastically heightened, contrast with the terrible reality of the historical events. The author himself says: “I cannot imagine my writing without humour; these great themes, in particular, require it. Otherwise there is a threat that the testimony will slide into sentimental pathos. We can be moved by the suffering of the victims, but I believe it is more beneficial if we can manage to make fun of the evil that caused it. We may not save our world in doing so, but at least we will get to know it better. This cognitive function of humour I find essential.”



// Credits //

Direction Ivan Krejčí
Dramaturgy Tomáš Vůjtek
Set Milan David
Costumes Marta Roszkopfová
Music Nikos Engonidis

Cast:
Eichmann / Marek Cisovský
Vlastička / Alena Sasínová-Polarczyk
First colleague - Petr Panzenberger
Second colleague - Šimon Krupa
Rabbi - Vladislav Georgiev
Lady - Tereza Cisovská
Husband Ondřej Malý j.h.
Hans Frank / Albert Čuba
The Invincible - Josef Kaluža
Father Pavel Cisovský j.h.

Premiere February 28th, 2015



// Press //

The way – consecutive, inconspicuous, step by step, always “on the decision of others” – in which Eichmann’s original “good intention” changes into the most terrible industrial-scale evil in history, of which he is de facto the executive director, this entire “depersonalized” mechanistic process of the transformation of good into evil, is portrayed by both the actor and the production in truly devastating fashion.
Vladimír Just, Divadelní noviny

KS Aréna is continuing with productions that feature themes which are apparently historical, but nevertheless contemporary and appellative. In this case he is asking, among other things, about the identity of Europe: do we represent education and faith, or barbarism?
Jiří Štefanides, from the Divadelní noviny survey Production of the Year.

In addition to Tomáš Vůjtek’s perfectly composed script, which makes use of historical sources to create a shocking fictitious portrait of the personality of Adolf Eichmann, the production is made more compelling as a result of Ivan Krejčí’s focused direction and the unbelievably concentrated and elaborate performace by Marek Cisovský.
Taťána Lazorčáková, from the Divadelní noviny survey Production of the Year

Devastating in content, getting right to the bottom of the theme, this is an almost ascetically precise production about Adolf Eichmann, on the outside a decent man who never admitted his mistake, his crimes… Carefully written, precisely directed, with a strong accent on irony and perpective. Brilliant acting from all, with the excellent Marek Cisovský in the main role.
Success of the month according to Divadelní noviny


// Author //

Ivan Krejčí (1966) – Ivan Krejčí graduated in direction from DAMU, and in 1999-2001 was the artistic head of the City Theatre in Karlovy Vary. Since the 2005/2006 season he has led the Ostrava company Komorní scéna Aréna, declared the Theatre of the Year in the 2013 Alfréd Radok Awards, going on to win the same award in the 2015 Theatre Critics’ Awards. Since 2009 Ivan Krejčí has been a member of the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting, in 2014 becomings its chairman.



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