Read an Excerpt
Modern Czech Theatre REFLECTOR AND CONSCIENCE OF A NATION By JARKA M. BURIAN UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS Copyright © 2000 Jarka M. Burian
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-87745-722-0 Chapter One 1780-1900
Some Exposition before the Main Action
A century of heightening religious tensions and subordination to Habsburg rulers culminated with the defeat of rebellious Czech Protestant forces by Habsburg Catholic forces at the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague, in 1620. It was the first significant military encounter of the Thirty Years War. Largely because of the subsequent decimation of the Czech Protestant nobility and the persecution and emigration of other educated Czech Protestants, the Czech language, banned in public use, survived for a century and a half only among peasants, servants, and small tradespeople, chiefly in rural areas. Czech literature virtually ceased to exist except for religious writings, and theatre in the Czech language vanished except for amateur performances of religiously centered folk plays in villages and marionette performances by traveling companies.
A counterflow became evident toward the end of the eighteenth century. In retrospect named the National Revival movement, it began in the 1780s, following reforms during the reign of Habsburg emperor Joseph II, and it did not really end until the birth of a new independent nation, Czechoslovakia, in 1918. The movement had several interrelated goals: regeneration of the Czech language, reawakening of Czech cultural and national identity, and progress toward political autonomy. Czech theatre became intimately associated with all these aims and capped decades of organized effort with the opening of the National Theatre in 1881-1883.
Although the story of Czech theatre's development during the hundred years preceding the opening of the National Theatre in the 1880s is replete with significant events and individuals, one point is central: while an infrastructure of Czech cultural institutions, political organizations, and publications was slowly evolving, theatre provided a popular and powerful instrument foregrounding the legitimacy of the Czech language, often by means of idealized dramatizations of Czech history and legend. Theatre thereby reinforced the Czechs' sense of their culture and national identity and helped to justify their increasing desire for autonomy.
For decades the effort had only intermittent and partial achievements as the Czechs, with no theatre of their own, tried to find room within the dominant German theatre system, which was centered in the Count Nostitz Theatre. It had opened in 1783, and it was on its stage that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted the world premiere of his Don Giovanni. Renamed the Estates (Stavovski) Theatre in 1797, it went on to play a significant though often interrupted role in the evolution of Czech theatre. Only after many decades did the Czechs have a theatre exclusively for the production of plays in their own language, the Provisional Theatre (Prozatimnm divadlo), built in 1862. Until then, bilingual Czech actors were limited to one or two performances (usually matinees) in Czech in German theatres that gave them permission or, at best, in other bilingual theatres that the Czechs themselves started.
One of the key figures in the early period was Vaclav Tham (1765-1816), a poet, playwright, translator, and actor-director whose Bretislav and Jitka became the first Czech play to be performed in Czech by professional actors, in the German Nostitz Theatre in 1786. Tham later became the central artistic force in a bilingual company called the Patriotic Theatre (Vlastenecki divadlo), which performed in a temporary theatre structure (the Bouda) from 1786 to 1789 in what is now Wenceslaus Square and in other quarters into the 1790s. In a request for permission to establish the theatre, its founders referred to their desire "to contribute something to the improvement and spread of the Czech language."
The Patriotic Theatre was the first to stage regular performances in Czech (along with an almost equal number in German). A visit by Emperor Joseph II to one of its performances led to the theatre receiving an official royal certificate fully legitimizing its existence; this became a significant precedent for the official request (some six decades later) for permission to make plans for the National Theatre. It is estimated that Tham wrote, translated, or adapted over 150 plays to be presented in Czech, which suggests that he was responsible for about half of the works presented by the Patriotic Theatre before the turn of the century. Although in those days it was rare for a given work to be reprised more than once or twice, the sheer numbers indicate that a constantly changing repertoire was attraction enough as long as it was in Czech. Among the foreign plays presented in Czech by the Patriotic Theatre were Hamlet and King Lear, in the early 1790s. The first Czech plays of contemporary life were two farces by Prokop Sediv} (1764-ca. 1810), another of the playwright-translators for the Patriotic Theatre: Prague Brewers (Prazštm sladci) and The Meat Shops (Masni kramy) in the mid-1790s.
Tham's successor as a multitalented, enterprising producer of Czech productions was Jan Nepomuk S? te?panek (1783-1844), a playwright, actor, and director who was the leading Czech theatre person during the first third of the nineteenth century. tepanek's primary affiliation was with the Estates Theatre, where he headed the Czech branch of theatre operations for almost three decades.
