Čtyři hry - Vest pocket revue / Golem / Caesar / Balada z hadrů – Werich Jan (2019)

This collection of four plays from the early and peak period of Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich’s creative collaboration opens with the improvised parody Vest pocket revue (1927), which overturns traditional dramatic and operatic conventions in a free-flowing sequence of spoken and sung scenes from a journey around the world, during which a furious photographer tries to obtain a picture of a famous writer. The romantic grotesque revue Golem (1931), set against the mysterious backdrop of Rudolfine Prague, uses an apparently apolitical theatrical mask to comment critically on the modern age and, among other things, anticipates the later film comedy The Emperor’s Baker and The Baker’s Emperor. The aggressively parodic farce Caesar (1932), set in ancient Rome and dealing with political manoeuvring, corruption, spinelessness and the pursuit of personal interests at the expense of the state, still invites many contemporary interpretations. Rebellious yet lyrical, the social satire The Rag Ballad (1935) depicts a love episode from the life of the cursed French poet François Villon while allegorically warning against silencing the artist-intellectual in a totalitarian society. The contents are in Czech.