*2.1.1971
After finishing a high
school in Ostrava he graduated from the Drama Faculty of Janáček
Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno as director. Between 1993 and
1998 he worked as director, member of the joint board of administrators
and later as the artistic director of HaDivadlo in Brno. At the same
time, in 1994 - 1998, he was Arnošt Goldflam's assistant at his
department of directing at JAMU. Since 2002 he is the artistic director
of Komedie Theatre in Prague.
In 1989 he started
to work with Brno Surrealist Circle A. I. V, from mid-1990s he took
membership in the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists. He published
his texts in Analogon and Intervence magazines, but also in Literární
Noviny and Salon Práva literary periodicals. He also worked as an
artist and exhibited at the Group of Czech and Slovak Surrealists
exhibitions. From 1998 on he takes part on the Analogon Nights cycle
(13 to date); from these, he produced a four-part series for the Czech
TV. In August 2004, his first feature film Vaterland - A Hunting Diary
opened, based on Jařab's own screenplay.
Since
his Brno years, he writes and directs his own plays and dramatizations,
currently showing at the Komedie Theatre in Prague. These include
Nosferatu, Parsifal, Three Golden Hairs of the Wise Old Man, Prince
Sternenhoch's Sufferings. He also directs other, mostly German-speaking
playwrights such as R.W.Fassbinder - Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant,
Elfriede Jelinek - Klara S. Recently, his writing-directing activities
culminated in a series of plays loosely connected to specific
localities in Prague (Vodičkova - Lazarská, Žižkov, Charles Square).
They are stark scenarios full of mysterious atmosphere that results
from unvoiced relationships between characters.
The
production of Vodičkova - Lazarská has been selected for the
prestigious Wiesbaden festival Neue Stücke aus Europa (June 2008).
LIST OF PLAYS (selection):
/ Jeux d´Enfants aneb Paříž XIII, Jeux d´Enfants, or Paris XIII, 1995, premiére 22.4.1995, HaDivadlo Brno
/ Klimeš (with Luboš Balák), 1997, premiére 16.5.1997, CED Brno
/ Ostrostřelci (monodrama), Sharpshooters, premiére 24.9.2003, Pražské komorní divadlo
/ Nosferatu, premiére 2.11.2007, Pražské komorní divadlo
/ Parsifal, premiére 29.4.2005, Pražské komorní divadlo
/ Tři zlaté vlasy děda Vševěda, Three Golden Hairs of the Wise Old Man, premiére 10.2.2007, Pražské komorní divadlo
/
Utrpení knížete Sternenhocha, Prince Sternenhoch's Sufferings (after
Ladislav Klíma), premiére 20.4.2007, Pražské komorní divadlo
/ Vodičkova - Lazarská, 2005, premiére 1.12.2005, Pražské komorní divadlo
/ Žižkov, 2006, 19.10.2006, Pražské komorní divadlo
/ Karlovo náměstí, Charles Square, 2007, premiére 7.3.2008, Pražské komorní divadlo
TRANSLATED PLAYS:
Vodičkova - Lazarská German - Die Kreuzung
VODIČKOVA - LAZARSKÁ
5 characters (4 men, 1 women)
A
main street in the heart of Prague where shoppers go shopping, where
young lads go to drink, foreigners to show off, everybody to change
tramways during the night, and the failures to fail. But people do live
in this dusty and noisy "shop window" and events of almost mythical
dimension can happen here. Crowd pushes a nosy companion from a local
bistro under the tram. That means saving an absent-minded prostitute
from death - whether by chance or intentionally is not clear.
The
text is a result of interaction with the author's production inspired
by a found text, passages and thoroughfares, but also by a video
recording, photographs and soundtrack made with a mobile phone. The
project is both a borderline documentary and a parable about vistas
into different spaces and about defending basic human dignity.
David
Jařab's scenario is a playful inter-textual game. The documentary line
is mixed up with an apocryphal one: a model for one of the characters
is Jesus Christ (number 5 in the text). The man keeps appearing and
disappearing unexpectedly, changes beer into water, people talk about
miracles in connection to him.
Kateřina Rathouská, Mystérium Lazarské a Vodičkovy, Divadelní noviny, 10. 1. 2006
The
opening, seemingly nonsensical lines signal immediately this won't be
traditional storytelling. Instead, the audience is offered an
opportunity to join, step by step, text and scenic clues into a jigsaw
puzzle linking a tabloid story to a meeting with an extraordinary
being. (...) Jařab's successful parable offers a new perspective of
everyday situations, it discovers the atmosphere of a place that he
knows only too well and that he discovers and resurrects for the
others. This perspective is neither obvious nor superficial, the
excellent script gives it depth and also - thanks to imaginative set
and natural acting - incredible lightness. The artistry of Jařab's
expression is mainly in its form, in a theatrical language that offers
comparison between this admirer of Surrealism and the film guru of the
same artistic orientation - Jan Švankmajer. With his project Vodičkova
- Lazarská Jařab proves he's able to tell a story as well and as
riveting as the filmmaker.
