Your body knows it.
The birthday celebration ended the day before yesterday, the hangover still lingers, but one thing still awaits Olja. She has to open her mother’s final letter. She is twenty-eight. Exactly the age her mother was when she died. Before her death, she wrote twenty-four letters—one for each of Olja’s birthdays. Now there is only the last one left to read… There is still time; nothing must be rushed. Not even saying goodbye to her mother for the second time. And yet somewhere inside Olja, everything that will come afterwards is already gathering. What comes afterwards? When even now her body knows that…
The first Czech stage production of a play by one of Europe’s leading playwrights. A distinctive, candid, and ironic confession of dark experiences, awkwardness, and hopelessness—of a young woman living in southern Russia. A woman who, like those before her, longs to grasp reality. A ritual of fear of living too long, with Dočkalová Tereza and Malínská Rosalie. A ceremonious stripping away of the past in a theatrical-musical form, in which part of the music is created as improvisation during the performance on the foundations and arrangements of composer Šikl Jan. An acoustic dive into a numb heart—and 120 bpm for the courage to say everything aloud.
BOL ESTHER
Until the end of February 2022, she lived in St Petersburg and was known under the name Vološina Asja. Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she left Russia for good. As an expression of an irreversible catastrophe, a definitive severing, and the impossibility of any form of return, she changed her name. She now lives in France.
She completed a master’s degree at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in St Petersburg. Her plays have resulted in around fifty productions, both in Russia (including at MKhAT, the Alexandrinsky Theatre, the Taganka Theatre, and the Meyerhold Centre) and in the Czech Republic, Poland, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Israel, and Uruguay.
At present, 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 the play Crime about Russia’s crimes committed in Ukraine. She considers it her most important work. The play has been translated into English, French, and Czech, and in a number of countries it has been presented as a staged reading or a media installation. Many of Bol Esther’s dramas address totalitarianism, the struggle for physical as well as metaphysical freedom, and the responsibility of the artist and citizen within and beyond the repressive machinery. It could be said that she is searching for new forms of tragedy in the metamodern dimension.
The production Máma received a nomination for the prestigious Ravenhill Mark Award for 2024.
Warning:
The production addresses themes that may be sensitive for some people.
Suitable for ages 15+.
Czech premieres: 6 and 7 June 2024 (Studio PALM OFF)
Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes, no interval
In the production directed by Soldán Tomáš, the initial pain of losing a loved one is soon replaced by a critique of Russian society. The piece foregrounds a resigned sense of powerlessness, mere survival instead of living, and the remarkable meekness with which many accept physical violence, politicians’ mafia-like practices, and other problems swept under the rug. At the same time, the play leaves ample room for personal themes such as the absence of support and disappointment in the people Olja once looked up to. Thanks to an outstanding performance by Dočkalová, whose monologue is shaped and amplified through a range of sounds by Malinská Rosalie, voicing these issues on stage lands with full urgency.
advojka.cz, 8 October 2024
(...) In the central role of the birthday celebrant, Dočkalová T. once again delivers an exceptional, meticulously detailed acting performance, quite literally magnetising the audience with the authenticity of her experience. Malinská R. performs nearly all the music, sounds, sound effects, and surges of emotion live, yet she is far from being merely a kind of embodied echo of depressive thoughts and moods. A powerful audience experience that resonates emotionally long after.
Helena Grégrová, 80%, iDivadlo.cz, 8 June 2024
(...) Nevertheless, it is not the story itself that hits hardest here, but above all the outstanding performance by Dočkalová T., who breathes life into it. Her acting is gripping—and it is chiefly for her that this production is worth seeing.
Jan Pařízek, 70%, iDivadlo.cz, 6 June 2024
