The Film Critic's Wife

Being a woman, a wife and a mother in your thirties today is often demanding in itself. And when you also happen to be the wife of a film critic, your ideas of normality, calm and happiness can easily shift somewhere entirely different from where ordinary people keep theirs. Situations, observations and remarks delivered with both sarcasm and self-irony, mapping the relationship between man and woman, form the core of the popular blog and its book adaptation by an anonymous author who was nominated for the prestigious Magnesia Litera Award for this work. With its incisive wit as well as its gentle poetic tone, it rises above the usual notes on the fate of married women. The theatre adaptation transforms this material, against the backdrop of contemporary art and pop culture, into an ironic reflection on relationships, social stereotypes and the existential pitfalls connected with the roles of loving partner, mother and diligent woman in general. The coauthor and director of the production is one of the most acclaimed Czech playwrights of today, Tomáš Dianiška.

We thank the WTF festival in Liberec in May 2024 and the Dream Factory Ostrava festival in May 2024 for their invitation.

The Film Critic's Wife was shortlisted for the prestigious Mark Ravenhill Award for 2023.

Barbora Kubátová and Jakub Albrecht received broader nominations for the 2024 Thalia Awards for their performances.

The Film Critic's Wife received the main prize of the 2024 BEZ HRANIC International Theatre Festival titled Broken Barrier.

World premiere: 21 and 22 September 2023 (Studio PALM OFF)

Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes, without intermission

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“(...) Jakub Albrecht and Barbora Kubátová are irresistible whether trading punchlines, engaging in dialogue or performing those eccentric scenes.”
Michal Novák, 80 %, iDivadlo.cz, 18 November 2023

“Is it possible to describe an atomic explosion in words? And are there words that anyone could understand? Enough excellent commentary has already been written about this production, yet it is still possible to talk and think about it and to marvel with bated breath, caused by laughter of course, at its many layers: the brilliant acting performances, the tightly crafted direction, the flawless cascade of gags and jokes in which all three artists are indisputable masters, the fantastic set and all the superlatives that fill your head after seeing it. (...)”
JáraTym, 100 %, iDivadlo.cz, 19 April 2024

“I saw the performance at the WTF festival in Liberec and it is an excellent and unforgettable piece that bears the hallmark of Dianiška’s authorial and directorial craft in its best possible form. It presents wildness, untamed energy, humour, imaginative work with the stage, props and audience, as well as numerous allusions, erudition and a perceptive view of life and the world. (...)”
V_M, 90 %, iDivadlo.cz, 5 May 2024