The first Czech playwright with a distinctive voice and undeniable talent was Vaclav Kliment Klicpera (1792-1859), whose forte was lively, often satiric comedy that captured something essential in Czech speech and character, whereas most earlier Czech plays were essentially imitative of German and Austrian models. Several of Klicpera's plays are still revived today, such as Hadrian (1821) and Comedy on the Bridge (1829).
Countless other actors, theatre managers, and even playwrights sustained the vitality of the emerging Czech theatre culture in the first half of the nineteenth century, but Josef Kajetan Tyl (1808-1856) was the most memorable. Like many other Czech theatre people, he was a person of multiple talents and activities: writer, editor, publisher of journals championing the revival movement, and even representative to the Diet; above all, he was an actor, dramaturg, director, and prolific playwright. Working within the German cultural and political system, he was steadfastly at the forefront of the Czech cause and laid the foundations for the further evolution of Czech theatre, particularly in heading Czech theatre activity in the German establishment's Estates Theatre between 1846 and 1851.
Tyl's own historical and socially oriented plays (many of which are still revived) reflect the Romantic movement but also foreshadow later developments of Realism. At his best, he balanced his tendencies toward sentiment and idealization with his sharp perception of the weaknesses as well as the strengths of Czech character in works like The Bagpiper from Strakonice (Strakonick} dudak, 1847), The Arsonist's Daughter (Palicova dcera, 1847), and The Hard-Headed Woman (Tvrdohlava zena, 1849). An early play with music, Folk Festival (Fidlovacka), produced in 1834 at the Estates Theatre, was a colorful depiction of contemporary Prague life, but is primarily remembered for one of its songs, "Where Is My Home?" (Kde domov muj?), which eventually became the Czech national anthem. Tyl established a model for inspirational depictions of Czech history in Jan Hus (1848) and A Bloody Judgment (Krvav} soud, 1848), dealing with an uprising of Czech miners against foreign exploitation.
More than any other theatre person, Tyl not only consciously and untiringly supported the principles of the revival movement, but proposed a concept for a national theatre as early as the 1840s. Others may have spoken of a separate theatre for the Czechs, but it was Tyl who envisioned it as something far more impressive: a force of enlightenment and morality and an expression of the national spirit that would be a school for the nation. As he put it, "Elsewhere, people may wish theatre to show them as they already are, but we must want a theatre to show us as we ought to be."
Tyl's concept was taken up by a number of Czechs who were active in the complex political maneuvering for increased concessions within the Habsburg Empire. One was František Rieger, who became one of the few figures centrally involved in the campaign for a National Theatre who lived to see its completion. Rieger himself had obtained a license to launch a new Czech theatre in 1845, but the project became one of several that never got off the ground in the 1840s. In July 1850, however, Alois Trojan, a lawyer and activist who had once acted under Tyl, submitted a formal request to Habsburg authorities in Prague to form a committee to collect donated funds for the building of a National Theatre, a home for drama, opera, and ballet. The request was approved one month later. The committee, chaired by Trojan, with famed Czech historian František Palack} as president and Rieger as executive secretary, also included Tyl and Klicpera, as well as other intellectuals, artists, and political leaders.
The subsequent three decades were years of fits and starts and delays, played out in the context of confrontations and negotiations on the larger stage of Czech-Habsburg politics. Most of the 1850s were marked by repressive Habsburg measures following the revolutions of 1848; the committee had to keep a relatively low profile to avoid arousing suspicions of subversive activity. Moreover, the committee itself was divided between those who favored obtaining funds from a relatively few powerful and wealthy sources and others who urged the broadest possible appeal to all Czechs. The choice of architects and the plans for the structure were other key issues provoking clashes. Increasingly politicized, the project became tied to pressures for Czech autonomy or even full independence. The basic plan to fund the enterprise with monies collected from the people seemed inadequate, and repeated campaigns for additional funds were necessary, including penny collections and lotteries. Nevertheless, despite a host of difficulties, the project moved ahead. A full spectrum of Czech society responded, from the nobility to agricultural and industrial laborers, who were generous not only with money but with personal items of value and building materials.
