Křivánek Rostislav

Rostislav Křivánek graduated from the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) in the field of theatre organisation and management. He worked as manager for the DISK student theatre as well as a freelance dramatist and actor. He currently works as creative director for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency.
After early dramatic endeavours he devoted himself to poetry - and lyrics. He began working with composer Vladimír Franz while he was at the DISK theatre. Their collaboration resulted in texts for individual songs but most importantly in four oratorios - Ludus Danielis, Herodes, Templum and Pašije ("Passion Play"). Recently, their cooperation has culminated in two large-scale works - Franz's ballet Zlatovláska ("Goldilocks"), which Křivánek wrote song lyrics for and, in particular, Válka s mloky ("The War with the Newts"), for which he wrote a libretto based on the themes of Karel Čapek's novel (still unproduced).
His original dramas Masopust ("Carnival"), Rút ("Ruth") and Júdit (Judith) were also staged with Franz´s music. The last of these scripts was a finalist for the Alfréd Radok prize in 1998. His most recent dramatic work is a play for children - Stvoření světa ("The Creation of the World). He also directs and is working on several prose works and a film script at present.

 

 

 

LIST OF PLAYS (selection):

/ Masopust (Carnival), 1984

/ Pozdvižení ve zdviži aneb Bedekr "Kabaretní sajencfikčn" (Bedekr or Pandemonium in an Elevator), 1989, première 29.3.1989, Divadlo Bedekr

/ Júdit (Judith), 1999, première 8.5.1999 Městské divadlo Zlín

/ Rút (Ruth), 2000, première 28.4.2000, Západočeské divadlo Cheb

/ Stvoření světa (The Creation of the World), 2004, première 19.9.2004 Západočeské divadlo Cheb

 

 

JÚDIT (JUDITH)

10 men, 8 women

 

Judith is the first part of the intended free trilogy of plays based on the Old Testament. The author sees in the Old Testament first of all a luxury supermarket for stories - he concentrates on the fate of great female heroes from both the codified version of the Bible and from the Apocrypha. Judith is a tragedy inspired by an ancient drama. Music, written by Vladimír Franz, more than supplements its text; it is an integral part and major building stone of the play itself.

The well-known elements of the story of a legendary woman who saves a city through her action are coming alive in flashbacks. The action of the play itself has been moved to a later period of time and tries to find answers to what happened to the woman, so celebrated by the crowd, upon her return to the city. The playwright finds Judith in a mountain hut where she found refuge from the aggressiveness of fame and power, and primarily from herself. Judith has been living here for years. The pressure of loneliness created another full-blooded human being: the young Judith, the protagonist's alter ego materialised. The debates of the two incarnations of Judith, their wandering in a circle of lost memories, doubting and defending their past actions gradually becomes a nervous co-existence of the old and the young age. The arrival of a young man from a town nearby ruins the life of the old woman and forces her to go back to her own future she was trying so hard to avoid. The town makes her pass through both favour and hatred, grinds her down between the millstones of interests, influences and intentions, makes her take a stand, and then destroys irrevocably the woman it used.

 

SELECTED REVIEWS:

 

The title relates to the Old Testament story of a Jewish seducer, nevertheless looking for its relevance today. In the production, there is equally strong role for dialogues and for powerful music by Vladimír Franz. The result is a kind of stage oratorium, aiming (under Věra Herajtová's direction almost at melodrama.

 

Luboš Mareček, Velká slova, mocná hudba, MFD, 1.6.1999

 

The authors dedicated their play to the Zlín actress Helena Čermáková (...) who, through her acting as Judith, indirectly asks for another nomination...

 

Tomáš Stanislavčík, Ve Zlíně měla premiéru hra Júdit, Lidové noviny, 14.5.1999

 

 

RÚT (RUTH)

5 men, 4 women, extras

 

Ruth is the second part of a free trilogy of plays by Rostislav Křivánek drawing on the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. If the preceding Judith was more of an oratorio for actors, a drama with the dimensions of a Classical tragedy, Ruth turns rather to the end of the 19th century for its formal inspiration, a time when a strong drama of the realistic school (a "village drama") was developing in the Czech lands.

The idyllic Biblical pastoral turns into a story of the rejection of a foreigner who with her mother-in-law returns to the home village of her deceased husband. A temperamental being from the steppe, Ruth, a woman different in everything, out of the common run in every way, a beautiful young woman whose coming turns the life in Lechem upside down, who at the same time is trying with all her might to adapt. First of all in language - she speaks the tongue of the villagers, even though it is broken and clumsy. She surrenders to the customs of the country from love and simple devotion to her mother-in-law Naomi, and is willing to make any sort of concession and sacrifice. The fact that considerable property is returned to Naomi interferes with her "enemy" origin and provoking "otherness" - property up to now divided between three influential men - and Ruth, as a young widow, becomes the key to that property. In spite of the fact that Ruth marries Boaz and bears him a son Obed, she goes on being hounded and resentment against her grows. Her defiance is quiet, proud and individual, but in vain. The only escape are meetings with young Jacob. The relationship which develops between them is far more enthralment and the possibility of revealing hidden pain than love. That eventually shows itself in the concluding crisis when Ruth remains alone, surrounded by resentment and condemnation.

With music by Vladimír Franz.

 

SELECTED REVIEWS:

The authors have shifted the story to an uncertain time. A happy end is turned into the tragic actualisation of deeply rooted xenophobia and personal resentments which lead to war and genocide. The stage is filled with some sort of remnants of civilisation. (...) The audience feels itself so to speak in a Ray Bradbury world of the (not so) distant future when civilisation apocalyptically hesitates and returns to a pre-Christian time. People again live in family societies governed by the old and rich, decisions are made at public gatherings, people love and hate out front, of course the dark side - greed, envy, selfishness - triumphs over humility and love.

