Piškanderdulá. Joseph!
Věra Říčařová and František Vítek
 
theatre  

František Vítek, the oldest performer at the Archa Theatre, recently celebrated his 90th birthday. The winners of the Lifetime Award for Achievement in Puppetry will present their performance – a legend of world puppet theatre. A children's play that became an avant-garde theatre production. A tradition that is also a 30-year theatre experiment. "If John Cage were a puppeteer, this is what he would do," said one spectator after a performance in New York.



Wooden puppets are undressed, their mechanism is exposed. Vera Říčařová masterfully plays with them. Once she corrects their gestures to the finest detail, sometimes she lets the puppets cruelly fall so that the wood sounded like a musical instrument. Piškanderdulá is a quest to uncover the essence of the art of puppetry. The individual scenes are accompanied by old music machines and gramophones. Under a layer of their creaking noise we recognize the original melody ...