Your body knows it.
The birthday party ended two days ago, the hangover is still there, but one thing is yet to happen to Olya. She has to open her mother's last letter. She's twenty-eight. That's how old her mom was when she died. Before she died, she wrote twenty-four letters, one for each of Olya's birthdays. Now it's time to read the last one... There's still time, nothing must be rushed. Not even a second goodbye to Mom. Yet somewhere in Olya, she's already gathering her thoughts for everything that will come after. What's next? When her body already knows that...
The first Czech theatrical production of a play by one of Europe's leading playwrights. A personal, open and ironic confession of the dark experiences, awkwardness and despair of a young woman living in the south of Russia. A woman who, like those before her, longs to grasp reality. A ritual of the fear of living too long with Tereza Dochkalova and Rosalia Malinska. A celebrated undressing of the past in a theatrical-musical form, where part of the music is improvised during the action on the background and arrangements of composer Jan Šikl. An acoustic plunge into the constricted heart and 120 bpm for the courage to say everything.
ESTHER BOL
Until the end of February 2022, she lived in St. Petersburg and was known as Asya Voloshina. She left Russia for good immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She changed her name as an expression of the irreversible catastrophe, the definitive separation and the impossibility of any form of return. She now lives in France.
She graduated with a master's degree from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in St. Petersburg. Her plays have been the basis for over fifty productions in Russia (including at MCHAT, Alexandrinsky Theatre, Taganka Theatre, Mejerchold Centre), as well as in the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Israel and Uruguay.
Currently, her name has disappeared from all theatre posters and programmes in Russia due to her uncompromising pro-Ukrainian stance. Half a year after the outbreak of the war, she completed Crime, a play about Russian crimes committed in Ukraine. She considers it her most important work. The play has been translated into English, French and Czech, and has been performed in many countries as a staged reading or media installation. Many of Esther Bol's plays deal with themes of totalitarianism, the struggle for physical and metaphysical freedom, and the responsibility of the artist and the citizen within and outside the repressive machine. One could say that she seeks new forms of tragedy in the dimension of metamodernity.
Czech premieres: 6. and 7. June 2024
