Puppets Are Our Export We Att ract Audiences with Quality

STYLE Puppets Are Our Export We Attract Audiences with Quality JUDr. Jarmila Hájková has been the CEO of Ostrava Puppet Theatre (Divadlo loutek Ostrava) since 1991 (except a period between 2002-2004). The theatre has gone through radical changes under her management, including moving into the new building in Černá louka in 1999. In 2011, the new theatre was extended with a modern building with an alternative stage, amphitheatre, and café. In 1995, she stood at the beginning of the international puppet festival Spectaculo Interesse. Ms Hájková, your theatre has a great history. What is its future? The theatre continuously transforms in time. The present modern puppet theatre absorbs modern technologies: visual projections, technologies of stage lighting, sound reproduction. But even in the age of these modern technologies, the greatest magic dwells in the unrepeatable moment when what is happening on stage is the here-and-now of a live actor with a puppet, with another actor in direct interaction, in close dialogue with the audience. These are features which can never be replaced with technology no matter how smart, and which we dearly cherish in our production: whatever happens on stage must always communicate with the audience. a najít něco, co diváka osloví, není vždy jednoduché. Při posledním Mistrovství světa juniorů v hokeji v Ostravě si k vám našla cestu i kanadská hokejová reprezentace. Je to obvyklé? Obvyklé to určitě není, je to až neuvěřitelný příběh. Když jsem dostala první mail on nějakého Kanaďana, myslela jsem si, že jde o klasický spam. Z další komunikace jsme ale zjistili, že jakýsi John Bruce jezdí se skupinou mladých hokejistů a snaží se jim udělat ve městě, kam jedou hrát, co nejzajímavější program. A protože v Kanadě loutkářství nemá tradici jako v České republice, chtěl jim toto umění ukázat. Naši herci připravili speciální prohlídku divadla, zákulisí, loutek a zpětná vazba byla úžasná. Pro všechny to byl obrovský zážitek. A Kanaďané pak celý turnaj vyhráli, třeba na tom máme taky drobnou zásluhu. Děkujeme Vám za rozhovor. Redakce magazínu. Your theatre represents one of the city’s best exports. Where are you taking your puppets in 2020? This year we are going on a few trips abroad. First, we will go to Mexico with our production of “Fie, It Is Fie!” (Fuj je to!) at the end of March. The story is text-based, therefore since autumn our actors have been busy learning their roles in Spanish. Mr Karel Růžička, the actor playing the main character, a dog named Haryk, has to learn 19 pages of Spanish text. Fortunately, the actors will tax the work once again in the autumn of 2020 when the same performance will be staged in Bilbao in Spain. We are negotiating another staging at a festival in Greece which will be interpreted simultaneously so Haryk will not have to learn Greek. What about local activities? How do local and foreign audiences respond to the Spectaculo Interesse festival? We do our best to attract Czech and foreign audiences with excellent quality: we invite the best representatives of the puppet world, introduce new directions and developments in our field in the sense of multimedia technologies as well as “ordinary” traditional puppet theatre made and performed at the highest artistic level of the story and the puppets. We put a cherry on top of each cake, a very special treat with each and every festival to attract a large audience. In 2017, the German company DU UND DU brought their giant lighted puppets to Trojhalí Karolina (Triple Hall Karolina). In 2019, we invited Formans’ Theatre who built a big top accommodating 500 people in Černá louka, and sold out five shows, which is a fantastic signal that the people of Ostrava are interested in our festival. At the same time, we must pay respect to our competitors in cultural events in Ostrava who make the task of finding something truly attractive a significant challenge. During the last World Junior Championship in ice hockey in Ostrava, the Canadian team paid you a visit. Is that usual? It is very unusual. The story actually sounds most improbable. When I first received an email from a Canadian, I just thought it was typical spam. However, further communication confirmed that a John Bruce would accompany the team of young players trying to make their stay in the cities where they were playing as interesting as possible. Puppeteers and puppet theatres in Canada do not have the tradition a Czech puppet theatre has, so he wanted to introduce them to this art. Our actors prepared a special walkthrough of our theatre, backstage, among puppets, and the feedback was fantastic. It was a beautiful experience for everyone. The Canadians won the championship, and our theatre might have contributed to their positive tuning. Thank you for the interview. -editorialPOSITIV 1/2020 ǀ 61