Vladimír Hulec: Podobenství z trosek civilizace, MFDnes, 7.6.2001

 

The harsh text by the author, at the same time significant and saturated with imagery, plays a large share in the fact that we follow a stirring drama full of passion on the stage. So does the expressive music, operating on the one hand as a broad range of striking forms (from the moderation of the string quartet, through vocalisation, as far as the harrowing noise of a helicopter), on the other through countless functions (including anticipation and commenting as it were through its own Classical chorus.)

Bronislav Pražan: "Chebská Rút - podobenství o intoleranci", Týdeník Rozhlas, no.33/2001

 

 

STVOŘENÍ SVĚTA (CREATION OF THE WORLD)

7 men, 1 women

 

This is a playful and colourful text for children of pre-school age and for elementary school first class pupils. One of the oldest stories in human history is presented as a celebration of creativity, fantasy and enthusiasm for all the things new. God, helped by the Angels and against Devils' spiteful obstacles, creates everything that makes the world what it is. Angels and Devils do not represent Good and Evil, they are rather impersonations of Naivety and Maliciousness. Even Devil's ideas become creative under this concept and help to populate the Earth. It is a colourful collage of poems, songs that counts on physical theatre and tricks in the production.

The text offers a strong acting opportunity for the actor playing God - the character is a dominant vehicle for text, his lines are mostly flowing in rhythmic verse with alternating rhymes - most accessible to children. Both angels and devils speak simple and playful children language, the same goes for Adam and Eva cameos. The play stresses accessibility - it only uses vocabulary that the children of the relevant age would understand. The author presumes music will play an important role in the production - there are five song texts and a great deal of non-verbal action. The running time of this one-act play is under an hour.

 

 

 

Rostislav Křivánek est né en 1959 à Děčín, mais depuis l'âge de dix-huit ans, il vit à Prague. Après avoir passé son baccalauréat, il s'est inscrit au Conservatoire national de musique, de danse et d'art dramatique et il est devenu diplômé de la Faculté d'art dramatique - option organisation et gestion de théâtres. Successivement, il a été régisseur du théâtre d'étudiants DISK, dramaturge et acteur sans engagement fixe, journaliste (entre autres, fondateur et rédacteur en chef du mensuel culturel pour les jeunes FILIP, devenu plus tard FILIP pour les ados) et directeur artistique des éditions de musique POPRON. Actuellement, il est directeur créatif de l'agence de publicité Ogilvy and Mather.

 

Après ses premiers essais dramatiques (Chopin à Děčín), il s'est concentré à la poésie (recueil L'Emprunt à Méphistophélès, puis un livre de berceuses pour les enfants - Les Berceuses du bon génie Zahmouřílek) et aux textes de chansons.

Au cours de sons travail au théâtre DISK, il a commencé sa collaboration avec Vladimír Franz. Leur première œuvre commune était l'adaptation d'auteur de la pièce de Carlo Gozzi Le Roi cerf (réalisé au théâtre DISK en tant qu'une des représentations de fin d'études du metteur en scène Zbyněk Srba) accompagnée de chansons sur des textes de Křivánek et avec la musique de Franz. La collaboration avec Franz a donné naissance à des textes de chansons libres, mais avant tout aux livrets de quatre oratorios - Ludus Danielis, Hérode, Templum et, dernièrement, La Passion. Plus tard, avec la collaboration de l'auteur de la musique, Ludus Danielis a été remanié en opéra. Ces derniers temps, les deux auteurs ont réalisé deux vastes œuvres - le ballet de Franz La Princesse aux cheveux d'or pour lequel Křivánek a écrit les textes de chansons (sic!) et surtout l'opéra La Guerre contre les salamandres dont le livret est une création libre de Křivánek sur les motifs de Karel Čapek, l'auteur de la musique étant Vladimír Franz.

 

Parmi ses créations dramatiques, il faut mentionner deux pièces de contes de fées pour les jeunes Qui épousera la princesse?, La Princesse dans une bouteille et, en particulier, les drames Le Carnaval, Judith et Ruth (en 1998, le texte de ce dernier figurait en finale du concours du Prix Alfréd Radok ).

Ses dernières créations sont les pièces pour les enfants La Création du monde et l'Agence de détectives privés Beruška. Il est également l'auteur des adaptation de pièces classiques, surtout de celle de Michel Ghelderode - Hallewyn ou La Fin du monde (connue sous le titre de Ballade du grand Mort (conçue comme une féerie scénique accompagnée de neuf textes de chansons par Křivánek).

 

Il se consacrait et il continue à se consacrer à la mise en scène théâtrale - de sa propre revue-cabaret Bedekr ou l'Emoi dans un ascenseur réalisée également avec la musique de Franz, de la pièce de Sartre A huis clos mise en scène au Théâtre de la rue Řeznická à Prague et, ces derniers temps, à la collaboration avec l'ensemble pragois de non-acteurs professionnels Šrapnel - à la mise en scène de la pièce de Tomáš Belek Le professeur de gymnastique et de la pièce de Dan Bartek et de Tomáš Belek La Puanteur venant d'Elsinor, qui est une démolition de l'histoire d'Hamlet.

Actuellement, il prépare, parallèlement, plusieurs textes prosaďques et il commence ŕ écrire un scénario de film.