*1957, Slovakia
Graduated as theatre director from the College for Performing Arts in Bratislava under Miloš Pietor. From 1982 he worked at the State Theatre in Košice, from 1984 at the SNP Theatre in the Slovak town of Martin. The most successful productions from the Martin period represented the Slovak theatre at several international festivals. The productions of Marivaux’s Touching and Connecting (1988) and Brecht’s Baal (1989) were a big success at the Edinburgh Festival and went on to win the Guardian Award. Polák’s 1992 production of Macbeth at the Shakespeare Repertory Theater Chicago was very well received by critics and audiences alike. Since the ‘90s, Polák has been working for TV and directing in the main theatres in the Czech Republic. Since 2006 he is the artistic director at the Drama Department of the Slovak National Theatre where he also directs The Centaurs (2006) is his first play.
Plays:
THE CENTAURS (KENTAURI)
7 men, 5 women
The plot of this drama is set on several timescale and thematic levels and deals engageingly with both the recent, pre-1989, past and the present. The grotesque image of Slovakia is complemented by bizarre characters: the Centaur, whom only strange, spiritual Hercules can see, and Klára “the billionaire”. The theatrical environment is defined mainly by the diligent dramaturge Bobo and the unsuccessful Actor, who both went into business after1989.
This is a pioneering play: it deals with the theme appearing extremely rarely on the Czech or Slovak stage – a personal inner conflict of an artist trying to readjust to the society after 1989 and the fall of the Iron Curtain is mixed up with a generation conflict between a father and his adult daughters. A fatal alienation inside a family is caused by the age difference as well as by the different life experience that cannot be transmitted. It would almost seem that the parents and children inhabit completely different and separated worlds.
The world premiere of this play took place in December 2006 at the Astorka KORZO ´90 Theatre in Bratislava. The production was directed by the author.
The play is currently being translated into German.