New Czech Play

Samuel Königgratz: I'm Still Alive with a Coatrack, a Cap, and a Signal Disc

Translated by Alex Zucker
In this play the author (whose real name is René Levínský) draws in a unique way on the best Czech tradition of tender and absurd humour, as exemplified in the prose of Bohumil Hrabal, the plays of Václav Havel, and the films of Miloš Forman. His focal interest is the staff of one remote train station in Eastern Bohemia. Innovatively playful and humorous, the play reflects on serious matters, is witty and entertaining, and has a strange bitter tone that derives from its perfect description of the banalities of ordinary life.

Price 159 Czk / 54 pp. / ISBN 80-7008-173-2

Minach, a Trilogy ‘about’ and for Women

Translated by Alex Zucker
Three acts that are existentially toned explorations of intimate human relationships and in a ‘Bernhardian’ way leave much unsaid. Minach is a monologic dialogue that a Sister has with her silent Brother and a conversation with her lover Louis. Head or Tales is again an asymmetrical dialogue between a Woman and a silent Man confined to a chair, a variation on the theme in the first act: the inability to change a painful almost sadomasochistic sexual relationship. The Future of My Self is a dialogue between terminally ill Woman 1 and her paid nurse Woman 2. The anxiety over the approaching end of life on the one side is countered by hope on the other side that the money earned from helping the sick woman with allow the nurse to start a new life. A ‘business’ relationship is countered by a ‘human’ relationship and situation.

Price 159 Czk / 67 pp. / ISBN 80-7008-160-0