Havel’s Leaving enjoys enormous success in Seoul; will return to the Archa stage with ten encore performances in June 2010
10.4.2010
The Archa Theatre’s production of Václav Havel’s play Leaving, directed by David Radok, met with great success at its first ever foreign guest appearance in Seoul, South Korea. The play was presented three times at the state-of-the-art LG Arts Center, which thanks to its seating capacity and technical equipment is one of the leading arts centres in the world.
The Archa Theatre presented Leaving as part of the jubilee tenth season of the LG Arts Center alongside productions by world-renowned creators of modern theatre such as Peter Brook, Lev Dodin and Pina Bausch. The three performances, which were presented in Czech with Korean subtitles, received an extremely warm reception from the Korean public and attention from leading media.
“We were surprised that a theatre the size of the LG Arts Center was filled mainly with a young people,” said Ondřej Hrab, the artistic director of the Archa Theatre. “Though they were a very highly educated audience, they of course often reacted to different places in the play than in Prague. On the other hand, they immediately recognized all of the allusions to The Cherry Orchard and to King Lear in the play.”
The audience also included Korean minister of culture In-Chon Yu. The reviews in the Korean newspapers the next day rated highly Mr. Radok’s direction and the performances of the whole cast, in particular Zuzana Stivínová and Jan Tříska in the main roles. The critics identified many modern parallels in the play to the current political scene in Korea.
On the occasion of Archa’s guest appearance in Seoul, the LG Arts Center also published the text of Leaving as a book. The publication, which was released with the support of the Czech embassy in South Korea, is also the first publication in book form of the play as the author modified it for the Archa Theatre. The play was translated into Korean by theatre director and playwright Shin Ho, who is a graduate of Prague’s DAMU.
The production, which at the start of this year celebrated its 60th performance at Archa, will return to this Prague stage in June 2010. Tickets to the ten summer performances are now on sale at the Archa Theatre box office.
Václav Havel: Leaving
April 2, 3, 4, 2010, LG Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea
http://www.lgart.com/
Summer performances at the Archa Theatre
June 16, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29 and 30, and July 1, 2010 always at 20:00
Director: David Radok
Set design: David Radok and Jaromír Vlček
Costume design: Zuzana Ježková
Featuring: Jan Tříska (Rieger), Zuzana Stivínová (Irena), Vlasta Chramostová (Grandmother), Ivan Řezáč (Klein), Marek Daniel (Viktor), Karel Beseda (Jack), Eva Hromníková (Vlasta), Dora Bouzková/Hana Vagnerová (Bea), Bořivoj Navrátil/ Miloslav Maršálek (Hanuš), Ján Sedal (Knobloch), Zuzana Stavná (Zuzana), Petra Lustigová (Monika), Jan Skopeček (Osvald), Philipp Schenker (Bob), Jan Březina (Albín), Eduard Čubr (Policeman), Jaroslav Synek (Policeman), Věra Víchová (Maid)
Copyright to the dramatic works of Václav Havel is represented by Aura-Pont s.r.o.
Tickets for CZK 490/590/690/ students, students at DAMU and theatre students - CZK 220 (standing) are on sale at the Archa Theatre box office.
