Innocent are Innocent

Tomáš Rychetský
NEVINNÍ JSOU NEVINNÍ/THE INNOCENT ARE INNOCENT
/ 7 women, 2 men

Two youths, Desert Fox and Fatalist, don't work on principle, sleep late and feed themselves by visiting their girl friends unexpectedly. The only questions they have to sort out each day are what to wear, what to eat and how to pass the time. They do this by practical jokes, erudite debates and vain dreams about escaping somewhere, for which they don't have the strength or, when it comes to it, the desire. Their basic emotion is boredom. They stave this off by cruelty to women and animals (Desert Fox burnt a cat alive). Cruelty is not only an amusement, it becomes the only "real" activity. After the "wild ride" of the řrst half of the text comes the contrasting second part, which takes place three years later. It is more meditative. Desert Fox reflects on his previous life. The two heroes, no longer merry, but abandoned and empty, incapable of change, end their decadent game with a řt of purgative but self-destructive laughter.
/.../ we are dealing with garrulous lava from that unrepeatable age when man is řrst enchanted by his own cynicism, ability for self-irony, his own paralysed degeneracy and simple superfluity of the universe. (Richard Erml: Nevinní jsou nevinní, Reflex, 14. 7. 1995)
This partly autobiographical reflection on life in extreme freedom - without work, without cares or ties - strongly evokes the social agony of the time /before 1989/. At the same time they are both heroes /.../ of a timeless
type. (Marie Reslová: Inscenace, jež ohledává možnosti extrémní svobody, Mladá fronta Dnes, 4. 7. 1995)
The boundless boredom experienced by the characters has not only an (a)social but also an existential dimension. (Ondřej Černý: Potrestaní nevinní, Týden, 24. 7. 1995)