Dinner for Adele

Radek Balaš, Ondřej Brousek

DINNER FOR ADELE (ADÉLA JEŠTĚ NEVEČEŘELA)
M 10, F 10

A Stage Musical Adaptation of the Czech Movie

The storyline of this musical both sends up cheap detective novel and pulp literature in general and goes on to point out graphically the major contrasts between Czech and American cultures.

The invincible private eye Nick Carter arrives to Prague to help solve a case that baffles local police. He is endowed with a brain of a genius – on his way from New York, he was able to learn effortlessly the Czech language – and the most sophisticated modern technology. But on the spot, especially over a couple of tasty beers in Prague taverns, he discovers that the ways of life in Bohemia are quite different from those in America. Will he be able to thwart devilish plots of the arch criminal Count von Kratzmar and to save the delicate flower of innocence of the delightful Květuška?

This parody of cheap trash detective novels first appeared in 1977 as a movie directed by the renowned duo of the comedy director Oldřich Lipský and his old collaborator Jiří Brdečka (who previously wrote for him several original storylines and screenplays including the Western spoof The Lemonade Joe, or, a Horse Opera, based on a WWII theatre production and extremely popular with Czech audiences). Dinner for Adele brought together many outstanding artists resulting in an outstanding film comedy that remains as fresh today as it was when first seen.

The stark contrasts between Czech and American solutions to individual situations in the plot drive the action with kind-hearted humour. The hyperbole showing these contrasts acquires new dimensions and new qualities in the current climate of “global Americanisation” of our world when compared to the time when the original movie was shot. The stage musical version thus offers many new opportunities for interesting updating of the script, as demonstrated on the two productions of the musical in 2008. The play was staged both at the Slovácké divadlo Uherské Hradiště and at the Theatre Broadway in Prague with enthusiastic acclaim from the press.