Land for the eventual site, on the right bank of the Moldau (Vltava), was purchased by the committee in 1852 from the proprietress of a salt storage building on the site. Ten years later, as an offshoot of the main drive, which had stalled in the late 1850s, the Provisional Theatre was built on the previously purchased land, with the understanding that the theatre would be converted to an ancillary, nonperformance space abutting the National Theatre once the latter was built. The Provisional Theatre was the first independent, fully Czech professional theatre with a regular repertory schedule. Concurrently, bilingual operations ceased in the Estates Theatre, which became exclusively German. Two men dominated production work in the Provisional Theatre: playwright, translator, actor, and director Josef Jirm Kolar (1812-1896), an exemplar of the late Romantic era, and the great composer Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884), who was in charge of musical production.
A change of leadership in the committee in the mid-1860s placed an activist politician and editor, Karel Sladkovsk}, in the position of vice-president. Another inspirational milestone on the long journey toward the National Theatre was the laying of the foundation stone in May 1868, which prompted a huge three-day national and international Slav festival of pageantry and eloquence, regattas and fireworks, drawing tens of thousands to Prague. It was "the greatest national celebration of the Czechs until after World War I." The stone itself was quarried from Mount Rmp, a Czech site of mythic overtones from primeval times, but many other Czech cities and regions also sent symbolic stones, which are still on display in the basement of the building. Further progress, however, was stalled in the early 1870s by political tensions between the Czechs and Habsburgs, who were having major international problems and conflicts with the Hungarians, Prussians, and Italians. A more immediate crisis within the committee reflected the conflict between the Old Czech and the Young Czech political movements. The former were conservatives like Palack} and Rieger, patiently working toward Czech autonomy within a Habsburg Federation, whereas the latter, more radical group (led by Karel Sladkovsk}) urged complete independence.
The National Theatre project in Prague was not the only one seeking a theatre solely for Czech productions. Other cities, whose theatre activities were also subject to the German establishment and its theatres, had a similar objective, though not on as grand a scale or with such lofty intentions. Pilsen, indeed, achieved its goal shortly after the opening of Prague's Provisional Theatre when negotiations with German authorities led to the turning over of the Municipal Theatre for strictly Czech productions during the regular season, beginning in late 1865. Actually, some fifty productions had been done there each year since 1861, along with a greater number of German productions. An extraordinarily enterprising actor and director who had formed his first company in the early 1850s, Pavel vanda (1825-1891), headed the new operation, also serving as actor, dramaturg, and director. He had the good fortune of having a young associate who was perhaps even more talented than he was as an actor and director-Josef maha (1848-1915). Between 1863 and 1889 vanda produced dozens of plays, not only in Pilsen but also in temporary summer theatres in Prague. In the fall of 1881 he built a theatre in the Smmchov district, the second permanent Czech theatre in Prague after the Provisional Theatre. What is particularly impressive is that among the many routine crowd-pleasers and moderately good Czech plays in the repertoire in the 1880s were classics by William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Nikolay Gogol and some strikingly "advanced" works of critical realism and even naturalism by Emile Zola and Henrik Ibsen. Many of these challenging productions were directed by maha before his departure to the National Theatre in 1883. vanda continued operations, however, not only during the summers in Prague but also during the longer winter seasons in Brno, where in 1886 he became head of drama of the Czech theatre that had begun producing in 1884 in its own Provisional Theatre. Earlier efforts toward establishing a home for professional Czech theatre in Brno had run into much harsher resistance from the German authorities than in Prague or Pilsen. One of vanda's coups in Brno was the first Czech production of Ibsen's Doll's House, in 1887, and the first Czech production of any Anton Chekhov play, The Bear, in 1892. For some four years in the 1880s vanda benefited from having Eduard Vojan (1853-1920) and Hana Kvapilova (1860-1907) in his company, two actors who were later to reach the pinnacle of their profession in the National Theatre.
Meanwhile, in Prague, the grand opening of the National Theatre on June 11, 1881, attended by Habsburg crown prince Rudolf and his new bride, provided the climax of more than thirty years of organized, disputatious, and interrupted effort. Smetana's opera Libuše had the honor of being the opening production. The costs of constructing the National Theatre had exceeded estimates by 400 percent; three more major fund drives had to be undertaken; Tyl, Klicpera, Palack}, and Sladkovsk} had died; but the dream of a National Theatre in a full symbolic spirit and with official status became a reality, as did Tyl's concept of a theatre of and for the people. Although major contributions came from the wealthy bourgeoisie and even nobility, as well as organizations, substantial portions of the funding came from the individual contributions of ordinary Czechs. The inscription emblazoned above the proscenium was fact, not hyperbole: Narod Sobe (The Nation['s Gift] to Itself).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Modern Czech Theatre by JARKA M. BURIAN Copyright © 2000 by Jarka M. Burian. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
