Czech Theatre – Essays, Criticism, Analyses

Jiří Frejka: The Theatre Is a Universe

Editor: Ladislava Petišková
An anthology of texts on the theatre by Jiří Frejka from 1923 to 1952 that captures his contribution to the theory and creative programme of the interwar avant-garde and reflects the situation of the artist and the theatre during the periods of Nazi occupation and communist oppression. The publication also includes a complete list of Frejka’s works, editor’s annotations, and a biography by Ladislava Petišková.
Price 370 Czk / 736 pp. / ISBN 80-7008-163-5

Karel Hugo Hilar: On the Theatre

Editor: Eva Šormová
A collection of writings by a leading figure in the Czech theatre from the first third of the 20th century, the director Karel Hugo Hilar (1885–1935). This volume includes a selection of his theatre reviews, theoretical writings, essays, and directorial notes. The book includes a complete bibliography of Hilar’s literary and theatre studies and a list of his productions. The publication is accompanied by an introduction from the editor and by an index of names.
Price 295 Czk / 664 pp. / ISBN 80-7008-126-0

Karel Kraus: Theatre in the Service of Drama

Editor: Jana Patočková
A selection of texts by the prominent theatre arts expert, dramaturg, and translator Karel Kraus (1920), which he wrote as theoretical reflections on his work in the theatre from the 1940s up to the present. It contains articles on playwrights (e.g. Hrubín, Topol, Sofoklés, Čechov, Nestroy, Schnitzler, Beckett), directors he worked with (Frejka, Krejča) and essays on the significance of dramaturgy and on the changes and current state of theatre and the art of acting. The texts portray the organic evolution and the rare developmental continuity of a theatre artist who, with his conception of drama and dramaturgy, helped shape Czech theatre alongside Otomar Krejča in the drama section of the National Theatre and Theatre behind the Gate.
Price 290 Czk / 640 pp. / ISBN 80-7008-113-9

Sergej Machonin: Theatre’s Prospects

Editors: Terezie Pokorná and Barbara Topolová 
An anthology of writings on the theatre by Sergej Machonin. The book contains a foreword by Terezie Pokorná, a complete annotated bibliography of Machonin’s work, extensive editors’ notes, and indices. The objective of the notes and the long foreword on the evolution of Machonin’s ideas and the type of criticism he wrote is to capture in the widest possible context this remarkable and controversial figure of Czech post-war theatre criticism.
Price 320 Czk / 533 pp. / ISBN 80-7008-186-4

Václav Tille: The Magical Power of Theatre

Editor: Eva Šormová
A half century of theatre in the Czech Republic, in Europe, and overseas in the eyes of a scholar and writer for whom the theatre is more a liking and a vocation than an occupation. These are studies and theatre critiques previously unpublished in book format from the author of A List of Czech Fairytales (1929, 1934), the reportage Moscow in November (1929), and the highly readable biography Božena Němcová (1911). This is the fifth volume in the series Essays, Criticism, Analyses and it is devoted to a figure who, among other things, was instrumental in establishing theatre arts as an independent discipline in higher education. The selection of writings by Tille is accompanied by a bibliography of his theatre works.
Price 320 Czk / 675 pp. / ISBN 978-80-7008-216-4