Archa Theatre
Na Poříčí 26, 110 00, Prague 1
phone: +420 221 716 111
e-mail: archa@archatheatre.cz

Box Office
Phone: +420 221 716 333
Email: ticket@archatheatre.cz

Open: MON – FRI / 10am – 6pm /
on days of performances until 8pm

Performances start at 8pm, unless otherwise stated

“Window of opportunity” is a term used by NASA to describe the complex constellation of conditions during which a rocket can be launched into space. In everyday speech, it means a chance which ought to be used, because it may only occur again after a long time. Did we take advantage of our window of opportunity in 1989?

The thematic evening is a follow up to last year’s successful Misunderstanding 68 project. It involves a form of documentary theatre that combines a theatrical form with an expert debate. The framework of the evening will be a fictitious live broadcast on RADIO 89 FM. The “broadcast” also incorporates the dramatic comics Kurt and Květa. This stylized performance deals with basic human questions: freedom, betrayal, the feeling of guilt and of being abandoned.

The comics are made up of three parts which take place in 1975, 1989 and 2009. Each part is connected with a debate among politicians, political scientists, historians and sociologists. The discussions will feature questions on the theme of real freedom, simulated freedom, escaping from the past, the connection between the private and political worlds, and the borders between what was “required” under totalitarianism and what was conscious collaboration.

After its premiere at the Archa Theatre the project will be presented at the Nitra International Theatre Festival. In November it will be staged at the Czech National Building in New York. Each performance is both an original premiere and finale.

Like last year, also participating in the project will be university and high school students, who see their parents’ actions from the perspective of people already born in a free society. The students are also co-creators and actors in the theatrical form.

Authors of the project: Tomáš Vrba, Ondřej Hrab, Jana Svobodová
Script: Jana Svobodová and Anna Grusková
Text of the Kurt and Květa radio comics: Anna Grusková

Staging and director: Jana Svobodová
Dramaturgy: Ondřej Hrab, Tomáš Vrba
Assistant dramaturgy: Marie Vojáková
Featuring: Jaroslav Rudiš, Eva Hromníková, Philipp Schenker and university and high school students
Debaters: Petruška Šustrová, Jiří Pehe, Martin C. Putna, Václav Havel, Jacques Rupnik, Jürgen Danyel, Jiří Černý

Light design: Lukáš Brinda, Pavla Beranová
Sound and music design: Jan Středa
Production: Helena Rousová

Premiere: September 16, 2009

The project was created in cooperation with the Václav Havel Library and the Institutes for Contemporary History in Prague and Potsdam, Germany.

With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union

Media partner of the project