The destiny of real-life homeless people who used to live on the Ostrava slag dumps during the 1930s economic crisis has been recreated onstage. The production at the Arena Theatre tells their story including their decision to declare the dumps territory as an independent state, to proclaim their own legislative and to let themselves be governed by the laws they proclaimed. These homeless people called themselves Brenpartija [Burning Party].
They continued to live on the heap that radiated heat despite many bans by both authorities and steelworks management, establishing a community around drinking great quantities of methylated spirits. Their life is object of many legends and many newspaper reports including one about the homeless from Ostrava slag dumps sending a diplomatic note to the well known shoe producing magnate Thomas Baťa asking him to stop flights of his airplanes over their free territory of the State of Slag Dump.
Tomáš Vůjtek, the author and at the same time the dramaturge of the production, took his inspiration from A Report on the State of Slag Dump, a text by Ostrava-based writer Věnceslav Juřina who spent plenty of time looking into the stories about inhabitants of “Ostrava Carpathian Mountains” as the slag dumps were sometimes affectionately called.
There are several plays dedicated to the Ostrava’s history running currently in theatres and other venues in the city. At the Michal Pit, a production is running called after the traditional mineworkers’ greeting Zdař Bůh, the Puppet Theatre Ostrava shows a production based on the popular book A Diary of an Ostrava man [Deník Ostravaka] and Petr Bezruč Theatre has a production about the poet it’s named after – Bezruč. “People are hungry for these themes nowadays. The interest comes mostly from young people who have no prejudice whatsoever about Ostrava,” the director of Brenpartija at the Arena Theatre Janusz Klimsza told the journalists. “We are not ashamed of our city any more and we can proudly accept our roots,” Mr Vůjtek added.
The whole article with a YouTube trailer can be found at:
kul: Bezdomovci na scénu! Ostravská scéna Aréna uvede originální hru, lidovky.cz, 28.10.2009.