Tereza Vinická, Zázračné vzkříšení Lazara Vodičky, Lidové noviny, 7. 12. 2005
ŽIŽKOV
6 men, 5 women
A
play about love, crime and the fact that you better look after your
womenfolk when a stranger appears or it all could come to a bad end.
Another
instalment of a free "topography" cycle moves from central Prague of
Vodičkova St - Lazarská St to another specific locale, that of a
traditionally worker district of Žižkov in Prague. It concentrates on a
group of local young people living in the deadly drabness of a big
city. The place is dominated by jealousy and gossip, with some love and
friendship thrown into the mixture. The stasis of these relationships
is disturbed by the arrival of a Stranger: he is an exile returning to
his birthplace. His appearance immediately upsets existing ordered
relationships: the women suddenly come to life again; the men are
trying to plot to take advantage of the "foreigner". The stranger is
interesting, provocative and charming - but he also holds a mirror to
people's own lives. In the end he disappears, and it is not clear
whether he was killed for his money, or just left the place.
Žižkov
has not been written with only Prague in mind - it could be set in the
suburbs of any other city (possibly with the change of the play's
title), as boring drabness of human relationships can be found anywhere
in Europe.
SELECTED REVIEWS:
While
Vodičkova-Lazarská is a text based on the playwright's lyric and poetic
confession, in Žižkov the dramatist uses a form that is more prosaic
and accessible, and also closer to the theatre of classical drama.
Tereza Vinická, Scénické kouzlo Žižkaperku, Lidové noviny 25.10.2006
A
remarkable shift of David Jařab's theatrical poetics from almost
Surrealist "strangeness" that was the hallmark of his initial
productions at the Komedie Theatre, to authenticity and suffocating
realism, reminds me of the similar shift in the Czech art in 1940s. One
can only wish it would be still as enlivening and fruitful.
Bronislav Pražan, Nová původní hra o naší bídě, Týdeník Rozhlas, 20.11.2006
Bram Stoker - David Jařab
NOSFERATU
5 men, 3 women
Dramatisation
It
is curious that the post-gothic, bloodthirsty novel of Dracula, one of
the most famous among the Twentieth Century myths, has lately become so
popular. Although this dramatisation follows the basic storyline, it
stresses the plot's relation to the fate of individual and today's
society inviting deeper interpretations. The play can be seen as a
probe into the darker sides of human psyche and into darker tiers of
contemporary Western society. From the play's perspective, Dracula
represents the Evil that could be interpreted, for instance, as
personification of terrorism - the danger that is invisible yet
potentially ubiquitous.
Count Dracula, stylised
into a distinguished, elegant gentleman, does not look threatening at
first. His castle is visited by Harker, a decadent youth hampered by
prejudice. Dracula only has to wake up the latent evil in his
subconscious: on his return to London, Harker infects with the same
evil his wife Mina by transferring onto her his own nightmares. After
coming to a visit to Dracula, Mina completely submits to him. The
"Exorcist" Van Helsing becomes Dracula's main opponent, but he is
unable to destroy the Count who represents the general evil. Dr Seward
is also attempting to bring some order into the dark and grimly dreamy
atmosphere of the play as he is trying to cure Mina from her
nightmares. Dracula is being helped by the double-edged character of
Lilith, a personification of sexual perversion and sadistic Evil,
sucking out strength out of Harker.
The play is a
parable using both motives of the classic Bram Stoker story and the
atmosphere typical for decadent writing of the late 19th Century. The
lines uttered by the characters are stark and frosty while opening
opportunities for stage interpretation.
In
Nosferatu, David Jařab takes another route: Dracula for him is a
phantom of a soul, evil, irrational and eating away human society from
the inside through fear. It does not surprise that the script doesn't
mention the word "vampire" once and that no blood is being sucked. On
the other hand, one possible interpretation is quite explicitly
offered: terrorists may be this kind of vampires in today's world: in
the projection on side panels we see the loop of pig slaughtering
fading into takes of people getting onto a bus. Meanwhile, Dracula's
helper Mr Renfield puts down a lonely suitcase...
Kateřina Kolářová, Bezkrevní upíři, Reflex, 22.11.2007
The
viewer finds himself almost beyond the gates of rational perception and
has to decide for himself: is this an impromptu play using pulp
literature to achieve a kind of spiritualist seance and taken to formal
perfection, or can we see in it a serious attempt at entering the
subconscious. It's not by chance Jařab belongs to the Czech surrealist
community.
Vladimír Hulec, Reflex - Ex, 22. 11. 2007