* 12. 11. 1951
Graduated in direction from the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (1974). His meeting with the director Jan Grossman in the Theatre of Western Bohemia in Cheb in the 1970s had a defining influence. From 1989 to 1996 he worked at the National Theatre in Prague. His most important productions include A Year in the Country (1993, Alfréd Radok Award for production of the year and the Award of the Czech Literary Foundation for dramatisation). In 1996 he moved to the Dejvice Theatre, a small Prague studio theatre where he works as artistic director, directing, acting and writing dramatisations. He was awarded the Prize of the Czech Literary Foundation in 2000 for his version of Oblomov. Since 1991 he teaches acting in the Department for Alternative and Puppet Theatre in the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. His appearance in the role of Father in Petr Zelenka´s Tales of Common Insanity (in the stage premiere and later in the film version) started his - now international - career as film actor. Syrup (2002) is his first original play.
List of plays:
Rok na vsi, A Year in the Country, 1993, première 15. 4. 1993 Národní divadlo, Prague, (based on the book by Brothers Mrštík)
Utišující metoda, A Calming Method, 1997, première 20. 10. 1997 Dejvické divadlo, Prague (using motifs from E.A.Poe)
Neuvěřitelný a tklivý příběh o spanilé Erendíře a její ukrutné babičce, The Incredible and Sad Story of Candiada Erendira And Her Cruel Grandmother, 1999, première 13. 11. 1999 Dejvické divadlo, Prague (using motifs from G. García Marquez)
Oblomov, 2000, première 1. 12. 2000 Dejvické divadlo, Prague (using motifs from I. A. Gontcharov)
Sirup, Syrup, 2002, première 16. 12. 2002 Dejvické divadlo, Prague
Idiot, 2008, première 12. 1. 2008 Dejvické divadlo, Prague (using motifs from Dostoyevsky)
Sirup / Syrup
3 women, 3 men
The text emerges from the same experience and inspiration as the absurd, model plays of Václav Havel, but Krobot's heroes are already the product of the new reality. The dealers Havlena and Knobloch distribute a miraculous one-hundred-percent biological syrup and prepare new adepts for its distribution, among them Marie - Knobloch's mistress and the wife of his best friend Hnízdil - and Marta. The stupefying phrases of advertising slogans transfer in often bizarre mutations into their everyday vocabularies, the obligatory optimism of their personal P.R. alienates them from themselves. It is as if they have reached the last stop in the rational sphere and realise themselves or already concentrate almost all their strength in the sphere of eroticism and sex. The author puts into play a chess game of relationships, partings and repeated meetings. Completely in the spirit of Havel's dramas he endows the characters with laconic, minimalist language and obsessive motives: with Knobloch it is polygamy and erection problems, with Marta the need to become a beautiful machine or virgin, with Knobloch's wife a longing for her husband's return and inability to live with him. Knobloch's small son bites people, and his colleague Havlena occupies his mind with collecting vulgar nursery rhymes. It is not true, therefore, that the miraculous syrup gives people some kind of energy, it seems more probable that it sucks their zest for life out of them like a vampire. There is probably no defence against this.
Director Miroslav Krobot's original play Syrup is a special kind of dramatic game which one almost wants to describe as some sort of new absurdity, maybe even modern alienation. The play has neither a classic story nor a conflict; everything that happens flows from the language of the characters.
Richard Erml: Sirup lepí pocitem odcizení, Mladá fronta Dnes, 20. 12. 2002)
Syrup is a play in the tradition of Czech absurd comedies, anchored in the reality of every day whilst at the same time their heroes seem to move in a special, surreal world.
Radmila Hrdinová: Všichni jsme systémy plovoucí v sirupu, Právo, 10. 1. 2003)